By Adriana Albizu Russe
In my 21 years of life, there’s two things I have yet to experience: having a boyfriend and attending a masquerade party. While these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other, they relate to how my experience has been as a Latina dating in the US. As I said, while I have yet to have an official boyfriend, I have “dated” people (AKA: situationships) both in Puerto Rico, where I’m from, and Syracuse University. In other words, I've dated both in Spanish and English. While this might not seem like a groundbreaking thing to some, I’ve come to understand through my dating experiences how some people say “don't date outside your culture.” While I don’t believe in that way of thinking, dating a partner who only speaks English is like going to a masquerade party: they see me, they recognize me, they can tell it’s me, but there’s always going to be a part of me that remains hidden behind the mask. It’s a part they won’t get.
There's a depth, a richness in my Spanish self that doesn't fully translate, and as much as I can try to show in English: nunca va a ser lo mismo.
As a bilingual person in the world of dating, I’ve encountered the harsh truth of who I am in Spanish isn't who I am in English, but at the same time, it’s all of me. It feels like playing heads or tails, and I'm the coin: there’s two sides of me, two sides of the same coin, yet distinctly different.
Dating a Spanish partner is like citing the ABC’s: they can duet “Ella y Yo” by Aventura and Don Omar with me, they can have a conversation with my parents, they can understand the meaning and difference behind my “te quiero” and “te amo,” they can understand me.
Dating in English feels like solving a puzzle at times, where I don't know how to make my words fit, how to explain certain aspects of me, my feelings, or my culture in a way that they would understand, which always leaves me feeling this sense of uncanniness. Do they really know me? Do they really understand where I’m coming from in this fight? Did they understand that I was being sarcastic when I said that? Sometimes dating in English feels like I’m an impostor, but furthermore, it makes me question how I’m viewed by that partner, do they even like me? Or, do they like the English version of me that I put out with my Americanized voice and slang and my different personality? Many times I’ve found myself feeling defeated, especially when expressing my feelings and thoughts to an English-speaking partner. No matter how hard I try to twist, mold, and change my words, watch my tone and demeanor, constantly repeat my points...there’s a feeling left of it not being enough, of realizing that no matter how I put it or how I say it, my words don’t fully get across as they easily would in Spanish.
When dating an English-speaking partner, my head constantly replays that one scene of Modern Family, when Gloria says “Do you know how frustrating it is to have to translate everything in my head before I say it? To have people laugh in my face because I’m struggling to find the words...Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?” At times, where the typical “Shit, how do you say this in English again?” comes out of my mouth, or I pronounce something wrong and stumble over my words, or when my thick accent is emphasized in certain words like “beach” or “bitch” and “tree” and “three”...while, usually, they think it's funny, or cute, or even ‘hot;’ for me, it just perpetuates that weird feeling within me that solidifies that this person is never going to 100% get me, know me, and understand me. It's a reminder of the gap between us.
This duality is both a blessing and a curse. It's beautiful to have this rich, layered identity, but it's also isolating, even in relationships. I am constantly navigating between two worlds, two languages, two identities, two cultures, struggling to bridge the gap. Dating in this context means always feeling lost in translation, always wondering if my partner sees the real me or just a version of me filtered through a language that isn’t my own.
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