Love life and immigrants

The concept the man has to pay for the dates. What a time travel!

It's no more than a reminiscence of the macho dominant society of the past.

You see, women were not allowed to work. Or study. Or live their own lives - usually they were a burden for families who had to pretty much pay some guy to marry them and become the responsible (and in a way "owner", as bad as it sounds) of that person. Women were subjugated and in a way enslaved. In this scenario they NEEDED a man just merely survive - eat, have a roof, have clothes, and even to get the slightest respect and social acceptance from society.

Barbaric, isn't it?

A man would treat his wife with dinners and gifts, and bringing food home, not exactly for selfless reasons, but in a good part to inflate his self esteem. "I provide for this home", "I take you out", "I put food on this table", "I get you nice things". It's basically saying "look how great I am!", mixed with a great emotional blackmail line that pretty much says "I do everything for you, I keep you alive, warm and fed, and look how ungrateful you are!". I would even extrapolate things a bit here and ask you one thing: If you insert an unsurpassable communication barrier, and get rid of any sexual content (and what comes with it, like jealousy), doesn't that relationship kind of remember the one we have with our pet dogs?

Times changed, fortunately, and with that the social dynamics changes. In some countries women like to establish an inverted relation, as in some Scandinavian countries where the women feels the need to be the one paying for the whole thing. Many other countries, usually developed ones, believe in equality, either each person paying for what they had, or sharing the bill, or taking turns to buy the round of drinks. But some countries seem to clutch to the past with their both hands, and both men and women still believe the man has to pay for everything. That strikes me a bit unfair...to both! You see, they are both working now, taking care of their own lives, making their own decisions, as they should, and even though there's a big debate about income disparity and the lack of equal rights, they are both working people, with the same value, and making the same money (or so they should). Why one has to pay for the other (being the Danish woman paying for the man, or the Brazilian man paying for the woman)? If you look on the long run that is a pretty big blow on the budget, and would even, in very extreme (and stupid) cases, be ground to advocate for bigger wages for man (or for those Danish women I mentioned before) - after all they have this extra expense they can't escape. Wouldn't it be just better to simply pay together somehow, and earn equally? But money isn't the biggest problem here, in my humble opinion, but the sneaky statement that makes for both. Might be unspoken and even not consciously thought, but it is there, trust me, it is. From one side it is something like "Am I, as a person, not worth of this person's company if I didn't have to pay? If I didn't have to put an extra, to balance things out?", and the other person have the creeping feeling of "Am I someone one can pay to be with? Does it have any strings attached to this unspoken contract where I get paid things, paid for my company, indirectly in the same way as a prostitute?". It is disrespectful and devaluating for both!

But things can get worst. As in any unbalanced situation, things get a bit extreme when you put them through the immigrant lenses. I'm not talking about those (rare, in a way) cases of the expat who has a nice career and the company decides to relocate their staff to another country. I'm talking about your regular middle or low class who moves to another country to try a better life, having to start mostly everything from scratch. I'm not saying the company expat have it easy, but things get more extreme for the latter.

So you have this person who moves to a new country, usually a bit far from fluent in the language, usually unable to use previous education (at least initially), usually unable to find a decent job (at least initially as well), far from friends and family, most likely not knowing anybody, not knowing how things work, which documents to get, which rights this person have, having to face prejudice in all areas (getting a job, making friends, dating, opening a bank account), not unlikely having to pay for a visa or something that provides that visa, and also not exactly rarely sending money home to help the family.

This person just went for a rather difficult challenge. And in some societies things just get harder to a paradox level.

So you have a bad job, you are likely to be exploited and underpaid, probably living in on overcrowded house that is what you can afford, spending a lot of time and money commuting, getting lonely for the lack of friends, family, dates. You are struggling, juggling with your morale and finances. And then you finally get yourself a date (through some app, as it seems to be the only way nowadays). But then you just HAVE to pay for both of you on EVERY SINGLE TIME you see this person. A huge blow on an already stifling financial life, and a huge blow on an already debilitated sense of self worth.

You will have to choose between the cycle of making your money situation even worse, or making your lonely situation even worse.

So, put some thought about your prehistoric mindset about relationships - at least when it comes to be going out with a beaten enough immigrant.




Posted by Ricardo Ceratti.