Interracial Relationships

[nucutiepie]

I was raised in an ostensibly very liberal family of East-coast, Irish/Italian Catholic Democrats. I was raised to have a strong indentification with my own ethnic and religious heritage, but to turn a blind eye to ethnic and religious differences - to have Irish pride, but not to discriminate against anyone whose heritage differed from mine.

That said, I suddenly find myself in a strange situation. Two weeks ago I met this really sweet guy - he is an African-American member of a GLO. I ran into him on Thursday and he invited me to his fraternity's formal, which was last night. I accepted and had a wonderful time, but I am getting the impression that this guy wants something more with me than just a formal date - he invited me out to lunch with him this week and seems to really like me. I keep hearing about how he's an amazing guy and an incredibly nice person.

Clearly, it's a little early to start telling my parents anything, but they are going to be curious as to how I spent my Valentine's Day - and when I thought today about having this conversation with them (they are on vacation and returning tomorrow), I realized something. My gut instinct tells me that my father - who has always preached tolerance and overlooking differences - may have a different reaction in a situation involving his daughter in an interracial relationship.

Personally, I have no problem with interracial or interreligious dating - but I am feeling really weird at my own perception of how I am expecting my father to react.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation before? How do you guys feel about interracial relationships?

(BTW, I did run a search first... there was nothing dealing explicitly with this in the archives)