In today’s study abroad community, partner culture has become a unique social phenomenon. From eating, shopping to traveling and renting an apartment, young people always seem to find a partner to accompany them.
This seemingly casual way of socializing actually reflects the redefinition of social relationships among contemporary young people, who both desire companionship and distance, and want convenience and safety.
However, just as there are two sides to the coin, the hitchhiking culture also carries risks. According to a survey of 1,335 respondents conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily in collaboration with questionnaire website wenjuan com, 72.6% of the young people interviewed said that they have a partner in their lives, and 68.9% of the young people interviewed believe that finding a partner is a courageous step out of the comfort zone of socializing and seeking a new mode of socializing.
The hitchhiking culture is also prevalent in the international student circle, and there are various posts on social media about finding hitchhikers for traveling, dining and renting rooms. The social media is full of posts about hitchhikers who cheat people, cheat money, and are unreliable.
These negative cases can’t help but make people think In the pursuit of convenience, have we neglected the basic rules of socialization?
Today, we have the honor to invite Eva, a freshman studying in Canada, to share how she found three reliable hitchhikers within a year and built a healthy social relationship.
The unfamiliarity of a foreign country is the main reason for international students to find a partner.
Her experience may provide some inspiration for international students who are looking for a perfect partner.
How to find a good and reliable partner? Today, Eva, who has been studying in Canada since high school and is now in her first year of university, will share her story of finding a good match after a year of independent study.
The following is a first person narrative
I really love my three companions!
I’d rather die of loneliness than find a hitchhiker.
This saying was told to me by one of my sisters who studied in the US before I went to college. After she was pinched by a hitchhiker for 10,000 dollars, she kept telling people about her painful experience.
My sister did look for hitchhikers a bit fierce, a semester to find more than a dozen hitchhikers, rent a room hitchhiker meal hitchhiker these basic hitchhikers not to mention, even to buy a McDonald’s have to find a hitchhiker to accompany.
If you walk too much at night, you’ll always run into ghosts. If you’re not prepared for the hitchhiker, it’s only a matter of time before you’re pitched.
At the beginning of the university year, students will organize activities for everyone to develop hitchhikers.
Before we talk about how to find a good partner, let me introduce my three study abroad partners and how we got together.
My first study abroad partner was a social partner. Her name is Ivy, she is a Canadian Indian, and she is the vice president of our department’s student union. Ivy and I met at a freshman event.
Ivy and I met at a freshman event. At orientation, one of the seniors said there was one program missing, and Ivy immediately raised her hand to take on the task. I was there to witness her go from not knowing a single person to organizing a ten-member chorus in less than an hour.
Ivy’s social skills convinced me. As an active participant in supporting the student government activities organized by Ivy, it was only natural for me to hook up with her.
My life partner’s name is Lily, a French-Canadian and a native of Toronto. Lily and I were in the same major and we had a few classes together.
On the first day of school, I was pestered by a phone company salesman in the student center after class to get me to buy a package. Lily happened to be passing by, and when she saw that I couldn’t get out of the way, Lily very forcefully stood in front of me and told the salesman Sorry, your package is too pitiful, we won’t do it!
Lily’s helpfulness and familiarity with local life made me approach her, and as the eldest daughter of a family with two younger brothers to take care of, she is very capable of making ends meet. I followed her and learned to plan my food for the week and also to match my nutrition to my health.
During the year I studied abroad, my constipation and acne problems got better, my body got stronger, and I was able to survive the stress of exams, thanks to Lily.
As for my study partner, her name is Meimei and she is from Hong Kong, China. Our high school grades in various subjects are about the same, are a scholarship into the university, as a flagship we soon got together.
In the process of hitching, we also found each other other other white people hitching to study, and then we realized that there are not many white people who love to study.
We ended up being the tools for our respective hitchhikers to copy homework, or the one doing the hard work in group assignments.
Hitching only with the good, a sense of boundaries has to be guarded
A partner is a partner for me, not a partner for me.
This is my principle of finding a partner, and it is the main reason why I was able to get along well with my partner during my year of study abroad, and why I was able to leverage my partner’s strengths to ensure that I was happy both physically and mentally during my study abroad experience.
Orientation is the beginning of study abroad socialization
Before you become a hitchhiker, the first thing you need to do is to evaluate whether you can be a hitchhiker or not.
The first thing you need to do is to find out what are the disadvantages of being a partner? What are their strengths? Can they work together?
For example, my life partner Lily is definitely a life person, but as a native of Canada, she is too lax in her attitude towards her studies, she always says that passing is enough, and she goes out for a trip on weekends.
For me, I wanted to get an average of 80 or above, so we didn’t get along at all in terms of studying. After a year, I became Lily’s only life partner. She told me that she had been with a few people, but they either thought that her mind was not on her studies, or that she would only buy things, and that there were too few topics to talk about.
Lily is also tired of her partner’s increasing demands. She said: “A hitchhiker should take the advantages, and my advantage is that I know how to live, will live, spend the least amount of money to live the healthiest life, and let them regret missing my hitchhiker!
Eva and her partner have become good friends.
The second and most important thing to be comfortable with your hitchhiker is to establish a strong sense of boundaries. That is, letting the hitchhiker know what your way of getting along is? Where is the bottom line?
