56 Cultural Differences People Noticed While Dating Someone From A Different Background

I’m a white boy who dated a Lebanese girl through HS and early parts of college.

First off…they are all EXTREMELY beautiful, as in her extended family was 50+ deep and they were almost to a person insanely good looking.

Her Mother was 50 and looked 30, never wore makeup because she didn’t need to.

Second…are you hungry? Would you like to never be hungry again?

Show up at a Lebanese house and they will stuff you full of food, and by food, I mean the best tasting dishes I’ve ever had and I was a chef for 20 years.

Everything is made fresh, tabouleh, hummus, kebab, my God, just the cheese alone was to die for, fattoush, baba ghanouj, etc

Once you are part of the family, there’s literally nothing they won’t do for you as long as you are respectful.

I blew a tire once, her brother showed up on the side of the road an hour later (early cell phone days) with a new tire, switched it out and told me to be nice to his sister.

Wouldn’t take a dime in return payment.

I helped paint their house one summer, stayed over at the house that night, woke up and my car was gone.

Her Dad had taken it to a repair shop and got my brakes fixed that I had been complaining about.

When we broke up, it was doubly painful because I had to say goodbye to so many people that had become really important to me beyond my ex.

10/10 experience.

I have a sweet one. I'm from Latin America, he's German.

At the beginning, he wouldn't flirt at all (according to me). He wouldn't try to get physically close to me, hug me by my waist, no great romantic gestures, which are expected from the man in my culture. It got to the point where I wasn't sure if he liked me. What he would do, was find the time to do things with me, and would reply to my texts super fast, even during working hours.

Was talking to one of my friends of 10+ years, who also happened to be living in Germany at that point for 3 years (I had just moved). He told me "are you crazy? That man's head over heels for you. Germans value time above everything, and he's giving it to you. He's literally giving you the thing he values the most in the world to you". Next time we met, I asked him directly if he liked me and he was like "of course! Why else would I give you my time?!?". Lol, we still joke that we owe our relationship to my BFF for clarifying that cultural difference.

How difficult it was for her to express herself when we had fights or disagreements. We both spoke in English which is my native language and hers is Korean. She would get so frustrated that she couldn’t really express what she was thinking because A. Her English wasn’t fluent enough and B. Even if she spoke Korean, I would have no idea wth she was saying.

I eventually learned enough Korean, got married to her and now get the full wrath of her temper lol. Love her to death though.

I dated a Dutch girl. Even in a car centric American city, she insisted on riding her bike everywhere. She also frequently took the bus even though that’s thought of as something for poor people. 

She understood the nuances of American culture but I initially found her Dutch friends and family to be blunt and quite frankly rude. Later I began to appreciate the direct communication style of Dutch culture. It can be quite refreshing that Dutch people don’t beat around the bush and dispense with fake pleasantries. .

What surprised me? That a man from a totally different culture/life experience – him Persian and me British- was the one that completed me, was truly my soulmate. My best friend and the one with whom I saw eye to eye on literally everything. I didn’t just date him though, we married and had a son together and sadly he passed very suddenly and way too young. There’s not a day goes by I don’t miss him.

That a lot of things that I marked up as cultural differences were actually massive red flags that when translated to my culture would have made me run.

I’m a white American and my wife is from a Mexican family.

What probably has surprised me the most is how close her family is. For weddings or big events the whole family will contribute money. Your house breaking in Mexico? Everyone will pitch it. Basically family crowdfunding.

From my own family I thought my wife was literally being scammed by her own family. But really they just have actual community and help each other.

The other surprise is just the sheer number of social events and the expectation to attend regularly. There are some gender differences here as well, but I’m a bit of an introvert, however my wife tends to feel obligated to attend many many social events for fear of not being there for family.

That if you need to communicate your feelings, boundaries and all that relationship stuff, it is harder to do in your second, or third language. Expressing yourself in your native language can be hard sometimes, let alone in a non-native language..

Realizing “normal” is just “what your family does.”.

I dated a Filippina who told me I was not dominant enough for her. She said it was not my fault, that her culture had taught her to be obedient to her man, and that she knew I would never provide the kind of relationship she would be comfortable with. I was shocked.

Couples therapist once said everyone is from a different culture, even if we're neighbours. Every family and every history has its own deviations from the norm. He said there were more similarities than oddities, celebrate them both.

Trinidadian married to a Dane. I had to get used to how low-key everything is here when it comes to celebrating things. In Trinidad it doesn't matter how big or small, every gathering is essentially a party with tons of food and alcohol and music, and people typically hang out for hours and hours. In Denmark, unless it's a super special occasion like an anniversary dinner or a birthday luncheon, gatherings are super laid back. No music, no alcohol, and usually only finger foods and coffee/tea. It was...difficult getting used to it lol.

