I thought things would be easier with my second relationship with my current boyfriend who is from Sri Lanka. But it’s not. It only got more difficult with the widened experience gap.
So I guess you have guessed what I’m trying to say. Dating is not only about the cultural background, its also about identifying the experience gap between you and your partner. Because the seemingly blinding cultural background is consisted of the family environment and the society this individual developed in and more importantly the very personal experience and preference.
For example, I would have thought Germans have not much culture similar with those of Chinese but their personalities would be in more common place with Chinese as we both work hard and kind of reserved. But I can’t be more wrong.
Since my ex German boyfriend spent two years with his parents in China, he knows the culture and food a bit. I was so surprised he really likes dim sum. And for the dinner of 23th of December last year they had dim sum and Dumplings! So hard to believe! Though he didn’t learn any Chinese except for those swear words.Regarding personalities, he is something else. He’s more crazy than anyone I have ever known before. He studies acting which explains a bit. He quit acting 3 days before he finishes it. He can be so not organized as he would not bring his homework to uni even he finished it. And list goes on. In the end his craziness set a lot of problems.
As my current boyfriend is from Sri Lanka. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know it exists until I met him. But after I learnt it’s a country in Asia, to be exact it’s South Asia but still part of Asia right? Should be fine. Personality wise, it’s all fine. He’s not crazy at all, a nice dude to be with. However, he was brought up eating rice and this habit has not changed an inch since he came to Australia. He’ll be so unhappy if he doesn’t eat rice for one meal. And he can’t live without chicken. Although I grow up eating rice and chicken as well, but I’m always up for something new.The fact is that he eats other meat and vegetables so little that I find it a challenge to cook every time out of his extremely narrow food range.
It’s a problem? It is. Is it serious? Not that much. Not that I thought so at first. I was really trapped in the thinking that we can’t navigate through that habit. But in the end his thinking released me from my own cage. That thinking mode is it’s not something wrong with the relationship it’s more about a fact based problem. There are three points to be done about it, once you do it you are half way through.
♡ Instead of blaming each other, talk openly about the problem
♡ Think of possible solutions to the problem that have both of your interests in mind
♡ Execute it and be patient with the process
There’s no doubt that you will put much efforts into solving the problem however it’s a eating habit difference or communication gap that have been in you guys for decades. With time goes by you’ll be happy to see how both of you grow from it and how your relationship benefits from it.
Justlife 