Do you tend to get along better with foreigners?

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Hmmm... my wife is from El Salvador. My best friend in high school was from France. Maybe your on to something...

don't know to be honest

Yes.

I do feel that foreigners would be more inclined to help if I were, say, stranded somewhere, or needed directions. i get a friendlier response from both foreigners and people who look less well-off (of course, you can't tell for sure from a person's appearance alone). There is a certain openness and approachability with foreigners and others.....i get higher humility vibes or something, like they are familiar with adversity or strangeness. Of course, non-foreigners are also familiar with adversity but maybe something about not being a native makes people 'humble' enough to not mind being approached by a complete weirdo like myself

I've thought about this before. I'm wondering if people who are of a different culture, age, or sex might be a good match because they don't notice the subtle cues that other people would notice. Is there such a word as "microcues"? If there isn't, then I just made it up. They don't notice the microcues that people of our own age, sex, and cultural background definitely notice.

I always feel more comfortable with someone a little different from me.

Yes! In Australia I used to work on farms a lot and I met lots of backpackers on working holidays with 457 visas. There were also Kiwis and Maoris from New Zealand. It felt like foreigners and I kind of gravitated towards each other. People can practice their English with you, express their frustrations and culture shock and I think with people who aren't NT they can connect with someone who is almost as much as an outsider as they are. My second longest relationship was with a German girl for nearly a year.

Definitely. When I meet another Pakeha, they often make many false assumptions about me since I am on their "team". They therefore feel entitled to talk to me about things that I am not necessarily interested in, and to expect me to back up their opinions that I do not necessarily share. On the other hand, when I meet someone from another culture, the "distance" between us makes it easier for me to explain who I really am and learn who they really are.

Yes definately!

Also people younger / older than me.

And generally men rather than women (I'm female)

I have this feeling too. I suppose there may be two different reasons: first is culture, for example, East Asian culture is the most NT, followed by American, and German culture are less sociality-focuses (these is just my feelings). Another is a lot of Aspie problem is hard to understand cultural and social rules (and their exceptions), but in international interactions, these cultural and social rules play a much smaller role, because they expect you not to understand the cues.

All my closest friends were Chinese or Japanese. They are very open-minded and tolerant of differences. I never really noticed this until I saw this post. I do have more black and Hispanic friends than I do white people. It just happens to be this way (no racist intent or anything of the like - I'm white, by the way). I found white people were usually the ones in strictly striated groups (preps/jocks, stoners, goths, punks, band geeks, etc.) while ethnic minorities had less tendency to form small cliques (they are more friendly to those not like themselves: a black jock will be more likely to hang out with a geek or goth, at least in my experiences).

Actually I've seen brain studies that show Asian cultures tend to look at 'the big picture' whereas European culture favours focusing in on details first which I've always seen described as an autistic trait.

I believe the reason that many of us gravitate towards foreigners is that in the ensuing relationship the cultural specifities of our group can become blurred. We have trouble with, and we violate the culltural specifities. Our subtle body and verbal communications are quite different, and this display of difference does not sabotage a relationship with an individual whose subtle communications are already different form our own.

Personally, I get along best with individuals from the Zeta Reticuli system.

Aye.

They are not necessarily even foreigners, even though I know there's more chance I'd get on with them if they are. People I socialise with are for the most part Scottish, but in fact they are almost all half Scottish and half another nationality and/or they were born or raised elsewhere.

I guess this is still enough to make people categorise them as different, and not part of the mainstream local culture, due to the microcue of them having a background that's even a wee bit different.