11 Reasons Why You Should Date an Australian

Ditching ‘R’ at the end of words, abbreviating everything humanly possible (e.g. Garry is ‘Gazza’, the bottle shop is the ‘bottle-o’, the barbecue is a ‘barbie’, etc.), and adding an upward inflection at the end of each sentence (“I’m Ron Burgundy?”, only more Aussie) just makes things sound better… so long as your ‘eye’ sounds don’t begin to encroach on ‘oy’ territory.

Not only do words sound better, there’s more of them in Australia. ‘Thongs’ (flip flops), ‘maggot’ (drunk), ‘cactus’ (broken), ‘blue’ (fight), and ‘root’ (to consummate your relationship) all mean something entirely different to your Australian date, and are waiting to broaden your lexicon too.

Snakes, jellyfish, sharks, spiders, crocodiles, octopi, drop bears… Australia is crawling with some of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the earth. And despite the entire country being a turbo-charged version of Darwin’s survival of the fittest, there’s still 24 million of us alive and kicking. Now that’s some DNA you want to add to the gene pool.

Any person who rocks a bikini or budgie smugglers away from the beach, who considers a flannelette shirt and a pair of thongs formal attire, and who believes the mullet is not just an acceptable but in fact a celebrated hairstyle in the 21st Century has some serious swagger about them.

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One thing you may have noticed about Australia is that it’s a bloody long way away from much of the rest of the world – but that whole ‘hard to get to’ thing just makes us keener to explore it. If you’re a dead keen traveller yourself, your Aussie partner will always provide a reliable globetrotting companion.

Okay, sure, being tucked away in the corner of the globe isn’t great when you have to organise midnight Skype dates to chat to family and friends or shell out a small fortune and a day’s flying time to see them in the flesh. But when it comes to avoiding ex-partners and dodging pesky relatives badgering you about whether marriage and babies are on the horizon, the distance does have its advantages.

Meat pies, Vegemite, snags on the barbie… ah yes, Australian food truly stands at the avant-garde of the global culinary scene. In all seriousness, though, a society as multicultural as Australia is blessed with top-drawer eateries representing every cuisine on the map, meaning you’ll never be short on somewhere new for date night.

Not in an Alcoholics Anonymous way (hopefully) – more in a “Let’s toast Gazza’s promotion”/”Let’s have a barbie”/”Let’s celebrate another day when a croc hasn’t sent us to an early grave” sort of way. Australians love to let their hair down with a tipple from one of our world-class wine regions or one of the country’s growing number of locally produced micro-brews.

Sure, Melbourne’s weather forecast is as erratic as Donald Trump’s Twitter feed and there are parts of Australia that actually receive snow – but on the whole, this wide brown land is a sunburnt country. And that means we spend plenty of time outdoors, especially at the beach – so if you like the feeling of sand between your toes, get an Aussie between your sheets.

Maybe it’s all that sunshine, but the phrase ‘no worries’ is hardwired into Australians’ DNA. Does that give you free reign to take out a second mortgage on your home to finance that emu farm idea you’ve been sitting on? Probably not. But will your Aussie partner give you a little extra leeway when you stumble in after perhaps one ale too many at 2am? No worries, mate.

We’re not suggesting you shack up with an Aussie just for the citizenship, but come on, you’ve got to admit you’re just a teensy bit tempted by the opportunity to move to a country brimming with beaches, bottle-o’s, and budgie smugglers galore.