I actually haven't seen much of the show, but was notified of this interesting mash-up of minorities by way of Sky over at Clutch. She even taught me a new term: bumble bee love.

I didn't even know this term existed, and now I'm wondering about all of the other terms for possible combinations: Asian/Latin@, Latin@/black, Asian/Native American (are you guys even out there??). 

But this is from Hollywood, a world where people think the Higgs boson is a new Victoria Secret bra and the science is so soft it can worn as a Snuggie. So how realistic is such a pairing as John/Gabrielle? For this let's turn to some more concrete data.

Dating website OkCupid.com's recent analysis of its own population has revealed some interesting, and maddening, results. Turns out that your race has a dramatic effect on whether or not
you get a reply if you send a love note to a prospective date, with Asian, Latina, and white women preferring white men over all others. So conversely, white men have the best chance of getting a response. The information is rich and juicy, and it lends some real weight to what some of us already feel. It's a bit like seeing racism spelled out using Heisenberg equations. 

Turning back to the real life possibility of a John/Gabrielle match-up, OkCupid's data seems to suggest that black women are receptive to messages -- they have the highest response rate of all the groups. Unfortunately it appears this isn't a two-way street: men don't reply back to black women's overtures as much as you'd expect, Asian fellas included. In fact, Asian men respond to black women the least out of all females.

By the way, it also appears that Asian men pretty much get the shaft when sending the messages. Asian, Indian, and white women especially don't seem to like being bothered by us. Ouch. Meanwhile, we respond well to all race groups except black women. C'mon, fellas, that's just cold.

Interestingly, black females seemed to prefer black males the least. I'm not about to touch that, though.

Finally, the blog asks questions about interracial dating and marriage. Asians are down with it, but guess who seems to oppose interracial dating and marriage the most? WARNING: Before reading the answer on the OkCupid blog, cover your computer with a plastic sheet since your head might explode.

So what does this mean? It would appear that as refreshing this particular bumble bee combo is, it would be wise to remember that reality can be something of a buzzkill. Will the Cho/Union union help shift these numbers to the left? Or is it just wishful thinking? Granted, this is a series about time traveling, so we shouldn't expect it to conform tightly to reality in any sense, but still it raises the question of what kinds of depictions of interracial relationships we should want to see. If OkCupid is any indication, reality TV would mean having everyone going after the white guys, and the black girls and Asian guys getting no love. If that's the case, I'll take me some more science fiction.