Why American Women Do Not Like Foreign Men

[ladislav]

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 922AAvwNR7

[KristineTheStrawberryGirl]

I am not representative of what is typical, because my husband is foreign and I mostly dated foreign men.

Despite being born and raised in America, I had too many cultural differences, which could not be resolved with most American men. I only knew 2 American men, which had potential to sort through that, but these 2 men were significantly different from the mainstream. I have some minor cultural differences with foreign men, but they are differences that a solid relationship would rise above easily.

Having said that, if I was going to tell you what *might* have turned me off from many of the foreign men I've known, I'd have to say it'd be their mothers. Most of them had very close relationships with their mothers, and that can be good in some respects, and bad in others. It's good if they have a cool mother, but many of them have overbearing, intrusive, judgmental and puritanical mothers ... Every stereotype your hear from many foreign men about Americans (puritanical, overbearing and control freaks), their mothers were 10 times worse in that regard! What makes it worse, most of them are blind to this and think that their mothers are saints. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but I kind of doubt it. I think that the generational differences are sometimes more pronounced in certain cultures ...

The united states tends to be kind of a youth-centered culture, and sometimes the older folks try to adjust to what they think may be the needs of the younger folks, while in some other cultures it's the other way around ... Some cultures are "grandma" centered, and I have even heard conservative radios talk show hosts make references to this. If you grow up in a youth centered culture, like America, it can be difficult to adjust to a grandma centered culture. If you are used to grandma having a dog to keep from being lonely and making special efforts to give you privacy, it can be a very difficult adjustment when you have obligations to humor grandma instead of having some romantic time alone ... It's good because it is a free baby sitter, but also bad because you almost feel like you never really moved out/got your own place ... feels like you live with parents ... lake of freedom/privacy.

I think in some respect, the USA lacks strength of family, but some other cultures push it to the other extreme. I believe that there is a good mean between the extremes ... somewhere, and that is my personal goal for my family.

This is probably not the usual view on this board, but as Winston will tell you, I am not trying to drink kool-aid from either side ... I just have my own opinion.

[Elliot72]

))

Next year I'm travelling.. with enough to last at least 6 months.

Love that wOOt Nugget. lol

[Frankly006]

The statement is leading and of course it's going to draw slanted answers. This is another fallacy but I forget which one, Begging the Question I believe.

Besides being vague and unquantifiable ('few' women 'like' foreign men,) there is nothing to really agree or disagree with. A fallacy where the question already contains the answer and the person posting is only looking for why their experience is the way it is, not to discuss whether or not it's true. This heading rings of a persecution complex. Unless one falls back on experiential data, which is in no way a means of establishing an accurate sampling of the inferred statistic, there is no way to discuss this.

So in my personal experiences, many American women prefer foreign men. It is so prevalent that it exists in the media. It's been in movies, news, books, you name it; American women like foreign guys. I've heard them talk about their accent and I've even toyed a few girls into arousal by speaking just a few phrases of French. I've had family members, relatives, friends, classmates and coworkers who dated foreign men. And they dated Germans, Polynesians, Chinese, Australian, Russian whatever.

The heading is meaningless and seems a result of unclear thinking.

[KristineTheStrawberryGirl]

I guess that I would have to say that in my personal experiences, Americans appear to be drawn towards foreign people. I don't know if it always pans out in the long term, but in terms of initial attraction, I think Americans are quite taken with foreigners. I would go as far as to say that sometimes it seems as though we are a somewhat xenocentric culture. Hence, the popularity of discussion forums like this one. I don't necessarily agree that this is a positive aspect, by the way.

[Jackal]

Educated Americans are temporarily drawn towards foreigners at places like cocktail parties. But after a few minutes or few hours they feel they have heard the foreigners' stories and inevitably lose interest and move on; most of the time Americans don't want to be socially, let alone romantically, involved with them.
I think that Americans sometimes go and talk to foreigners at parties to try and show off how nice they are to their American friends--it's like community service. It's just like when the "popular girl" at an almost all white high school dance smiles and talks to the black kid just to enhance her image of being kind (although her real inner personality might be quite different).
The exception of course is the American upper and middle class' fascination with the British with all their overtones of aristocracy. I imagine that the girls at Harvard would line up for hours for the chance to give Prince William a blowjob.

[momopi]

Educated Americans are temporarily drawn towards foreigners at places like cocktail parties. But after a few minutes or few hours they feel they have heard the foreigners' stories and inevitably lose interest and move on; most of the time Americans don't want to be socially, let alone romantically, involved with them.

