Am I Your Type…or What I Represent?

A Story from the Wandering & Wooing Series

Written by Joni Roberts

Traveler, storyteller, and public health advocate

"You're my type."

I have heard that sentence in Kenya.

In Sierra Leone.

In Senegal.

In Malawi.

In Ghana.

In country after country across the African continent.

At this point, I usually laugh.

"Really?"

Because the odds seem remarkably high that I just happen to be everyone's type.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I don't say that to diminish myself.

I know I'm beautiful.

I know I'm intelligent.

I know I have a personality that draws people in.

I smile easily.

I laugh often.

I make conversation with strangers.

I'm curious about people.

Those are all things that naturally make connection easier.

So yes, I absolutely believe someone can meet me and find me attractive.

That's not the part that fascinates me.

What fascinates me is everything that attraction might also carry.

When I travel through Africa, I occupy an interesting space.

I am Black.

Until I open my mouth, I often blend into the crowd.

Sometimes people assume I'm local.

Sometimes they know immediately that I'm not.

Sometimes it's my accent.

Sometimes it's my clothes.

Sometimes it's simply the way I move through the world.

Then they find out I'm American.

A professor.

Traveling alone.

And suddenly, I become something else.

Not just Joni.

An idea.

I've joked with friends that I'm every African man's type.

It's funny because there is a tiny bit of truth in it.

But every joke has a question hiding underneath it.

Am I really your type?

Or do I represent something?

Because the reality is this.

I've yet to be approached by a billionaire asking me to stay in his beautiful home overlooking the ocean.

I've yet to meet the wildly successful businessman telling me to quit my job and let him spoil me.

Instead, almost every man who has approached me has had less formal education than

I do.

Less financial stability.

Less international mobility.

Less access.

That observation isn't a judgment.

It's simply...data.

As a public health researcher, I spend a lot of time thinking about systems.

The things that shape our choices long before we believe we're making individual decisions.

Education.

Economics.

Migration.

Opportunity.

History.

Power.

So naturally, I can't help but wonder whether those same systems show up in dating.

When someone says,

"I want you."

What else might they be saying?

"I want the life I think you represent."

"I want the opportunities I imagine come with you."

"I want access to the world you move through."

Or...

Maybe none of that is true.

Maybe he simply thinks I'm beautiful.

That's possible too.

And that's the tension I haven't been able to resolve.

People sometimes assume these questions come from cynicism.

They don't.

They come from curiosity.

Because here's what I know.

More than one thing can be true.

A man can genuinely find me attractive.

And also recognize that I'm American.

He can enjoy my company.

And also think about what life outside his country might look like.

He can be drawn to my personality.

And also admire my education.

Human beings rarely have one motivation.

We are wonderfully complicated that way.

There have been moments when men have looked at me and spoken as though they already knew me.

"You are different."

"You are exactly what I've been looking for."

"I know you."

Do you?

You know I smiled.

You know I laughed at your joke.

You know I asked questions.

You know I was kind.

But you don't know who I am when I'm exhausted after grading seventy papers.

You don't know what I look like after twelve hours in an airport.

You don't know how stubborn I can be.

Or how deeply I value my independence.

You don't know my fears.

My grief.

My family.

My faith.

You know the vacation version of me.

The conference version.

The woman wandering through your city with wonder in her eyes.

That's not fake.

But it isn't the whole story either.

Sometimes I think about the wives.

The girlfriends.

The women back home.

Were they once "different" too?

Were they once the woman whose smile lit up the room?

Did someone once tell them they were unlike anyone else?

At what point does extraordinary become ordinary?

And who gets blamed when it does?

Because I've heard the explanations.

"She doesn't smile anymore."

"She's changed."

"She's difficult."

"She doesn't understand me."

I wonder if she would tell the story differently.

Travel has taught me that we are constantly interpreting one another through incomplete information.

We fill in the blanks.

We create stories.

Sometimes those stories are beautiful.

Sometimes they're dangerous.

Sometimes they're simply wrong.

Perhaps that's what attraction is in the beginning.

Not certainty.

Possibility.

The possibility of who we imagine someone might be.

The danger comes when we mistake possibility for reality.

There's another layer to all of this that I continue to wrestle with.

As a Black American woman, I occupy a very particular place in the global imagination.

I'm Black enough to feel familiar.

American enough to feel aspirational.

Educated enough to be respected.

Independent enough to be intriguing.

Foreign enough to be novel.

I carry identities that mean different things depending on where I am.

Sometimes they open doors.

Sometimes they make people curious.

Sometimes they make people project entire futures onto me before we've even shared

a meal.

And I wonder...

How often do we fall in love with people?

And how often do we fall in love with what they represent?

I don't know.

Maybe that's because I've spent my life trying to separate the two.

When I was dating my ex-husband, I used to tell him I was still collecting data.

It drove him crazy.

He wanted certainty.

I wanted observation.

I wanted time.

I wanted enough moments to distinguish who he was from who I hoped he might become.

Travel has reinforced that instinct.

Every country reminds me how easy it is to project.

Every conversation reminds me how little we actually know about strangers.

And every compliment reminds me that admiration and understanding are not the same thing.

What I'm Still Wandering...

When someone says, "You're my type," what are they really responding to?

How much of attraction is about a person, and how much is about what that person symbolizes?

How do race, nationality, education, class, and mobility shape who we desire?

Can genuine affection and aspiration exist together without canceling one another out?

When do we stop seeing people as possibilities and begin seeing them as they really are?

And perhaps the question I'm asking myself just as much as anyone else...

How often have I mistaken someone's potential for their reality?

I don't have the answers.

I'm still collecting data.

And I'm still wandering.