Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [86]
Finally, negotiating sexual relationships and finding a marriage partner is problematic. Dating, sexual relationships, and courtship are complex even for native-born Americans. These activities require judgment and the ability to send and receive subtle signals. They involve understanding the nuances of flirting and knowing how to set limits and negotiate consensual sex.
In our culture, dating begins as early as age twelve or thirteen. By the time most Americans are in their mid-twenties they have been learning to date for over a decade. As young adults, they have had trial-and-error learning and they've talked to dozens of friends about their experiences. They have read books, listened to songs, and seen movies that have taught them how to manage their dating.
Newcomers often have had none of these experiences. Many come from cultures in which young men and women have no contact with members of the opposite sex, except for their relatives. They have no scripts for actively seeking out a partner, winning that partner's affection, and negotiating a relationship. Our ways of dating are incomprehensible to many newcomers. Indeed, what we consider dating, they have been taught is deeply sinful.
Many young adults want to marry, but they have absolutely no idea how to go about finding a mate. If they proceed as Americans do, they will alienate members of their own culture. They are not supposed to be dancing and talking to members of the opposite sex. However, if they wait for someone to arrange their marriage, they will remain single. They don't know where to go to meet a potential marriage partner, what to say to a member of the opposite sex, what behavior is appropriate for dating, or how to ask someone to marry them.
Refugees in Lincoln may want to marry someone from their culture, but there are no potential mates in Nebraska. As young adults from the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia have grown to trust me, they often ask, "Do you know someone I can marry?"
When refugees try to approach someone from another culture, they are liable to make serious mistakes. A local woman tutored a Congolese man in English. At their second session he asked for her hand in marriage. He was very upset when she turned him down. He assumed that if she spent time with him she wanted to marry him.
There are many misunderstandings about the signals certain behaviors send. Many women from traditional cultures dress in fashionable and sexy American clothes but would be deeply offended by American-style sexual advances. Or they have been warned that all American men want sex and they are frightened by even the most innocent offers of friendship.
In some cultures a kiss is a prelude to sex. Women are very careful about whom they kiss because to them it signals a sexual commitment. Once they have kissed, they will have sex. American men find these women incredibly cold—until they talk them into a kiss. Then they are amazed at how rapidly the women hurl themselves at them. On the other hand, the women are deeply disappointed in American men. They think that a kiss is a marriage proposal and are heartbroken and angry when the man doesn't offer to marry them.
Dating and courtship are emotional minefields. The misunderstandings that inevitably occur are so often embarrassing, scary, or painful that newcomers withdraw from all attempts at courtship. Then they are lonely. A woman from Belarus spoke of "womb pain," which she attributed to the desire of her womb to carry a child. But she was thirty-three years old, spoke little English, and was unlikely to ever marry and have the children she so deeply wanted.
One women from Moldova kept falling in love with her married supervisors at work. She felt ashamed and guilty about this. She couldn't understand why this happened. I told her, "You are falling in love with the idea of a good husband, someone who is respectable and would care for you. Your yearning for this is understandable." She was grateful for my explanation, but I couldn't find her that caring man she