I know this a topic that has been discussed at length before. Yet, just wanted to bring some new perspective, courtesy of a good friend of C's whom we met for dinner on Saturday. C's friend and her husband are a decidedly middle-upper-class couple in their late twenties. They both have decent jobs in BGC, nothing too special or posh, just two Millennials who could reasonably be proud of what they have achieved. C's friend got married just before Covid and we finally obliged to a post-Covid catchup. They just finished to settle in their new metropolitan pad, so home dinner it was.
So, thanks to some better than usual wine, the conversation sailed on and landed on the usual dating stereotypes surrounding Filipina/foreigner relationships, not shying away from the spicier ones.
The piece worth reporting was basically their opinion on the many dating websites that cater for "international" interactions, so the likes of DateInAsia or FilipinoCupid. Both C's friend and hubby essentially agreed on what C had told me several times before: that Filipinas usually will not resort to using such sites until they are absolutely certain that they can't find love locally. And, by "locally", they were referring to local (Filipino) men and, to a much lesser extent, the occasional bona-fide expat, e.g. working for international BPOs or at the Asian Development Bank.
When I contested that "so, by looking for a girl on a dating site, a foreigner is pretty much guaranteed that that girl will be at the end of her love life rope", they nodded.
They backed this up by saying that, after all, Filipinos love to spend time together and every group bound by same study/work activities or hobbies/interest is a "barkada" (friends circle) which ends up meeting several times a month, with religious regularity, for drinks or other social activities. They have birthdays, welcome parties, despedidas (goodbyes to someone leaving), promotion/achievement parties, boys/girls only dos. And this is without even factoring in gigs organised by their university, company, church, at every major festivity allowed.
Apparently, in the Philippines mingling among work colleagues is not frowned upon, not even in the more extreme cases of people at different levels of the chain of command, e.g. a director and a much younger officer or secretary.
Thinking about that, that's a pretty massive amount of chances for any young man or woman worth their salt to socialise and advertise themselves to their barkadas. And if not a barkada member, there will always be a best friend, a cousin, etc. Under these conditions, how long would, say, a well-educated, well-mannered and good looking young woman stay single? Probably not very long.
I then objected that this is probably less true in smaller towns and villages, and was quickly proven wrong. Smaller towns might not have the kinds of large workplace settings, like BPOs and international companies, yet schools and colleges, church and charities, will still be there. C's friend's husband added that, usually, a worthy girl would find it even easier to find a suitor in a community where everybody knows everybody and "news travel fast".
So, their thesis was that, if a girl is so good and yet has to resort to a dating site where she is going to hope to find a foreigner, it means only one thing: the girl, or her family, or both, ain't so good after all. Chances are pretty high that she or some member(s) of her family have a bad reputation in their community, maybe nothing too dramatic yet enough to keep quality suitors away from her.
One more argument: as I myself noticed, it's quite common for Filipino boys, and even their families sometimes, to scout for girls who hail from families of (much) lower status, and yet have something exceptional to offer: usually very pretty or particularly smart, sometimes both. So that means that many of the girls who are poor but good looking and/or smart and well-mannered will be snapped up pretty quickly by a boy who is more interested in a hot catch than her dowry.
The logical conclusion for all parties involved became quite clear: dating sites are for the "remaining girls", those who don't have much to offer at the local dating table and use "the longest possible fishing line" (as C's friend put it) to catch a man who doesn't speak their language, who doesn't understand their culture and customs. Most importantly, a man who is prepared to base his judgment, often one that leads to a long term relationship or marriage, only on what she chooses to tell him during her chats or during the few idyllic days spent together.
As C's friend's husband admitted, the lack of a "right to be heard" from any parties who are not the girl, the girl's family or anyone who is interested in pairing up the girl, is a problem even in the Philippines, especially in large cities where people can easily rebuild a social identity.
Not surprisingly, this rings a few bells as, even in the more traditional Southern European societies, until not so long ago, every town and village used to have people skilled at "collecting stories" and fact-checking them on behalf of a family before their son or daughter would get married to a semi-stranger.
Well, a pretty brutal wake-up call, yet supported by some impeccable logic. I was able to at least score one for the team by admitting that, given the state of Western society and how rotten girls "our side of the pool" have become, even girls who may be undesirable for the Filipino may be acceptable to a foreign man. Objection sustained, yet it didn't exactly sound like a pat on the back of my own people.
As a corollary, we thought that this thesis is probably applicable not only to the Philippines, but to most south-east asian cultures, who value bonding at different levels and can't seem to spend too much time alone. Probably Malaysia and Indonesia, maybe Thailand.
What do you guys think?
