La media naranja

Throughout the past three weeks I have been able to pick up on several types of cultural differences between people in Spain and people in the United States. Whenever my friends and I are out and about in the city, we always note some sort of cultural differences, and I try to write them all down to remember.

One of the main differences I've been noticing is the fact that men in Spain act completely different in public than men in the United States. In the United States men are so concerned and preoccupied with their self-image and publicly set out to impress girls. However in Spain, I've noticed that the main goal for men is to have a good time with each other, instead of only trying to impress a girl and build up their image amongst their friends.

For example, the other night some girlfriends and I went to a nightclub in downtown Sevilla called "Buddha". We arrived around 12:30am and noticed that the entire place was filled with girls. There were no men to be seen, except the bartenders. We thought maybe this was a girls-only club and that perhaps the men were at another one. However, around 2:00am a swarm of American and Spanish men filled the room and started mingling with the women. It was almost as if they all got together and decided not to enter the club until 2:00. It was the strangest thing, because I'm so used to clubs in America where men and women show up at the same time. I guess here in Spain the men show up later  in the night rather than with the women.


We also noticed during this clubbing adventure that many groups of men were completely fine dancing with each other. In America you never see groups of guys just dancing without girls there with them. However, in this club I could see several groups of men dancing around each other, excluding all of the women around them. They are completely comfortable just dancing with each other without worrying about judgement from others. I feel like this is somewhat of a double standard in America because it is frowned upon for men to dance in a group of only men, but is completely acceptable, if not encouraged, for women to dance in a group of only women. Men in Spain obviously take their roles a lot less seriously than men in America which I greatly admire.

These are just a few of the main differences in gender roles that I have noticed so far, and I'm sure I will find more as I continue my adventures here in Sevilla :)