Thursday, November 5, 2009

Is There a "Manual" for Dating Someone from a Different Culture?

I was reading an article on how hard it is to date someone from a different culture when customs between the two indivuduals are so different.

I would like to hear your comments regarding your own experience in cross cultural relationships. I have thought about different topics:

1. How do you show you are interested in the other person (do you just flirt subtly, are you more direct and approach the person to introduce yourself, do you send him/her a written note?)

2. When you start dating, who pays what? (in some cultures the male pays everything during the date, in others each one pays their own expenses)

3. At what point do you introduce her/him to the family?

4. When is the relationship considered formal?

5. Marriage vs living together (in some cultures it is not well seen to live together with your partner without being married)

It will be very interesting to see the difference from culture to culture, and who knows, maybe we can come up with a little "manual" after compiling all your comments...

2 comments:

  1. I believe the biggest challenge I faced dating someone from another culture was slang in communication and cultural "dating" customes. Being Mexican I dated someone from Venezuela. You may even speak the same language and still, communication is a big challenge! What it might be romantic to say in one country, it might be very rude in anothe! It might be funny at the beginning, but at the end, it is up to love to win this battle.

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  2. Hi Adis. What you are saying is very true and I am sure it happens to a lot of acouples who speak the same language but are not from the same culture. They probably assume they won't have any communication problems and they are less cautious.
    Thank you

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