Caps #6--Geoffrey Gross

Romantic Relationships

Michelangelo has always had a love affair with pizza.

From Romeo and Juliet to Michelangelo and pizza, romantic relationships never fail to perk the interest of the spectator. Martin and Nakayama, define romantic relationships as intimate relationships that comprise love, involvement, sharing, openness, connectedness, and so on. Below I will provide examples of romantic relationships and the impact my new found knowledge on this type of relationship will have on my future understanding of intercultural relationships.

Relational Connections

Shakespeare is synonymous with Love. Through stories, poems and plays, he was able to embody the essence of human Romance. Yet,  Shakespeare is English, and his observations were of the English. The major question is how Romeo and Juliet’s relationship  differs from Mulan and Captain Li’s?  It turns out that in romantic relationships, individuals are looking for specific qualities, many of which are heavily dependent on their culture. Gao Ge, a communication researcher, has performed studies in which she identifies common themes  and differences shared by U.S. American and Chinese couples.  Openness, involvement and shared meanings are observed regardless of the couples culture. However, American couples find physical attraction, passions and love more important; where as, Chinese couples are more concerned with relational connections to family and others. Gao hypothesizes that the reason for these preferences stem from the individualistic and collectivist cultures of each cultural couple.

Passion and Love

Knowing the preferences of different cultures when entering in to a romantic relationship is semi-useful. If I were to meet a couple from a different place, like China, I may know a little bit of information about the couple, without them having to explicitly inform me. This may be beneficial to me if I am required to host a culturally-dissimilar couple in the future. As a host, with this kind of information, it may be easier for the couple to be befriended by my wife and I.

References:

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.