You are not wrong. I want to build the to-go shop for banking, financials and fintech in the Philippines.Rock wrote:This is pretty grim stuff. It seems we guys are victims of our own egos.
Correct me if I'm wrong but you wanna build something sustainable there to say you did it against all odds and perhaps get some appreciation from locals for helping the economy and supporting individuals and families with jobs or even career paths. But, it behooves you to assume that even if you pull it all off, nobody there will appreciate you at all. Indeed they will only perceive it as you getting rich off the locals (even if your company only posts losses) and feeding them scraps in return, basically exploiting cheap wages, lower costs, and lack of organized power there just like Koreans and maybe Indians do.
Even if you run a charity, don't expect to be appreciated or have people feel they somehow owe you a debt of gratitude even if they kiss your ass and pay you lip service to your face. They feel obligated to their parents and families but you can't expect their gratitude to extend beyond their clan network no matter what works you perform. Yohan's Filipina foster daughter, depending on what age he adopted her at and how much time they are together, may truly have those feelings towards him and his Japanese wife. But that is an exceptional case.
It's not about ego. It's about pride, Rock. It's about the emotional rollercoaster of putting your heart and your balls on the BBQ and risking it all to build something that wasn't there before, something greater than the sum of the parts, and something larger than yourself and your own needs and wants.
Of course one of the measures of success is how happy and professional or financially secure your staff's lives are. I know that Filipinos can be extremely loyal or extremely lazy and uncommitted depending on how the job (and the boss) treat them. The employees of the average BPO who pays them subsistence wage to turn up in the most ungodly hours, follow scripted answers and eat cup noodles at 4 AM, will probably exercise litte gratitude to their bosses.
I didn't expect to be appreciated because I work hard, I work to keep their jobs on the line. And yet, I tell you what, I am being appreciated. I do have the impression that these guys at my office know how hard it is to run a company in its infancy, give up their own salary so the staff can be paid regularly and have a comfortable work environment. After many months in the office, I can see their behaviour, the way the follow my instructions, the way they respond when I share my hopes and my frustrations with them, it's beyond pure lip service. As I said, I don't expect to be hailed as a hero, but I do feel comfortable in the "servant manager" kind of role that applies to the typical start-up company.
Now, the point of this topic is another. I naively extrapolated the whole curve, and thought that these sacrifices, this effort and this stress would, for some magic karmic effect, automatically give me access to the prettiest young things in town. I thought that a girl with real beauty, values and a good heart would understand what I am doing, why I am doing it, love it and love me. I thought the young woman of my dreams would appreciate the fact I am an ethically sound man trying to build something new in her country, in her community. I thought she would somehow discount the fact that I am not exactly a young rockstar and, at least for now, far from financially solid.
The young woman of my dreams, alas, only exists in my dreams. She is not a Filipina, a Colombian or an Italian, she inhabits my mind and my mind alone. Filipinas are no different from any other female specimen of this planet. They have their own lives and belief systems and limited attention span to observe, define and label their fellow human beings.
The Filipinas of this generation are millennials like everyone else at their age: they are preoccupied with (self-)validation, liking the right stuff at the right time and sharing it to the world as if it weren't the most trite form of conformism. They are entitled and picky. Like many on this forum, I overstated my arbitrage value, I thought that I could aim a little higher and that the girls were a little more interested in an adult with my qualities. Alas, no.
Moreover, my business card doesn't have my allegedly high ethical standards, my blood & sweat and my desire to find Miss Right printed on it. To them, as to any Filipino who doesn't spend 4 hours plus with me every day, I am just another adult foreigner, decent looking but far from stud status, keeping himself busy with a business (who doesn't?) and with little time to date and entertain girls.
In short, I am not special, And what's more, they are not special either. None of them is. This is my major fall from grace. I could scout the entire archipelago for the kind of young beauty who ticks all of my boxes. Chances are, I won't find her. Or well, I will find plenty of them, but none of them will be interested in me.
I might try and "buy" one of them by convincing their impoverished parents that I am the right man to take care of their daughter. I could convince her mama and papa to override her reluctance to go kiss, sleep and live with a man 20+ years her senior. For the sake of the family, like many Filipinas do. As experience taught me: if a girl is smart and knows her value (or my value), she will still pull out of the deal.
I tried to do just that with the hot morena, whose pic I posted a while ago. I thought, what the hell, she looks hot to me but she's not the type Filipinos would ever choose. She is only good to a foreigner, or maybe a Pinoy old man as a young mistress. Yes she's smart and has potential, too, but she sleeps on the floor of a nipa hut and her family makes a grand total of 2,000 pesos a month. Her dad is in jail. I dated far less desperate, and even more beautiful girls in the past, so I thought this was within my reach.
