Odunayo Bolarinwa
As the world becomes more global, more and more people are dating outside of their cultural group. Dating someone from a different culture can be challenging but has some incredible benefits changing both your perspective on love and on the world in total.
While you cannot always choose who you love or become involved with, dating someone from a different culture takes some additional work. Here are some tips to more effectively communicating with someone from a different culture.
Be patient with them and embrace the differences
Someone who comes from a different culture may have a very different background than you do. Certain things may offend them that wouldn’t impact someone of your own culture and they may have some preconceptions that are offensive to you.
Learning to understand and embrace these difference can be challenging and will require a significant amount of patience.
Communicating with someone who you are dating who may have certain views and opinions different from yours may be challenging but can be eased by:
Taking the time to understand where others are coming from
Being patient when your point isn’t understood or accepted
Being proactively interested in, but not obsessed by another culture
Avoiding judgment of their culture and area of interest
Adopting or seeking to understand interests from their culture
Slowly introducing them to your culture without overwhelming them
Communicate when you are stressed or insulted
If something that your significant other is doing or saying is stressing you out you should communicate where you are coming from in an non insulting way and describe what you are feeling as a result.
Forget about the stereotypes
It is a bad idea to stereotype a person based on their culture. this is particularly true with the person that you were dealing. People from all cultures can have different personalities and understanding this and treating a person as an individual regardless of the culture they are from is important.
Learn about their culture and take part in it
Spend some time to get to know the culture and history that the person you were dating emerges from.
Dating a person outside of your culture provides you with great exposure to a different person and their way of life. By taking part in their culture, through their foods, mores, and holidays, you will start to understand their way of life and become more accepting of another person and their culture.
Communication pitfalls to avoid
Intercultural relationships need to watch out for several pitfalls that other relationships can sometimes avoid. Family issues are a common one. Many families are not accepting of their family member dating dating outside their culture and fear other groups and their background.
Intimacy requires a lot of communication
Attitudes towards sex can also require some specific communications. Some cultures may treat sex more casually than others and this can be a pitfall in a relationship. Some cultures that are tied closely to religion may not allow sexual contact outside of marriage while in other cultures sex before marriage is the norm.
Intercultural relationships will require open communication around this sensitive area in order to develop clear expectations on what sexual content is allowable or not, and what lines can simply not be cross under any circumstance. Don’t presuppose anything; communication is necessary regarding sex between people from different cultures, even if that communication is non-verbal in nature.
Dating is difficult and the difficulty increases when you were dating somebody from a different culture and way of life. However, this does not mean that it is impossible and improved communication can allow your relationship to prosper.
As a result, you’re more likely to develop a positive relationship with a person whether or not it ends up being serious. As in most things, communication is important and essential when dating another a person from another culture.
DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE WITH YOUR EMAIL BELOW AND GET MORE OF THIS EVERYDAY
Comments