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Intercultural Love Boasts Positive Vibes this Valentine Day
by Méabh Mc Mahon
"Celebrated Valentines Day with Gilles Dufrane in Disneyland", this was the Facebook status of the Romanian social media analyst, Denisa Nica yesterday morning (15 February).
Her and her other half, Belgian financial auditor and DJ, Gilles Dufrane, make up one of the thousands of multi-cultural couples that shared Valentines Day together this year. Although some did it in the comfort of their own shared homes and others did it on Skype, they all steer us to come to the conclusion that intercultural couples with their distinct cultural, linguistic, religious and racial backgrounds are bringing about a better, more tolerant society.
Denisa and Gilles spending Valentines weekend at Disneyland in Paris
Although we are exposed to them on a daily basis, intercultural romantic relationships have rarely been investigated by scientists. They are however having a notable impact and will continue to do so for centuries to come, something that makes them intriguing to explore. Although love and passion is their main common denominator, intercultural couples do have to take a little more time out to explore different cultural issues like language, communication, raising children, female-male roles, visibility and traditions, something that can be stimulating and scary at the very same time. Many people opt for the boy next door, but there must be nothing more exhilarating than stepping out of your comfort zone to date someone who grew up in a different place, with a different language and a different religion, a special person who can introduce you to a whole new world of culture.
“We have loads of fun discussing our cultural differences”, says Denisa, “because as individuals, we are actually really alike”. The bubbly blond has been living in Brussels for less than a year but feels like an 'insider' now after having found a local. “Intercultural relationships are so common nowadays that nobody really thinks about their social impact, but personally I feel it helps me understand the world I'm living in, get used to everything faster and enlarge my cultural perspective”.
“Make love, not war”, says 23 year old Daria from Russia. Dating an Northern Irish guy for the guts of a year now, she feels that intercultural relationships help the world understand each other. “Globalization has changed everything”, she insists, “people from countries that were on different sides of the Berlin Wall or even in military conflicts twenty years ago can now be friends and even fall in love”.
“Intercultural couples make society more interesting”, says Carmen Paun with a thick American accent. Although she is Romanian, she met her fiancé, Paul in Brussels and has long since picked up his New Jersian accent. “There are often clashes between different cultural identities”, she continues, “so I think that intercultural relationships are the way to go to ensure that we accept each other in this very interconnected society. Many of these relationships will give birth to intercultural babies who will speak two languages since childhood and ensure society becomes even more mixed and connected”.
Delphine from Paris is one of these babies. She is the creation of a multi-cultural couple, something that she finds and always has found utterly enriching, so much so that she let herself fall in love with her Spanish flatmate when she was studying in Seville two years ago. Although for the moment, she is thrilled enough with the smell of Spanish tapas in her Parisian home, and her whole new world of Spanish literature, books and movies, she is already thinking ahead about how privileged her children could me being brought up just like her with two languages and two cultures.
Obviously a very positive person, Delphine does discuss the negative elements of her intercultural union but quickly turns them into something positive. “Being in an intercultural relationship confronts you with even more challenges than the norm like difficult tests of distance, and confrontations of opinions, but that just makes you stronger and teaches you even more how to accept others and be more tolerant of their views”.
Delphines' view is supported by Julien from Belgium. “Intercultural couples are making society much more tolerant”, he assures while sparing a thought for his journalist boyfriend from Rome who currently lives with him in Brussels. Marta Raucci agrees, “tolerance is the biggest lesson learnt that we can learn from intercultural couples”. The 27 year old from outside Milan is still grinning from ear to ear although it was back in 2005 when she tied the knot to her SPanish beau. For her, the biggest perk about being in her intercultural relationship is getting two batches of presents around Christmas time, once on the 25th in Italy and again on Kings Day, the 6th of January in Spain. Long live intercultural love!
Méabh Mc Mahon is an Irish freelance multi-media journalist who has lived in Germany and Spain but is currently based in Brussels