Dating guys shorter than you

I t was a sunny morning in early December last year when year-old Khadija set herself on fire. She kissed her three-month old son Mohammed goodbye and said a short prayer. She then struck a match.

Afghanistan – Afghanistan – Daily life and social customs: Religion has long Men who failed to grow beards and leave them untrimmed were fined and the remains are of the Middle Paleolithic Period, dating to about 30, years ago.

You are a girl who looks like the world,” a friend once told me. I knew what she meant: My caramel-colored skin and curly hair, the product of a ’70s-era marriage between a white Midwestern woman and a black Southern man, marked me as the living embodiment of the triumph of love at the time. I was raised to be open-minded and curious. And my biracial heritage gave me a vantage point to see the world from different perspectives.

But in my late teens and early 20s, this didn’t prevent me from assuming my own racial blind spots, especially when it came to love. Turns out that the girl who “looked like the world” had a very muddled view of it. I didn’t know who I was, or whom to trust. When darker-skinned men wanted to date me, I assumed it was because they considered me a trophy for my light skin. It reminded me of seeing so many successful and powerful black males — politicians, businessmen, entertainers — who appeared alongside lighter-skinned, sometimes white female companions.

It wasn’t for me, so I either outright rejected black men or begrudgingly went on dates with them only to write them off well before the dessert course arrived.