As it turned out...no. After the first couple of days of hot stuff together she started to be doubtful, saying that she didn't like a man older than her mom, and that she would have to let her family decide. Another way to say "I am not into you but if you can be at least good to our family, I will sacrifice". In a bout of naive pride I said "challenge accepted" and met her family on several occasions. First meet, dinner at Viking's, probably the most luxurious meal her mom and young brother have ever had in their lives. Met them again on a Sunday afternoon, family reunion time, met about 20 of her relatives. No shit, they all loved me to bits. Her mom, her granpa, her second cousins far removed, the whole lot.
Result: she kept rejecting me. She was reluctant, she kept saying that she didn't want to commit (but didn't want to have sex either). I told her to disappear then, that she just played with my feelings and she should just go and be done with "us". Then, after a one-week hyatus, she came back with the fakest of smiles, all lovey-dovey and saying she loves me and wants to live with me. Clear as f*ck sign that her family told her to run back to me and stick to me, for everybody's good. And that's where my pride kicked in big time and I rejected her again.
Fast forward another couple of weeks, on Valentine's day I was with ny current date at Jack's Ridge, a popular spot in Davao, and saw her, in the same coffee shop, dressed to impress and chatting amiably with a foreigner who looked in his late twenties, at most.
So if, as you say below, I had accepted her, allowed her to live with me, her fakeness might have melted away, solidified into real respect, appreciation and even love. But there's the problem: I would hate this scenario. I couldn't stand it. I can't stand a girl pretending to like me for 48 hours, let alone a few days or a lifetime!
If that's the case, I'd rather have a feelings-free fling with that girl and know that she is putting out because she does it with every man, or she has a transaction in mind. I wouldn't even begin to ask myself if she likes me. Hearing her moan in bed and ask for more is all the validation I need. Again, in that case, I would give her very little respect, and certainly no chance in hell of a long term relationship.
You know, we discussed this to exhaustion. In the Philippines, for men like me at least, it's all about quantity, not quality. Density, not intensity. Like in a cheesy love flick, in fact like in any movie, looking for love in the Philippines requires suspension of belief, and a lot of it. As Zambales says, it's literally about "believing", because only a man with a lot of belief, indeed faith, can go as far as marry a young Filipina without even asking himself if she is genuinely attracted to him, if she likes him as a person, if they have common interests, dreams, ambitions, if their personalities match, beyond the usual fairy tale quality time vacation stuff.
Unfortunately, I am not built that way and I am still burned by doing exactly that with my (soon to be ex) wife: I closed my eyes, held her hand and went to Colombia to marry her, whispering the "it's all gonna be OK, it's all gonna be OK..." mantra in my own ears. And it did go OK for a few years until a few personal problems prompted me to open my eyes and realise that I had wanted something else, maybe somebody else, all along.
I am 42 years old and practicality hasn't won out on me. If practicality means the total resignation that I have to settle for what (or who) comes to me and accept their reluctance and insecurity, their calculating feelings, their hidden agendas, so I can get decent sex and the illusion that she might, one day, change her mind about me - if practicality means that, I will try to steer well clear from that for as long as I can!Rock wrote:I can understand why a man wants to build and create something. It's seems to be in our DNA. But for a lot of us, especially as age progresses, practicality wins out. Majority of guys who wanna travel or expat on their own do not have the options you have. For them, making their business work is their only hope unless they wanna teach English. But in your case, you have a valuable skill which for the foreseeable future can support a decent lifestyle for you in Asia. So your opportunity cost is extremely high. And the ball and chain business is consuming most of your energy and time to the detriment of your other personal goal of finding a suitable mate. That's why I believe your ego may be working against you.
Then you're right, my opportunity cost is very high and I have missed at least half a million in revenues since I decided to ditch tier-1 investment banks and asset managers for an unknown start-up and then my own business. I could go to Singapore any time and make 160/180K SGD on a decent IT job in one of the few financial institutions still standing proud in the city state.
And you're right again: this start-up founder life is steamrolling my bank account, my life, my physical and mental health. Whether I sit here or shout in the air to vent my frustration, I kind of lose it several times a day. Then I inhale, exhale and it comes back to me. And I keep working and hoping. After all, my conviction comes from the fact that the success of this business requires patience and is entirely under my control.
