Dating isn’t an easy job, especially when the person you date has a peculiar personality. Now, it’s not a fact that a Ukrainian girl you may try to start a relationship with in the future will be unstable in some way, but it’s sometimes hard to be around Ukrainians for a long time (if you grasp the meaning of it). And yet you’ll have to manage these tantrums and the mental peculiarities that may come up.
These are not necessarily your average quarrels, it’s a bit different. Sometimes it won’t be directed at you, but you may still feel uncomfortable having to endure this much pointless information thrown at you. All in all, let’s see what these are and how you can overcome them.
What is it exactly?
If you’ve ever witnessed a Ukrainian rant on the Internet, you know precisely what the article will be about before you even clicked on it. Mainly, you can characterize is as a tendency to express one’s opinion without knowing much about the subject. Moreover, the opinion is often loud and obnoxious, and you can’t really prove a person otherwise.
Obviously, if you are a kind of person who doesn’t get discouraged by anything like it, you may think you can manage it. However, you should really think about this issue before further building a relationship with a Ukrainian girl you’ve met.
Is it very wide-spread?
Let’s face some facts. Often when you get to hear some prejudice or another, it’s easily broken apart by common sense. Even if it has some facts behind it, the stereotype does not apply to a lot of people. Here, you would expect that it must not be as wide-spread a situation.
Well, in this case, the Internet gives you almost the right idea. Most Ukrainians you’ll see will be very vocal, though the degree to which this opinionatedness will go isn’t set, of course. And it’s not an epidemic either, a lot of Ukrainians are just not interested in talking for the sake of talking.
But it seems the upbringing the Ukrainians now have and the current circumstances leave them no choice but to express their concerns, even if nobody asked. One way to deal with that is by simply hearing it out, but there are other methods also.
The examples
The Internet isn’t the right place for you to get the idea of how your relationship will flow (unless it’s an article like this one). But in this case, it’s quite accurate.
The one thing you’re probably better off without bringing it up ever in front of your Ukrainian girlfriend is politics. Politics in itself is a nasty subject which not many people try to get into, because:
- It’s boring to discuss it nowadays, all the fun topics have long been mulled over (due to the Internet), and it’s just not satisfying anymore;
- It’s really a bad taste to bring up something political when you can talking virtually about anything
Not for Ukrainians, though.
It would be possible to stretch an explanation just for that, but let’s not do this. Of course, the Web always magnifies one’s abilities to express oneself, so you probably won’t see just as many people talking about politics, for instance, in the real world.
It’s just one example, though. You’ll likely not be subject to political discussions too often. The important thing is, however, that many Ukrainians are quarrelsome and opinionated. But you’ll have to experience it by yourself, because, however keen the observations of others may be, the reality may not seem as it was described to you.
Will it actually reflect on your relationship?
Theorizing about different aspects of someone’s personality is one thing, but will it actually reflect on your life? Probably, yes. Especially, if you can only see a Ukrainian girl you date online because that’s where people get even more vocal than they usually are.
Dating online
Dealing with it will probably be one of your larger challenges if ever you decide to date some Ukrainian girl online. The best type of leisure you can do together on the Internet is talking. Once in a while, you will get into disputes, and you can find that it’s actually not rare that you get into one of those with your new girlfriend.
Of course, it also depends on the personality of you both. If your beloved is calm and despises conflict, no nation-wide trait will justify her giving you an earful. If, because of this characteristic or some other difference in views and mindsets, you get into a heated fight, there’s something you can do actually.
Dealing with the conflict
If the enthusiasm of dating a foreigner hasn’t yet died out, you actually may have one trick up your sleeve. If you can digest a bit of condescending attitude, you should summon it by simply saying you’re sorry and that you didn’t really mean any of the rude words or nonsense you’ve said.
It’s that easy not because it’s ‘the right thing to do’ (in fact, if a conflict should stop for good, you need to figure it out through an argument), but because many Eastern Europeans view other Europeans as naive, if not foolish.
It’s not an insult or prejudice, the Eastern Europeans (the Eastern Slavs all the more) are just more vigilant and serious when it comes to virtually anything in their lives. So, by comparison, the westerners really are light-headed.
It’s much like with children — if they did something wrong and they feel sorry for it, often you can’t be mad at them. So, use it to get out of the tricky situations, but don’t overdo so. You don’t really want anyone to think you’re doing it on purpose.
Figuring the argument out
More than once you may found yourself arguing with your beloved about some subject or other, not necessarily about something you’ve done or said. As mentioned, that’s the one thing they like to do more than anything, especially on the Internet.
The trick here is to stay calm because making a Ukrainian mad is not a very hard deed, and shouting back will only make things worse. So, keep your cool and maintain a civilized conversation, however hard it may be in practice.
Dealing with strange questions
You know, the Ukrainians are a proud nation, and if you get to answer a question regarding their culture, history or virtually anything about Ukraine or Ukrainians (which you probably will, having to tell more about each other’s countries once in a while), you should just respond with the most agreeing answer available.
Learn a bit about Ukrainians
Of course, in order to do so, you’ll need to learn something about Ukrainians, and whatever you may found may actually be confusing. But if you want to know some core information before you dive into studying, here are a few facts:
- Ukrainians are a branch of a larger East-Slavic family, which divided itself into Byelorussians, Ukrainians, and Russians several centuries ago, but if someone asks — those ancient Slavs were, in fact, Ukrainians, and all others sprouted from them;
- Crimea is Ukrainian, and Russians can’t stop warmongering (may not be a point of view she shares, but it won’t make harm saying it);
- The USSR was bad and violent, especially towards the Ukrainian people;
- The Ukrainian language is centuries old, it’s not a lot like Russian, because the latter was heavily influenced by the Mongols and Turks (allegedly)
This, and a bit more studying, will put you on in good standing with most Ukrainians. However, if you don’t mean to pretend you know something, and would rather learn directly from her about her nation — that’s fine too. If you’ll just say you don’t know anything, you won’t get a lot of reprimanding.
In conclusion
All the general issues with dating Ukrainians narrow down to one trait. They often get too defensive of everything they like. It’s not a bad thing, nor is expressing your opinions out loud. But if you get uncomfortable talking to one of them, you’ll know why.
There are other major difficulties also, of course, but you can’t say that any of these other issues are some nation-wide problems you’ll not be able to overcome on your own. Moreover, everything is relational and depends on the human factor. If the personality allows — you’ll not even need to worry about your girlfriend being overly-opinionated.
Well, this is it for this article. If you aren’t satisfied with the advice you’ve got just yet, you can jump into reading the other publications this website has to offer. Like this one, for instance. And there’s also that video for those respectful people who read to the end: