Date a Foreigner at Least Once in Your Life

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you dated more? How happy do you think you would be today if you took a few more risks?

I get that the happily married (or single!) lot would beg to be excused from such a mental exercise. And rightfully so. But not everyone has been lucky in love. Maybe a twist here, a turn there, and life wouldn’t have been this complicated or miserable.

This brings us to the topic of dating foreigners. It’s something you have got to try at least once in your life! I have, and it’s something I wish I had the courage to do much earlier.

A Blast to the Past

My interest in foreigners started in high school. Sometime around the 10th grade, an exchange group of Japanese boys sat in our classes for about a week. What ensued was a mass hypnosis of the entire high school female population. These boys had immaculate skin, sharp jawlines, and stylishly messy hair. They spoke limited English, which made them dreamingly mysterious. And with Japanese anime at its peak, everything else in school was reduced to a blur.

Then they went back to Japan and we all went back to normal life.

Since then, I’ve had a few run-ins with teenage boys from Europe on my weekenders to Spain, Italy, and France. I used to attend youth conventions, so naturally, I had the opportunity to make friends with the locals. Being a conservative teenager, I kept my interactions clean and PG. But that never stopped me from crushing on the boys, who I found cutest when they talked heatedly about that year’s World Cup.

For a while, these experiences had me thinking — what if I had made an effort to get close to them? It would have been nice to date a foreigner. The thought excites me!

We Should Try Everything at Least Once!

Sometimes in life, we have to take risks. Take from this pearl of wisdom: You don’t regret the things you did. You regret the things you didn’t do.

I’m not saying we have the free license to do everything mindlessly and irrationally. Everything we do needs a true and discerning purpose. For example, just saying I want to experience everything doesn’t mean I need to binge on every illegal drug on the (black) market.

It does mean that if I think I need to go on an African safari at least once in my life, I should at least try.

The same applies to love and dating, and more so in some cases. Do you regret NOT saying “I love you” when you had the chance? Do you regret NOT telling the person how you truly feel? Do you regret NOT breaking up with the person before they had the chance to irreparably damage you?

What does trying things out do for you?

It teaches you what you want and don’t want. Would I be happily married to a Japanese guy? Or an Italian? Would I be happy living there? I don’t know, because I never did. So for you, go ahead and try to date a foreigner.

Like Traveling, We Learn So Much

Some say that there is no better education than to travel. When you travel, you understand life better. Your worldview changes. You become more open-minded. Your many preconceptions of how the world works and how people behave are put to the test. People who travel normally return with a sense of enlightenment.

Dating a foreigner has similar effects.

Imagine spending time with someone who lives differently from you. This person eats different food, had a totally different childhood from you, doesn’t get any of your references, and hates things that don’t seem to bother you. And all that is okay, because as different as you are, it’s what you have in common that keeps you together.

Will You Regret it?

Just think for one second. There are over 7 billion people on earth right now. What if you could be the happiest guy in the world, and all you needed to do was meet 1 person? The only caveat? She’s in Thailand, just getting off work. She doesn’t even know you exist. Would you go find her?

This kind of hypothetical thinking should change the way you think. Many successful rich businessmen became that way because they traveled, learned something new, brought that knowledge to their home country, and made a business out of it.

Why shouldn’t it be the same in dating?

Out There, Someone Wants You

There’s a saying that one man’s trash is another one’s treasure. Disclaimer: I’m not calling anyone trash! It’s a metaphor.

You could be miserably lonely now. No one understands you. You’re too old-fashioned. You’re too lame. You’re too fill-in-the-blank-that’s-why-you’re-single.

But what if you could be just who you are, your naturally beautiful self, AND be enough for someone?

For every nerdy car enthusiast, there’s a person who loves nerdy car enthusiasts. For every struggling musician, there’s a groupie who’s into tragic bohemians. For every you, there is someone who wants to be with you.

The Internet Exists. There’s No Excuse.

Not dating foreigners would have been perfectly acceptable a little while back when people fought with swords and worshiped rocks.

Today, we have a little thing called the Internet. This means that you could be chatting up Miss Velasquez down in Mexico City right now just because she has a social media profile. You could be halfway through the arctic circle, and be sending I-love-yous to Miss Chan in Shenzhen. On a sat-phone, of course.

Which goes back to my initial story. We didn’t have the internet in high school. At least, not today’s version of the internet. If we did, I would have made friends from all over the globe, perhaps like all the kids these days are doing.

Who knows who your soulmate is? It could be someone from down the street. It could be someone you know right now. It could also be someone halfway around the world. And wouldn’t you want to find out?