Philippines' killjoy truth (note to self)

[Shemp]

Johnny Law is actually the opposite of incel, I think. His problem rather is excess ejaculatory sex (with junk women he has nothing in common with, pesumably). Even for a young man like him, sexual kung fu is necessary to avoid depletion from sex, which causes anger (see above) and also craving for still more ejaculation, thus perpetuating the cycle. Johnny Law badly needs lessons from Master Mantak Chia, who used to be located not far away in Chiang Mai, though the teachings are also available to everyone via books.

[Zambales]

Rock made a great point about looking for pockets of affluence in Metro Manila which triggered my thinking. The provinces surrounding Metro Manila are also wealthy such as Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan. In fact, Calamba City, which is roughly 20 miles south of the capital, located in Laguna, is one of the richest cities, if not the richest city outside of Metro Manila and Cebu. Calamba is also the birthplace of intellect and national hero, Jose Rizal.

The most expensive school/college/university in the Philippines, by the way, is the Centre for International Education, which is British, and is located in Cebu City.

http://cie.edu/home/

[Jonny Law]

Johnny Law is actually the opposite of incel, I think. His problem rather is excess ejaculatory sex (with junk women he has nothing in common with, pesumably). Even for a young man like him, sexual kung fu is necessary to avoid depletion from sex, which causes anger (see above) and also craving for still more ejaculation, thus perpetuating the cycle. Johnny Law badly needs lessons from Master Mantak Chia, who used to be located not far away in Chiang Mai, though the teachings are also available to everyone via books.

MEANWHILE IN THAILAND
The women are easier than in America.

This word does not exist here in Thailand.
FAITHFUL
adjective faith·ful \ˈfāth-fəl\
steadfast in affection or allegiance : loyal

Just have fun for the moments. Enjoy Thailand.

[publicduende]

Rock made a great point about looking for pockets of affluence in Metro Manila which triggered my thinking. The provinces surrounding Metro Manila are also wealthy such as Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan. In fact, Calamba City, which is roughly 20 miles south of the capital, located in Laguna, is one of the richest cities, if not the richest city outside of Metro Manila and Cebu. Calamba is also the birthplace of intellect and national hero, Jose Rizal.

The most expensive school/college/university in the Philippines, by the way, is the Centre for International Education, which is British, and is located in Cebu City.

http://cie.edu/home/

Yes, a good point indeed.
I know the trend towards decentralisation of the corporate workplace to areas fairly outside Metro Manila is well underway, and it follows the decentralisation of the education hubs which has been a trend for some time now. Two good examples are exactly where you mention: the area around Calamba has one of the best universities in the country, UP Los Banos. Santa Rosa, north of Calamba, is home to the new engineering and computer science campus of De La Salle University, arguably producing the best IT graduates in the country. The same cluster contains industrial and IT parks, including the new Ubi Studios Manila.

I would be curious to know what the social scene in those cities looks like. I would assume people share big houses or live with their families and commute by car everyday.

Consider that girls from good backgrounds tend to be quite cliquish - they often go out with their (extended) family or group of close friends (barkada), they take their cars and hit the beach or go to lush places like Tagaytay.

Never heard of CIE before, must be a posh private college.

[Johnny1975]

Publicduende, why don't you set up your own academy for young ladies. The only prerequisite for getting in is to be cute. Then you can educate the hell out of them. Yeah, educate them real good. By the time they graduate they'll have a deep understanding of what it means to get educated.

[publicduende]

Publicduende, why don't you set up your own academy for young ladies. The only prerequisite for getting in is to be cute. Then you can educate the hell out of them. Yeah, educate them real good. By the time they graduate they'll have a deep understanding of what it means to get educated.

LOL what kind of academy? Software development?

[Zambales]

Breast development

[HouseMD]

Curious if I could crack the top ladders of the Filipino social hierarchy... I'd come across as a guy with zero reason to be there. Maybe I could pick up a faculty position at a medical school or a job at the CDC and work from there... Eh, I'd I end up single again, maybe I'll entrain it.

