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Hello lily,
welcome to the Turkish Class Forums. I hope you will enjoy your stay. When reading your post I was very surprised how well you know Turkish men and culture. I'm a Turkish man but probably I couldnt explain things better than you did.
Individualism among Turks isnt as developed as we would expect in western countries. As you explained very well, relations with family might be very different than you would expect. Usually if a Turkish man comes from a traditional familiy he will care a lot about his parents' opinions even about his private life and marriage. Here I should add that all "practising" islamic families are very traditional.
In the past when Turks yet didnt choose islam, the women's role was very different in the community. They could discuss important things and they would participate in desicions. I mean not only in desicions related to the family and family members but also on issues about the community as well. Turks at the time were a travelling community living in tents. They didnt know about farming but they were a hunting community. So, they were hunting, figting and travelling around. They were experts on horses. Woman could have their say on issues like settling down in a new place or on issues like war and piece. They would join and public celebration and would have a drink all together. It was like a democracy. Later with the acceptance of islam things have changed dramatically. In my experience in small towns as a teacher I have seen folks who even dont count the girls. I asked a man how many kids he had and he said five. I asked how many of them were boys and girls, he said these were the boys and he didnt count the three girls because they would go to a husband anyway.
These kind man are having a new wife around each ten years without getting even divorced. Certainly only if they are able to afford it because usually they need to pay to the girls family to take her. As you probably can tell noone will ask the 16 year old girl if she wants to marry a 45 year old man with 2 wives. They dont divorce because the religion tells them its acceptable also the older wives do the homework and take of kids while the man can enjoy a good time with the younger wives.
I'm only telling these details because I want you to understand the extreme situation of living a traditional life in Türkiye.
With the help of Atatürk's revolutions Turks have changed a lot since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Everything changed in a short time. From the alphabet to the clothing, from the low system to the education, everything you can imagine has changed. The population in big cities rised continuously as well as the ratio of educated people.
Unfortunately as we can see even these days, Türkiye during the long journey towards a modern country, has never had any support from the countries which were taken as an example. Only the most popular aspects of western culture became common and the background is still a bit shaky. Also the opposite, in this case the extermism has grown stronger as a response. So as a result in the same country we now have lots of extremists and we have lots of wannabees (people who like to wear branded clothes and like to listen any rubbish american pop music and by doing that they feel very much satisfied in life) but we also have the mixture of the two above which I really find very sick. There are certainly some normal people.
I think to know a Turkish men good enough you need to live together for a while, possibly for two years. If this is not possible going to holiday together to a new place for him will be a great idea. I would suggest you to try to understand if the person has the personallity to live an individual life on his own or if the person is the kind who likes to live a life as a big community with all the family members, relatives, neigbours, and the rest of islamic brothers and sisters. If the person doesnt have an individual life he is very much likely not to let you have yours.
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