Lost in translation?

April 9, 2009 7:35 PM

Please help me find a way to support my boyfriend's integration into my culture...

Here’s the background of my dilemma: I have been going out with my current boyfriend for about five months – we have started dating a couple of months after I finished with my previous partner.

My previous boyfriend is a very friendly guy and got on well with all of my friends. We decided to break-up but remained friends and every time I meet someone, they ask about him, etc etc (the guy was very popular amongst my friend base).

Now, I have been going out with someone new, who pretty much ‘ticks every box’. This relationship has a lot of potential, it is likely that we are going to stick together for quite some time. It’s been great. But…

The dilemma – I originally hail from a South American country and many of my friends also come from there. I have been living in London for quite some time now and have managed to adapt to the culture and lifestyle pretty well.

I do realise, however, that many of my friends are kind of stuck in some sort of ‘cultural isolation’ – i.e. hesitate a lot before eating anything that does not resemble food they are not used to/don’t know, still struggle with English, etc.

My relationship is great but at the same time, it is important that my partner fits into my group of friends, at least to some extent. My boyfriend is great and I love him, but being English, sometimes it is noticeable that there is a ‘cultural disconnect’ going on when it comes to him interacting with my friends.

When he comes to visit, he will often stay in my room instead of chatting with my flatmates about trivial things, for example. When it comes to striking conversation, my friends find it hard to relate to him (from their end, he is much more cultured and intelligent and from his end, it looks like he is not that open to talking to relative strangers about more ‘personal’ things such as ideas around life and relationships etc – Latin cultures are very open and people talk about their emotions a lot).

There have been two instances where my friends either said he is ‘boring’ or that it is difficult to talk to him. On the other hand, I (obviously) don’t find it difficult to relate to him at all – he is fun, kind, warm-hearted and intelligent. But he has a different kind of sense of humour to that of my friends (which can be quite ironic and self-deprecating at times and they don’t quite get it).

Worth mentioning that he has signed up for a language course in order to understand my friends and family better (we are planning to visit my country in a couple of months) and is increasingly interested in current affairs at my country and etc. This is all positive, but doesn’t seem to be contributing to the issue mentioned above.

Another point is that, when he was chatting with other friends of mine from NZ or Australia or other Anglo-Saxon cultures, he did not have any issues in relating to them.

I am a bit confused as to what I should do to stimulate some interaction between him and my Latin friends. I do love him, want to be with him regardless of what people think and this is not a major issue yet, but I am a little nervous that his may become a significant issue if in future we decide to move to my country, for example.

The question is, how should I approach the issue again without hurting him? I say ‘again’ because have discussed this before but nothing has really changed – apart from the fact he is buying more drinks to my mates, maybe as an attempt to get conversation going…he mentioned he does want to make an effort to get on with people who are important to me.

Tips from English people who have managed to integrate into a different culture also appreciated, thanks for reading my question!

posted by anonymous to human relations (14 comments total)

It's not necessarily a cultural issue, it could just be that your friends don't like him. The fact that he's signed up for a language course and follows current affairs in your country is proof that he's doing his best. But as you know, even in same-culture relationships it's very common for one partner's friends to not be too keen on the new boyfriend/girlfriend. People are all different, even when they all come from the same place.

It's a bit much to expect that he changes his personality to make your friends like him, but from an outsider's perspective it does seem a bit like that's what he's expected to do.

If one of my friends told me that they thought my boyfriend was boring I'd be really pissed. Not so much because I was angry that they thought that (he can be hard to talk to; he has a different native language to most of my friends and so one party is always having to work much harder) but because if he makes me happy, it's a rude thing to say (though as I said, thoughts are something else!)

