Aye, agree and all that if it's a friend/colleague/neighbourg (I can never spell this word!) relationship.
But, if we are concentrating here on
relationships (like I think the OP meant)
and if there's no common mother language, there's no time to discover the shape the other cut their tomatoes* before you're entangled in a passionate embrace with the sexy foreigner
Your brain in a fog of looove, you're gonna be well entangled before you discover the no-nos of your partner's culture.
*Yes, I did get put down because of my "Italian" tomato slices ... should have cut them in Cypriot cubes
Clearly tomatoes are still a bit of a sensitive issue!
I have to admit to driving a former girlfriend more than a little mad by my "flexible" attitude to tomatoes. I actually quite like them but am not a fan of seeing them😊. A long story for another time!
However, on the topic of the thread I'm still unsure of how we are to find out about a potential lover's foibles unless we actually dive on in there?
Yes, there can be potential "deal breakers" that can be established early such as attitudes to children but I don't think there's too many. Attitude to women in certain cultures would be another significant one.
And there are nuances.
And people do change. (I'm not saying that we should want them to change).
I had a very long relationship with a non-drinking, non-smoking, vegetarian and these were never an issue despite me being a drinking, smoking, meat eater.
Perhaps I'm being obtuse but there are degrees to a person's behaviour and beliefs. A vegetarian who cries when my steak arrives in front of me is different to the vegetarian who will happily steal my chips off the same plate!
It's not the belief that's the problem it's how the couple deal with it.
And those troublesome "beliefs" or "norms" can just as easily be dealbreakers for someone down the road as for someone from across the globe
To my way of thinking there's only one way to find out - jump in there and give it our best shot. On the assumption, of course, that we see something worth pursuing and that we're healthy and confident enough to know when things are not working out.
When I see something like "I could never have a relationship with a X", I feel a little sad.
If I'm to be rejected, I'd rather it be for who I am and what I do rather than a label applied to me that carries a whole lot of baggage that I don't subscribe to.
I wonder how often when someone labels another person the label has more significance to the labeler than the labelee?
Example: I'd rarely describe myself as a cyclist despite being on my bike most days. Cyclists wear lycra. They break traffic lights all the time and all the other rules of the road. They want the whole road to themselves. To a lot of people they're only a couple of pedal strokes away from being the end of civilisation!
I'm a person on a bike. And that's just a teeny tiny part of me.
Of course, your point about different languages is vital. That makes the process of discovery that much more difficult. Not impossible. Just more difficult.
It's a whole lot harder to demonstrate respect and problem solve with pidgin language.
And there are couples with no language barriers at all where respect is a foreign word!
I've had a few cross cultural relationships in my time and I suppose one way of looking at it is that they all failed because a tiger of one form or another is my trusty companion these days.
I only regret one and it could barely be described as a relationship consisting of two dates because it ended up being genuinely frightening.
Every other one was a gift. Or at least, that's how I choose to view them. The passage of time does help!
