The Truth About Cross-Cultural Relationships

So far I've found basically all Ukrainians unusually pleasant. Until tonight. Alex's friend Nastya (Since I already know a Nastya, let's call her Anastacia, her full name.) has been dyinngg to meet me and calls almost every day trying to set something up. Finally, today, we decided to go over to her place for a little Cognac-infused get together. By the time we got there everyone was drunk and Nastya was very nice to me. She's a professional plane-jumper-outer-person and showed me her medals and a poster of herself. She also said nice things about me to Alex. I stumbled in conversation with the other people there and one guy in particular creeped me out. I think he was on drugs and he kept asking me political questions in a hybrid bad English and way-too-fast Russian. His first question: Do you like Ukraine? I answered yes and he grilled me about how I could possibly like it here when the president blah blah blah. It was very uncomfortable. Anyway, as the night went on there was a lot of arguing going on at the table and I sensed I had something to do with it because Sargay kept telling me that "it's ok". Well... apparently sweet like Anastacia suddenly decided that she hates America and hates Americans and couldn't understand why Sasha would be with one. Everyone stood to defend me, and by the end of the night she was very apologetic about the outburst, but it brought out a good point that I avoid thinking about: A lot of people are NEVER going to accept Alex and me being together. On the outside, they might, but deep down a lot of people, in America and in Ukraine, are going to have a problem with it. I witnessed it in America and of course it works the other way. Americans aren't exactly loved across the world, even post-election... and I know a lot of people here question why he didn't settle down with a nice Ukrainian girl.

It depresses me. Alex is a good person. I like to think of myself as a good person. We're in love. Shouldn't that be enough for EVERYONE ELSE? Or maybe I shouldn't care, but as much as I try to forget it... it still bothers me quite a bit.