Once again, Rock: it's pride, not ego. Pride is related to self-esteem and drive, ego is related to self-assurance and entitlement. Ego is pride's dumb & lazy cousin.
As I said before, what's not under my control is making a pretty young woman, an educated one and from a decent family, who has plenty of options with equally young educated and well off local men (if she hasn't already exercised that option) fall for me. It takes two to tango and everybody knows it's against the rules, to take a woman by the wrists and force her to dance with you.
I sitting in Makati (Enterprise Centre) in between meetings. The more I spend time in Manila, the more I see these young, pretty and well dressed ladies going in and out corporate offices and coffee shops, the more I think the Filipina of my dreams does exist and does not inhabit my mind alone. Being able to steal one of them off their boyfriends, fiancees or hubbies, or even convincing their families that an adult, divorced foreigner is the better choice for them, is another matter. That, shall remain a dream.
Like any adult foreigner, I am a beggar here. We are here to choose from the leftovers on sales, but feeling like prime buyers. We get the girls who wouldn't be with anyone else but us, let our suspension of belief act as metaphorical beer goggles, and turn a pretty mediocre situation into a favourable, even pleasant, one. After so much time here, my night vision has sharpened up and I can see. Whether many of us adult HA-ers want to admit it or not, this is our shared fate.
Hence, my conclusion is: if a man likes the Asian option and has the slightest standards in terms of class, looks and brains, he should not be looking in the Philippines. He should be in Japan or South Korea, China, Taiwan or Singapore, maybe Thailand.
As of today, I shall close the doors of my heart completely. I will concentrate on growing as a man, as an entrepreneur and build the social (as well as financial) capital that I need to be of value to the kinds of girls I want to be around, whom I seriously doubt will be anywhere else in the Philippines than, maybe, selected circles in business Manila. Then maybe, when I will have a condo in Davao, a good bank account and some powerful connections, I will reward myself with the kind of trophy mistress everybody else aspires to and gets. What on Earth has made me think that I am special and different from all the others 40-something foreigners who try their fortunes in Asia?
I am looking to fulfil my own standards. Despite what I said on some of my earlier posts, where I mentioned seeking approval from my established Davaoeno friends, I do want to choose on my own standards. For a little while I thought I could have a chance with the 19-years old morena, even though I knew she looked like a muchaha (a maid, a hot maid nonetheless), and I knew being engaged with a poor girl with her dad in jail isn't the best business card when living a social life between Davao and Manila.Rock wrote:Trying to find a woman who meets the local Davao standard of beauty and desirability instead of just your own is another way in which your ego is pulling you down. I can go back and pull a quote or two out of your earlier posts in this thread which suggest you are taking this approach. It would be like me choosing a very slim girl with very pretty Eurasian or NE Asian face who rates a 7-8 by local upper middle class standards over a much curvier version who due to being chubby only gets 5-6 even though I need those curves of the latter specimen to feel genuine physical attraction towards her.
Alas, even the morena rejected me. I was able to close both eyes on her status and "exotic" looks because she is smart and she looks like the kind of young woman who could go places, if properly supported. Pygmalion syndrome, kind of stuff. Unfortunately, she proved too smart to overlook the fact I am 42. Case in point: she is dating a young man much younger, not caring that he's probably a tourist who pipelined her with another 4 or 5.
As we discussed before, your particular aesthetic preferences work to your advantage. Your choices are a more specialised version of those Westerners who are looking for very dark skinned girls, who are really low in the Filipino dating pecking order and are all the happier to hook up with a good man who can provide for their clans.
I am trying to lower my standards all the time but, since it takes two to tango, I have to also expect my prospect to lower hers. Finding a good match is hard enough, a match between two compromises is a lot harder.
I don't know...there are so many stories that look or sound similar to ours, that might teach us something, but in fact they're not. I am not looking for the ultimate career woman, just a girl who has an intellectual/cultural life beyond that of household and motherly chores. Someone who has a personality and won't just live in her bf's or husband's shadow. I know some of us get their kicks at the thought of a subservient pet wife whose "complementarity" expresses itself in her cooking, cleaning and giving sex once or twice a day.Rock wrote:By the way, not all local middle/upper middle/higher class local guys in Davao or Metro Manila date and/or marry the most desirable local physical specimens. Every day I'm in the Philippines, I see loads of busted local guys, some very wealthy and or handsome. I see busted local women too (why is she with him lol?) Sometimes love or pairing is just a luck of the draw. Physically mismatched couples are common there and throughout much of Asia. Age gap relationships are more the realm of mistress type deals and higher end P4P which are handled more discreetly and less visibly. But still, I probably see more age gap couples in Philippines than most places. Really 15-20 years is not such a big deal there, especially if you can manage to look youthful for your age. Pinays tend to age quickly so she'll catch up in time lol.
