Lifestyle & Culture

Dating as an expat: Mastering the language of love and long-distance relationships

(Author’s note: Special thanks to the brilliant friends from all over and their beautiful experiences of love, loving and being loved.)

You’ve moved across the world and have managed to re-create a life of your own, complete with a job, hobbies and friends. Things may not always be rosy but there is an immense amount of pride to be found in the human faculty to build entire worlds out of circumstantial whereabouts.

And that is when the big question, the ever-present conundrum of love, poses itself.

How do you navigate dating as an expat or a perpetual traveller? What are the challenges and beauties of the fact? From short-lived flings to long distance relationships and cultural differences, embark on an
overview of overseas dating complexities.

Cultural gaps and bridges

When we decide to leave to new horizons it is often because the desire for something novel, exciting and foreign has struck. Whether you have moved to a neighbouring country or halfway across the world, there are always cultural specificities to discover and wrap one’s head around.

These cultural bridges and gaps may very well be to some people the things that give dating a freeing and exciting perspective which the routine-like process of meetings back home may lack.

Talking to friends, the research base of this article, I discovered that attitudes towards cross-country dating vary wildly although they often hang on the same elements.

To most, discovering a new culture whilst dating is part of the perks of it, but the difficulties arise with the topic of language. Before we travel, we seldom think of language as a concept, it is a tool and such a central part of our lives that we don’t always question it. When it comes to dating and doing so in a foreign tongue, many people find that language is much more central than one might have considered.

Serendipitous elements of life that give it its romance have to be glossed over for lack of words and bigger challenges arise when relationships touch important topics that may bump into the obstacle of misunderstandings.

Love is about finding a home in someone else and the extra legwork that is required by speaking a foreign language, no matter the level of command over it as I’ve discovered, takes the comfort out of what is supposed to be a haven.

There are, however, people to whom the concept of communicating in another language is the most freeing experience. It is almost as if a whole new language of love was created. An island where to meet
each other halfway through the complexities of individual meanings, where to abandon the postures and limiting concepts sometimes felt in one’s own language.

Periods of solitude and intense reunions

There can be something more organic, an unlocking that happens when all pretences are stripped away and remains only the importance of primary meaning, feeling.

Travelling around may also mean that some important relationships are left behind to be sustained through long distance. This seems to be one of the biggest challenges of expat personal life. Although I have encountered people for whom the structure of long-distance relationships, with intense reunions and periods of solitude mixing in constant juxtaposition, works a charm, it has mostly been highlighted as a hurdle in many people’s romantic experience.

The specific difficulties mentioned often have to do with the “life sharing” aspect of relationships. To be with someone is to share a great deal of their life and experiences. It is also to create new ones together and to build on a common intimacy. Long distance however makes this hard to sustain as life continues to build on each side of the relationship with each partner potentially feeling quite alienated from the other.

Finding connection

It is hard to truly understand someone’s life when we don’t know the people they interact with daily, the places that the visit or even the new work that they do. Whilst some will find a great deal of freedom and
individual realisation in them, long distance relationships rely on the capacity to allow, compromise and imagine which we are not all able to do.

A final element that I’d like to mention in the fanlike multitude that is the topic of dating as an expat is the idea of dating as a tool for integration. An overwhelming number of people around me have met some of their now good friends on dating apps when they first arrived in a new city. Although the romantic spark wasn’t necessarily there, common interests and vibes sparked the beginnings of long-lasting friendships.

When putting ourselves out on dating apps, one of the motivations is to find connection. Dating can often turn into a number’s game because – spoiler alert – we aren’t made for everyone. However, it can also be the occasion to meet people to stay in touch with and with whom to great these meaningful connections.

Most peoples’ lives revolve around friends and no matter the way in which you find new friendships, I would advise to hold on to those for they are the truest, most beautiful love stories.

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See more from Zoé here in Dispatches’ archives.

Zoé Manset
author at  | Website | + posts

Zoe Manset is a French actress, writer and producer based in London, UK. After growing up in the Fragrant Harbour otherwise known as Hong Kong, Zoe moved to London in 2018 to pursue a BA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Arts. Missing the stage too much, she then completed a two year MFA in drama school and is now living the freelance actor life at full speed. Zoe is a fashion history lover, a great pub amateur, a dancer and a big foodie!

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