mixed in vienna

As someone who is monogamous, the idea of dating multiple people at once did not immediately feel safe to me, but I was open to giving it a try with a person I deemed trustworthy by association. We were introduced by a mutual friend. After a lot of back and forth, I finally agreed to be set up on a date. “He’s polyamorous and I think you and he might have a similar vibe“. How so, I asked, to which my friend pointed at the book “The Ethical Slut” on her bookshelf. As she was finishing his hair appointment, he seemed engulfed in it, skimming through the pages, stating that he had previously already engaged with the topic by completing an online test. 

We finally had our date, and it went well. My friend had told me that he was in the open and honest habit of seeing more than one person, but to my surprise it took quite some pushing on my side for him to say that he wasn’t in a committed relationship but was seeing other people. It took him a long time to speak up, and yet, in that moment, I was confused as to how little he shared with me regarding his dating and/or relationship style. 

We slept together immediately. I went home the next day with a funky feeling in my stomach. Perhaps it was the feeling of being hung over, perhaps it was due to a growing excitement and an early tingling sense of what was yet to come. Probably a mix of it all.  

A few days later I accidentally saw him with the other person (or one of the other people? I don’t even know) he was dating. He gave me a heads up once he realised that I was going to the same place, which I was grateful for. It was a mutual event celebrating the often underrepresented sounds of Blackness. She was a white woman. I don’t remember the entirety of the conversations I had with her, except for her saying how she didn’t believe in paying for her own drinks, as she waited for him to get them. 

Hmmm.

Wh(r)ite.

Whilst we got along during the event, I knew I didn’t want to make a habit out of this. We all separated and they went home together, as was originally planned. He and I kept on seeing one another, and, even though it was still early days, I could see the potential of something more serious growing between the two of us. I started feeling insecure, but I made a conscious attempt to try to communicate what I was feeling, which didn’t go as smoothly as I had originally hoped. My questions to him revolved around how he made sure to live up to the ethical part of his ethical non-monogamy — a label that, admittedly, my brain had preemptively chosen to categorise his dating style, in part because of a serious lack of information on his part. He responded with „good question“ and remained silent.

A few moments of silence later I course-corrected: How do you feel about us specifically? How do you define polyamory? Do you have — or even want to have — a primary, secondary partner, etc.? Do you feel what we are doing is more in booty call, friendship+ or lovers/romantic partners territory? His response stung a bit, but was honest nonetheless, which I always try my best to appreciate. Lovers at first, but more like friendship+ now. Perhaps my line of questioning had come at an inappropriate moment, as the night before I had confessed to him that I was not sure if we were going to work out, although I liked him very much. 

It was a statement I realised I wasn’t able to take back so quickly, but I felt my reasoning to be very valid. Two days before, we had gone to Afrikatage, a Viennese festival celebrating Black/African Culture. I particularly enjoyed my time, especially because being Black and mixed in Austria, Afrikatage is bound to evoke some complicated feelings in you. A non-Black-owned commodification of African culture(s) dressed up as a festival, fetishistic white men who think that this is where they can find, explore and often mistreat „exotic“ women without having to take a plane to a faraway place, and in the middle of it all the many white Austrian women with their colourful „rastas“ and mixed children, and not another Black woman in sight. It was rough, but for us older Black and mixed kids in Austria, it was all we had for a long time. 

Naturally, I found it empowering to share this long since-avoided experience with a friend/-lover who shared an integral part of my identity — being Black and Nigerian. Upon finding out that he went to the same event with her and some friends the very next day, I was quite upset. Without speaking to the character of this woman, because truthfully, I can’t, and it also doesn’t matter, the story felt played out already. The centreing of white femininity in Black spaces a tale as old as time (or, well, colonisation). I told him that, going forward, I didn’t want to hear or see anything about her. It simply bothered me that she was a white woman, so confident and nonchalant, in Black spaces where whiteness was still so desired and aspired to and many Black and mixed women were pushed to the margins. Although my feelings regarding the situation were my own, my boundaries deserved to be respected. He pushed back a few times but eventually seemed to understand how important this was to me. Until the next day, when I was laying in his bed, and unknowingly did so on the very same unwashed sheets that he and her had sex on. The sand scattered at Afrikatage somehow made its way into his bed the night before — an unfortunate giveaway. After a few moments of silence I asked him the question.

Did you have sex on this bed without changing the sheets and are now having me lay in them? His answer closing the loop to my doubt-stricken statement. 

How do you define polyamory? Do you have — or even want to have — a primary, secondary partner, etc.? He eventually responded that he did not have „the talk“ with anyone, but if he did, there would probably already be a certain person „occupying“ the role of primary partner. Why did he not care to mention this on our first date? I felt led on.

Lovers at first, but more like friendship+ now; I told him that out of the three options I had laid out to him — casual, friends with benefits, romantic partners — he chose the one that was the most of a deal breaker for me. 

Off, on, off. On?

He eventually suggested we see each other again on my late mother’s birthday, a gesture I found very sweet and which definitely didn’t stop my affection towards him from growing. We kept in daily touch after, even if only through little „hi’s“ and „how are you’s“. 

This morning, I woke up to a text with fotos of a dinner he had planned for some weeks, only to see her and his friends in it, smiling at the dinner table. The daily texts ended, and I assumed it was because he spent the night with her, him being quite attentive when together. Once again, I felt my boundaries crossed. I don’t ever want to dictate somebody else’s love life, but I require my own needs to be acknowledged and respected in the process.

Unfortunately, the irony is also not lost on me that, in this already confusing constellation that is laden with complex racial and gender dynamics, the white woman is given precedence when meeting friends (especially in such a planned and formal way). Especially Black and mixed diasporic women in predominately white countries have a shared history of being treated as disposable, often only good enough for sex and rarely for any form of commitment, whatever that may look like according to one’s own relationship style. These dynamics only get amplified once a white woman enters the equation. Whilst writing this, an extremely recent memory comes to mind of me getting to know someone at a party (a white guy), only for him to unashamedly reach for my breast whilst simultaneously whispering into my ear:

 “There’s this blonde woman at the party that I find really attractive.“ 

The disrespect is not imagined, it is real. 

I, just like countless others that occupy similar identities (particularly in Austria and Germany), have been in one too many situations where we are being sexualised, dehumanised, and discarded — something we simply refuse to stay quiet about any longer. Importantly, whilst my recent dating experience was with someone I consider politically conscious, it goes to show that these dynamics seep through regardless of that and that they must be actively challenged. Instead of resolving our feelings in quiet, it becomes necessary to address them in a society that feverishly holds onto the notion that racial prejudice and discrimination is only a US-American problem.