Philippines' killjoy truth (note to self)

[OutWest]

Rock did it, and he's a similar high-achieving type like yourself. He is similarly very selective, but is still able to date quite a few high-calibre women in the Metro Manila area. I'm guessing that his actual age might be not be that far off from yours, but he wouldn't tell anyone his real age.

Maybe you can meet up with Rock again in Metro Manila, and give the upper-middle-class Filipino dating scene a second shot.

Thanks for weighing in, Falcon. I think Rock had a number of factors that played in his favours:

1) he has access to a massive and massively diverse dating pool in Metro Manila;
2) he has plenty of time and money to contact girls, chase them and date them; he is able to pay short notice visit anywhere in the Philippines, to meet a girl he's interested in; I am obviously very happy for him and his life set-up but, you will admit, this is not everybody's standard case and, unfortunately, the polar opposite of mine;
3) he has quite particular tastes that actually work in his favour: when he does find a girl of his fancy, she is rarely the kind of girl who get constantly chased by local boys;
4) perhaps the most important of all: he has the patience to stick to the girl and wait for her to make up her mind, for something platonic to turn more serious, perhaps even for her to break up with her bf. Of course this strategy works better when you're pursuing a girl who's not putting out while you're banging another who is. This game is a winning one and is fun and I tried to play it in Davao a couple of times. It doesn't work out very well, unfortunately: Davao is not such a big place, there are only so many malls and if you go out with a girl while dating another, it's only a matter of a few dates before girl 2 or her friends spot you walking hand in hand with girl 1.

And anyway, trouble comes when you grow tired of the routine and you want to commit. High quality girls are scarce here, I heard this from multiple people including my (now infamous) Rotary friends who according to most here are unable to give me good advice. The best ones go study in Manila, maybe Cebu, and many of them never come back to Davao. Some of them go straight abroad. It's probably easier to find a quality pretty Filipina in Singapore or Bangkok than here.

Once again, it's not about me giving a shot to the Manila dating scene. It's the Manila dating scene giving a shot to a man like me. I feel it will all take an inordinate amount of time, discipline and frustration to find somebody of value. Time and maybe discipline that I cannot muster at this stage of my life. It's gonna be at least another year to see the company grow to sustainability and being able to zoom back and dedicate more time to myself, as opposed to scrambling to find ways to pay my staff salaries and office costs.

Don't forget about Marcos Zeitola. He is truly happy with a kind-hearted middle-class Filipina who is a UP Diliman graduate.

Well, case in point, Marcos Zeitola is in the middle of nowhere, perhaps the only white man in a 100 Km radius, living a simple life and feeling like a rockstar. He made his choices and I applaud his choices. However, they're different from mine.

I think you did answer the step one question. You said you did not have the time to spend to check out some lower tier cities. Thats the first nut to crack, that is, how to create some time windows, some flexibility.
When i met my wife, i was relaxed and spending a couple of months looking around. I dont know if there are other shortcuts. I feel a ceetain amount of anger or frustration from you about the degree to which your business has hobbled you. Really, i think this is the fly in your soup at the monent.

[Rock]

Make no mistake, Manilla is a giant drug infested, crime stricken, poverty laden shit hole. I don't say that lightly. I went there once for a few days...the city is a disaster. Prostitution is rampant - everywhere. I mean you can't even walk down the street without 5 hookers from the opposite (and THE SAME sex) propositioning you for the time.

The locals all look at you like they despise you, infact they do. That country is really...really sad.
Fillipina's only are out for the money, everything's on the meter. I went there once and hired a couple girls for the weekend. We had fun, but it was still...all on the meter.

Thailand is probably better.

It sounds like you stayed in one of the tiny red light districts - Ermita near Robinsons Mall, EDSA Entertainment Complex, Burgos, etc. What do you expect? Why didn't you stay in a decent area like BGC, Ortigas, Salceido Village, Legazpi Village, Rockwell, Alabang, Eastwood, MOA, etc.?

I challenge you to go into a regular area and beg girls to go with you for money. You will get dozens and dozens of rejections but no takers.

Of course if you hire a couple girls it's on the meter, hello. Thais are as a whole more money focused and practical than Filipinos. Once a Filipino's basic needs are met, it's likely that he will lose motivation to do too much for anything more. They are more about the here and now.

Metro Manila is really a cluster of many cities and areas. As a whole, it's a congested and polluted eyesore with crumbling public infrastructure combined with first world privately invested mall and residential developments. Crime risk is very low if you stay in the decent areas like ones mentioned above. There are always lots of people out and about and guards everywhere so you don't feel threatened. And Duterte admin is slaughtering dealers and addicts by the 1,000s in the slum areas so the overall situation can be expected to improve dramatically on the crime front.

[publicduende]

I think you did answer the step one question. You said you did not have the time to spend to check out some lower tier cities. Thats the first nut to crack, that is, how to create some time windows, some flexibility.
When i met my wife, i was relaxed and spending a couple of months looking around. I dont know if there are other shortcuts. I feel a ceetain amount of anger or frustration from you about the degree to which your business has hobbled you. Really, i think this is the fly in your soup at the monent.

I have none of what you had when you met your wife, and I have none of what, say, Rock has plenty of: free time, peace of mind, no financial burdens, no salaries and office costs to pay and no client pipeline to keep well fed.

I don't think I will ever have the luxury to spend time roaming the most remote villages of Cotabato scouting for the hidden gem. I think I need to kill the business, in any way possible, before I can gain a modicum of breathing space and freedom. It's only a matter of weeks, mate. Yet then, once I will have reverted my coveted PEZA Visa back into a tourist Visa and continued to live on a modest passive income, in a rented tiny condo unit in Davao, waiting for a bigger condo unit that will be ready - if ever - by mid 2018...what guarantees me that my life will change considerably?

Yes, I will have more time for myself...to destress, eat healthy and hit the gym almost everyday, do one thing I have always dreamed of doing - learn Kali, the local martial arts. I will look more youthful, more relaxed and healthy. And yet, time will continue to fly by, I will quickly enter my mid-40's, perfect "walking ATM" age. At that point all the workouts and the healthy habits in the world won't save me from being seen as the walking ATM by the typical girls who buzz around a foreigner for cash, or those who can only choose between a foreigner or a poor-as-f*ck same-age Filipino who will knock them up and dump them, so they choose the former.

So, as retiredfrank said, maybe my only hope is to actually grab the little financial benefit I am chasing, with this company, and hope to use that as a leverage to date maybe in Manila, or Cebu. Basically, keep working my ass off to perhaps have, in a couple of years ago, what I had nice and ready on my plate a good 4 years ago. Oh, the irony of life