Philippines: This Stuff is Scary, I picked up in one week

[jagulep]

I'm 36 and came over to the Philippines for a 3 week holiday. The first week I thought, "This is the same as Australia, no one in the street smiles at you. It's not like the claims in the Happier Abroad book."

(I wrote 2 posts about this and neither has been posted, maybe they were 'censored' for going against the Happier Abroad claims, let's give the benefit of the doubt and say the computer malfunctioned!)

Anyway, surely this post won't be censored, I picked up a hot 22-year old! After just one week here I picked up. I had done no internet chatting to Filipinas because, while I joined a Filipino dating site, virtually all the girls on there looked ugly & I was too introverted to talk with them! What on Earth would I talk about?

On the 8th day here, these Filipino guys I'd met the night before hooked me up. A girl they knew was passing by and whamo, they set me up. They claim they never see her with guys and they are security guards near her house and see her coming in and out every night and she's claimed to me also that she's never been out on dates even though I'd call her attractive. We've gone out twice with her 11-year old cousin being the translator as her English lacks & I sit there and think, "What can I talk about?" It's such a strain for me, dating, and always has been. I'm so introverted. Women r good schemers and after the expected interrogation from her about my history (i.e. no previous marriage) she's arranged for me to take her and the cousin to some 4-hour bus trip to see her dad this weekend. I probably shouldn't be giving away this stuff on the net and all that but it's scary stuff. Wondering if I should pull the pin and go back to Western women or keep going ahead with this farce. All guys who r married to Filipinas claim to be happy. How can u be happy when u can't even have a decent sentence without the translator. And we live different lives, what to talk about? Lol, we had a mix-up today and she waited for an hour for me at a time I was unaware we'd agreed to. She didn't seem to care though.

I will escape in a week when I have to go back to Australia. Guess I'll have to message her forever? Man, I'm shockin' at this, any advice? From smart people like Ladislav please. Haha.

[xiongmao]

I know a guy with a much younger Chinese wife. They could barely talk to each other when I met them. I don't think they're doing that well with language even now.

But the guy has a hot wife and the woman has a rich husband who loves her.

Today I met a Chinese girl for the second time and her English isn't great. In fact at one point she seemed to be so comfortable in my presence that she started speaking Chinese to me.

I value her for her long hair and awesome dark body. Actually she's one of those girls who don't tend to speak that much, either in English or Chinese. And she hasn't made any attempt to order me to eat food I don't like the look of and other stuff that demeans men. I kind of like these girls - I may have a doctorate but I'm from a poor family and my intellect isn't that great. At home I'd rather be watching China's Got Talent than talk about poetry or philosophy. And if you're that type of guy, then Filipinas or other little brown girls are great.

[Dudevondudenstein]

Where are you in the Philippines and where are you going on the bus? Just curious its fine if you do not want to answer. I find that it is sometimes useful to discuss likes and dislikes such as books, cinema, music, food, life goals such as career, family and so on when speaking to women.

[davewe]

Tons of Filipinas speak English fluently or almost fluently. So if the language barrier is truly your problem, find one of those. OTOH, you said several times that you are very introverted. If your issue is your own limitation, then that is what you will have to deal with in any culture.

[Maverick]

I'm 36 and came over to the Philippines for a 3 week holiday. The first week I thought, "This is the same as Australia, no one in the street smiles at you. It's not like the claims in the Happier Abroad book."

(I wrote 2 posts about this and neither has been posted, maybe they were 'censored' for going against the Happier Abroad claims, let's give the benefit of the doubt and say the computer malfunctioned!)

Anyway, surely this post won't be censored, I picked up a hot 22-year old! After just one week here I picked up. I had done no internet chatting to Filipinas because, while I joined a Filipino dating site, virtually all the girls on there looked ugly & I was too introverted to talk with them! What on Earth would I talk about?

On the 8th day here, these Filipino guys I'd met the night before hooked me up. A girl they knew was passing by and whamo, they set me up. They claim they never see her with guys and they are security guards near her house and see her coming in and out every night and she's claimed to me also that she's never been out on dates even though I'd call her attractive. We've gone out twice with her 11-year old cousin being the translator as her English lacks & I sit there and think, "What can I talk about?" It's such a strain for me, dating, and always has been. I'm so introverted. Women r good schemers and after the expected interrogation from her about my history (i.e. no previous marriage) she's arranged for me to take her and the cousin to some 4-hour bus trip to see her dad this weekend. I probably shouldn't be giving away this stuff on the net and all that but it's scary stuff. Wondering if I should pull the pin and go back to Western women or keep going ahead with this farce. All guys who r married to Filipinas claim to be happy. How can u be happy when u can't even have a decent sentence without the translator. And we live different lives, what to talk about? Lol, we had a mix-up today and she waited for an hour for me at a time I was unaware we'd agreed to. She didn't seem to care though.

