Aparents and adoptees from closed adoptions?

I've thought about it before. But the chances are slim since I've Asian and have never dated an Asian guy before (other than a guy who claimed to be 1/10th Chinese).

Could be one reason I've never dated any Asian guys. But I also am not attracted to them for some reason.

"Adoptees, was it a concern for you once you reached your dating years that you could become involved with a relative? if yes, did it affect how you handled your personal life?"

It definitely popped into my mind some times. I remember I was dating one guy who had the same ethnic background as part of my bio-family and it definitely crossed my mind. But I didn't give it too much thought. If I had I probably would have driven myself crazy! I did think about it a bit when my husband and I got engaged, but nothing in his family's history matched any of the little info I had on my bio-parents, so it wasn't a big concern.

So, it didn't affect it too much, but it was definitely something that would pop into my head from time to time. Especially when I was younger and I went through a phase of dating much much older guys, occasionally I would think how creepy it would be if I found out I had been dating my father. Hmmm....now that I think about it, that may have been what finally got me out of my much older guy phase. Which was a good thing! So apparently it did have a somewhat positive affect on my life.

Yes, it did concern me. When I did find my birth family, it turns out that 3 separate people in the office where I worked at the time knew my birthmom's sister and her family. If I had gone to a particular college I considered attending, I would have attended with 2 of my male cousins. It is not a stretch at all to imagine I would have run into them there.

I didn't have any concerns when I started dating my husband as he grew up in an entirely different state and there wasn't anyone in his family who could have been my birthmom or dad or aunt/uncle, etc.

As a teenager I went to a foreign language camp in the language of my bio-family's heritage. There I saw a boy I thought was the cutest boy I'd ever seen. He was from 1,200 miles away, so it never occurred to me that we could be related, but he steered clear of me like he was afraid. When I finally got someone to ask him what his deal was, he said the resemblance between us really got to him and when he heard I was also adopted and taking this language in part because of that, it freaked him out. However, upon calling his parents we found out he was not born in the same place I was and the circumstances of his birth were different. It did not, however, make him any more interested in me, unfortunately.

When I was 18 and met my bio-family, I saw for the first time a relative -- male cousin-- who looked so strikingly like me that I started to become scared that my real bio-father (my bio-mom has never been truthful with me about who it is) might have been her brother, the cousin's father. I have no actual evidence of this, I certainly hope not, and that would be bad, but S and I look so amazingly alike it is still flooring, and having the narcissism of 18 year olds, we spent the week mostly staring at each other and telling each other to stop staring -- not out of lust (ewww) but just out of amazement.

So, a few times when I was young, I worried I could date a relative, and there are still one or two now-grown men from that family out there who were relinquished as infants or toddlers, so if I was not married, I guess it's theoretically possible I could get together with another cousin.

I guess I just wouldn't date any adopted guys?

Yeah, it did worry me. I would always ask lots of questions about his family before I went out with him, and (I know this is weird) I would only try and date very dark haired guys with dark eyes. I had reddish hair and had a very fair complexion, lol. Turns out my n family was filled with blondes and redheads, so I was sort of right from that aspect.

Even though they grew up on the west coast, and Im in the east, our bio grandmother lived a few blocks from where I grew up. They would visit her in the summer, and went to the same swim club I went to....so, it could have happened, as my n bro and I are only 14 months apart. eeew.

As an adoptee, I will answer YES. I worried about it a lot. I really, really avoided any 'intimacy' until I was entirely past my teen years. I didn't even like to kiss.

One of the ways my concerns played out -- I knew my husband for 11 years before I married him. This was 'enough' time to know his family really, really, really well and know that there was no possible way that I was part of it (even distantly). We have not discovered any connection between our families and if we ever do it will be more than 6 generations removed. (*whew!*)

My a-parents didn't seem too worried about it at all. They never said word one about who I might be dating -- other than they wanted me to only date boys of the same religion (which desire failed completely). I guess they felt "safe" because I was adopted so far away (over 2,000 miles) from where I was born.

My little also-adopted sister took a different (and fascinating) approach to avoiding the "dating my brother" scenario. She dated only men (and eventually married a man) who were OLDER than the listed age for her mother and father in her NonID. I guess she forgot that records got changed all the time and that, while handily avoiding the "dating your brother" scenario, she could have ended up dating her father. BLECH!

She didn't though. Men who know they might have fathered a daughter "out there somewhere" seem more likely to watch out for it than "brothers" who may or may not know they have a sister "out there somewhere".

*sigh*

As a side note: My a-parents have one biological child and three adopted. Wanna guess how many "in-religion" marriages/relationships they got out of their four children? One out of four. Wanna guess which one? Hmmmmm... Anyone *still* want to argue that nurture trumps nature and/or that children who are adopted are "blank slates"?

That was crazy, wasn't it? Who would think to look across the street?

Yes, I was concerned about it. I dealt with it in my own, weird way. I knew how old my mother and her siblings were when I was born, so I dated men too old to be my cousin and too young to be my uncle. I'm sure my logic was completely faulty, but I was young, and it made me feel better.

As it turned out, my natural family did live just two counties away, and they were within our school conference. I didn't date anyone related to me, but it could have easily happened.

YES the thought of dating someone I was related terrified me. I knew I had cousins about my age but didnt know if they were male or female (turns out they were all girls so I was safe).

I knew I had a brother named Ray, so I refused to date anyone named Ray.

At one point I dated hispanic guys (I'm caucasian/native american) because I figured they wouldn't be related.

I never thought about it.

Honestly, I think I was so out of touch with my own reality, because of a closed adoption, that it was nearly impossible to imagine having relatives at all.