"I'm Going To New Zealand to Find Me A Husband!"

Or at least that's what many people imply to me (or even scarier, expect of me). Kiwi's, I wish I could say this idea has solely been expressed to me by my fellow Americans, but strangely that hasn't been the case. I can't tell you how many times a New Zealander has said to me, "You're from America? Maybe you'll find a nice Kiwi guy to marry!" To which I inwardly roll my eyes and wonder why so many people think the only possible purpose I could have for coming to NZ is to find a husband. I mean, do I have "Desperate" written across my forehead? Or do they envision me fulfilling some romantic fantasy in which two foreigners meet, fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after.

OK, I don't really believe that's what people are thinking. I think my New Zealand wellwishers just love their country and realize their Kiwi men are worthy of the love of a foreigner. There do seem to be a lot of intercultural marriages here. Now, my American wellwishers I'm not so sure about. I say this because we Americans have an ingrained caution about marriage to foreigners that stems from a history of being a "melting pot" of the world. I know that doesn't make sense, but hear me out. The history of America is filled with the story of immigrants coming to the continent desiring a new life for themselves. At some point recently in our history we realized we needed to put laws into place to distinguish American citizenship. Suddenly immigrants couldn't just come and stay forever, they had to become citizens to stay in the country. One of the ways a foreigner could automatically become a citizen was to marry an American. Stories began to circulate about foreigners marrying a person just to get citizenship and then leaving them once they had obtained that goal. Theses stories placed in many Americans an underlying fear of being used through marriage by foreigners. Suddenly we found ourselves guarding our marriage certificate like it was a precious jewel.

Now with that said, why were my friends and family speculating that I would come home with a Kiwi husband? Because, if truth be told, they (and I) understand that there are a lot of great guys all over the world, including New Zealand. If the Lord has a husband for me, in NZ or any other country, it's no big deal. He has my life and my marriage in His hands.

I wrote this blog because I hear the marriage word so much I just had to comment on it. I didn't come to New Zealand to find a husband, and I don't think it'll happen. (I hope I don't end up eating those words! :P ) But, perhaps if I'm really lucky I might meet a guy like the one a friend from work tried to offer to me. "He's nice and fun Tiana, the only down side is that he occasionally smokes weed!"