“He Is Always Late”: 40 Culture Shocks People Experienced While Dating Internationally

Not with a partner but just in general:
In Ireland it’s customary to say no to anything offered to be polite. Even if you really want it. Eg:
“Will you have a cup of tea?”
“No, thanks”
“Ah go on”
“No, I’m fine”
“Go on”
“Ok, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Turns out in America if you say no they just say “ok” and you never get your tea. Crazy Americans how dare they not be able to read my mind!

I had been dating a Dutch guy for almost a year. One day I wanted to buy a bottle of water but had no spare change with me so I asked him to borrow some. The bottle costed approximately 1.2 euros. Somehow the following week I had completely forgotten to give his money back. The next morning he wrote a very detailed message about how borrowing money without returning them shows a bad character, with his PayPal account at the end so could transfer the money.

I’m Brazilian and my husband is Scottish. His sense of humour is amazing. So quick and dry! But there’s no PDA at all! In Brazil is very common for couples to kiss passionately in public and are even expected to do so. I felt so rejected for a long time because he would only show me affection when we were together in a room! Scottish people love to “roast” people and you should expect to be mocked constantly and not show any resentment!! Brazilians are very agreeable but very proud and sensitive, so it’s been rather difficult to adapt hahaha
I’m now living in Scotland and apparently the way people make friends here is by binge drinking, pub crawling (and getting kicked out) together. Eventually you’re just pals?
In Brazil people would make conversation, ask everything about you, then maybe ask you for a coffee or some light drinking at first. I feel it’s really difficult to make friends here if you’re not into drinking until you pass out.

My ex was US born and raised but his mom was from Thailand and still had family there.

We went on a 2 week vacation there and stayed with his aunt and uncle. We visited with lots of family members while there and they would all aggressively insist on paying for us but I guess secretly they were all annoyed that we let them pay for things.

We spent a lot of time with his cousin and wife who were close in our age and they would pay for EVERYTHING. Like we were at a mall and I was browsing in a store and went to check out and when his cousin saw me with money in my hand he straight up RAN across the mall with his wallet in his hand to stop me from paying. We just thought they were being generous and good hosts but my ex’s mom called us from the US a few days later and told us her sister was complaining that her son had no more money and couldn’t afford to take us out all the time and we needed to give them money and pay for things.

After we left I heard some other family members had similar things to say about us letting them pay for us and being rude and stuff and not leaving money for his aunt and uncle who hosted us. It actually hurt my feelings really badly because I thought they were being genuine when they offered to pay and didn’t realize there was an expectation that we were supposed to gift them with money after.

I’m spanish and my girlfriend had a really hard time with the fact that we eat super late.

Dating a Japanese guy felt like being in a long distance relationship even if you live together. The long working hours, lack of physical affection, privacy, etc. makes it hard to figure out if your partner even likes you as a person. Hell, we got married and have kids and sometimes I still question it, lol.

My boyfriend is Venezuelan and HE IS ALWAYS LATE!! My best friend is also Venezuelan (we met before I met my bf) and she used to drive me crazy with the same thing. How hard is it to just be ready when I give you a time???

My partner is Portuguese. Absolutely lovely family but they are LOUD. Not in a bad way, just talk about things loudly and all at once - my family is pretty conservative so was a big shock!

My ex is Greek, very passionate about food.
Me/ not so much. Not at all. Food to me is just that, food to keep me going and healthy. I appreciate people who are really into it and delight in preparing it.

He would always try and get me to eat more than I wanted to and it annoyed me to no end. I stop eating when I’m full or I’ll just graze eat through out my day. I actually had to get really firm and sometimes snappy with him about it because he was a over bearing. We eventually got on the same page. But goodness.

My partner is from Argentina and I'm from Guatemala. We both are native Spanish speakers and yet we have completely different words for the same thing.
Example: pineapple in Guatemala is called "piña" and in Argentina is "ananá". "Piña" in Argentina means punching so imagine his shock when I first asked him if he liked "piñas"?

Not really culture as much as it is class for me, but my SO is from a fairly middle class family, i come from the benefit background. The biggest shock for me was literally how my entire way of life is so far from what most people consider normal.. I thought it was normal for everyone to shout at eachother but it turns out all my family are crazy mentally ill and refuse to get help because "they shouldn't have to change who they are" even though they watched me change into a better person through medication and therapy and it just baffles me how people can just chose not to better themselves and the lives around them? My SOs family are the kindest people I have ever met, they have clean homes, cars, jobs... all the things that I hope to achieve one day.

