Dating internationally

Every second of every day someone in the world is on a date. Whether it’s the one you never want to end, or the one you hope gets interrupted by a meteor hitting the Earth – so you’d have an excuse to run as fast as you can. People meet thousands of potential boyfriends/girlfriends every single day. Yet, a lot of us somehow seem to end up being single. Is it because being single is so fabulous or finding someone you can stand is simply so hard?

There’s this huge variety of choices now, we travel more, we meet more people, we like more people, we dislike more people, we start things more easily, we end things more easily. And as I’ve recently discovered there’s even a matchmaking social network – Tinder – so you can find your match based on physical appearance, which is extremely reasonable isn’t it? (seriously – if I ever start using Tinder I kindly ask you to lock me in a dodgy studio apartment with 50 cats and bad TV as I find I’d still have more dignity that way)

Every time I speak to one of my girlfriends we somehow end up talking about guys! “What did he mean by saying that?”, “Will he call?”, “Why did he do that?”, “What does that mean?” and other intellectual questions seem to occupy so much time from our lives! Yet even after hours and days of discussing these first world problems, we don’t get any closer to an answer. And it’s probably way more simple than we think – as I’ve realized that men tend to put more thought in how to open a beer bottle than to understand why women say or do things.

I’ve been living abroad for the past couple of years and dated guys that come from different countries, different backgrounds, with very different culture and habits not at all similar to mine….I found that Italian men seem to think that nothing is as important as the Italian food – which is not bad at all – you’ll just end up looking like Pavarotti after a while; that Spanish men are crazy passionate about everything – from being in love to eating a chorizo; that French men are so arrogant it’s sexy, plus they have excellent fashion sense; that Pakistani men are more confused than girls when they get their first period (they want to flirt and date – but then again what would their conservative families say?); that Balkan men are the ones that have to be in charge (because God knows that a man is always right); that the Israeli men run away from commitment faster than they run in the army…

When something wouldn’t work out I’d think it’s because we come from a different culture, or because there’s a language barrier between us (it might sound funny – but trying to prove your point in Italian or Spanish is not as easy as proving it in your mother tongue), or because my fashion sense is not as amazing as his (that’s a joke – my fashion sense is fantastic)! As all women seem to do – I’d also question everything, trying to get to the bottom of this. And to this day I still haven’t managed to unfold this veil of mystery.

So, honestly – there are times when I think I’ll end up like Bridget Jones or God forbid – really have 50 cats. But then again I did learn something from each of them and even if it’s not the world’s largest discovery, it is my largest discovery. I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason. Literally everything sets the wheels in motion! Even if it’s getting dumped because you’re too much of a “stay at home person” (no, it’s not a joke. I lived in 6 countries, I try to travel the world, I even got chosen by Cosmopolitan magazine for being the most adventurous woman in Croatia and still I get dumped for not being adventurous enough). I’ve learned that regardless of your background, your language or your habits when you click with someone, you just click and that’s it. And then nothing else matters, then there’s no brainstorming or calculations. Everything falls into place! And yeah, it might get hard, you might have to work a lot to keep it going, you might even go crazy – but then again isn’t that a way better investment than browsing through Tinder and then asking yourself why didn’t it work out with muscular Steve in a blue shirt? How could it not? – You did after all have the same shirt color on your profile pictures! Is there anything more in common you need?

Hopefully the next time I speak to one of my girlfriends we’ll just focus on inventing new ways to open beer bottles. At least that way, after hours of discussion, we’ll end the conversation with some solid conclusions.