Tag Archives: Relationships

dating

Sugar Dating

Leave a comment

Compensated dating; is it for you?

Seeking is the most popular ‘sugar dating’ site

Changes to user habits

The main thing to know about the dating scene is that when it comes to apps, things change very quickly. The apps of a few years ago aren’t necessariliy the ones people are currently using. Even the way we use dating apps has tended to shift as users find they want something else from them. If tinder was seen as a hook-up app ten years ago when it launched. It’s now likely to be used for relationships….in fact most female users on the app will state that they aren’t interested in casual dating. 

Such changes can be annoying. Whilst tinder seems to be the most popular dating app, it’s been challenged by Bumble and Hinge. I don’e really see much point in having either of these copycat apps, which result in the same issues of not bringing up quality matches for most men. 

The sites that I have found more appealing have come about due to the increading popularity of sugar dating, effectively paid dating but with some commitment to it so that it doesn’t feel totally transactional.

The popularity of ‘Sugar dating’

As strange as it may seem, some people are happy to give money for someone to date them. With ‘Seeking Arrangement’, you can search for users who are often looking for a male to give them a fincanical support, or just  a ‘pay per meet’, to use a common phrase. The common question girls ask is how much can you PPM, effectively money for them to meet you, and in most cases, sex is involved – the practical thing to do is to decline because these girls will ask for more money than an escort, and these tend to be the worst kind of girls out there.

The landing page of Seeking doesn’t mention paid dating, but it’s at the core of i’s users’ activity.

Money CAN buy love

Now there are people who would never want to do this. The idea that you can put a price on someone and then pay them for meeting would seem to go against common-decency. Then again, frustrated with the other apps which require a match before messaging, I find the directness of the sugar dating apps very refreshing. You can message girls whom you like straight away and be clear about your terms. Then it’s on to the date, and in most cases girls want to meet with you straight away. Try to arrange a meeting somewhere fun, and make sure they don’t ask you for some ridiculous amount of money just to meet you. The women I met were happy to meet for a date without asking for money. After that, if both of you like each other, you can make an arrangement to see them. Most girls in London will ask for an allowance, but you’ll only do that if you are sure about them. It could be something like £300, such a price means that you can only realistically do this if you are very rich. And if you are, what’s to stop you! You can have your pick of some of the best women out there. With tinder, you tend to find matches close to your age. But seeking lets you search for any age, and sugar dating tends to be for younger women and older men. 

A site with a similar modus operandi is What’s Your Price? The app allows you to make an offer for a first date, like placing a bid. It’s up to the girl to accept your offer, or ask for a higher price. The fun is waiting to hear back from them. The minimum bid is £5, going up to £500. Then when a bid is countered, you need to bid back at an increment of pounds. Sure, the women are likely to ask for more than you offer, but not always. You can even ask here to suggest the amount she would accept from you. You will get some outrageous requests, like women asking for £500 for a date! Fortunately, most women are more reasonable and will often accept your first offer. 

What I like about it is you can offer what you are willing to pay. Most guys can easily afford 20 or 30 pounds, and the money acts as an incentive. With luck, the girl will like you enough to want to meet you the next time for free, and you can look at the initial cost as an investment in their company. 

Girls can send requests for offers, and it’s up to you to accept or counter.

The site mentions that you only pay for the first date, and then you meet for free after that. It also doesn’t process any payments, instead making it clear that you pay them in cash, or transfer directly. Now it’s true that you could arrange to meet someone after they accept the amount and then refuse to pay. The problem is that would make you untrustworthy. The girls will expect you to pay what you offered them. It’s up to you to decide on what you think is a fair amount, and then take them on a date somewhere you know you can afford. By refusing to pay the girl the amount you offered, you have a chance that things will turn unpleasant, with the girl likely to accuse you of taking advantage of them. It will be hard for her to see you again after that, and that’s not what you want!

Where time is precious, the site allows people to find who they want with a lot less fuss and allows them to meet far sooner than if they had used the typical apps. This is the best outcome for everyone.

dating

WMAF

Leave a comment

How to have a WMAF relationship (and not be creepy)

The best thIng ABOUT WMAF relationships is that each party is trying something new – learning about each other’s respective cultures. All this can mean that it’s possible to be carried away by the  sheer novelty of it. 

Many WMAF couples become so enraptured with each other that they can ignore the fact that other people may not see their union in such a rosy light. The fact is, it’s not always so warmly accepted. The strength of the attraction has seen some people complain that some white men have an Asian fetish and look to sleep with as many Asian women as possible. 

And unfortunately, a fair few in the west are seemingly so triggered by the sight of an Asian woman with a white guy that they assume it must be coercive and even exploitative. 

The good thing is, you can avoid this happening if you abide by these rules. First, don’t be someone who only talks to girls because of their race or ethnicity. If you do this, you will find it harder to see their individuality and that also means you will be more likely to attract an Asian woman who is only attracted to your race as well. 

Seek out the Asian women with similar personailities, likes and dislikes. Definitely don’t fall into the trap of thinking that ALL Asian women are going to behave in a certain way. 

You don’t want to be the guy who expects Asian women to be always submissive, quiet and well-behaved. 

Avoid making attempts at getting to know everything about where she comes from. That’s too eager, a mistake I made several times, and then I learned my errors. You can talk about your own culture as much as you like, but you do not need to impress upon them how knowledgeable you are about her country.

Be aware of the stereotypes so that you know how to disprove them right away. You will hear a lot of outdated ideas, live with them. People will point out that Asian women are out for money, looking for a passport. These unfortunate ideas are slowly disappearing, but you never know when you might hear them from someone who needs to be more sensitive!

Avoid making making assumptions like, ‘Asian women are supposed to be like this’ or , I thought Koreans were supposed to respect their elders’. You’ll most likely end up arguing about it. Most people only start thinking about their identity when it’s brought up, and Asian women are no different in this regard. 

Show people how positive your relationship is. For example, a lot of white women take their  husband’s last name. flip conventions  on their ass by taking your wife’s Asian name. then people can see how much you reall love, honour and obey her. 

Choose an Asian women of approximately equal attractiveness to your own. If you marry an Asian woman of much higher attractiveness, the disapproval will be so great, you’ll never live it down. So go for someone of about the same level of desirability to your own. 

There, I think I just about covered everything.

Personal, sex

Sexless Korea

Leave a comment

Is it possible that I got it wrong about Korea? Specifically, that it’s really easy to get with women if you’re white?

Whilst there are those who would say otherwise, here are a few reasons why it’s actually hard, really hard, to get even a date here as a foreign male.

  1. The culture is totally different. Yes, it’s obvious, but any of the rules in other countries don’t apply here. The hook-up culture is not the same. For example, Tinder is used as much to make friends as it is for actual dating (or so I’m told).

Some Korean women won’t date foreigners. You could have excellent Korean, be successful and good-looking, but some Korean women won’t date you because you’re not Korean. Although you will see WMAF couples, you won’t see many really top-level Korean women going out with anyone not Korean. As much as I hate it, it’s just a fact of life here.

The clubs are as much for dancing as they are for meeting people. On the two occasions I have been to clubs, I saw that most people were staying in gender-segregated groups. Men were definitely not approaching woman to dance. It would be completely different back home. It’s even harder to approach people in bars, because people sit on separate tables and don’t even place their orders at the bar. Although there is less opportunity to take a girl home here (most people still live at home) Koreans use the same phrase for one night stand, showing that they are at least aware of the concept.

Koreans have a rigid dating culture, and to approach someone randomly on the street, or in a cafe, isn’t really done. Although I have tried it several times, in most cases I could feel that the women didn’t really want to have a conversation with me and made a point of moving on as soon as possible.

The sheer amount of foreign students and English teachers has made foreigners less of a novelty. In fact, I feel largely ignored here, and somewhat invisible, to the point where I can be in a room of Koreans and nobody will acknowledge me.

The possibility that women will feel judged if they go out with foreign men possibly puts them off approaching them in the first place.

Lastly, the fact is that there are some sickos out there who will date a korean woman and flood sites with articles like ‘Korean women are easy’. This sort of thing does nobody any favours. Whilst you must always take something like that with massive grain of salt, whether it’s even true – and ask yourself whether someone who was actually sleeping with a lot of women would want to tell others about it online – it’s going to only make it harder for everyone.

One thing I am seeing is that there are much more Korean men with western women. I guess its because men are much more comfortable dating out of their culture than women here.

Meanwhile any men moving to South Korea in search of easy sex should do an instant reality check.

Personal

Is she really going out with him?

3 Comments

What’s your reaction when you see a good looking woman? Maybe you celebrate the fact that you have seen someone very special. Or rejoice in seeing someone who brightens up your day.

If you’re like me, you feel a mixture of attraction and depression. Its usually based on the feeling that you’re never going to be able to get with that woman that leads to the conclusion that you are inferior and not good enough.

but what’s worse than simply seeing a very attractive (unapproachable) woman is seeing her with a partner. At least if you see a woman on her own, you can reassure yourself that you might be able to spend time with her. But nothing can match the sheer awfulness of seeing an attractive woman with another man. Seeing this on a regular basis can really ruin my day. I’ve thought about seeking professional help for my inability to move on from this.

