Monday 4 December 2017

Winning Over the In-laws - Finnish Style

If you are dating someone and it's getting serious, there comes a time when you need to meet the parents, and gain their acceptance.

This is always a tricky situation, and even more so if you are dating someone who is foreign.

An international couple of my acquaintance once told me of their own experience of having to win-over the in-laws, some time last century.

He is Finnish, she is Italian.

Apparently, the first time he went to Italy to meet the "in-laws", the encounter was a little frosty. The prospective mother-in-law was more than a little suspicious of this foreign guy coming from the Nordics to "steal" her wonderful daughter.

The mother asked him quite bluntly: "Don't you have women in your own country?"

So he set about trying to prove his worth in every way he could. In the end, it was a lucky event that sealed his acceptance into the family.

One day, the mother noticed the stamp on a letter he had sent to her daughter, and exclaimed: "Wow, this guy you are dating must be pretty important in Finland: he even has his own stamp!"

And that was enough to finally win over the mother, paving the way for her daughter to marry the fortuitously named Mr Suomi.

[For those who do not get it Suomi = Finland in Finnish]

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