Before I hooked up with my social hitchhiker, Ivy, I made my social rules clear to her. The first is that dates must be scheduled in advance, at least three days in advance, and important events need to be a week in advance. The second must inform the other people involved in the event and not attend any stranger’s event. The third is not to attend events that are dominated by drinking and events held overnight.
Ivy told me that my principles forced back a lot of people who wanted to hook up with me. When my classmates discussed whether to ask me out in the dormitory, they were always torn, saying that I was not to be messed with, and that I had a lot to do. It’s too much effort to ask me out, so it’s better to find a partner who is easy to ask out.
But Ivy really liked the boundaries I had set up, and without those rules, it would have been easy to get sidetracked in our college, which was known for its many parties.
When your classmates call you to go out and you’re too embarrassed to say no, you’ll be led around by the nose one way or another. Walking around, time is wasted, and life is chaotic.
Now I only have Ivy as a social partner, and we attend weekly student council events and major school performances together with a plan, which has never conflicted with my studies.
Pals are on probation before they become my friends.
A hookup is a trial period before you become a friend, and when you get it right, you can develop it into a friend.
Next semester I’m going to turn my three good hitches around and make them my friends and take it to the next level in trust.
Hitchhikers Friends Friends, this is an advanced version of my definition of friendship. I value friendships, but I also suffered from developing them quickly before college.
When I first started middle school, I was a fast and hot dating player. I had a favorite Kpop group with my classmates and immediately got on chatting and quickly developed into friends who could talk about anything. I was also stupid, and they are all heart and soul, what ideas are said.
A high school classmate who used to scold me in the circle of friends told me I know everything about you, your family, your parents’ occupation, and your grades. If I wanted to, I could destroy you at any time!
This threat used to be a nightmare for me , and caused me to be socially repulsive for a while.
A good social environment is a problem that has always plagued international students, and I was surrounded by students who went to extremes. Part of it is that indomitable social cow that just hangs out with anyone.
One of my high school classmates, who came out from China to study abroad, didn’t stay in the country and got together with a group of classmates who were often in contact with contraband, and didn’t realize that he had almost become an accomplice until the police came to his door.
Around me, because of looking for hitchhikers to find trouble has long been not an isolated phenomenon. Another part of the study alone, not only do not make friends, even do not want to find a partner.
Socializing is free, and I have no right to judge anyone. But I do realize that I need friends. Not only do I need to get more information from my friends, but I also need their encouragement and approval.
From hitchhikers to friends and then from friends to close friends. I think this gradual development of relationships is a perfect fit for my study abroad status at the moment.
Participating in group activities and parties is an important part of study abroad life
How to go from a hitchhiker to a friend is like a game of pass, it needs to be verified and tested again and again. I’ve had other hitchhikers, and at the beginning of the school year an Asian boy very kindly invited me to be his hitchhiker for an Asian student group.
After a couple of rides, I realized that he was particularly fond of calling out to people at parties, once calling out to a bunch of strangers and bringing several cases of beer to drink. I cut him off almost immediately, as I saw his behavior as potentially dangerous for me.
As for my current soon-to-be-turned-friends hitchhikers, they and I have a good understanding that when hitchhiking together to socialize and shop, I think about the other person’s safety and don’t trap the hitchhiker in an unsafe situation.
To summarize my year as a study abroad hitchhiker, I think that being principled and vigilant is the key to meeting good hitchhikers and turning them into friends.
Socializing is like wearing clothes.
In this era of hitchhiking culture, young people seem to have found a shortcut to socializing that does not require them to be intimate, but also satisfies their need for companionship.
However, as Eva’s story reveals, hitchhiking is not a simple patchwork socialization, but a test of boundaries, principles and trust.
Eva’s experience tells us that finding a partner is not about picking up all the vegetables in the basket, but rather, it is about picking the ingredients carefully and leaving out the wheat from the chaff.
Her three partners, a socialite, a life expert and a study partner, each playing their own roles and not crossing each other’s boundaries, perfectly illustrate the wisdom of using partners for me.
More importantly, she always sticks to her own bottom line, not to be coerced by social pressure and not to be kidnapped by human affairs. This kind of sobriety and self-discipline are the most rare qualities of contemporary young people in socializing.
Eva has set boundaries for socializing, leaving space for herself.
In the end, the hitchhiking culture epitomizes the social anxiety of our time. We long for companionship but fear intimacy, seek convenience but worry about risk.
Eva’s story provides us with a solution Instead of blindly pursuing the number of hitchhikers, it’s better to manage the quality of the hitchhikers with care Instead of being led by the nose by the society, it’s better to take the initiative to control the social rhythm. After all, the real social freedom is not to refuse all visitors, but to have a ruler in your heart and a degree in your hand.
So stop complaining that it’s hard to find a partner. Instead of going with the flow in the sea of socializing, you should be a partner hunter with principles and a sense of boundaries, just like Eva.
After all, a reliable partner is not something that you can get by chance, but something that you can manage with your heart. As Eva said, hitchhiking is a trial period before becoming friends. And this trial period is not only a test for others, but also a training for yourself.
Finally, I would like to give you a message: Socializing is like wearing clothes, fit is the most important.
Instead of trying to squeeze into a circle that doesn’t fit, you should find a partner who is your size.
After all, on the road of life, instead of making up a ride, it is better to elegantly walk alone until you meet the person who really deserves a ride. Follow International Education Awareness Video No. We don’t do the knowledge porter, but only the thinker of the essence of education.
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