You might say it has something to do with the fact that I started dating in my late twenties. So whenever I see a young attractive woman I’m reminded of all the happiness I missed out on. I get mad seeing happy couples together because I never experienced that myself.

The other stumbling block I have is when I see an unattractive guy with a much more attractive woman. These combinations get me worked up because it seems against the order of things. But what can I do about it?

Actually, I’m ok with rejection. If I make an effort to get to know someone and they reject me its a different story. But I suppose if you never put yourself out there, you never know what you might gain.

Books, Uncategorized

Men Without Women

Leave a comment

Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women

Another Murakami book has been published, with this one being  his fourth collection of short stories.

I had a rush of excitement when I opened the cover and started reading the first story. Murakami creates a world of mystery in the most ordinary of settings. He can write the most ordinary of sentences, and then switch things up a gear with just a few words.

For example: “At any rate, his lucky life continued for some thirty years, a long time, when you think about it. But one day, he fell in love.”

Now, that’s a great sentence isn’t it? And it’s the same throughout the book, with these knockout lines coming out of nowhere.

Although we’ve become familiar with his world of Tokyo night owls, jazz and strange phone calls, its as though Murakami has deliberately removed any traces of the quirkiness of his famous novels.

The women seem to have come out of forties noir films and the male characters are tougher than usual. Murakami has always had an affinity with American authors and the book’s title recalls the same name of a collection of stories written by Hemingway.

What we get here are seven stories which test the short story format to its limit but nearly always succeed. Four of the stories, which appeared in the New Yorker are included, the knock-out here being Kino. The prose is as crisp as ever. Sample sentence: ‘There was a girl Kitaru had known since they were in elementary school together.’  This being Murakami, its going to be the kind of sentence that alerts us that things are going to become interesting. In Yesterday, the Murakami-like character remembers a friend who deliberately apes the working class Kansai dialect. He also sings Beatles songs. Things become highly intriguing when Kitamuru suggests to Tanimura that he start dating his girlfriend since he is too busy with his exams to be able to concentrate on dating her.

Here’s another one from Kino:

‘Kino remembered the first time the man had come to the bar.’

Kino starts with the most basic of ideas, of a man being left by his wife, and takes us on the most extraordinary journey. Many of his stories have a film-like quality (although directors have struggled to get his work to translate on screen. But Kino (which is German for cinema) would probably make for a great thriller. There’s a jazz bar, which only has two customers, and a sexy woman covered in cigarette burns whom Kino sleeps with. Then the story gets darker:

‘Fall came, and the cat disappeared. Then the snakes started to show up.’

The story is laced with a ready- made soundtrack of jazz records, where the  music is described to enable us to almost hear it being played: ‘Kino sat on a stool and listened to the Coleman Hawkins LP with the title track “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” He found the bass solo amazing.”

Those of us who have read Murakami’s work will also find his solos amazing. Although I only wish that the last story Men without Women could have been stronger. Not only stronger, but with more direction. It’s about a man who remembers a relationship he had with a woman who has just killed herself. Only the way Murakami describes it is not as interesting as any of the other stories. I got the feeling that even Murakami wasn’t sure where he was going with that one.

But what a collection otherwise. I felt as though some of these experiences had happened to me, and maybe there are universal truths here that everyone can relate to. A short story can feel like the writer didn’t have enough ideas for a book but only a few scraps of story ideas. But there’s more than enough here. And like a lost lover, we remember the stories long after the affair is over.

murakami
Murakami’s novels are usually about lonely characters

 

Korean Culture

The problem with Korean women

Leave a comment

It had all started so well.
Recently I got speaking to a nice Korean girl and we were getting on so well that we exchanged numbers and got Kakao talk ids. Instead of calling it a day we continued talking and I asked if she wanted to go on somewhere. The cinema was down the road, so we went in and watched Beauty and the Beast.

I didn’t kiss her but I congratulated myself on a successful operation.  We met again for coffee. Then after a few days of back and forth texting, I got what I always dread. the cold shoulder. After just a few days, the girl had gone from someone I considered a potential date to a ghost.

I’ve noticed a pattern recently and it applies to Korean girls of a certain age. They will appear interested in you but once you’ve been out a few times they will give you the cold shoulder. Every time this has happened I’ve been left scratching my head and wondering why.

In some ways, technology has made things more complicated. You can get a girls’s information on a multitude of apps. The old asking phone number routine is obsolete because its possible to find almost anyone on line with just a name.

But the difference with social media ( and this may be why girls feel more comfortable with it) is that it’s possible to block someone in ways impossible with a telephone number.

So what does this mean for guys? Well, my advice is to tread carefully. Even if a girl you like gives you her number and seems friendly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she likes you, or wants to continue anything with you.

