Cold weather, all the feels and racism - date #11

I met someone and if you've been following our story for a bit, you'll know that I like to put the last three dates at the beginning of every post I make about this guy.

Disclaimer: I don't want to offend anyone (especially not Americans who are proud of being American), this is just about my personal experiences. If you have something meaningful to add, please do so, I would love to read about your input!

Going to another city (yet again), breakfast

I think this is the point where we have a favourite city and I'm all for it. It takes us a while to get there, but it's so enjoyable to stroll and take the atmosphere in.

When we arrived, we went to a supermarket and got breakfast, which we then ate at a beautiful park. We kissed a lot and had a great time. Afterwards, we went to a spot that he had discovered on one of his "bathroom/calling people breaks" - I'll get into those more when I write about our 17th date, they're important.

Him lifting me

We mainly made out there, it's a really nice and well-hidden spot and I really enjoyed being this close to him. Making out for me means kissing and having him grab my ass just to be clear, not more than that. When I got up, he did too, bowed down, grabbed my legs and lifted me up in the air. I was pretty surprised he could do that, he's my height and I'm a little heavier than he is. My thighs are twice the size of his for example, he has more muscle and made a point about being able to lift me but I always told him that he could never do that. It honestly felt so fun to be that high up in the air and all I could do was giggle, LOL.

Feeling like I'm about to die from exhaustion

I had intense cramps the whole day and didn't know that I was on my period. It was fine, I had taken precautions, but funnily enough, he knew before I knew. I was cold and uncomfortable the entire day and I really liked having cake at a café because at least it wasn't so cold.

We also went to a really lovely book store and when I told him I had to pee a little bit later, I had to take an actual break from everything. I went to the bathroom to cry, eat apples to calm me down and to just be in pain without anyone seeing me. I felt like I was about to die, I didn't have any pain meds on me (I avoid taking them at all costs) and just felt awful.

Money

It got better after that. Before going home, he did something pretty weird - he went to the city with some cash and without bringing his card along. I paid for most of the stuff we got that day, but I could sense that he didn't have enough cash to take him home and was wondering why he didn't ask me to give him some money (fewer than 10 bucks, no biggie).

Apparently, his pride got into the way - I ended up giving him some money and telling him that he can just ask the next time. It only happened once after that that he ran out (he keeps losing money). I'm not mad and we're really close, even if he didn't give it back to me my financial loss would be very, very slim. I'm good. I just think it's interesting that he didn't want to ask me.

One of his awful jokes

He said that he had to pee and since you always have to pay money in Germany for that (I'm from Austria and still getting used to this), he told me that he'd try to pull something.

He went inside a restaurant, told them that we'd eat there and asked to use the bathroom. When he got back, he told me to go inside (I had waited outside) and told the very nice Asian restaurant owner that his "Flau" ("Frau" can mean both woman and wife in German) didn't want to eat there. He had put on a very weird foreigner's accent (he always does and sadly, people think that he just talks that way because he looks like a foreigner) which made me feel really embarrassed for the two of us. I told the lady speaking normal Austrian German (imagine this sounding like Scottish/Irish English) that I wasn't hungry and wanted to leave now.

Racism

She didn't understand a single word of what I said. She made him pay some money for using the bathroom, so the whole thing was completely useless, he should've just paid money in the first place. When we were outside, I told him that I was angry because he had put on an accent. He said that I didn't understand that he was making it easier for the lady by talking in the same way she did and that he wanted to see whether calling me his wife felt right (according to him, it did). I've seen him do it so often now and I have to say that sadly, he's right. When I speak in a normal way, people often don't understand me, whereas when he speaks with an accent, people like him more, they understand him better and we're treated more nicely.

I don't get that, but it has to be because people assume that he's foreign, which is very offensive to me personally. I've already written about how horribly we're being treated at different places and will go into more detail about how the terrorist attack in Vienna has made things worse for both of us. He told me that he's sometimes held up by police and asked for his passport and legal documents (recidence permit). It breaks my heart, he was born in Germany and shouldn't have to deal with this. He said that it barely ever happens to him, only when he's running to get somewhere, police assume that he's running away because he stole something. Maybe this is normal in the US, but in Germany, there's not that much police around and people aren't as afraid of terrorists as they are in the states.

[Photo by Maximilian Scheffler on Unsplash]

He'd love to take me to New York one day and we've already talked about how sad it is that he'd have to shave his beard just to get through customs. I've been to the states before and was treated like a criminal at customs just because I answered truthfully when asked for the name of my school. It was a very long German name and they didn't like that. I was there with my school, it was a school trip. I get that the US is cautious since 9/11 happened, but the guy I'm seeing is German in my eyes and I don't know what seeing him not being treated well at customs would do to me to be completely honest.

Cold weather, cake, all the feels - date #11

[Photo by Jermaine Ee on Unsplash]

Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but it really kills me to finally understand how difficult men that look Middle Eastern have it here. One of my study partners at university is from Iran but looks like your average German guy, he has it much easier than my guy, who holds a German and a Turkish citizenship. I'm glad that he doesn't care or talk about politics and that he's not a strict Muslim. I don't forget about how others view us when we're out together though, simply because I CAN'T forget about it when I'm always being treated so differently to what I'm used to.

I have a very unique name that sounds foreign, so my white privilege disappears when people only know my name and not what I look like. I'm afraid that this would get even worse though if we got married and I accepted his name.

What do you think about all of this?

Have you ever experienced racism because you look different?