Making it out of the Ghetto

One of the things I have discovered about myself, as I grow older is that I have a hard time dating out of my social class. Even typing that statement makes me feel guilty, by no means what am I saying here is universal but it has been my experience. When I was younger I dated the “bad boy” and more often than not this meant a guy from the “wrong side of the tracks”. These men were exciting and introduced me to many new and thrilling experiences. In addition they tended to show me a raw sense of reality. I loved the music, clothes, slang and recklessness of these times.

Now that I am older and thinking of having a family of my own, those bad boys are no longer a good match for me. My background involved being raised in an upper middle class family with a strong emphasis on education. My parents are college graduates; my mother has a MS in engineering. My siblings are educated and college was never a choice in my family it was just assumed. My “bad boys” don’t have the same view on education as I have, and it is a deal breaker for me. They also don’t fit in at a corporate dinner. Their experiences, while having merit in their own, are not compatible with my white-collar world.

Their lack of reading and world knowledge is a serious embarrassment for me in front of my friends and colleagues. I do miss the excitement the bad boys brought into my life, but I am now looking for a man with compatible education, goals, vocabulary and knowledge, and I can’t seem to locate that in a man from the “wrong side of the tracks”. I am also looking for an ambitious man who does not do the minimum to get by and he doesn't think it is stellar because he is not in prison like the rest of his family. Granted coming from nothing and making it to a regular job, with a mortgage and car is a major accomplishment, but I want a man whose ambitions are equal or greater to my own. Making it out of the Ghetto is not enough for me.

I want a man with a compatible social graces as myself, is that being prejudice?