Ok, ok....i know there are a bunch existing out there....about differences in race...differences in religion... culture... age... blah blah blah....

Yes i know it boils down to the two people living the relationship and how they are going to love each other and make it work...

Personally, i have my politically correct "preferences"....and my non-politically correct assumptions and stereotyped thoughts, with exceptions to the rules, of course...and as i have gotten older and evolved my understanding of relationships and human nature...hopefully, ive gotten more flexible and mature about it too...lol...sometimes, we can't really completely choose who we become attracted to or fall in love with...

Unfortunately we live in a society...where not everybody can accept these differences. Granted, stereotypes will ALWAYS exist. Society will always have a general perspective and a public opinion on matters of differences in physical appearances, as well as belief systems in looking at couple relationships.

When these differences are accepted as a norm, all is well and good.
When these differences become basis for internal marital/relational conflict, it is justifiable to be cautious
When these differences are seen as taboo, everyone is being judgmental.
When these differences become cause for persecution, we can all start taking up arms and throw racist, fanatic, religious self-righteousness and perverted comments all around and claim, "i can comment on whatever opinion i feel like because i have freedom of speech"...or ..."it's my life and not yours and i can do and say whatever i like, i dont care what you think" argument....blah blah, yadda yadda...

Whatever....we all have our personal feelings on the matter.

So...my question boils down to...
Since we live in a society and not a deserted island for two...and the "you and me against the world" concept, tho romantic, have never exactly proved to be a good idea....
If you do find yourself wanting a relationship with someone outside these so-called "usual" and "normal" circumstances... how do you handle those negative reactions and ill-thinking from others? Not necessarily the general public, but like people whom your life revolves around with?

We can include the factors such as having a previous family...having an illness...prior criminal record...differences in social standing...etc etc...in the equation...whichever applies with you and other people concerning the "differences" existing between you and your chosen partner.

I learned the hard way that sometimes you need to open your eyes and take off the rose colored glasses.

when I was younger, stupider and wishing for someone to love me; it was very easy to overlook a lot of red flags that other people tried to warn me about. I learned the hard way that when it's 'us against the world' those who love you can't stop you from taking the fall.
so if someone who truly cares is seeing things that don't mesh with you, it's at least a good thing to stop and evaluate the situation.

as for in the here and now, I believe in being friends first and taking the time to know each other.
when those differences occur, I first see if they are differences that go against my fundamental beliefs.
if my other half and I are good with it, we can then work together to make those who challenge us understand even if they don't easily accept.
an example is the man I'm currently with has an old fashioned mom just like I do. we're both raised old school with some of the mindsets from our native country (yes, we were both born in the same country). we were raised here but there are still traditional gender expectations like that it should always be him coming to see me.
we first talked about it with each other to see it's anything that bothers either of us.
we then explained to both sets of parents that it's just easier to visit over there because that's the more familiar surrounding for his son.
do we need to ask permission or approval? not really. as we are both people who have close bonds with our family, we do try to keep the peace because we like living in harmony.

It depends on how badly I want the relationship; if I really value the person I'm with and if we click and have a good time, I tell everyone else to piss off and their opinions don't matter. I agree that we don't live in a vacuum, it just depends on how much you're willing to put up with from the outside world (and since none of us live in Utopia, you're gong to put up with something.) I've never cared what other people thought about my relationships, I was just always mad because the guy insisted on treating me like crap. But you do raise valid points, if you're the sort who's close to your family and friends and they don't agree with your life choices, you need to decide what's more important your happiness or theirs. And then be wiling to suffer the consequences....

yes...certain gender expectations always accompany a specific culture.

at some point in life, family and friends should be able to respect your decisions, even if they don't really agree with it for the sake of their own sensibilities.

fortunate for those when the decision or partner are not treated with any disdain or outright disapproval. but when this happens, it can become a very painful thing. how would you deal with it?

seems like there is a possibility of a lot of drama and "i told you so" happening if this goes wrong. have you ever had to tolerate "judge-y" looks?

IMHO, the moral compass between two persons needs to be similar.. If you are diametrically opposed on more than 3 topics, I would think the relationship would not last..
opposites attract, but only to a certain degree (back to the moral compass)..

thanks rustykitty

i know about differences causing problems between two people. some have higher tolerance and flexibility than others.

but barring differences in moral compass...let's say these two individuals get along, overall...except outside factors, be it family, friends or society in general do not see them as a match due to outward appearances and differences, how to handle?

i know some would find ways. run away, start a new life, move to another country, prove their undying love to the nay-sayers and nay-thinkers...
some would wait it out, see if they get that second chance in the future...
while some might choose to accept fate and let go...that poignant, bittersweet kind of thing...

of course, the consequences and results of choosing any of the above remains to be seen...

It's more differences between the sort of person I am (which includes my taste in women) that they would disapprove of. My dad seems to think that any woman that I would get involved with would have to be "another tart" and my mother might say that someone's not right for me because she's my mum and wants me to be a certain way, or likes to think of me as just being a nice sensitive person, even though I'm far from perfect.

Actually, I think that I would like to date a black girl just because my dad would probably think that's worse than a tart.

Where it's difficult is that like a lot of people, when I've had problems with girlfriends I've told my family and that colours their opinion. Then they think that they have the right to say nasty things about them to me, which I don't usually apreciate, even if I'm not getting on with the girlfriend in question.

i totally get what youre saying!

So my question to you...lets say the girl is completely in to you...but her family disapproves, and in their minds, they are justifiably so. They will disown her among other things....do you let her take that path with you? Will you stand by her as her man until the end? Because if you don't, she has absolutely nothing to go back to.

Well, I wouldn't give up on a woman I wanted to be with, whatever her family thought about us being together and if they were forcing her to choose and threatening to disown her that would be a decision for her to make.

It is something that I've thought about actually from seeing stories like that on chat shows. Ideally I would want my woman to get on with her family, whether they like me or not but if they were upsetting her by telling her to leave me and slagging me off all the time I think that it would probably be better for her to stay away from them anyway. I'm not saying that I would tell her to choose but she would if I was making her happy and they weren't. Then they would doubtlessly say that I was a control freak when they did it all themselves.

Oh yeah, I've gotten that before, "I told you he was trash" etc etc, and I've gotten judgey looks every so often, not so much recently, the last guy I went out with no one even paid us any attention; maybe the world is a lot more post-racial than I thought.....

But I'm a pretty strong person, I don't care what other people think of me, they don't pay my bills so they can't dictate my life. Obviously I'd avoid a situation where it's actually dangerous to be dating someone different from me, like small redneck towns or something where they might bring out the hanging rope, but on the whole, it's not that big a deal from society. Or maybe I've been lucky.