Dating 101

“Dating someone from your host country may provide you with a built-in cultural informant, an incentive to learn the language, and perhaps a friendship that lasts beyond your stay in the country.”

 - Maximizing Study Abroad (page 80)

When I came to India, one of my interests (other than social justice, peace, and development), was meeting people my own age and finding out how they view their own country and current issues. And what better way to learn this than through dating someone from India? Well, I certainly learned quite a lot from my experiences, but perhaps more about how my own concept of dating was challenged through dating in India.

It was easy enough meeting guys my age: restaurants, cricket matches, and just walking around town all provided great opportunities. At this point, I’ve been on a couple dates with different men, and all of them have been very casual, but they were a lot more different than I thought they were going to be. Perhaps my mistake was assuming dating someone in India, or someone from a different country altogether, would be similar to the experience in the United States. And I believe through coming with these expectations, I was most definitely influenced on how I perceived these situations.

For one, I seemed to forget how foreigners are viewed even in the United States – as exotic. Right away during the beginning of these meetings, my dates would ask about my schooling, my family, and my interests, normal things you ask when you are trying to get to know someone. But instead of continuing on one of these tracks, the men would then shift to a kind of complementary phase, praising my physical attributes, such as the whiteness of my skin, my blue eyes, or my blond hair. They would mention how they had looked at my pictures on Facebook, and how lovely I looked in them. Thank you, I would say, all the while wondering if they had even noticed what my favorite books are, what my major is, and what activities I participate in.  If that wasn’t enough, they would also tell me how much they liked me and, in one case, that they loved me.

At first I was flattered, but eventually got annoyed with this barrage of flattery. I kept thinking, “You don’t even know me! Why don’t you ask me about my views on politics? On India? On the caste system? Why don’t you want to have a conversation with me, like a normal date?”  I am more than my physical shell.

I did enjoy these experiences, and appreciated the chance to go on dates in a safe environment, but was frustrated by how not one of them seemed to want to know my opinions on issues they openly discussed with the guys from our SJPD program. I may be a woman, but damn it, I think the same as any man. The image these men pushed on me, of my outward appearance being the most important one, made me wonder if they push this same image on all women, or just the exotic foreigner.

Perhaps my expectations about dating in India would have been different if I hadn’t used my understanding of dating in the United States as a staple. Maybe I would have seen more similarities than differences if I hadn’t been so surprised at being treated as the exotic foreigner. Whatever the case, dating in India was definitely a learning experience I’m glad I embarked on, and a good story I can bring home.