Why is nobody ever asking me to be their friend? Why? 
:fatchance:
Est-ce que tu veux devenir mon ami?
People, people, people⌠Why are you making it so complicated when itâs so simple!? This shouldnât be a discussion about friendship at all, because, as somebody already explained it here, to Taiwanese people the English word âfriendâ has a much, much lighter meaning than it does to us. Please, absorb this cultural difference, re-set the reference in your vocabulary and move on 
Another thing youâre wasting time on discussing is whether these people have a hidden agenda or not. That one is simple too: so they want to practice English or just think itâs interesting to talk to a foreigner. SO WHAT?! Whatâs the big deal if thatâs their motivation? Why be so righteous about it? So they
I like the way you think, tash. However, I must say that it has to be totally different from a womanâs point of view. Being a guy myself, I donât get all that many âletâs be friendsâ kind of come ons. When I do, itâs pretty easy to figure out what the other person means. Sometimes it IS just a desire to speak to a foreigner, and sometimes it is just to speak to a foreigner.
Itâs pretty easy for me to turn someone down; being taller than 90% of the people here, itâs hard for me to feel intimidated or put-upon. However, for a girl I think the experience is completely different, and I think any woman who readily agreed to âbe someoneâs friendâ at the first asking is asking for trouble, or at least ongoing irritation.
I like the idea of a business card pointing to an English school. You donât have to use it every time, but for those âhulloâŚtap tap tapâ type times, it would be good to have. A lot less rude than mace to the eyes, anyway. 
⌠and on a less serious note
Then they need to understand the meaning of the word âfriendâ if theyâre going to use it. They need an English lesson, for which they can pay just like every other student.
If they come up to you and speak in Chinese then itâs up to you to interpret their meaning clearly, but if theyâre doing it in English then theyâre going to have to learn to do so more effectively if theyâre going to get anywhere:
HI! Do you want to be my aqcuaintance?
See, itâs easy. FOB, get some cards made up. 
Seems to me I recall a certain guy who wanted to âbe friendsâ with a certain lady he did not know but saw one day on the streets of Taipei. He went out of his way tracking her down and things turned out quite well, so I hear.
Did he have his own agenda? I think yes. How is this the slightest bit different?
Hmm.[/quote]
Jeez! What a looser!
I would never beat about the bush like that. âBe friendsâ, begorrah. I figure that if youâre going to try and pick someone up you should be honest about your intentions from the start. I remember once telling a girl in a well-known bar that I wasnât looking for casual sex and she walked off without another word. You might as well be honest about your intentions. Why bullshit with all this no-ulterior-motive malarkey?
I had a similar experience myself to the âcertain guyâ you mention recently, and opened with [quote]Then I saw this vision.
Red moto, a real moto with gears and leather saddlebags. Chopper. Girl driving. Oooooh!! Slim, pink top, long blond hair. Shapely and pretty too.
And then she was gone.
Who is she and where can I find her? Is she single? Attainable? Please tell me she doesnât smoke. I. Am. Smitten.[/quote]
I think that communicates pretty clearly that I was seeking a relationship/encounter going beyond merely being an aqcuaintance. And the first words I ever said to the girl were not âAre you my friend Lolita?â (Hey! What happened to the âwankerâ emoticon?)
FOB, if some random guy looked at you then rushed off to buy flowers, then pursued you down the street and flagged you down to explain that he had been absolutely wowed when he saw you and couldnât help making a fool of himself and he just wanted you to know how sexy he thought you were and what did he have to do to persuade you to let him buy you a Belgian Coffee or at least get your phone number to call you and try to persuade you 27 times a day until you gave in⌠what would you do?
Well, not âwhat would you doâ but âhow would you feelâ?
I hardly ever get asked to be someones friend, perhaps I walk to fast or something. I have a problem with middle aged men asking me if Iâm gay, though:
âWhere you come from?â
âEnglandâ
âYou very handsomeâ
âErmâŚthank youâ
âSo, you are teacher, yes?â
âHmm, yes, thatâs rightâ
âSoâŚyou go to gay bar?â
Itâs happened 4 times already this year.
:wanker: Still here. 
Then they need to understand the meaning of the word âfriendâ if theyâre going to use it. They need an English lesson, for which they can pay just like every other student.
[/quote]
Boy, youâre tough! Ouch!
I canât tell for sure if youâre really bitter or just joking. If itâs the latter, you can ignore my reply.
Come on, are you really saying youâd demand of someone at the beginnerâs level to comprehend the difference, especially since they see everyone around them use the same word in this context? And if they did use the word âacquaintanceâ youâd be nice to them?