I think that you and your friends just have to accept your boyfriend for what he is. Culture is a part of who we are, and it's not something that you can change just like that. He sounds like he's making a big effort (learning a new language is a major time commitment plus way to feel totally stupid in many situations) so I think your friends need to suck it up.
posted by different at 8:12 PM on April 9

I am a Puerto Rican married to an American. As I read your description of your friends and how they are reacting to your boyfriend, I am reminded of how Hispanics I have known have reacted to Americans. I think sometimes we expect others to adapt to us and our cultural idiosyncracies, while at the same time not necessarily extending the same courtesy to others. I may catch some flack for saying this, but I am speaking from experience. Sometimes we think our music is better, our sense of humor is better, our ways of interacting are better...and so on.

My husband took language classes and immersed himself in Puerto Rican issues, just like your boyfriend seems to be doing. I loved that he was trying so hard to understand where i was coming from, culturally. I loved that he understood that by doing that it would bring him closer not just to me, but to the Puerto Ricans in my life. It took him a while to blend in with my family, and it's still not seamless. But he tried from the start and keeps on trying. That spoke volumes to me, and if someone in my life saw all that and still called him boring....man, I'd be upset.

From the way your are describing this, I don't think the issue is so much with your boyfriend, I think it is with your friends. He might not be knocking himself out to make small talk - but to be honest, making small talk is not exactly fun. Maybe your friends find it difficult to talk to him because of the language issue, or maybe it's just cultural differences. But while they are calling him boring, he's trying to learn your language and your culture, and trying in his own way to get closer to the people who are important to you.

If you would like him to loosen up a bit so that he is more comfortable in a Latin American environment, he might just need more exposure and time. When he is over at your place, don't leave him to sink or swim with your friends - try to take an active participation in the conversation so that he has a friend and ally.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 8:45 PM on April 9 [11 favorites has favorites]

My boyfriend doesn't naturally fit with my friend group either - I think it's an age difference rather than a cultural difference but I can sort-of relate.

What I found helpful is to ask my friends to approach him differently rather than ask him to alter himself. The way I see it is that he's already a fish out of water among people he doesn't know so asking him to think really hard about his behaviour may be putting too much pressure on him in an already high-stakes situation.

On the other hand, friends are a little more flexible and less likely to feel inadequate if you say "Listen, do me a favour? Please do x tonight so that Boyfriend feels more at ease. I'll buy you a beer."

Specifically, my friends have a tendency to make casual, indirect jokes and honestly anticipate that others will feel comfortable to engage in sarcastic banter with them immediately. My boyfriend is more reserved and responds better to direct questions or speaks more easily on specific topics. Asking them to work around this made him feel more confident, which enabled him to banter the way they wanted.

Having said all that... they still don't fit together perfectly and I've decided that doesn't matter as much as I initially thought :)
posted by cranberrymonger at 8:48 PM on April 9

From what you've said about this guy, he sounds pretty great, and definitely serious about you. He's putting in a lot of effort. It seems like the problem is more with your friends than him. They seem unwilling to reach out to him as much as he's reaching out to them. They find things wrong with him, does he say bad things about them. Frankly, it sounds like your friends are being a bit snobby. I know that holding on to cultural ties when you're in another country is important, but that shouldn't extend to excluding people.
posted by fructose at 9:02 PM on April 9 [1 favorite has favorites]

This isn't a big deal unless you make it one, IMO. Your friends have to do some work, though, if you want them and your boyfriend to get along well.

My girlfriend is Korean, I live in Seoul, and I speak Korean at the pre-intermediate level, which isn't good enough to do stress-free conversation. However, my girlfriend speaks fluent English and so does her best friend. The three of us get along well. As for her other friends, who speak even less English than I speak Korean, we get along okay, but it's awkward, so we don't spend a lot of time together.

My girlfriend and I don't spend every waking moment together, though; we have our own lives away from each other. We tend to talk about Korean culture/current events much more often than Canadian ones, because... well, that's where we are. When we go to Canada together, we'll talk more about that country.

