Partner makes me a stereotype

I've been with my partner for eight months, and we've just started talking about moving in together permanently. Everything between us is great, but there's one thing he does that really confuse me and hurts my feelings: When describing me to other people he reduces me to an ethnic stereotype, and I don't know why he does it. When he meets friends, or his barber, or an old work colleague, while they're catching up he tells them he's seeing someone. When he gets home and tells me about it, I've noticed that he consistently hams up my ethnic heritage and, sometimes, even makes things up that aren't remotely true. It was worse when we were first together, until I asked him to stop doing it and explained it was offensive and hurtful to me. He did seem to stop, yet a little while later he forgot himself and told me 'how shocked so-and-so was' when he told them what sort of man he was dating now. He's been doing it ever since, but I only hear it about it accidentally, and I'm not sure how many times I have to tell him I hate it. I'm Roma, my dad was Boyash and my mum is Romanichal. I was born in England, went to school here and have really lived a pretty ordinary sort of life; I identify very strongly with my heritage, but my partner's vision of a Romani man is someone who steals, cheats, deals in drugs and beats people up. In other words, my polar opposite. When he describes me to people it seems to go along the lines of, “a real over-the-top macho guy who's also a pikey, he's really rough, I wouldn't mess with him”. I've explained to him that it upsets me when he does this, that it's deeply offensive and that pikey is a word I don't want to hear. I put it all down to him not really knowing anything real about my culture, so I've also tried introducing him to the more vibrant (and factual) aspects of the Romani people, language, cuisine, etc. But it hasn't made a difference. Today he came home from visiting some relatives of his step-father's, and again told me he'd shown them a picture of me (specifically, a terrible picture he took of me one morning unshaven and glaring at the camera) and said, “They said you looked so manly! And I said, oh god he is ridiculously macho, and he's a pikey too, I wouldn't mess with him.” I called him on it, and after a brief argument he backtracked and said he just made the whole thing up just to see what I'd say. That makes even less sense. So now I'm at a loss. I've already told him I hate it when he does this to people. Sometimes I meet these friends at a later date, and they look shocked when all 5'8'' of me walks in the room and doesn't proceed to eat them. It makes me feel like he wishes I were more the way he describes, or like I'm not quite what he wants; I'm happy with who I am and even more happy that I'm nothing like he describes. I don't know how to make that any clearer to him. I've explained how it makes me feel, and exactly why it's offensive; he says he understands, yet he keeps doing it. We have a great relationship in all other respects and I don't understand why this is such a recurring problem.

It would seem that the problem is less about his ethnic perception of you, and more about his underlying preferences in a partner. More or less, he seems to want someone forceful/macho/intimidating, and uses stereotypes (that he may or may not believe) to enforce that image. I'd say there are two basic solutions. One would be to give him what he wants, more or less, in some ways. Be more forceful about opinions, issues, or even in the bedroom. This might satisfy this apparent want for that image, and stop him needing to project it onto you. If that's uncomfortable to you, or seems to be a poor idea for your relationship dynamic, then the other option is to talk. You said you had already addressed the stereotypes, but as I said before, that seems to be a secondary problem. Talk to him about this projected desire. Whatever you choose to do, whether it be one of these options, or any other you come up with, I wish you luck.