Those are people with casual interest in foreign culture. If you're foreign-born and interested in an American girl, it's easier if you find one who already have strong interest in your native culture. i.e. for East Asians, try the girls who are into anime/manga/cosplay. Go to conventions and join cosplay groups, make sure you understand the hobby and not look like some poser. Check sites like fansview.com for examples. This method worked for me back in 1990's, not sure about today (hobby is more mainstream now) though.

Look for colleges that offer "Asian studies" classes and have a peak in the higher-level classes. In the lower level ones, like Japanese 101, you get a bunch of white guys with Asian fetishes. By 2nd or 3rd class, most of the "looking for Japanese GF" types have been filtered out. In many advanced foreign language classes you'd find more girls than guys, including some white girls who are really into East Asian culture.

Last year, when I was applying for a VISA to visit Mainland China, I bumped into this really good looking blond in the waiting queue at the PRC counsel in LA. She was about mid 20's and going to China to attend University, not sure if it's for advanced studies or some kind of study abroad program. She spoke decent rudimentary Chinese with accent and was definitely an Asianphile.

If you're Hispanic, I could suggest Salsa dancing classes. It's quite popular some girls in California, and they go nuts over Hispanic or Spanish guys who can really dance. You get a mix of ethnicities (White, Asian, Hispanic, etc) too.


One issue with American girls and foreign guys is that, while they're in college the girls are more open to experimenting. You can date inter-racially more easily as young women are exploring their newfound sexuality. But once they get out of college and settle into the workplace, they become far less open. To have a chance with one you either have to be good looking, have charisma, or join some kind of special interest group (hobby, gym, hiking, club, ?) where you meet people with similar interest that you can "hit it off" with.

I've tried chatting with girls in grocery stores and the results aren't that great. Malls are a little better, and I don't even bother with the bars here. I have a friend who joined a local jogging club and he's done OK meeting several girls. I'm going to try joining local hiking groups and see how that works out.

[Jackal]

You have a point, Momopi. I guess I what I was really thinking about was the how difficult it is for foreign men to be taken seriously (just socially not even romantically) by upper class or upper middle class American women, especially in the tradition-bound Northeast. They would have to be Hamid Karzai or Arnold Schwarzenegger to even be given the time of day. Only in the face of British or perhaps other royalty from some former European superpowers (i.e. France, Germany, Austria, etc.) would the American upper class feel a tinge of inferiority.

I imagine that out west in a racially diverse area that things might be a different ball game; you are not under the weight of so much history out there. So much about society is about social class and perceptions of relative power and status. Not to mention that there seems to be a prevalent uneasiness with foreign cultures in many parts of America. Many working class Americans almost interpret learning a foreign language as being "crazy" or "unpatriotic", however they can be very accepting of foreigners who speak decent English and who are dedicated to conforming to American culture (especially those who worship American sports stars). I guess what I'm driving at is that foreigners often have to really hide expressions of their native culture in order for them to fit-in in the US--or be able to "sell" their native cultures to Americans in an unbelievable cool manner.

[momopi]

You have a point, Momopi. I guess I what I was really thinking about was the how difficult it is for foreign men to be taken seriously (just socially not even romantically) by upper class or upper middle class American women, especially in the tradition-bound Northeast. They would have to be Hamid Karzai or Arnold Schwarzenegger to even be given the time of day. Only in the face of British or perhaps other royalty from some former European superpowers (i.e. France, Germany, Austria, etc.) would the American upper class feel a tinge of inferiority.

With exception to a short period that I spent living in New Jersey, I have almost zero experience with the American North East. You're probably more of an expert in that area than most of us here. hehehe.

I think for every race, there's some negative stereotype that you have to deal with. I can't always defeat negative pre-conceptions, but I could try to make a better first impression.

Comparison of styles:
Mike Shinoda & wife from Linkin Park (just went to his concert last night!):
http://images26.fotki.com/v936/photos/1 ... 673-vi.jpg

vs. "Hiro Nakamura" (Masi Oka):
http://inieto.files.wordpress.com/2007/ ... heroes.jpg

[kristy_571]

I'm an American woman, and I prefer foreign, and "older" (at least 10 years my senior or more) men. I used to date American men my age when I was a teenager, but when I started maturing, I realized I had nothing in common with them. I know that there are alot of decent American guys, but for me, it seems that "foreign" men have better family values, and want to settle down and get married/have kids much more so than American guys. However, if I were to find one American guy who wanted a family and children, that would treat me the same as he would those foreign girls/mail order brides he is always after, then I would happily change my views and proclaim American men to be decent creatures.