[HouseMD]

Publicduende, why don't you set up your own academy for young ladies. The only prerequisite for getting in is to be cute. Then you can educate the hell out of them. Yeah, educate them real good. By the time they graduate they'll have a deep understanding of what it means to get educated.

LOL what kind of academy? Software development?

I think he was leaning more towards hardware

[publicduende]

LOL

[davewe]

Certainly I am not looking for Ms Perfect. I actually suggested to go have a look in tier-2 and 3 cities (like Iligan or Dumaguete) but after talking to my Filipino friends I realise it's a hopeless exercise: the best and brightest (and prettiest) always leave to the larger and largest cities, leaving the uneducated simpletons ashore.

It strikes me that in this one sentence you have summarized the two biggest problems that are defeating you.

First your Filipino friends tell you "it's a hopeless exercise." People who tell you that what you are trying to do is "hopeless" have an agenda. In the best of worlds they may actually be friends but incapable of encouraging you. In the worst of worlds they are not friends. To be blunt - dump those type of friends.

Secondly, you state your standard mantra about "the best and the brightest (and prettiest)." In most cases the "best and the brightest" make great trophies but lousy spouses. Have fun with them, bang them, fondly remember the times you were with them - but don't marry them! When you find the girl you want to spend your life with you won't care whether she's the mythical unicorn and you sure as hell won't care about what your friends think.

[publicduende]

Certainly I am not looking for Ms Perfect. I actually suggested to go have a look in tier-2 and 3 cities (like Iligan or Dumaguete) but after talking to my Filipino friends I realise it's a hopeless exercise: the best and brightest (and prettiest) always leave to the larger and largest cities, leaving the uneducated simpletons ashore.

It strikes me that in this one sentence you have summarized the two biggest problems that are defeating you.

First your Filipino friends tell you "it's a hopeless exercise." People who tell you that what you are trying to do is "hopeless" have an agenda. In the best of worlds they may actually be friends but incapable of encouraging you. In the worst of worlds they are not friends. To be blunt - dump those type of friends.

Secondly, you state your standard mantra about "the best and the brightest (and prettiest)." In most cases the "best and the brightest" make great trophies but lousy spouses. Have fun with them, bang them, fondly remember the times you were with them - but don't marry them! When you find the girl you want to spend your life with you won't care whether she's the mythical unicorn and you sure as hell won't care about what your friends think.

Always pills of wisdom from you Dave, thanks! This topic of Filipino "friends or foes" makes for an interesting conversation to be had over wine under a starry sky, with our respective better halves giggling in some flavour of Cebuano the other corner of the table.

In short: at least when I am referring to my Rotary friends, they're real friends. Well educated, accomplished people who do have my best interest at heart. Most of them, at least, proved me they do. The "hopeless exercise" is my words, they have never even once uttered them. Whether they secretly believe it, especially considering that after 18 months I still insist to be single and the subject of much (benign) teasing, that's a different story.

They're very good people. If I basically risked setting up shop in a city (Davao) that I knew was immature for the kind of software consultancy I had in mind, it's because of them, because I knew I would feel safe having them around. Their main shortcoming, which is a worldview shortcoming, is perhaps their inability to put themselves in my shoes. They all naively assume that, since I am white and gwapo (handsome), I could potentially access and woo any woman on Earth, yet they are reluctant to even mention the possibility of them introducing me to any of the precious flowers from their extended families. So OK, I count that as adulation coated with politeness. No problem, I can find my own dates...given enough time and room for maneuver, which at the moment is a very scarce commodity.

I beg to disagree on the best and brightest argument: in certain circles, the best and brightest can be very good spouses too, and even good moms, albeit with the usual provisions typical of upper class families, like the availability of servants and nannies to do most of the dirty work of parenting and housekeeping. I see such best and brightest all the time: many of them are wives to my friends and girlfriends to their sons. Whether they're 20 or 50, they're not just delightful creatures to look at, they constantly tempt me to use them as benchmark for what can be found over here. Or worse, what I could potentially find.

