Would you date a foreigner?", here's my version of a sequel to the initial post - "What were your experiences with dating a foreigner?".
Many of the friends around me, including myself, are with someone who is from a different culture and country. Whenever we all gathered, it felt like a United Nations meeting. All of our experiences are somewhat similar yet uniquely different. Why so? The obvious cultural differences aside, a large part of the differences in our experiences hinges on the level of communication and openness of the couples involved.
Some people have reservations about intercultural relationships and I can totally understand why. It takes a lot of curiosity about a culture and world
dissimilar from one's own to enter such a relationship and from there, lots of efforts to keep it going strong. Sometimes, the differences can be frustrating and even unnerving but with a good level of communication, these differences can transform into a set of whole new perspectives that is actually enriching and fun! My man and I share four common languages (English, Japanese, French and Mandarin) and this commonality helped us to not only understand each other but to also be more culturally sensitive to each other.
Speaking fluently the same language, however, is not the only key to a great intercultural relationship. There are couples who can only converse with each other in broken English and yet they are some of the happiest couples around. I think it would be very difficult for me to be with someone who has zero interest or regard for my culture and thinks that only his is the best. One of the reasons why I am still crazy about my man after so many years is because our different upbringing brings forth every other day not only a new experience/outlook and a new challenge to my definition of "common sense" but also a renewed appreciation of my own culture. All of these could have easily been translated into a series of obstacles for a couple but I saw them as treasures to widen my horizons as a person.
What about you? What were your experiences with dating a foreigner?
Share your crazy stories and funny encounters here with us!
Lifetime
Comments (15)
My boyfriend is American and I'm English/German, he doesn't know much German, so when I'm frustrated I go all intense with german lol but i live here in the Us, and its amazing
@neekuuh@xanga - that's freakin awesome
and hell yea i would haha
@yaneznayu@xanga - haha, it can be awesome, my boyfriend sometimes doesn't understand much of what i say when i'm excited because I have a strong english accent
I am dating a foreigner now (: He is from Spain and I'm (Chinese American) from New York. Even though I took Spanish for four years, I am nowhere near fluent. He talks to me in broken English and I attempt my Spanish. We find each other's accents really cute<3 hahaha. Anyways, it's interesting dating a guy from a completely different culture. There are always some surprises, but we are both very open minded people, so although we may disagree on some topics, we never argue. Despite our differences, there are many things we have in common, such as our majors (we are both engineering majors) and more. But overall, his differences, cultural and all, are what make him so special and just makes me love him so much more (:
Dating 'foreigners'' aka people with a different background comes with the territory of being an immigrant. I think I am much more of a rarity to them (come on, how often do YOU date South-Africans?) than they are to me... and I am used to intercultural communication. THAT comes with the territory of being South-African AND being an immigrant.
I can see beauty in the other side when dating a foreigner. It's fantastic to know other culture (Vietnamese) than mine (Filipino) it makes me more polite and sensitive in interacting to other foreign people when i travel. Respect is important.
Well my man is born and bred Aussie, whereas I was born in Hong Kong and bred in Singapore. Other than a bit of culture shock like kids back home read and write two languages by the time they are 7 and in Australia it doesn't even come close to that, and of course the fact that I think Vegemite is quite gross while he reckons Kaya is the same, everything's cool.
I would. Accents turn me on! Ooh yeah!
My bf is German and im Mexican, I looooove dating him. it turns me on when he talks to me in german and i cant understand a single word of what he is saying. He is fluent in spanish and im starting to learn german,
I'm Arab/Russian/Japanese and my SO is Korean/German.
<3
Let's say if the person like an international student, and he happened to be attached to his homeland while you're attached to your own country.....then, that's the most difficult part. But if one person or the other is doing his/her best with proximity, then I guess it won't be so bad.
You can't help who you fall in love with. :P
I used to live with a German. She had a really boring English boyfriend and I could tell she was sexually repressed. God, how I would have loved to have banged her.
Check out my dating disasters:
http://plentymorefishoutofwater.blogspot.com/
This is why Mancouch sucks - stupid posts like this. No one gives a crap about your man and all your issues. Go post this crap on datingish.
my husband is south indian. i love him as a person, but our cultural differences help keep the learning alive in our relationship. he speaks 4 languages and i can only speak english and a little spanish, but he speaks better english than most americans i know! i'm trying to learn hindi (which is not his native language, but since he cannot write in his first tongue we compromise with hindi, his second language). it's pretty tough, but fun and interesting from a psycholinguistics point of view.
@Justanotherguy - Seriously. I thought this was the place for men to come. I feel like girlfriends showed up at guys night out half the time I come here.