Asian and Indian men face similar challenge and difficulties (geeks, nerds, asexual, patriarchal, conservative, etc.). But the Indian men have an "advantage" in that White men don't fetishize Indian women. This has several effects:

Yup. I always found it funny how with Asians, the women are perceived to have too much sexuality ("Me so horny!") and men too little.

LOL. He was recently in that terrible The Mortal Instruments movie.

I'd say the best thing to do is to know that you're on a pretty tilted playing field. If you face difficulties, don't blame yourself. And if you see others (like white guys) having a easier time, know that it's not really b/c they're any better than you.

Oh wow, 12%? That's a lot. That's way more than in the U.S.

Best of wishes for your wedding and marriage!

I know little about Australia, but I think there are fewer Asians there, so maybe that's a factor.

Oh, where are you then?

I think your story's a bit extreme because I know lots of Asian guys with non-Asian girlfriends or wives.

We minority guys should never act as though it's acceptable to "let" unattractive women leave our dating pool, whereas we need to keep the hot ones.

I'm a little confused by your anecdote. What exactly happened? I take it that your friend is a white girl with an Asian boyfriend, and that boyfriend's Asian friends were really proud/jealous of him?

Yes, I agree. Lots of famous Asian American men have White wives. I actually have a whole list compiled, but off the top of my head, add Goodwin Liu, Lance Ito, David Henry Hwang, Lee Chang Rae, Will Yun Lee, and Bruce Lee to that list.

Yup. It's the idea that in order to like an Asian man, you have to have some kind of odd fetish that deviates from the "norm."

Pretty telling that 2 of the most famous Asian Americans in recent memory have been Tila Tequila and William Hung.

There is an extreme dearth of portrayals of healthy AM/AF relationships in the American media. When it comes to Asians, the dominant portrayal is, of course, WM/AF. But the counterbalance is then AM/WF, or sometimes, even AM/BF.

Eek, please don't use the term "fetish," even as a joke. I know you mean well, but that word has way too many bad connotations.

It's because White guys don't fetishize Indian women. For some really bizarre and unfair reason, Indian girls are seen as relatively unattractive as a whole. You know the stereotypes: hairy, smelly, funny accents, dorky, asexual, tradition-bound, etc.

I meant to say in an increasingly minority-majority country. My error.

I'm all for IR relationships. I'm against the idea that IR relationships have to be mainly, or only, with white people.

That's true, but it's a pretty well-known phenomenon within the Asian American community that there are certain types of Asian women who outright refuse to date Asian men, even though they live in places (LA, SF, NYC) where there are lots of Asian men.