Man here. I've been dating no-mos since leaving. A lot of my dates are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, but usually speak very clear English. Right now, I am dating a woman for whom English is not her primary language. She's incredibly smart, interesting and sexy to me. But I feel almost shy about joking around and being charming when with her because some of the humor is lost on her. Our communication isn't bad. We can talk on all kinds of serious topics. But humor seems strained. It's put a slight barrier in the way for me, because I like to use humor to ease the seriousness of it. Still, she seems to like going out.

What I am asking for here is advice on how to ease the tension that the slight communication block is causing.

Humor can really vary from culture to culture. I would try talking to her about what or whom she finds funny.

It could also be that she's a very literal person. A lot of humor is based on word play, and if a person takes things very literally, a lot of jokes may go right over her head. My mom was that way.

...and yes, humor is absolutely the hardest thing to get over.

Sometimes even when two people speak the exact same languages there can be a barrier in communication.

My advice would be to try humor for a little bit, and then move on and find something that does ease the seriousness. In the place of humor I always learned the naughty, bedroom slang, of their language. Turkish can be quite dirty... :)

I briefly dated a young woman from Russia. She had been in the US about two years when we met. While we could talk about anything, humor was lost on her.

We actually talk about this subject explicitly. Her jokes weren't funny to me, and mine weren't funny to her. It's because so much of humor is contextual or cultural. It just takes time. We aren't dating anymore but we still chat occasionally and her sense of humor is becoming more "Americanized". It takes a while.

(I wish it had lasted. Her and her Russian friends were NOTHING like American women. I've dated around quite a bit, no offense ladies, most American women are catty and have an overwhelming attitude of entitlement.)

Try to learn her language. She'll love you for it.

Ron

I married a European, and it was a lot harder to mix cultures than I thought it would be, and I had a lot of schooling in Cultural Anthropology, so I thought I wasn't going in blind to it all.

I'm the type that takes a lot of new and interesting to keep me from getting bored. I walk and drive new routes just to see something different etc.

Being in a relationship with a hot woman from a different culture works well for me in that regard, but it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. We've met in the middle somewhat after 10 years. Now people ask me were my accent is from.

Did you ever see those Jerry Seinfeld shows where he'd be dating some woman who was perfect until he found the slightest most unimportant flaw? And then he obsessed on that one thing that made the woman not exactly right for him?

Maybe you should ask: "Am I turning into Jerry Seinfeld?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld_%28character%29#cite_note-theserenitynow-3


Breakups

Jerry's approach to relationships is notoriously fickle, and he has broken up with women, or provoked them into breaking up with him for some of the most trivial of reasons.

Jerry gets dumped:

* Because he admitted to changing the size 32 to size 31 of all his jeans because he "doesn't want to be a 32" ("The Sponge").
* For snooping around her closet having become suspicious of her wearing the same dress on every date ("The Seven").
* Because she had "man hands", which he comes to terms with, but is then caught riffling through her purse looking for a photo of a supermodel George needed ("The Bizarro Jerry").
* Because he, having secretly become a vegetarian, kept spitting out the mutton she cooked for him and hiding it in her napkins ("The Wink").
* Because she discovered he'd been getting her drunk so he and his friends could play with her collection of antique toys ("The Merv Griffin Show").
* Because he cheats on his "wife" to give another woman his family dry-cleaning discount ("The Wife").
* Because she thinks she saw him scratch his nose from the side, making it look like he picked it ("The Pick").

Jerry dumps them:

* For eating her peas one at a time ("The Engagement").
* For refusing to taste his pie at the coffee shop and later getting her father's restaurant shut down by the health board("The Pie").
* Because she had once dated Newman, who had ended the relationship ("The Big Salad").
* Because she wouldn't give him a massage ("The Masseuse").
* Because she liked a commercial that he hated ("The Phone Message").

"The world's first truly mutual breakup"

* Because she(his fiance) acted in the same manner as him: "I can't be with somebody like me! I hate myself!". ("The Invitations")

...dating a girl from another culture is an immensely difficult thing to do sometimes. It is another world completely.

Fourth language. Arabic is one, French is two, then some African language is his third and then finally he learned English. He speaks well, but yes, we did have a problem with humor. I actually decided it was something that I would have to sacrafice because I loved him and just wanted to be with him even if he didn't understand all of my humor (and I didn't understand his either by the way) BUT over the years it's gotten so much better.

I'm so glad I didn't let the language be a barrier between us. It took extra work but it's been so worth it!