And that's where my defeat lies. I am the Elephant Man in the room, the object of awe and curiosity, admiration, even. Yet it is clear that, though I might feel (or be made to feel) like one of them for a few hours or days, I am not one of them. Unlike poor or modest families in the province who would jump at the idea of white Caucasian DNA having a chance to re-enter their bloodstream after a century, these people have nothing to prove to me or anyone else. They won't have to pander or stipulate and agenda with me and involving any of their female family members. They live for who they are, and perpetuate their network of power, wealth and opportunity to the next generation by marrying into each other.

One thing is true, though...they do make me wish I was one of them!

In short, maybe it's my fault, that I got too close to see glimpses or upper class family life here, and have developed a unique taste for food I just can't afford, and will never have. It would have probably felt better if all I had ever seen had been the life a modest to poor barangay family, with children playing in muddy streets, small clusters of ladyboys chatting away their idle evenings, and cute dark skinned "stick girls" (to echo Pete) walking around in neon colour short pants and flip flops. I would have felt more of the rockstar type, comfortably sitting up on the tennis referee seat and looking down to them with benevolent superiority.

I would have felt empowered to play the "take your pick" game on multiple smiley 20-something, which - I agree - is about the most soothing thing that can happen to battered 40-something coming out of a failed relationship.

What I have seen, I cannot unsee. Many of you, like MarcusZ or probably yourself, do not nurture a lot of sympathy towards the Filipino high society. You consider them the snooty elite who isn't worth having anything to do with. Well, that doesn't seem to be my case. I have met genuinely good, if cliquish and insular, people who did open all the doors that could be opened to me. Too bad I want what lies beneath that pastel-coloured bedroom door...over there...

[Johnny1975]

Do you know what the spanish filipinos are like (whatever's left of them)?

[Adama]

I just read the OP. Sounds like a man who drives a very hard bargain. I am glad I do not have such high standards as him. It seems to me that there is not a country on earth where anyone of any type could simply expect to have access to "the inner sanctum" of (whatever glorious thing you wish for) without having been born into it. Most people in their own countries who grew up there don't even have access to the gems. So this man is upset that he can't find a gem's gem.

I also completely failed to grasp the whole meaning behind some of his paragraphs. Not because I'm illiterate.
Unfortunately, I know by experience what it means to be with a girl who you can't love anymore because you don't connect to, so you won't respect (not beyond a casual friendship), and whose life and feelings stayed stale while yours evolved (I am not talking about my wife). It involves continuous suffering, on both parties. One party will feel tired, bored and positively suffocated and guilty. The other will be left dumbfounded as to why this is happening, why one is drifting from the other with no apparent explanation, and ultimately frustrated and in pain when understanding that they can't do anything but being a spectator of the drift.

I don't even know what that means. I don't ask for much in women: Be of my ideal physical attractiveness, don't have bad body odor, be submissive, (and of course a psychologically healthy person who isn't a compulsive liar or other type of reprobate). What's this guy looking for? I don't fault anyone for wanting to best of the best. Just make sure it is the best of the best, not the best of the non-existent.

[Adama]

If you come to Davao or smaller city, you will realise that most of the girls you will ever be able to date or meet won't have an opinion about, say, Duterte or the issue of drug abuse, let alone more complex topics like climate change or the colonial history of the Philippines, which require some study and mental extrapolation. They will be, quite literally, happy to see you, have sex with you and show you what good wives they can be by cooking pinakbet or chicken adobo and washing your clothes. That's where their role stops. I can get bored of a girl like that after 10 days, not even ten years!

And that is the way it should be. Those topics are nonsense and nothing to be concerned about. There's not much they can do to change it. And if it doesn't truly affect their everyday lives, why should they waste their time and energy giving it heed? You just want someone who will sit around and talk international politics with you for some reason.

Dude, that is not the function of a wife. A wife is meant to be a wife, not a debating partner about world politics, global warming, or the state of the state. Turn on CNN if you want that.