Also, your talk of wife's credentials remind me so much of certain people I know in HK and other NE Asian cities. Are you hiring an employee or looking for a compatible mate? When I worked at an MNC, I saw colleagues in high positions marry their equals in education and others who married much simpler girls. That's not to say the latter group married idiots or peasants. But they had clear complimentary roles in the relationship with their less career oriented and perhaps less educated mates whereas those who married colleagues or other higher flying career types tended to face more challenges. The girl I used to date in Bicol had a brother who married a model. She bore him a child and was a great mother and wife. But when the child got to be 4 or 5, she got a job and entered workforce at some sort of white collar professional capacity. As the months passed, office life changed her. She grew more distant from her husband and got closer to her colleagues. Fast forward a year or two and bam, she's having an affair and separates. A woman cannot serve two masters Duende.
Perhaps the ex-model wife your friend married was still pretty and, after being chased by multiple men in her professional circle, thought she needed a change of pace. There's nothing wrong with that, after all. I would personally feel much more blessed to have a few good years with a woman I love and respect before parting ways, like I am doing with my Monica, than spend forever with a woman I only like for a specific reason (beauty, or youth, or intelligence) and whose relationship is tainted by boredom and/or friction from the beginning.
I agree with you, actually. While here in the Phils, I am not looking for an MBA with a career in the US. I am looking for someone who proved herself to have ambitions beyond being a lovely wife and mother. If a girl has dreams and a half-decent intellect, she will be completing a degree at a good university (UP or a good public uni if finances are lacking) and entering a decent job soon after. I know quite a few of these young women in Davao and there are even more in Makati or BGC. So what's the problem? They're engaged or married, or not interested in me.Rock wrote:IMO, the best and safest deal for LT relationship is someone who falls in the middle somewhere. She graduated from a decent uni with a reasonable score and is working at a respectable job. But she's not a career whore who only talks the BS you hear from MBAs. She has no children and is not a teen but still young or youthful. Her family and she has values in line with your own. She's family oriented and ultimately longs for a family life after dating you maybe 1-2 years. On the looks scale, she might be a 5-7 by most people's standards. If she's more like 7-8 ish, it still might work but will be more challenging.
Love is a process, both for the man and woman. When you see a sexy hottie, when you get enchanted by an angel with charisma even, your feeling is one of lust, not love. One of my Facebook friends is kinda like a dream girl for me. I would give her at least a 7 maybe 8 - light skin, 5'7", pear shaped, and super young. I've followed her for 3 years. When she was 18 or 19, she was dating a white dude with sagging skin which means he mighta been 50s. In the first 12 - 18 months or so, her posts were pretty narcissistic. It was all selfie stuff. Then the first (mixed) kid appeared in photos with her. After another 6 months, the old bf/husband started to appear in photos with her too. Eventually, they moved to states and had a second child. Now her posts are all family type photos and she appears very happy. She may of at first not had much feeling for the guy. But over time, it looks like she has bonded with the guy and structured her life around him and their children. She now appears to be a devoted wife who may even love the old man. That guy really seems to have gotten lucky. Luck is part of the equation. Majority of women, even middle/upper middle class really live in averageville (4-6 ish in looks). So getting a hottie who also has good values and is respectable requires some great luck and timing.
About your dream FB friend, given your tastes, I would imagine she wasn't every Pinoy's dream girl and got snapped up by a foreigner. The foreigner, American I presume, was probably better than me in hanging in there and waiting for his hot gf to fall for him. No surprise your friend is the happiest in the States, on a first-world lifestyle platform, validated as a mother and perhaps as a wife.
The way you state this, you make it look like love from a young pretty girl is but a prize that the adult foreigner has to catch by giving all he can and exercising an endless amount of faith and patience.
The way I am built, if I don't see love, chemistry, respect from the onset, I stop giving and I give up.
For all the talks of masculinity and assertiveness I hear in here, I don't think sticking to a girl who doesn't love you until she might, perhaps one day, show some genuine love and affection, works miracles for a man's pride. If the strategy is "catch the girl and see how it goes later", I am not surprised most Western men can easily find a suitable wife here in the Philippines. Finding one who wants and loves you for who you are, and from the onset, now that's a challenge. That's rare. And that's my problem.