The harsh reality is that Korean girls can from my experience be as flaky as any woman (maybe more so); it doesn’t help that they will also give you their number because they don’t want to appear rude (I think this is the greatest difference between Asian and Western women).

Lastly, be careful of the message apps. They’re great for staying in touch but the possible mistakes you can make are endless. The dreaded 1 that appears not to a sent message is responsible over whether they have read your message and are just ignoring is the reason for much of my recent paranoia. It might be best to restrict any meaningful communication to the real world.

Meantime, it’s starting to look as though dating Korean women is not everything it’s been cracked up to be.

Personal

What kind of men do Asian women go for?

2 Comments

If you’re a western guy and you’re interested in dating a girl from Asia, what are they looking for? I believe that all women are different but there are a few characteristics in Western men that I think Asian women are attracted to.

Number one: kindness. The ‘nice guys finish last’ concept doesn’t apply to Asian women. In fact, it would be a real disadvantage if you tried to treat them with a lack of decency. Most western women will play games, deliberately making men wait before calling or texting back. But Asian women will be constantly in touch with you and will expect you to call them frequently. The more you call them, or be in communication, the more they will like you.

Number two: men with a normal body shape. I mean, not the kind of gym-toned physique that is held up as the ideal shape amongst western men. I’m basing this solely on the guys I see dating Asian women. Now, maybe they are as attracted to these gym rats as Western women are, but it doesn’t seem this way, and I very rarely see someone with bulging biceps with an Asian woman.

Number three: unattractive, or plain, homely looking men. Maybe Asian women have  a different aesthetic when it comes to standards of male attractiveness, but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve noticed the imbalance of physical attractiveness in a White male/Asian female couple. The kind of guys who get nowhere with women from their own country are able to get with out and out knockouts. I’ll keep talking about this until I start seeing a less attractive Asian woman with a more attractive white guy, but I haven’t yet. By the way, Korean-American comedian Margaret Cho has a great gag about very attractive Asian women with ugly white guys. You can watch it here:  

Number four: being an intellectual. In other words, you can be a geek, and it won’t be held against you. Why it would be a problem I don’t know. But most western women are idiots, so what can you expect? I feel that I’m not judged by Asian women if I prefer to stay in and read or learn a language instead of going out.

 

Personal

Diary of romance, part 11: Goodbye

Leave a comment

I finally said goodbye to Miho tonight. She is leaving for Japan tomorrow. I decided against going with her to the airport for obvious reasons. It would be too drawn-out and unnecessarily painful for both of us. We came back from a holiday in Spain on Friday and have been making the most of our time together.

I managed not to cry but Miho definitely shed a few tears. I felt more sad in the hours before rather than when I actually said goodbye. It was very hard and emotional watching her go. We said goodbye and she left my flat, but I waited outside my balcony to make sure that she caught the bus. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next but I’m confident we’ll see each other again.

The last seven months have been great with her by my side and I’m grateful for everything she has done for me, and I’m she feels the same for me too. I left her with a present and a card with some hastily written words. She gave me a card too but I haven’t opened it yet. It can wait a few hours anyway. They say love hurts and I’m beginning to see why…..

Personal

Diary of a romance, part 10

Leave a comment

Its been 6 months since I’ve been going out with Miho and I’m very happy that we’ve made it this far.

Unfortunately Miho is going back to Japan next month because her visa runs out. August is flashing before me like a red light. I can’t believe I’m going to say goodbye to this lovely woman I’ve been spending so much time with.

I’m not normally an emotional person but lately I’ve been tearing up at the thought of Miho leaving. I try to avoid talking about this with Miho but it’s becoming harder and harder.

The only possible option I can see for us is that I go to Japan and possibly work out there whilst living with Miho. I’ve got no problem with living abroad. I think England is going downhill so fast these days, and I don’t feel any great reason to stay here.

Of course there is the option of marriage, but I’m not ready for that level of commitment right now. I’ve always thought of marriage as something you do when you’re older and I’m still trying to figure out who I am right now.

We’re very alike, so much so that I’m surprised our sameness doesn’t cancel itself out.  We’re both born in Summer, we like black coffee and tend to find the same movies enjoyable. If I hate a movie it’s likely to be the same for Miho, so that’s the problem of choosing something to watch avoided. We like the same music and we both like pancakes for breakfast. Miho talks in her sleep and I occasionally sleep walk (although I haven’t done so for years). We far more similar than our cultural differences would suggest. I guess we’re soulmates.

She is totally human in a way that none of my other girlfriends have been. If she is sad she cries. If she is unhappy (although seldom the case) it registers subtly. If something is funny she shows that it is funny by laughing. She feels all the human emotions but with no of the falseness and obscuration. Maybe she is the one……..