Just how busy everyone is in Japan. If you ask a girl out and she's keen, she will whip out her calendar on her phone and ask if you have any days free next month. When a girl I was dating told me that in her last 1-year long relationship she'd only actually met her ex-boyfriend maybe 10 times total, I was floored but then I asked a group of about 6 Japanese women how often they meet their boyfriend when they're dating and it was once per week, once per two weeks x2, once per month x 3. "If you're both working, it's hard to find time to meet" Text message responses come back 2 days later because texting at work isn't a thing and when ppl come home they want to claim some time for themselves and unwind instead of play secretary to the incoming messages on their phone.

I whisper to my girlfriend "what are they fighting about"?

my girlfriend stops the dinner conversation to make an announcement in Italian, that the Canadian wants to know what the men are fighting about. everyone bursts out laughing.

the men explain they are not fighting but rather exchanging recipes.

then her mother invites me into the kitchen for a cigarette and flirts with me. i was 18.

they were Milanese transplants.

I’m going to call this a different culture.

I’m from New England and my ex was from the deep south.

The church culture for them is insane. Church is just were everything in the town is, all the meetings, all the social clubs, literally everything.

Growing up we only went to church in Christmas and Easter, but they actually go every Sunday and then again during the week several times for social functions.

Am American and husband is Italian. Italians are known to be expressive and very forward with their emotions but I had to teach my husband to bring his expression of frustration down a few notches.

Despite our stereotypes of being more prone to physical violence, Americans don’t do well with open hostile confrontations that involve a lot of yelling whereas Italians tend to get in screaming matches then go back to acting like eveything is normal.

He’s had to learn to approach me (and others here) in a more cooled off manner.

On the flipside, I’ve had to learn to center food, food-related activities, and etiquette in my life. Quickly eating a meal alone before getting back to business is normal for Americans, but operating in this way seems to make Italians SAD.

Attitude to being sick. Partner was Indonesian, and in their culture when a child is sick, the whole household revolves around them. So when they were sick, expected me to completely drop everything thing and spoil them. When I was sick as a kid, the phrase I recall from my parents was ‘you are not going to die’ - and apart from being made comfortable, everyone carried on normally. Caused alot of friction, as they thought I was uncaring, I thought they were attention seeking.

I dated a Muslim guy who told me he used to “fool around” with other guys. When I asked if he was bi, he said "Nonono, not bi, that’s unacceptable! I just like to “fool around”. Mmm, okay!

My wife is Icelandic.


I didn't know she was quite seriously religious and not just mildly Christian adjacent until after we were married because "that's not your business." Er, all right. Did you not want anything in the ceremony, or... (she did not)



Icelanders are what Americans would read as deeply passive aggressive but what they would read as carefully nonconfrontational. This has caused some issues. No one voices that there's a problem coming down the line until it's about to explode.


We had a time and a half actually getting together because, on top of both being carefully nonconfrontational, they expect clear blunt communication about important positive things. I thought she didn't really like me for the longest time, but she was just really deeply confused because I didn't on our third time hooking up announce "We are dating now" or similar. I am now aware that the typical mating ritual for the ice people is to sleep together a lot, have a kid or three, and then declare that you're maybe going steady. 


It's like marrying into The Sovereign Kingdom of Asperger's. Until they get drunk at the family party, in which case it becomes The Sovereign Kingdom of Confessional Ravers.

My Canadian sister was posted to Milan for two years. She claims she was surrounded by two dozen male colleagues who, in public, were all suave, worldly, socially confident and aggressive - but behind closed doors they almost inevitably turned into whiny, needy little momma’s boys.

Her boss, a divorced, 45 year old international bank executive, *actually sent his laundry back to his home village by bus every week , so his mommy could do his wash.* And once he asked my sister to sew a sleeve button back onto his $3,000 suitcoat ….*once*. She unleashed a few short, choice phrases of street Neapolitan she had been taught by her elderly neighbour and adoptive *nonno.*

Another colleague had a red-faced temper tantrum right in front of her, when he found out his sister had pneumonia and wouldn’t be dropping off his regular weekly allotment of homemade frozen dinners.

My sister quickly grew to be contemptuous of virtually all Italian men, simply on principle. She was offered a generously compensated two-year extension, but instead returned to Canada a couple of years ago. And she is still surprisingly gimlet-eyed and antagonistic toward any Italian-looking guy who *dares* try to chat her up.