For those of you who were in Taiwan or currently in Taiwan, do you guys and girls, find it easier to date in Taiwan?? Or is it easier to date where you come from (AZ, US, HK, N Zealand…etc) Also, when you are / were in Taiwan, do you date the locals or you date the foreigners??
Well, I am currently in US and I find it hard to date here, or maybe its my age, or just me. I don’t want to date my coworkers (what a mess that could be) and life is just simple here now a day and I can’t seem to meet new people. I am in a pool league but don
MiakaW,
I kind of got the feeling that foreign women had a more difficult time finding “boytoys” in Taiwan than back home (i.e. Foreign Females where do you find guys! HELP), but then, it kind of sounds like you’re talking about attention in general.
I think it’s always more difficult the older you get. Less people your age are available (due to marriage or long-term relationships). Plus, when you’re younger, you tend to have less responsibility, more energy, and more drive to socialize. Anyway, I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but online dating has gained a lot of popularity in the US. I have several freinds that are doing it… with mixed results. It might be worth a try.
Not just attention in general, but dating. It just seems like it is easier for people to open up in Taiwan. People seen to be more friendly over there in Taiwan, you can start talking to somebody at a coffee shop and nobody will second guess your motive.
hmm… i though its an interesting topic but I guess not.
I think part of it is that being in a “foreign” country liberates a lot of people from the inhibitions they have within their own society. Being an “outsider” brings with it the freedom to buck social norms.
Lordy, have I found it extremely hard to date in TW. And that was even after I stopped scowling…I hear ya Mika. In the US dating can be a bit tough,if you don’t have some social supports. Online dating is good but if you do it,make
it like one day of non-stop dating,so you can weed out the
fools in 15 mins.
Look in the city’s free newspaper. In there, generally there are announcements of weekend activities and groups that are meeting around the city. Try that. If that doesn’t work, try a joining a church that is known for haviing a large single’s congragation. If that’s not your cup of tea, try finding out where all the single’s go in your city. Join a bowling/pool/dart league. Take a cooking/art/language class at the local community college or better yet at the Learning
Annex (look for their free newspapers on the street)
. Look in the free newspapers around the city for singles night activities in the city. Go to a funeral.
No joke, tell em at the funeral you were a long ago college friend(make sure that they are in your age range or so)
and flirt with the guys there(you get a free meal also), go and do your laundry near a college or where you think lots of people would be. Go to a sports bar, or sports game and sit next to rowdy,but hellafied cute guys and flirt. Go to the mall on seniors day(generally on wensdays)
. Old folks always got a relative they think would be perfect for ya. Put a bumper sticker on your car says “Date Me. 1-800-IMSINGLE.” Find out where the speed dating stuff is, sign up for that.
Start being friendly with the Starbuck’s guy who makes your coffee, or the mailman, or whoever else is in your neighborhood/path/life that you see on a day to day basis. Americans are generally friendly and the men like occationally good harmless flirtation but not everyone there has motives other than what they are doing. You just have to learn to read the signs…
Bottom line is you may have to think outside the box and become creative in your search. I can’t apply the rules of american dating rituals here because this aint America. |So, you are going to have to stop trying to fit your TW dating perspective in to America. Open yourself up to a whole way of things, and remember that the worse that can happen is that you don’t meet anyone special, but you may have a lot of fun on the way…Best of luck
My guess is that we in the US spend too much time doing the things you listed, Miaka. We hesitate to date coworkers (very risky, especially in a corp. environment; see Harry Stonecipher of Boeing), but we tend to work 10+ hours a day. Plus, we tend to commute - alone - to our jobs, often burning valuable schmoozing time doing so.
Taiwanese work just as hard as Americans, but the norms are much different. Getting to work is also a very different experience, and in Taiwan commuting affords much more schmooze time (at the least, it means less time spent alone).
Most people date until they find a person they can’t seem to leave. So to maximize the chance you find your One, the trick is to maximize the time you spend looking. If each day you drive alone one hour to work ten hours - and you sleep 7 hours a night - then you’ve left yourself only 5 hours each week night during which you can search.
Lots more time for this in Taiwan, I think - and lots more time spent alone in the US by way of comparison.
Actually, IMHO most “dating” in the US takes place when we are younger, high school and college. Time to date does run out once you start working. I had several friends who were gf-less for years basically because they did not have time to meet women in a social setting. One married his college sweetie after they had been apart for two years. My best friend married the best friend of the guy who married his college sweetie.
Seems to me that most dating stems from meeting the friends of your friends. So, if you want to find a man, hang out with your female friends more, or vise verca. Superbowl parties are good. Halloween parties.
Bars work the same way in the US as they do in TW. Churches are a good place to find some single folks…but skip the sermon, go to the BBQs or plays…ie church functions. The old folks will always try to set you up with their grandkids.
New Zealanders tend to find a girl friend. Just one. Who can handle more than one woman at a time anyway? They stick at it for more than one date, wait, I used the word, so, we must date. Ok, so there’s this trial relationship, date, thing. But, since we can only find one girl that is available, and isn’t scary, we tend to keep going out with that one for quite some time.
[quote]Bu Lai En wrote:
I’ve always thought that this American thing called ‘dating’ is kind of weird. The way sort of formalise it and ritualise it.
NZers don’t ‘date’.
Brian
What do they do, then? I’m curious.[/quote]
Well it just doesn’t seem that there’s this almost formalised ‘dating’ stage. You maybe go out a few times, and then you’re considered girlfriend/boyfriend. You’ll never hear anyone say “they’re dating”. Maybe when we were back in school, people would say “they’re going out”, but that was school.
I never noticed before, but the only time you ever hear the word “date” used to describe any step in the process back in NZ is when someone’s being a smartarse - “Oh, someone’s got a big date tonight eh?” etc.
So in other words, people do the same things all over the world, they just have different names for the stuff they do. You call it “going out,” I call it a “date,” my great-grandparents called it “courting”, and someone I knew put is rather crassly, “a prelude to sex”.
I think at home (the land of Oz) I used to say “going out …”
What’s this about koalas? Nobody in their right mind would meddle with koalas. Some of those little guys have got chlamydia. Not kidding!
And, back on track, yes, I find it a lot harder to date here. As for locals, the guys I like seem to be intimidated by me and the ones who crack on to me are usually much older, randy drunks. Perhaps I should learn to chase old drunks and leave the shy mummy’s boys alone. Might get more dates I guess
I’ve had much better luck whilst on holiday in Europe during the last 2 lunar new years.
That was my initla thought to, but actually I think there’s something more to it than that. I just think Americans seem to formalise it a lot mroe than NZers. Make it almost like an official process, maybe make up little rules and stuff - I’m not sure. Like if there’s two society’s, one has the institution of marriage (but a lot of married people sleep around), another doesn’t (but couples there are often faithful to each other). You can say the two socities are the same - some couples stay with each other, some sleep around - but actually there’s a cultural difference there.