If I demanded, right now, that my girlfriend start to follow Canadian news, and talk about Canadian issues, I'd be a bit unreasonable to do so, IMO. And it's unreasonable for your friends to expect your boyfriend to do the same. This is because, at bottom, it's unreasonable for people to reject the host culture (the UK) and expect their hosts (your bf, other Brits) to adopt/adapt to their own culture (S. American). While your friends are living in the UK, they need to do the work to meet him (well over) half way; if you were in your country, your boyfriend would have to do same.
posted by smorange at 9:17 PM on April 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

Maybe an activity where everyone's moving a lot and you don't need to talk a lot would help everyone have fun hanging out without it being awkward. Dancing, skating, soccer are all things where a smile is just as friendly as words. Also seconding asking your friends to cut your boyfriend some slack. They've had more exposure to his culture than he has theirs and he really seems to be making an effort.
posted by stray thoughts at 9:48 PM on April 9

Sounds like it would help to get everyone loosened up. Something physical and silly would be good, so he will loosen up and they won't feel pressured to interact cerebrally. Maybe some alcohol, too. For instance, have some beers and then play soccer, charades, twister, beach volleyball, or tag. Maybe go on a group hike or cook a meal together (like a big barbecue). Paint a fence together. have a waterfight in the back yard. Find excuses to be more physical and interact with concrete objects instead of having to sit around awkwardly and converse.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 10:26 PM on April 9

I would say that you should just get everyone drunk together. Then play a game like poker. Shared experiences and bonding are the key.

On the other hand...

This is a difficult issue with no easy solutions. My wife comes from a different country (Japan), and starting out we lived together in Canada when I was going to school.

I'm a social person, and I hung out with a large crowd of friends I had known for years. My wife could not relate to any of them (most conversations revolved around indie music or making hip, ironic and sometimes witty comments), and hated going out with me to the point where she would just stay home, and all of my friends resented it. My wife could simply not decode how social interaction worked with 20-something hipsters.

On my end, I tried hanging out with my wife's friends, who were mostly younger ESL students from Japan, Korea and Asia. It can be tough to develop friendships with folks from these companies (but when you do you have friends for life), and I could not break into *my wife's* clique of friends.

We eventually returned to Japan, which was a better fit for both of us. We already had friends there who were either Japanese or were non-Japanese folks who understood Japanese methods of interaction.

In every bi-cultural relationship, there will always be (or should be at least) one partner who is more flexible and is willing to work at adapting to the other partner's culture. That was me.

We moved back to Canada (for good, at least for now), and I don't have much in common with my university friends. I've moved on. We now have a newer social circle of Canadian man + Japanese women + their children friends (as well as folks from Korea and Iran).

I've noticed that I'm really more comfortable around Asian folks, or people with a connection to Asia, mostly because of relationship and communication styles, and also because of shared (conservative) values.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you will eventually move on and get new friends.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:29 PM on April 9

I am a little nervous that his may become a significant issue if in future we decide to move to my country, for example.

I think that's a separate issue from any friction between him and your friends, and you can't extrapolate one from the other. Expat subcultures/cliques can be defensive and thick-skinned, especially in a city like London where it's possible to live something close to a back-home life if you so choose, as a means of mitigating the paradoxical loneliness of the big city. (I'll also be blunt: some expat friendships wouldn't survive back in the home country, where you can be more picky about who to hang out with and talk back-home stuff.)

I'm also unsure if the language lessons and cramming up on [your country]'s culture and current affairs are really going to help with your London-based friends, because it's not going to make him one of them, and may even come across as condescending. He's both part of the local culture, and getting the sharp end as the Outsider. There's a subconscious (or even conscious) power dynamic going on about who's in charge here, and it's not something you can ignore just because you've managed to shrug it off personally and negotiate the two-cultures thing.

"Something physical and silly" to strip away the cultural shit sounds like a good idea. Something that gets everyone out of their element might also be worth a try. You're in London: there is lots of stuff going on that is going to be as culturally unfamiliar to him as to you and your friends. Those are only icebreakers, though. If your friends are simply not prepared to push at the edges of their expat bubble, you're going to need to reassess the importance of their friendship.

