One of the finer beauties of living in a modern world is the blessing to cast your net in a wider and deeper ocean. Centuries ago, finding love was limited by turbulent factors including prejudice and geographical distance. While there were plenty mighty ships crossing vast blue seas to explore foreign shores in search of spice, the chances of making it to the other side were slimmer than a woman in corset’s waist.

Such is not the case in the times we move in. Cars, buses, and trains carry us past neighborhoods that witnessed what are now childhood memories to unfamiliar streets teeming with new smells, new sounds, and new faces. Airplanes deliver us to exotic cities that explode with even more charm than postcards and moving pictures can ever contain. Telephone lines have also constructed invisible bridges to connect people separated by hundreds and thousands of miles. Then, of course, there’s the magic of the Internet.

The Internet has become a world of its own, a world where horizons don’t exist. You can meet people from a variety cultures without having to splurge money on plane tickets. Who knows? You can even wind up falling in love with someone. That soon-to-be special someone might share tons of similarities with the people around you. They might also embody newness.

A person hailing from a different race can be this newness. Entering an interracial relationship can be daunting and exhilarating at the same time. On one hand, it’s filled to the brim with promises of thrilling experiences. On the other hand, it isn’t as easy to navigate the world compared to when you’re in a relationship with someone belonging to your own race. In spite of progressions that societies have seen over the previous decades, race is still a touchy issue, making dating someone who has a different skin color a magnet for unwelcome questions from family, friends, and strangers alike.

But such scary scenarios haven’t stopped anyone from falling in love and settling in interracial relationships. Jonathan Brent, the fruit of the love between a white American and a Japanese woman, claims that race isn’t real, but merely a social construct. If an interracial relationship is something you’re considering, here are interracial relationship facts you ought to know.

1) The sparks of a whopping majority of interracial relationships are first ignited in colleges and universities.

The pursuit and promise of a new love often parallels the quest for higher education. Colleges and universities not only widen people’s horizons in their fields of interests. They also widen one’s dating circle. It surely would be nice to begin your college journey with a high school sweetheart to inspire you, but the truth is puppy loves and high school romances rarely survive the college freshman year. College classes are huge and are filled with people from a variety of backgrounds. Some students are from cities hours away and some have even crossed international borders.

This chapter in a person’s life is also considered as a time to experiment. If you have never dated a person whose skin color is different from yours, this might be the time to try it.

2) According to social science, the probabilities of an interracial love stories leading to long-term relationships or commitments, like moving in together and tying the knot, are lesser compared to relationships between people of the same race. However, it is a known fact that not all love stories reach a point where the couple becomes husband and wife, the differences between same-race and interracial relationships that walk to the altar aren’t starkly vast.

While one in four same-race couples take their relationships to the next level, one in five interracial relationships also experience the wedding bell blues. This is not a discouraging statistic at all since there is only a five per cent gap.

The sad, ugly truth about interracial marriages is that they are more likely to file for divorce compared to same-race marriages. While numbers back this up, social experts are still studying the reasons behind such sad endings.

3) Like all other relationships, interracial romantic relationships end at some point. However, according to research, nine out of ten brokenhearted people are more likely to seek romance with people of a different racial background.

This is not exclusive to college and university students. It happens to adults who, let’s say, have grown out of their experimental phase. This can be attributed to societal changes. Racial segregation is nearly non-existent in today’s world, especially in cities that are a melting pot of cultures, such as New York and San Francisco. Because people have become more accepting of racial differences, there’s close to zero prejudice when it comes to giving interracial relationships another shot no matter how painful and traumatizing heartbreak can be.

4) An intimate interracial relationship can be perceived as an indication of distance among social groups and has been used to measure relationships between races. Interracial relationships have doubled in the past twenty years. From seven per cent eighties, interracial relationships now constitute fifteen per cent of all marriages in the United States.

A disheartening finding in one research, however, claims that in some, not all, interracial marriages, race still plays a big part. A white person can take advantage of his race and present himself as a superior being since whiteness is still viewed by many as a higher and more desirable racial status. This type of interracial relationship is often a mere example of a race status exchange.

5) Perhaps not surprisingly, people who are interracial relationships are seen as more culturally and politically progressive compared to their counterparts in same-race relationships. Both halves of interracial couples also have weaker ties with tradition. That isn’t entirely a bad thing because some parts of tradition are recognized to hold people back from pursuing social and intellectual progress.

This can probably be traced back to the fact that most interracial relationships start in college and universities, when people are pursuing higher education and gain a wider and deeper understanding of the world, hence eliminating biases that might have been subtly imposed upon them during their childhood.

6) Being in an interracial relationship also immerses a person in a culture different from what they grew up in. Culture is more than just a fancy word. It includes family and societal values, music, and food. And who can pass up the opportunity to taste authentic food from a different culture?

This opportunity to diversify is available to everyone, of course. However, not everyone is prepared to embrace it. Dipping one’s toes in someone else’s culture can be enthralling and scary at the same time. Since people of different racial backgrounds are raised differently, some people have a tendency to be downright clueless. This, of course, can lead to situations where your partner, their family, or even you might commit or say something offensive. It is, thus, important to make an effort to learn about your partner’s culture, in addition to keeping an open mind.

7) People in interracial relationships, particularly those who come not just from varying racial backgrounds, but different countries, are more likely to learn a new language. Communication is very important in all forms of relationships. And if you’re in a romantic relationship that you intend to last long, you might as well make an effort toward speaking your partner’s language if you want to understand them better.

No one is expecting you to reach a native speaker’s level. When learning a new language, it’s practical to learn a few words and phrases at a time. You can ask your partner to teach you how to say “hello, “thank you,” “good night,” and, of course, “I love you.” Once you have learned a handful of words and phrases, you can enroll in foreign language classes. You can also take this as an opportunity to surprise your partner. They will appreciate it. You can use this to demonstrate to their family how dedicated you are to your partner.

8) This might be the most shocking fact about interracial relationships. As previously stated, only twenty per cent of interracial couples turn their relationships into marriages and married interracial couples are more likely to divorce compared to their couples involved in same-race relationships. There is a silver lining, though.

Studies have found that the attraction between married interracial couples is more likely to last longer compared to people in same-race relationship. Blame it on differences that keep fanning the flame.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what happens between other couples as long as your relationship with your significant other grows stronger day by day.

When it comes to being in an interracial relationship with Russian women, Anatoly Neverov claims in Russian Women Speak that while many Russian ladies are looking for white men, some are open to the idea of dating men of a racial background. The only way to make this happen is to take a chance.