“You aim too high,” my dad nonchalantly says as he dips his pan de sal in his morning cup of Sanka coffee. “You should just take a regular guy.”

I am aghast as I stop shoveling my brown sugar oatmeal into my mouth. “Dad, are you telling me to SETTLE?” The night before, I had stepped out for a friendly bite with one of those-guys-you’ve-slept-with-but-are-now-trying-to-patch-a-friendship-out-of-what-was-once-nights-of-passion-into-nights-of-PG 13-pasta. Sitting there slurping spaghetti bolognese, longing for someone I realized I was madly in love with but could never have, had reduced me to tears in the lonely car ride home after a friendly peck on the cheek. I had come crawling quietly to my dad during breakfast. Dad: the one man in my life who has never disappointed me, the one man who has supported me through every crazy idea I ever had, the one man who I know loves me unconditionally…. surely, he would have advice that would resonate through the universe and save my soul from further self-purgatory!

“The guys you choose are too handsome,” my dad in his infinite wisdom states. “They can have any girl, why choose you?”

He sips some coffee as he stares out the kitchen window. “You see, a man like that (inferring my last bout with a South African): handsome, has a good job, athletic, confident… he doesn’t want a wife. He can have any girl anytime. Why only one?!”

“You should just go for a regular guy. You should go for… a Filipino.”

Race?! My dad pulls out the race card on me?!

“Dad, it’s not like I haven’t stopped dating Filipinos. I just haven’t been asked out by a Filipino in years.” It’s true. Despite all the Bluest-Eye references and apparent self-hatred that all my Asian-American brothers heap onto me for dating men of ALL colors, I rarely get asked out by Asian guys. In truth, in the last 10 years, the men who ask me out go in this order: white, black, Asian. (I’ve rarely been approached by a Latino guy… I blame my lack of assets in my ASSets.) Is it the activities I do? I’m a loner, I spend a lot of time sitting in coffee shops dreaming and scheming… Starbucks seems like pretty neutral territory. Is it my job? I’m surrounded by 40-something old white women. There’s one guy in my entire company, and he’s the boss (and married to a Filipino woman I might add)…

“So what makes a Filipino a ‘regular’ guy and dating anything outside of that ‘aiming too high’?” It was an odd conversation, I wanted to continue it but there was no more butter and my dad seemed to want to move back to learning how to Skype his friends back in Caloocan City.

“You don’t have to explain anything,” he said simply. “A Filipino guy, he already knows how to treat you. He knows what is romantic. Filipinos are romantic. And when you date a Filipino, it’s for good. All those other guys? You have to spend time to teach them.”

And then he shuffled off to his computer room, and yelled over his shoulder, “Show me how to make a call on Skype! I can’t find the button!”