I will escape in a week when I have to go back to Australia. Guess I'll have to message her forever? Man, I'm shockin' at this, any advice? From smart people like Ladislav please. Haha.

Most Filipinas speak English fluently. I found Thai girls to be much harder to communicate with.

I've had a long term Filipina gf and am currently talking to a few from dating sites. I've had no problems with communication (but I'm a person that conversation with strangers comes easy to). I find it cute when they pronounce words wrong or misunderstand what I'm saying.

That's just me though.

Also, remember that you're in their country. Its your responsibility to learn their language, not the other way around (I will acknowledge that this my be hard in Phil because there are so many different dialects).

Mahal kita, bro.

[ladislav]

What is your goal? And where in the Philippines are you?

[jagulep]

Brilliant answers, thanks.

Where am I? Hmmm, I am in the Visayas, in one of the cities (I imagine they're similar to each other). Manila/Luzon had sounded to me like dead-ends. This girl's dad lives in some smaller town near the other end of the island. Sorry, I don't really feel comfortable being more specific about where. Yeh, I did talk about music last night so I can do that I guess.

But I think like Davewe says, I'm gonna have probs everywhere, my personality is not attractive to girls. So while I'm with her it's the same feeling I've pretty much always had around girls: 'this is awkward, I want to go home & play chess on the net & read Happier Abroad and do guy stuff instead of pretending I like sitting in a restaurant buying meals & being bored out of my skull.' So I probably should bail out & go home. Then I'll be back to lonely of course so dunno how to win! And yeh, I guess I should at least pick a more fluent speaker. I can try to learn Visayan better but seems pointless when the whole relationship seems forced & I just feel like a piggy-bank. How do u cope with that 'piggy-bank' feeling? I was prepared for it but now feeling it, it makes me feel pretty stupid. It's optimistic in the extreme, I know, to hope a girl will like u for u and not for your money but it does feel stupid.

Lol, the second sentence I said to her was "Mahal kita" ("I love you"), something I'd never say to a girl in Australia, I'd cope a right fist down my throat. But my new mates had just taught me the sentence & why not use it, lol.

My aim was to find someone for marriage here but now it feels just as awkward as in Australia and I feel the same constant yearning to commit suicide that I always feel around girls. So feeling at the moment like packing it in. I dunno how u break-up, guess u say some honest rubbish like, "It doesn't feel to me like it's working, was great to meet you, c ya".

[Dudevondudenstein]

It sounds like you should go do stuff that you find fun and take her with you and see if she likes it. If she likes it then give it more time, if she doesn't like it move on to a new lady. Do things that you enjoy that you know will make you feel comfortable. If that is playing chess then ask her if she knows how or teach her how and see if she likes it. Take her to do stuff that you want to do and see how it goes.

The "piggy bank" feeling is a feeling I had many times in the United States with women that want to go on vacations and receive jewelry etc. When I was in the Philippines I didn't feel that bad spending money to go out to eat or go to the cinema. I was not asked to buy expensive gifts like I was in the United States. My girl even asked that we go to the less expensive Filipino style restaurants.

[jagulep]

Thanks, Dude. Helpful to a person with a brain. I however, am a social robot so I think I will have to give up and say it ain't gonna work and crawl back to Australia.

Pros of staying & marrying the chick:
1) hot 22-year old so obvious plusses I can think of in that arena
2) no divorce

Cons:
1) still feel socially awkward all the time - and that's just not fun
2) idea of just grabbing her & kissing her is unnatural as it always is for me
3) I'm Baptist so I don't think I can really go Catholic like her
4) the paying for her all the time feels degrading
5) can I really live permanently in a dirty developing country? (if u come to the provinces in the Philippines you'll see the dirtiness)

The 2 hot chicks I had last year I didn't enjoy being with coz I'd constantly feel anxiety but they did actually chip in a lot so I didn't feel like a walking wallet.
Now I gotta try to get up the courage to say I'm probably not coming back next year. Hard to say to her coz the family's having dreams of me coming back & them enlarging the house from being just one room with curtain divisions - plus I'm a wimp! Ah well, at least I found out that I'm a social misfit in all countries & that the Philippines was not some dream paradise for me; I could've worried about that to the grave if I hadn't come.

Hard to feel sorry for me. If I weren't me I'd PM myself saying "You ungrateful jerk, a hot 22-year old & u gonna give her up? If I had a gun I'd shoot u right now, ya bell-end."

[ladislav]

My advice is just coast along, relax and see where it leads you.

[jboy]

My advice is just coast along, relax and see where it leads you.

I've been in the Phillies for a long while now and yeah best is to let things roll.

[celery2010]

Sounds like you need someone you can talk to and feel more comfortable around. You might try mainland China. Girls in the PI are a little brainless. Not good conversationalists. And obviously there is also EE and Latin Am.