My interracial relationship was targeted by an internet troll

I didn't know what hurt more, the anonymity or the words themselves.

They stung like salt on a wound, pushing deeper and deeper the longer I looked.

The comment looked tiny in the shadow of the photo I had just posted to my Google account. The racist language could almost go unnoticed, with its tiny lowercase letters. But once I saw it, I couldn't let it go.

The picture itself was one of my favorites, something I was proud of: My longtime boyfriend kissing me on the lips as sunshine streamed from the window behind us. Our skin tones contrasted the way I always admired. I remember telling him that when we first met, laying my hands across his chest, as if to magnify his rich dark brown next to the cream color of my skin. I felt we fit together like two puzzle pieces: the yin and yang of one another. Not everyone saw it this way.

The anonymous commenter, apparently, thought my boyfriend's skin color made him a word that I would never use. About him or anything else. And I, apparently, was a "degenerate" for loving him.

I couldn't stop the world from expressing its opinion.

The notification came when I was sitting in a classroom, on break between teaching classes. I should have waited until after school to check it, but curiosity overtook me. Teachers and students filtered in and out — not one of them I could confide in. So I looked up and started surveying the room for the culprit. Was it an ex-boyfriend? A student? A co-worker? Were they watching me right now or snickering behind a computer? I couldn't get it out of my head. It was like my phone burned an emotional hole in my pocket, even though I was quick to delete the comment. I never expected that something so innocent as posting a photo would lead to such hate.

That didn't help. It only confirmed what was starting to sink in: that this person, possibly others, view the love of my life as subhuman. They think our relationship is immoral.

It's 2016, I reminded myself.

It's 2016.

It's 2016 … and the date doesn't matter.

Until meeting my boyfriend, I only knew about racism. I have a degree in education. So I studied it in books, discussed it in many classes. Grappling with racism was integral to my studies.

I felt the racial and cultural difference between us and noticed the privilege of my whiteness. Mostly these were subtle things like double-takes from strangers at the grocery store. There were also more difficult things, like watching my boyfriend place his wallet on the dashboard rather than inside his pocket. Just as a precaution. He doesn't want to reach for it if he gets pulled over.

But this more direct encounter with racism hit me harder than anything else. I felt genuine shock. So much shock, in fact, that my hands shook as I dialed my boyfriend's number.

He picked up and I immediately spilled the story about the anonymous comment. "OK," he said.

He asked a few more questions to make sure I was safe. But he remained unfazed by the incident. Meanwhile, my heart was still racing, and I couldn't stop looking over my shoulder. How could he be so composed?

He has always been the calm one, the voice of reason in our relationship. But I still expected a different reaction. Something a little more intense. When I saw him later that night, we sat down and talked about it. I asked him why he seemed so calm. He said he wasn't surprised. He knows there are people who feel this way. It's only a matter of time before they express their opinions. "It isn't the first time and it won't be the last," he said.

Then I kissed him on the cheek and felt the tide of 1960 wash over me.

After three years with him by my side, I am starting to lose the privilege of being oblivious, to being shocked when our relationship is belittled.

I'm also learning a little something about surprise. As a nation, we can't talk about racism. It's buried too deep. So white people especially don't always recognize it when we see it. I never thought about it before, but being surprised is itself a sort of privilege.