Yes, we’re a mixed couple, but don’t take us at face value

The beloved and I have told each other a million stories and built an understanding around our different histories.

As a black person and a white person, we continue to be received differently in the world.

But this is not a meaningful or interesting difference for us.

The conflict and connection in our coupledom are manifested in the little things, in the way we choose to be and the choices that we make. Diversity is in the detail for us.

People tend to make judgements based on colours and creeds, tribes and types.

To the outsider, race will seem to be a big difference that characterises myself and my significant other. We look like a mixed-race couple.

Ask either of us about our differences, however, and race will not quickly make the list.

We will talk about tidy versus chaotic, night owl versus early bird, crazy versus sensible, adventurous versus anxious.

In fact, we are often amazed that two such different people can co-exist so happily.

The only difference race makes is that one of us is more tolerant of bright sunlight. Or maybe that’s how it feels for me, the “white one”.

The obvious differences, from race and ethnicity to gender and body issues, from language to education to family background, get noticed in the early days of a love affair.

These differences are held up to the light and interrogated. Bridges are built or burnt. Things blow up and fall apart. The issues are worked out or simply acknowledged and put aside.

The other stuff — how tidy a person is, how much they value work, whether they like cats or dogs, how self-indulgent they are, whether or not they are sensible with money — rarely get discussed.

We are so busy unpacking and processing the big societal norms about diversity and difference, that we hardly see the many little things that mean so much.

I’m not saying that being a mixed-race couple is not a thing, especially for South Africans who grew up before 1994.

Our skin colour informed our experience of growing up in many ways, obvious and less so. We are left with a different sense of belonging and safety in different spaces.

I am safe in my skin and out in the world; she is safe in her family.

But as for being a wildly chaotic one and an insanely tidy one? Now, there is a divide we may never bridge.