HOW TO DATE A FOREIGNER

A guide to decoding the dating practices and mindsets of other cultures.

Halter, a Hungarian-British entrepreneur who has traveled the world, conducted dozens of interviews with people in the dating pool from 2016 to 2023 and came up with a set of schematics, her “CultureZ spectrum,” to help readers navigate the international waters of the dating world. On this spectrum, cultures range from the more liberal West to the more conservative East, moving from the “Hugging Style” of more culturally open societies to the “Bowing Style” of more hierarchical (and more sexist) cultures. In “Hugging Style” cultures, for instance, clear communication is part of the dating style, whereas in “Bowing Style” cultures such communication can come across as “blunt or not having class.” Likewise in “Bowing Style” cultures, men will often court women for one to two years and are dating to marry; in “Hugging Style” cultures, things are more casual. Halter touches on all aspects of dating, from first dates to who pays to conversational styles to sexual expectations, and she illustrates these aspects with anecdotes about various couples, like an American young man named Scott who’s living in Vietnam and dating a woman named Linh, noting all the cultural differences. “Even just holding someone’s hand is a big deal here,” Scott reports. “Forget about kissing a girl on the first date!” Halter’s lively, well-illustrated breakdown of these variables is open to debate (and, as she points out on the subject of intimacy during dating, time is changing those variables), but the subject itself is widespread and pressing (she cites a UN Population Division estimate that as of mid-2020, the world has over 280 million international migrants). Her contention that Western societies are more guilt-driven and Asian societies more shame-avoidant may strike some readers as overly simplistic, but her bibliography, complete with links, will provide international daters with a good deal of food for thought.

An energetic, example-rich consideration of the global spectrum of dating practices.