It is so hard to swallow

[freshnesschronic]

I can't take the culture difference. Never has it been so wide. Now it's mostly that, and not personalities, causing problems for us. I am utterly, starting to hate everything Chinese. Like, hardcore hate. And I have no excuse to, I'm a big promoter of diversity!!! But when it comes to her, the differences annoy me so much, and we both play it off like the other should conform to our regularities and biases and have a real hard time embracing them. How the F do I get over this.

Right now, it's like putting an quiet, simple, emotionless Amish man and a flashy, emotional, attention seeking woman straight from Sicily together.

[DanaC]

I honestly don't know fresh, how you get over this. But one thing I know from experience, is that the things that first attract us to someone are often the things that repulse us later.

If you want an honest opinion, and please understand I am fully aware how arbitrary this advice is, given that I know neither of you beyond the snippets you have posted here: relationships shouldn't be such hard work.

I know there's an old adage that relationships take work...but too many of us end up in relationships that are all about work. You are so young, I know you don't feel that way sometimes, but you are. Life will throw many complicated things your way and you could do a lot worse than try and make your college years as uncomplicated as possible.

If you are getting to the stage where you are hating aspects of her and then transferring that to the culture she's from, then I'd suggest you are in an overly complicated relationship which is likely to end with one or both of you being very hurt. I'd take this as a warning that maybe you are investing in the wrong relationship.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You can start by accepting the fact that you are going to "meet" people you will dislike, for reasons that you can't rationalize as politically correct.

[manephelien]

Fresh, I haven't been here very long and basically don't know any of you here very well yet. However, DanaC and Bruce are both correct: relationships shouldn't be as hard as what you're facing now.

Take a step back and consider what you really want from life. The cultural divide is very hard to cross, and while some mixed relationships certainly work, diverse cultural backgrounds just make things even harder, and they can be hard enough with someone with the same cultural background.

And yeah, I find companies reading employees' email unacceptable unless it's a court order, so you can only imagine how I feel about logging in under someone else's name. If the DSL acts up, let it act up, it's no excuse for logging in under another name.

[zippyt]

[queequeger]

Originally Posted by Hime

such as asking for naked pictures,

Oh my lord. My fiance (is it fiancee for a woman?) agreed to send some nudie pics to a male friend before we were dating... So the other day we're on the phone and she asks me if I'm ok with that (she hadn't gotten around to it and now the friend brought it up again). Well, of course my first reaction was GuhguhguhWHA!? And all the male bluster entailed. It didn't help that they had almost had/tried to have sex once (again, before dating).

I was pissed for her even asking. But, then I changed my mind. I don't know why, maybe because she's sending them to me, too (we're not co-located, so it's a lonely endeavor, this engagement) .. maybe because they're 'tasteful' i.e. no 'money shots'. I would call it swallowing my pride, but I think what really did it was I have no fears whatsoever, no matter how small, of her leaving me or having any feelings for this guy or others. So in the end I don't care.

I just thought it was funny because it caught me so off guard, and here it happened to someone else. No massages or anything, though.

[queequeger]

Oh my god, I just watched that video. Laughed til I cried, two thumbs.