How can you demand that Taiwanese people use the word âfriendâ in English to mean something specifically Western in concept (and outside their experience) when you likely use the word âpeng2you3â in Mandarin to mean the Western concept of friend, not the Taiwanese concept that can sometimes be more like âacquaintanceâ â but not always?
Doesnât make sense to me.
Youâre in Taiwan. Get with the program. If you ever go back to the West, youâll spend months wondering why no one talks to you in public places. 
You preach it, Ironlady - the gospel of linguistic awareness!
Threads like this that frequently use âusâ and âthemâ dichotomies really make me wonder about the nature of some peopleâs lives in Taiwan. I know sites like this make it easy to meet other foreigners, but do so many of you really see yourselves as islands floating amongst the natives, separated from them by some magic force field?
Thereâs all of this âThey act that wayâŚâ and âThe TaiwaneseâŚâ The way I see it, YOU are here, YOU ARE TAIWAN. And thatâs just the way it is, cuz thatâs life, and itâs sad that people can live here for years and not see themselves as one of the People. I dunno, thereâs just too much egoism here sometimes. Too many chips on too many shoulders, and too many superiority trips.
Maybe we should call this site Archipelagosa. 
No one ever asks me to be their friend. Maybe since I am extremely handsome, people are scared to approach me.
[quote=âJeffersonâ]
Thereâs all of this âThey act that wayâŚâ and âThe TaiwaneseâŚâ The way I see it, YOU are here, YOU ARE TAIWAN.[/quote]Yes very nice, but I canât see myself being taken very seriously when saying things like âwe in TaiwanâŚâ or âwe Taiwan residents blah blah blah.â
Weâre not from here, we just live here. You and I never will be from here. The Taiwanese donât randomly walk up to to other Taiwanese they donât know and ask to be friends with them. Why single the aliens out for this?
I dislike being singled out for different treatment whether good or bad, just based on the fact I look different from most everyone else. Itâs not my fault I have two heads and both of them are butt-ugly.
Part of the problem is that they will rarely ever let you be âone of the People.â The dichotomy comes from âthem,â IMO. Iâve tried very hard to immerse myself into life in Taiwan as much as possible, but it ainât that easy, even if you speak Chinese as well as Ironlady or have an ROC passport like Satellite TV. There may be a few who accept you as one of them, but those, in my experience, are rare occurences.
I somewhat doubt it is acceptable to follow a woman who is clearly tyrying to get away from you, even in Taiwan.
See, I just asked my coworker (who is on the floor laughing now) and he says NO. Guys are not allowed to act like this here and that heis a creep and that I shold have beat him up.
I understand what youâre saying - itâs the old foreignerâs lament - but I think itâs too easy to fall back on that argument everytime someone gets your Hanes in a bunch.
What irks me is the superiority complex (mixed with cultural ignorance) that people sometimes demonstrate in this type of thread.
And yes, Taiwanese DO, after speaking with someone at a coffee shop, bus stop, or whatever, commit the heinous act of asking if the other person wants to be friends. For sure, some of these encounters are initiated by strange people (happened to me just the other day), but certainly not always. At the end of the day, I just think some folks on this site are paranoid, which may be due to chronic culture shock (which can last 5, 10, 20 years).
I think another poster made an excellent point about foreigners in Taiwan getting A LOT from locals in terms of different types of help (probably much more than you realize). Think about that the next time you blow someone off. Just the other day I let a group of students interview me (in English) for 20 minutes. Not something Iâd want to do every day, but, eh, no big deal once in a while.
Anyway, yes, I have been here a long time, and yes, I do speak fluent Chinese and some Taiwanese, so maybe Iâm more sensitive when it comes to the subtleties of peopleâs behaviorisms. Sometimes I suspect Iâm more Taiwanese than I realize.
I often have desperately lonely moments when I feel like going up to random people (usually foreigners because I donât speak Chinese) and saying: Hello, will you be my friend? (Please, please, please, please, please!!!)
Thank god, Iâm too shy for that.
Of course itâs your right to say no, and I think itâs very nice of SOF to try to do it in a polite way. ⌠Oh well, Iâm not gonna preach today. Just do whatever you want. 
Just for the record - I am a woman 
(why is there no âgirly winkâ emoticon?)
I always let the students intervew me. Once I had one ask about astrology and I went on about how I thought it was dumb and that stars did not control my life. then they asked if i had any friends that were a cancer. And I said âI donât knowâ and they asked which sign most if ny friends were and I said I didnât know because astrology is stupid.
Tghen when they walked off I noticed the astrology club logo on the back of thier shirts⌠oops.
As far as paranoid, I donât think that is the case on this subject. I think this behavior is not aceptable in either place. All but two of my friends are taiwanese and when I complain about this sort of thing, they always seem so amazed that people act so rudely, stupid.
forgive my typing. In a dark room.