The Girl Whisperer

as published by

the Sunday Guardian of Jan 20

HOME ADVANTAGE

Every soccer mad person, male or female, knows the meaning and importance of home advantage. It's that leverage you have when you're playing at home and your opponents travel from their base to meet you on your turf. The team at home has the upper hand in many ways- the players know every square inch of their playing field and there can be no suprises. The fans know their players and chant their names from the terraces.

Every loves the home advantage and the psychological edge it lends for if you can't win at home, you can't really be that good at the game. Where relationships are concerned, many argue the home advantage for many reasons. The more wary say it is dangerous to have a relationship with someone not from your tribe or locality. It's not enough that you both speak English or French or whatever your national language might be. They say you must share the same first language and understand the culture of your prospective
partner.

According to the proponents of the home advantage, you ignore this cardinal rule at your own peril. Apparently, there's something to be gained by being able to laugh at your father-in-law's jokes in his local dialect. As a rule, all people have a natural inclination to be clannish, to gravitate towards those who share similar backgrounds and to remain within their own comfort zones. At the extreme end of the spectrum are those who find love far beyond their now borders. These 'chosen few' break all accepted norms doing exactly as they please in the choice of a mate.

There are few of us who have not turned wonderingly at the airportupon seeing the new breed of black-skinned husband with his white wife, and sometimes the wife is mexican or Indian (brown) or in some rare cases, japanese or chinese. It always gets us, when people with obvious racial differences try for a blend. The world is a global village now in more ways than one
and the partnering of different races and creeds is a fall out of a new truth the world has come to accept.

From all over, back-packing suitors scour the world in search of their true lover and sometimes it works for them. But why even discuss obvious differences today, why not talk of those subtle differences that don't hit you immediately? The difference in customs, in the manner suitors are expected to relate with members of their prospective families, the culture shock when a woman who comes from a non-prostrate-to-all-elders-When-you-see-them childhood meets a man from a 'bow and scrape to elders' background can be unsettling to the strongest relationships. In relationships where the extended family's opinion matters, issues will become abrasive after a while when these differences disturb over-sized egos.

The in-laws whispering in a language one partner cannot comprehend can be galling, the customs and traditions that appear to be
from another planet and to one partner, the ultimate in barbarism... With the rude awakening cultural differences sometimes give to lovers, one should ask, 'is there a guaranty that having a relationship with a home girl will make all things perfect?' The answer is no.

There are never any guarantees that a relationship will work whether a couple comes from the same church, tribe or shares forebears. Coming from different backgrounds can produce some very harsh moments, at least until couples learn to accept and perhaps even celebrate their differences but there is usually light at the end of the rainbow, at least for those who hold on to the end.

The Whisperer submits, and the cynical had better listen, that the only relationships that work, are those in which the partners have made up their minds to go the distance irrespective of differences, of backgrounds, of distinct cultures. There is no logic behind the term, 'irreconcilable
differences', often, there are just people refusing to reconcile, who have no wish to go the extra mile in love turned sour.

So even though we all have a natural inclination to stay where we are most comfortable, the whisperer encourages you to think out of the box. Usually, people, no matter where they are from, are born with two hands and legs. No one is being asked to date beings from Mars, at least, not yet, but who knows the future? Dare to go for what you want, other places, customs and traditions have a tale to tell and what they add to us can be richly rewarding.