Misc March 09 II

If you are a young man in his twenties or even thirties and are contemplating expatriating, you may learn of an interesting fact of life or a possibility thereof- your future wife may not even have been born yet. Yes, it can happen so that you may not get married until you are in your late forties or even early fifties because older men are sought after in many a country as husbands. So, if you are twenty four now, you may be forty-six by the time you are ready to marry your twenty-two year old fiancée. Or, if you are thirty now, you may be ready to marry your twenty- year old girlfriend by the time you are fifty. Time flies, you know.

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Bringing in your girlfriend/wife to the West can take a couple of years and involve interviews, mountains of paperwork, medical test, police clearances and other such things that can put a damper on any relationship. Fortress Europe and fortress America make it so difficult for you to marry people from poorer countries that it can simply drive you wild. Some people prefer to just start families in the countries of the wife, not the husband.
How much harder it may be for those who have different sexual orientations! Thailand, for example, is quite a place for Western lovers of alternative lifestyles to find willing partners. However, while bringing a Thai lady to the West is a big headache, bringing a Thai man to the West by another man is a virtual impossibility. I have heard a story about an American man who tried to bring his gay partner to the US, but all visa avenues were closed to him. Obviously, a fiancée visa was out of the question and similarly, a marriage petition could not be arranged, either. So, the American man went off the deep end,: he bought the guy a ticket to Mexico, arranged for him to be transported to Tijuana and then, sent the poor Thai boy across the border with a bunch of illegal workers in a coyote’s van. Miraculously, the lover arrived in Los Angeles where they were tearfully reunited. Unfortunately, the Thai man did not like the diversity of Southern California and the fact that huge numbers of people did not speak English there. After some time, he decided to head back to Thailand and the union was dissolved.
In most cases though, same sex partners choose to live in places that are easier to get to, such as the third world place where the other lover is from. They simply have no choice. Some choose to train the men in some profession for which a work visa could be obtained, but the while thing is an enormous can of worms. Those with alternative persuasions are better off looking for their better half in countries for which there are not that many visa restrictions- Japan, Singapore, W.Europe.

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If you belong to an unpopular nationality, you may have to lie about it. Nothing wrong with that. If people are bigoted against your kind, they deserve to hear untruths. An Iranian guy in the US chose to simply never tell anyone he was Iranian and it worked. He just told people he was Greek. He was in Texas and the “scheme” worked. People believed him.

An American in some place where Americans are not popular can become a Canadian. A German may choose to be a Dutchman, a Russian can become a Slovenian. One Danish guy that I knew went to work in Saudi Arabia but Muslims do not like Danes because of those silly cartoons that infuriated the entire Islamic world in 2005-06. So, he just tells them he is an American. It is actually better to be an American than a Dane in Saudi Arabia now. And unless you are facing a policeman or an actual immigration officer stops you, you should lie if your life, social or biological depends on it. Choose a country that has people with a similar look and accent, but that is neutral and you will be able to get away with it in the 99% of cases. That is again if it does not involve employment, immigration or actual police encounter. That is just survival, nothing else. It is not bad to tell lies if you are faced with evil, prejudiced people.

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If you meet a young lady online, do not fall in love with her completely and commit yourself to her until you have met her in person. She may have some unpleasant characteristics/habits that you may not like, but it may be too late to extricate yourself without causing major grief and inconvenience. I have met some ladies who, upon meeting me in person, had very bad breath and some had a very ugly torso which I could not see on webcam- in other words, their figures were not what I wanted to have in a partner. One had excessive facial hair- almost like a beard, which I did not see in photos because the hair was too transparent. Yech! Some had bad habits which I would not care to describe – oh well, maybe I would describe just two- one lady liked to urinate in the shower bay- a big turn off for me. This other lady could not control her intestinal gas and would release it regularly while in my company. It made me want to puke.

So, do not pour out your emotions too much just because your hormones are acting up. Go and see her in person. Otherwise, you will end up wasting a lot of time (yours and hers) and a whole lot of money, plus you can hurt yourself and that person if you will find that she is not for you, but you have already made all these promises and even proposed to her. It can become a truly awkward and uncomfortable situation if you are not careful and hurry too much. So take your time and control your emotions. See her in person and spend some time together. For your sake and hers.

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In poorer countries, as a rule, finding a decent love partner is harder for women than for men, in richer countries, finding love is harder for men than for women. There are more lonely miserable ladies or ladies with bad husbands in third world countries and more happily married men there, and there are more unhappy, lonely men or divorced and henpecked men in first world countries. Travel and you will see.

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Success books are cool, I like reading them. They talk about making goals, visualizing and going for it. But there are some wacky ideas in them, too. For example, the idea that poverty is created in the mind and if we think we are prosperous we would become prosperous. Now, I have a question- with the present economic crisis gripping the world, do the people have to take responsibility for it as in “ we were too negative and thought poor thoughts” and now the world economy is collapsing”. I say bull! Quite he contrary, people were just way too positive. Also, let’s look at two countries located side by side- Iraq and Kuwait. Kuwait has a lot of oil and the people are totally spoiled by all the riches there. Right across the border is Iraq, and you know the shape that Iraq is in. Are you going to tell me that it is because Kuwaitis in some ways are more positive than Iraqis and they just attract better fortune? That the British who partitioned that part of the world to make sure Kuwait gets a big chunk of it have nothing to do with it? Give me a break!
Go to South of Sudan and watch kids with bloated bellies feeding of leaves from trees. These kids d not even know what positive and negative is, so are you going to tell me that the poverty is in their minds?

Plus a lot of these books were written by citizen of rich democratic countries that have many opportunities available for all and equal rights for everybody. What if you live in some screwed up dictatorship where you belong to some social group that has no legal rights, cannot qualify for government help, bank loans, are forbidden by law ask for benefits and are stuck in a limbo somewhere? Think Kosovo in 1999.

What if the country has no money to fund education and is run by a cruel junta that will shoot you if you protest? What if you happen to be in some besieged area with bullets flying all over you? What opportunities are there? You cannot even get a visa to go to another country and even if you do, that other country may just stick you into a refugee camp? They unfortunately cannot follow the advice in those books. And if they do, they can get shot.

So, those books are good for mainstream citizens of highly developed first world countries. Since the majority of the world does not belong to those, maybe it is time someone would start writing books about how an average, garden variety third-worlder can succeed or at least avoid acute suffering where he is at. That would be a best seller, for sure.

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One of the strains on today’s fabric of society, I think is the fact that in many countries people are encouraged to wait to finish a four year college before they get married. Biologically speaking, late teens and early twenties is a very fruitful time to mate and have kids. However, somehow the modern college system in many countries does not promote college -time marriage and, thus, represses the young people’s normal pro-creational urges. This creates unhealthy tensions, explosions of testosterone in men with resulting violence and bad energy, and all kinds of wild behavior, drug use, promiscuity on behalf of some women, and a host of other social ills. Somehow, if you suggest that people should be married at 18 and study and help each other and even have kids while in college, that is seen as wacky idea by many. Or, it is seen as economically infeasible. I think, though, that if governments around the world applauded such an early marriage and given people an incentive to get married and stay married, we would have a much healthier society overall.