CAPS #6

CAPS #6

            When we were tasked with discussing an intercultural relationship that we are currently involved in for this final blog post I wasn’t entirely sure who I was going to discuss.  There were many options that came to mind, however I decided to explore the relationship with the person that I spend the most time with; that is my girlfriend, Brandie. 

            This intercultural relationship began three years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. It is interesting that this is where we began our relationship as we are both from Nebraska, for the most part.  While we were both attending a national leadership conference our relationship commenced.  As we returned to our home towns in Nebraska the first challenge immediately presented itself; we lived two hours apart.  Yet this didn’t keep us at a distance for long.

            As far as the benefits that are concerned in our relationship, there are new benefits every day.  We enjoy each other’s company, laugh, learn, and grow together all the while we build our relationship.  Our age is not far apart, culturally speaking, since only four months separate us.  However, the greatest cultural characteristic that is different that we share is our region on where we are from.  Brandie is from a town of 106 people and had a graduating high school class of 20.  I on the other hand come from a city of about million people including suburbs with a graduating high school class of 400 students.  This cultural difference is one of our greatest strengths because we are always learning more about where each of us is from. Whether it is returning to her home town to joke about how the chickens and cattle are included in the population or to go to mine and actually see stoplights we always can share this difference in our relationship.

            Although I won’t go into much detail in regards to the following cultural characteristics, I will mention that we share the same sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and nationality.  Another intercultural similarity that we share is our physical abilities.  We both played sports growing up and in fact we both still do today.  We share being active simply by walking, running, or doing some form of weight training together.  This helps further grow our intercultural relationship, while also burning a few extra calories.

            After reviewing how Baxter describes relationships and the dialectical model, I believe our relationship fits in with the personal-contextual dialectic as well as the differences-similarities dialectic.  I believe we fit into the personal-contextual dialectic because our relationship is contextual. If we are by ourselves we fully enjoy each other’s company.  However we also will go out and have fun with other friends or couples we associate with. Martin & Nakayama explain that “There are aspects of the relationship that are personal, consistent from situation to situation” (2012).  I believe that that is true in our intercultural relationship.

            Furthermore, I think that our relationship fits into the differences-similarities dialectic because we are similar in many ways.  Martin & Nakayama conclude that “We tend to be attracted to people who we perceive to be similar to ourselves, and evidence indicates that this principle works for many cultural groups” (2012).  I have realized after exploring our relationship in an intercultural way that we are in fact very much alike.  I do not believe this is a bad thing because it has worked so far and will continue to work in the future.                 

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6^th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.