Ms. Worldwide

The great wordsmith and internationally acclaimed rapper Pitbull once said:

“You can’t catch me boy
I am overseas at about a hundred Gs for sure
Don’t test me boy (don’t test me boy) ’cause I rap with the best
Fo’ sho three oh five to the death of me
Cremate my body let the ocean have what’s left of me
But for now forget about that
Blow the whistle, baby you’re the referee”

I’m not totally sure what he meant, but I thought it would be a great intro to this post about ~international love~

Now that I’ve been on the island for about a month, I’ve already had the chance to go through my full cycle of downloading dating apps, going on a few dates, getting overwhelmed, deciding it’s just not a good time for me to date, deleting my apps, and cutting off all ties with the people I’ve been seeing. While this pattern was established long ago, it’s been fun to experience it through the added lens of cultural/ language differences!

Based on the limited experiences of me and my few other American friends on the island, dating abroad is just as much of a minefield as dating in the US. From what we’ve seen, the boys tend to move fast here—I went on a second date with a native Lanzarotean who told me he had already stopped using dating apps and didn’t want to meet other people. My friend went on a date with a Spanish guy from the mainland who was here for a job interview, and afterwards he told her he was moving his flight back by a week to spend more time with her. We’ve also encountered some sketchballs who won’t tell us their last name or refuse to meet up in a group setting—basically all of the normal precautions of internet dating apply, but it can be harder to get a read on someone’s intentions when there is a language barrier. At the end of the day we are all very thankful for the location-sharing feature on Whatsapp.

A Case Study: That time I dated Mr. Lanzarote 2015

For a few weeks I had consistently gone on dates with a native Lanzarotean who didn’t speak any English. He was more handsome than anyone I ever expected to date in my life (he won a male beauty pageant!!), but fortunately for me he loves redheads and has limited options on the island. Spending time with him was a great way to push my Spanish skills because I couldn’t resort to using English, but it also left me feeling strangely un-seen. So much of my self-perception rests on my humor, my intelligence, and my ability to connect with others. With my passable but limited Spanish, I don’t feel like any of those things come across. While I was able to make him laugh, it was more often good-natured teasing about my grammatical errors than appreciation of a joke I had made. It made me wonder what aspects of my personality were coming through, and if someone who didn’t speak my language could ever really know me. I also stressed about running out of things to talk about due to my limited vocabulary, and I wonder if he felt like he had to dumb himself down to make sure I was understanding him.

Aside from the language barriers, a few factors came up that ultimately led me to break things off with my Spanish model fake boyfriend. It is hard to separate which factors came down to cultural differences and which came down to temperament and personality. At first I felt smitten by his old-school chivalrous courting, but it quickly began to feel like too much, too fast. I also felt spooked by his apparent lack of social connections on an island where he has spent his entire life—maybe he’s an extreme introvert but it just gave me a bad feeling. I trusted my gut and decided to look elsewhere for my Spanish romance.

Going forward, I’m curious to see what possibilities there are for developing a relationship with someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language. Obviously, intercultural and interlingual (did I make up this word?) couples exist, and I only had a very brief attempt at making it work. Ideally, I suppose if I were to date someone who only spoke Spanish it would be someone who I had more in common with to start with (like, not a model bodybuilder who doesn’t drink or go to restaurants or socialize in any way), and my language skills would grow as my comfort level and sense of connection grew. Anyways, the experience was fun and I learned a little bit about what to expect from dating in Spain!

At least I’ve made some friends tho

Aside from my mixed success with dating, I’ve already cultivated a pretty active social life—the other English auxiliaries are all really great, and we’ve been exploring Arrecife and other parts of the island together quite a bit. The other weekend, a group of us went to Teguise market. This was my first time seeing the interior of the island, and the views were stunning. The landscape is so arid, getting into the mountains and away from the beaches really brings it home that this is a volcanic desert island—I’ve never seen anything like it before! Teguise is a small town in the mountains that has a massive Sunday market that draws locals and tourists alike. I was surprised and delighted by the size of the market. It reminded me of Usaquén in Bogotá, with a mixture of local artisans, kitschy imported goods, prepared foods, and more. One visit wasn’t enough to take it all in, and I’m looking forward to more Teguise trips—not to mention showing it off when I host visitors!