CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

When my French fiancé and I got engaged, we knew that with enough wine and a convivial meal, our two families would communicate without words, and we were never wrong about that. After all, the French are known for food and celebrating the art of entertaining and dining. However, while our families' cultural differences disappeared at the dinner table, ours, as a couple, required a bit more work.

This week, I was introduced to a little show called "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." I have heard people joke and make fun of the show but I had never taken time out to pay it any attention. Just hearing the title made me curious enough to ask: What the hell is a "Honey Boo Boo"?

Sometimes love is blind, especially when your partners supports the opposing political party. But, even a loving relationship can combust when those contrasting viewpoints lead to conflicts.

Many years ago an Edwin Markham poem inspired me, and I’ve tried to live by it: "Outwitted" He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

My boyfriend had plans to go to a celebration party for one of our friends. His mother called him and said one of his friends was moving out of state on Monday, this was a Saturday. He never told his mom that he had plans at 3pm and he was wanted to coming over to his moms at 1:30. He told me an hour would be plenty of time to visit and say goodbye.

Many years ago, in 2001 to be exact, and certainly way before the trendy masculine vs. feminine energy debate had been aroused, Laura Doyle, author of, “The Surrendered Wife,” inspired by Dr John Gray’s Martian and Venusians cultural differences, had a few things to say about the topic.

Living in a foreign country and enjoying a cross-cultural relationship can be one of the most rewarding — and challenging — experiences one could ever imagine. I never thought I'd be in one when I first went to France in my early twenties. However, the universe had other plans when in my first week of classes I laid eyes on the man who would be my husband for 27 years.

Dear Dr. Romance: I recently met a divorced Russian woman with her teenage old son while on vacation, we spent a lot of time together. I enjoyed their company very much. We keep seeing each other and I recently spent 4 days at her lavish home in the United States.

Part of the reason Wendi Deng Murdoch's "slap heard round the world" made such an impact was that it seemed to suggest "I love my husband," rather than "I love my husband's money"—the latter being the assumption most people would make about any marriage with a 38-year age gap, especially when the older person is wealthy and powerful. In China, the reaction to that slap was no less surprised, but unlike in the West, this was not the first time the Chinese masses found reason to praise Wendi Deng's marriage to Murdoch and his business empire. The first came when she married Murdoch in the first place. It's good to be reminded that all the things we take for granted about how relationships should be approached, about what we should expect from men and love and marriage, about age differences and levels of attraction—as in the case of Wendi and Rupert Murdoch—are mere accidents of life and experience and culture. This is what I learned as a Westerner living and dating in Beijing, at least.