(It's a pity this is anonymous, because I'd be interested to know if your Latin friends and your Aus/NZ friends interact, or if your life is divided up into different cultural interactions.)

To reiterate: none of this has any bearing on how he might adapt to [your country], where the cultural dynamics will be quite different. It does have some bearing on how you might adapt long-term to living in Britain, should you choose to do so, if you can't integrate those parts of your life.
posted by holgate at 11:08 PM on April 9

I almost broke up with my mexican girl friend (now fiancee) over this issue. I'm Indian and there were similar differences. What I feel is essential is that I needed to feel that my gf would have my back when it came to cultural things things that I didn't or couldn't be expected to know. A headsup on expected behaviour really helped every time. For example, Indians (especially South Indians) are not used to hugging or cheek kissing as a form of greeting, and once I realized that this is an integral part of mexican/ latino culture, I was able to take a special effort to remedy this.

It also may be a language thing- after a while, speaking weak spanish or slow english can get tiring.
posted by dhruva at 12:40 AM on April 10 [1 favorite has favorites]

You kind of say yourself that your Latin friends refuse to integrate themselves in English culture and yet they have the nerve to tell you your boyfriend doesn't fit in? Well he doesn't have to fit in - it's his country....and yet he makes every effort to understand where you come from, which is a lot more than your friends appear to do.

So I'd suggest you have a chat with your closest Latin friends and ask them to make him feel welcome because he is very important to you, he makes you happy and he is here to stay. At the end of the day he doesn't have to get on with all of them but it is important that your closest friends appreciate and respect that he is very important to you and that they will have to spend time with him - hopefully mutually pleasant.

As for what would happen if you moved back to your country in the future hell knows - completely separate issue.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:19 AM on April 10 [1 favorite has favorites]

You are the connecting thread between this guy and your friends so its your part to make an effort to understand both sides and perspectives. To me it feels more like you should give this guy a break and maybe YOU should make an effort to understand that he is different from your latin friends. It is natural if, for instance, the sense of humour is very different. He is clearly doing his best. You need to realize that he will never be the same as having a latin american boyfriend!

but I am a little nervous that his may become a significant issue if in future we decide to move to my country, for example.

Having seen this amongst my latin-american friends, this seems to be almost expected from SOs (and I hope your SO knows you even have this in mind!) If you do decide to move, you should be grateful if he agrees at all instead of expecting him to integrate into your culture and values naturally.
posted by xm at 7:28 AM on April 10

Find a slightly more structured way for all of you to interact- a trivia game, board game, something like Cranium, scattergories, or trivial pursuit (pick one of the ones where people would be on a more level playing ground when it comes to cultural bias) where you might need a team and talk some strategy. It keeps things a little less personal while still getting to know the person and you start to have 'in-jokes' with your team or the other players. Think of things you would use as ice breakers and go with a few of those.

As a couple of your friends if they'd be willing to show your boyfriend how to cook something ("He's been wanting to try x, and I told him yours is really good")- you'll all have a meal to look forward to after.

It's tricky. I've had close friends who had other friends from their own culture and it was hard to 'fit in' no matter how interested you were in the culture or wanted to get to know them. It was easier after a potluck, bowling, card games, and so on. Past a certain point, remember to step back and let him do his own thing; if you're too involved he has additional pressure to live up to your expectations or be worthy of your efforts in addition to his own standards.
posted by variella at 9:18 AM on April 10

Er, excuse me for saying this, but I feel for this guy.

You think he's awesome, he's doing a couple of things to try to know your culture, but your friends think he's boring.

It sounds like you feel he's gotta change to please them, and have them approve of him.

I don't think he has the problem. I think the problem is with your need to succumb to your friends' approval.

I understand your friends are important to you, but do they think about your happiness as well? That telling you he's boring is tacky and unnecessary? Not cool.
posted by The ____ of Justice at 4:16 PM on April 10