Finding Affection in the Peace Corps...

Living abroad in a foreign culture with values completely different from America can be quite frustrating at times. Living in isolation and away from others that look or feel like you can get really lonely at times. We are human, an as such, we crave human contact and affection. The only way to describe the dating situation in Peace Corps is that it’s completely incestuous.

One of the observations I noticed was that during our Pre-Service Training is that relationships between Volunteers are formed and some begin dating each other during that time period but once we are sent to our sites it tends to end due to the distance. Some Volunteers have had prior relationships when joining the Peace Corps only to have it end due to the Volunteer meeting another Volunteer or host country national or the time and distance away was just too much. In some cases, those with prior relationships have still made it work and have met each other during their vacations breaks. Some of those with prior relationships also have an open door policy where both parties agree to see other people but are still committed to each other

Depending on the country, it’s just too difficult to get involved with a host country national due to the perceptions of gender roles and the concept of dating. For example, casual dating is non-existent in Armenia since dating is supposed to lead to marriage! Dating a local can lead to damaged reputations if the relationship does not end in marriage so it can be very tricky situation. In my service in Romania quite a few PCVs married the host country nationals and it worked out great. In Armenia, I’ve known one case of a PCV of the group ahead of us also marry a host country national.

For the most part, it is difficult to date or “hook up” with an Armenian local since gossip can spread like wildfire in small communities and end up damaging the PCVs reputation. Armenian women are expected to be virgins upon marriage over here and Armenian men often carry the attitude that a non-virgin is unacceptable. Due to these conservative attitudes towards dating and sex it’s just too difficult and not worth the grief so Peace Corps Volunteers will often date each other. Since there is a small number of us in country volunteers will often be with multiple volunteers during their 2 year service. Some of my friends who did their Peace Corps service in countries of similar a situation often had group orgies to relieve their needs.

A running joke within the Peace Corps community is achieving the 4th goal. The 3 goals within Peace Corps are to train the local professionals, have the American learn about the local culture, and teach other Americans about the local culture. The 4th goal is hooking up with a host country national!

The other way of getting affection is hooking up with travelers from countries who share similar attitudes towards casual dating and sex. It’s quite normal of PCVs to spend most of their time in the capital where attitudes are much more relaxed and liberal. Since travelers spend most of their time at the same hostel the PCVs stay in it’s quite the place to find some action.  In extremely rare cases, there are PCVs who actually ended up marrying each other. I remember the case of these two PCVs began dating each other during PST in Romania and dated exclusively throughout their 2 year service and afterwards married each other!

If you join the Peace Corps you will mostly likely encounter any one of the situations mentioned above. In the end, we are all human, and being human means craving affection because we are social beings.