I’m American and my husband is Chinese. The biggest culture shock is when we went to a Chinese New Years party with other Chinese nationals living in the US and the hosts handed us red bags when we came in. I didn’t know what this was but said thanks! and moved on. Later in the night I opened these red bags, expecting a card or nice note, but they were giving out HUNDREDS of dollars! My husband was unmoved because he said this is always what they do when celebrating the new year or other big events. I’ve come to learn that money and gifts are a show of respect to the Chinese way more than they are in America. I can go to my aunts house and not bring her a gift, but if we don’t bring a gift to his aunts she says we are disrespectful.

I’m from the US and married a Venezuelan and I always knew they are more family oriented then me but my god her family will just show up at our house randomly. They all live separately but will gather together and just show up. No text or calls even to my wife. Also they just walk in no knocking or anything, if the door is locked and they have to knock they think it’s rude. I don’t know why they can’t be away from each other for more the. A couple days.

From the UK, my partner is from southern US. Took him to England last year, he liked it a lot. Didn’t really understand some manners and customs, or why there are dogs at the pub, milk in the tea or why we were going for an after dinner walk in the rain. He also raised an eyebrow at my 19 yo niece drinking and smoking. My family is super lefty liberal and his is the exact opposite, my family adores him but he has been hesitant to have me meet some of his family. We will see how it goes!

I'm Dutch. Once, my Dutch friend got a request to pay back 30 cents. We still laugh over it.

I'm Ukrainian and my bf is Filipino. Biggest difference is the family size. My family is tiny tiny, just me and my mum. We don't have any family in Canada, and I'm not close/have contact with the people back home. His immediate family has about literal dozens when it comes to cousins, aunts, uncles etc.

It's incredibly overwhelming to have so many people in your face when it comes to holidays. I had to break out of my shell more, but him and his family had to accept that I need to get out and walk around for a bit to cool off.

My ex is Albanian and I he had an attitude like "I am the man, I will take care of you" which I wasn't used to. I went on holiday to Greece and he sent me about 200 Euros to buy him some cigarettes and said to keep the rest, which was around 80 Euros. He was ultra masculine and had an attitude of I was to be taken care of, but almost in a controlling way. He was always sweet and soft when it was just us, but anytime we were out in public, like at a coffee shop, it felt like he was putting on an act to prove himself. I left him when I realised that although he was good to me, his mother would never let him marry a non Albanian and he'd choose his mother over me lol.

Don't know if this works because I'm not in it anymore. My first real adult relationship was with a Muslim man. His family was very religious, he was a practicing muslim for the most part. He grew up in Germany in a very conservative household and I grew up in California, my family is Hindu and liberal, so we had a TON of cultural differences. He was funny, brilliant and so incredibly cool and confident. I think he was really torn between wanting to be progressive and open but still afraid of disappointing his family, disobeying his religion and had trouble breaking away from his societal norms.

Dealing with someone who was stuck in between wasn't easy and I had made many sacrifices to make our relationship work. When we met he told me he loved everything about how free, opinionated and outgoing I was. A few weeks in he told me that he liked the way I dressed but that it wasn't appropriate for me to wearing certain things in public when I was with him, so I started to dress more conservatively when we were out together. A few months in he said he was always worried that something bad would happen when I'd go out and drink with my friends and that drinking was wrong, so I stopped drinking. He told me he loved how outgoing I was but didn't think it was okay to go out to a bar/club alone with my close male friends because thats when bad things happen, so I stopped doing that. I think everything finally came to a head when I called him out on all the things he did that didn't fall under being a good muslim like smoking w**d and having s*x.

He said something along the lines of he wanted to be with someone like me in theory and loved me but when he was in it, he felt like it was wrong and he was worried about my salvation, which sucked to hear. I think the socio-cultural and religious differences proved to be too much for us.

Anyways, I do think intercultural relationships can work, as long as both parties and readily compromising. Which wasn't the case in my relationship.

My boyfriend is from the midwest and puts Snickers in his fruit salad.

Asian here dating a North American. He doesn't understand why I'm so close to my family. It's especially hard because our family immigrated to NA, which brought us even closer together. I love spending time with my family, and he likes them, but doesn't see himself visiting family often. In the future if we're still together, I would love to be able to have a meal with them at least once a week, or even just once a month. He's content going a few weeks without contacting family at all, not even his own. Never understood it, his parents are great and have grown to be better than they were during his childhood. We're learning more about each other every day, that's for sure lol.