[kristy_571]

I am not representative of what is typical, because my husband is foreign and I mostly dated foreign men.



Having said that, if I was going to tell you what *might* have turned me off from many of the foreign men I've known, I'd have to say it'd be their mothers. Most of them had very close relationships with their mothers, and that can be good in some respects, and bad in others. It's good if they have a cool mother, but many of them have overbearing, intrusive, judgmental and puritanical mothers ... Every stereotype your hear from many foreign men about Americans (puritanical, overbearing and control freaks), their mothers were 10 times worse in that regard! What makes it worse, most of them are blind to this and think that their mothers are saints. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but I kind of doubt it. I think that the generational differences are sometimes more pronounced in certain cultures ...

I actually find this for the most part to be okay. My experience is, if you try to understand the mother, then perhaps they will soften towards you and then you will be accepted. I find that Middle Eastern men-epecially well educated, young Egyptian men tend to be the closest to their mothers.

[ladislav]

I respect people who take apart my logic, ( or lack thereof) and pinpoint popular logical fallacies( I have read a book on the main fallacies and I can see them). However, while I do admit that the article had such flaws, it does not take apart the fact that couples in which a man is foreign and a women is American are very rare. It is just my observation over many many years. Again, it also depends on which kind of foreigner you are. First World white foreigners will probably have very little trouble dating in the USA. A Brit, an Aussie, a Dutchman, a romantic Frenchman would fare very well. However, there are very few of those in the US. Wealthy W. Europeans and people from the Antipodes, as a general rule, are just a trickle compared to tens of millions of other men from poorer countries. Ask them how well they are faring dating girls in the US. Mostly not very well; very few want to date them. It is just the truth, what can I tell you? Ask them and see what they have to say. Look around and see how many American gals have foreign bf/husbands vs vice versa.

In the Philippines, Thailand, Latin America, even in the xenophobic Japan just about every guy ends up with a local woman. In the US it is almost always a foreign man with either a woman from his country or a woman from another country. Mostly just the former. You hear so often- "my parents are from this country, my parents are from that country".Think about millions of Mexican and Asian men in the US and how many of AW- FM couples from these countries do you see?

Again, until we see actual stats it is hard to prove things so I will just ask you to look around and tell me if I am wrong if you consider majority of cases. Only after the second generation the mixture begins. Some melting pot it is!

There is another very unpleasant part about the American culture- a naturalized citizen is seen as 'foreign" socially, although not legally. People in the US almost never ask you "what is your citizenship?" They ask you " Where are you from originally?" there is also the "American born and raised" expression. So, birth in the US is seen as some kind of special provilege.

Even after people are born in the US, so many times they are refered to as Italians, Japanese, Chinese etc. Or they are hyphenated. No such thing in say, many parts of Latin America. In Brazil and Argentina, a naturalized citizen who speaks the language well is a local now.

The inherent trait of labeling people ethnically in the US is another thing that stalls the melting pot from really melting the way it should. That is why you have so many more angry ethnic neighborhoods in the US than in other, more racially relaxed parts of the world.

[woodwater]

why bother with americans when we have dutch,german,norwegian, italian, who are so much sexier gals than yanks

The worst James Bond movies are the ones with American actresses.
A bimbo with an european accent sounds mysterious,a bimbo with an American accent sounds like...a Bimbo
besides many american women still think americans are the tallest and strongest guys in the world when in fact they lost height to europeans over the past 4 decades and now look like minnows trying to look like whales

[woodwater]

anyway, and Ladislav may confirm this, i may yet end up in the States wedded to an American for this simple reason- Im not interested in America.

Normally guys who would have it easy moving to a country,say Australia, dont really want to go, whereas the ones who would love to live there find it very difficult to get the Visa.
Since i despise good ol`USA, and never think about it (i even watch American movies dubbed in German to improve my German and not having to hear the awful Yank accent) i deduce I may yet SURPRISINGLY be taken to the US by good old DESTINY

[MatureDJ]

As others have noted, the main reason is that the typical white American woman will only want to date a white man who is as high on the socioeconomic scale. The typical white American man is more open to dating women of other races (blacks excepted), and is much more open to dating a poorer woman.

Concerning physical requirements in the dating partner, the typical woman only seems to be highly concerned that her man is tall, and most non-white men are shorter than white men. The typical man, OTOH, is concerned that his woman have a sexy figure; because the typical available American woman is obese, he is much more interested in the sexy foreigner.