I married a foreigner

Is dating an exotic man like being on holiday every day?

By Susannah Conway

He only had to say "ciao bella" and I was melting. With his permanent tan from a childhood living by the Mediterranean and his effortlessly stylish dress sense he made all my English exes look pale and boring in comparison. Everything he said, everything he did, was just so... well, so sexy.

Dating a foreigner is like being on holiday every day. There's a new culture to discover, possibly a new language to be learnt and seemingly a whole new way to look at the world. Where once women expected to settle down with the boy next door, now we have a global pond to fish in, and with internet dating, chat rooms and the ubiquity of the holiday romance, The One might just be carrying a different passport to you.

Thirty-year-old Laura met Chris while backpacking through Australia: "He wasn't the kind of guy I'd expected an Aussie bloke to be - he was very gentle and could talk about his emotions even better than me." After two months of a whirlwind romance, Louise flew home, not knowing when she'd see Chris again.

"The two years we were together I had the most horrendous phone bills. I went back to Australia a couple of times and Chris came over here as well. Each time we discussed whether I should apply for a visa and move to Australia permanently, but as time went on, it became harder to make the decision to leave the UK. We missed each other so much, but the distance meant we were effectively single in our own countries."

For Chris and Laura, the miles between them meant their relationship ultimately didn't last, but for Caroline, 27, and David, her Swedish husband, it was a different story: "We met on holiday in Barcelona and right from the beginning there was such a strong connection between us. After a year of back and forth between the two countries I decided to move to Stockholm to be with David, and two years later we got married."

If communication is the key to any good relationship, what happens when you're both literally speaking different languages? "Luckily David spoke fluent English, so there weren't too many misunderstandings," says Caroline. "Now I'm living in Stockholm I'm learning Swedish. It's not the easiest language to learn, but being surrounded by all our Swedish friends is helping. I've definitely been thrown in the deep end!"

For Gian Luca and I the language barrier was a problem at first. As he lived in England his fluency was fast improving - particularly as I was his live-in English teacher - but when we went to Italy to visit his family things became trickier for me - there are only so many times you can spend an evening with people and have absolutely no idea what they're saying before you get bored. Not being able to talk properly with his family, particularly his mother, was difficult. It felt like a part of his life I couldn't truly be involved in.

Sarah, 31, a Canadian living in Devon, has a slightly different twist on the problem with her British partner of three years, Matt: "There isn't a language barrier between us, but we definitely don't speak the same language! I have a very Canadian sense of humour, and my sensitive little Brit took a long time to realise that I was teasing him a lot of the time."

Another tricky area to navigate is the differences in upbringing. With our friends we have a shared history of school systems, qualifications and pop culture, something which a foreigner won't have. John Craven's Newsround might not have been a daily topic of conversation, but when out with my friends Gian Luca couldn't always join in with our reminiscences and jokes, which left him feeling like an outsider.

"It's hard to always have to be the 'foreigner'," says Sarah. "No matter which country we are in, one of us is always going to be different. We always have to explain our decisions to people - everyone either thinks our life is completely romantic or completely frightening."

Just as Laura had carried a preconception of what Australian men were like, the stereotypical notions we have about other nationalities can play a part in how we expect our foreign partner to behave. For example, I discovered that Italian men truly are mummy's boys as Gian Luca was certainly still attached to Mama's apron strings. She would phone him every night, and when we moved in together I realised there was an unspoken expectation that I, as the woman, would do most of the cooking because he couldn't cook to save his life - Mama had always cooked for him.

But these problems aside, falling in love with a man from another country could be your ticket to a whole new world, both literally and figuratively, as Caroline explains: "Moving to Stockholm felt like coming home in a way. I settled in so easily, and I'm surprised I don't miss England more. The culture here has opened my eyes to a whole new way of living."

After four years Gian Luca and I went our separate ways, but I'll always be grateful to him for teaching me not only how to pronounce foccacia and Montepulciano correctly, but for showing me another part of the world, away from the rainy skies of England.

But while foreign men carry the allure of the other, don't forget to check out what we have at home too. I'll leave the last word to Sarah: "I love that some Englishmen remain perfect gentlemen around women - even when they are falling down drunk. I love that some English guys really care about what they wear and are often cleaner and more groomed than most women! But the real reason that I love one particular English guy is that there is no one else like him in the whole world. It doesn't matter where he's from - he's wonderful, and he's mine."

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