Compiling my own experience on the subject and my students´, I have learnt -at least- one thing: men and women are the same all around the world… but they are also different.
The scope of the problem exceeds the language matter.
The first sensation about people from another culture is often exoticism. Everything is new and attractive: Latinamerican guys show their feelings!, Germans are less male chauvinisctic!, Americans leave their parents´home at 18!, you have to kiss everybody in BA!, the French cook amazingly!, porteños are so clothes-conscious!, Swedes are so blond!, Mexican so dark!, etc., etc… At first it seems as though these new people have everything our own don´t.
After a while it may start to raise the feeling of something missing. Even if both speak each others language fluently , nuances may still remain unknown. I´m talking about humour, body language, irony, prosody… in a nutshell, the distance between what you say and what you actually communicate.
Just to mention a few examples of BA: the simple fact of a man inviting a woman for a dinner has flirting connotations here; a woman dancing with her back close toward a man´s front -like hip hop dancing- is an open invitation to have sex; if a girl is not even kissed on the first date she will think that he didn´t like her; if a girl says “no”, that might mean “yes” depending on the intonation; if a man you dated on Saturday didn´t call you yet, wait until Wednesday to consider it to be concluded; and so on…
And I am only talking about “courtship”. Just imagine the scene in a whole relationship! wrong interpretations, misunderstandings, etc.
I´m not saying it can´t work. However, if you are starting a relationship with somebody from a different culture, don´t take anything for granted. Don´t try to drop a hint or take one as with a “fellow countryman” unless you are sure about how it works for the other person. Otherwise, choose the direct way. Synchronize what you mean with what you say and be patient.
It might be an interesting experiment.
How to squeeze your advantages as foreigner over locals (Coming soon)
