5 Must-Read Tips for Keeping a Foreign Flame Alive
If you’re like us and are always looking for easy ways to travel more, there’s no doubt you’ve already stalked the best travel bloggers and nailed down your packing technique. While you’re busy preparing for the romantic views, make sure that you’re mentally prepared for the romantic experiences that may meet you abroad. Relationship expert and author Ty Tashiro says transatlantic relationships can totally work — if you know how to navigate the waters.
5 Tips for Keeping a Foreign Flame Alive
1. Take advantage of your access to a new culture. While personality traits can span across continents and cultures, your cultural experiences do not. Dating someone overseas can be an awesome opportunity to see a culture from a really intimate perspective. When you see a country through someone you care about, “this whole world is opened up to you… that you wouldn’t get to experience otherwise,” Tashiro says.
2. BUT put the relationship before the experiences. Even though exploring a new world with a new boo is a once-in-a-lifetime, exhilarating experience, Tashiro recommends keeping perspective. If those awesome experiences are something that you want to last, balance all the worldly fun by maintaining a relationship at the same time.
3. Anticipate change. Chances are your new boo lives in a different country than you. Especially when you’re traveling, Tashiro says to expect and embrace change in yourself. “You change so much in your early twenties already,” Tashiro said. “The probability of that process speeding up when you’re in different environments and cultures is exponential.” However, change isn’t a bad thing. If you change alongside your partner, those shared experiences could bond you for a long time.
4. Choose FaceTime and Skype over text and email. Today’s instant global communication means that long-distance relationships have more potential to survive than ever. However, Tashiro suggests being very selective about which avenue you choose: “FaceTime and Skype make the maximum number of social cues available. You can see someone’s facial expression and hear the tone in their voice at the same time, whereas text and email actually counteract those cues.”
5. Spend time together. A key to keeping a foreign flame alive is planning for more face-to-face contact. Digital communication can certainly bond you during time apart, but it’s no replacement for the OG face time. “How nice is it to be able to cuddle, kiss and hold hands with someone?” Tashiro says. “This tactile component of a relationship is important neurologically and hormonally to maintaining a romantic bond.”
Have any tips and tricks for navigating foreign love? Let us know @BritandCo!
(Photo via Getty)
