The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Mottemen... and women (if there are any???) I need your advice.
This is pretty serious, so I'd appreciate serious advice. No jokes or one-liners please.
Recently I made a trip to the Philippines. Amazing country. Amazing yet terrible. Terribly third world, but amazing people. It's like a crazy mirror-universe version of the US/Hawaii.
Met a girl there. As you do... meaning, I went to a strip club and she went home with me. She was hot, she told me she was taking birth control, and I was drunk and stupid, so we didn't use protection.
Over the next two weeks, she spent quite a bit of time with me. She introduced me to her (huge) family, and her two children (who she had as a teenager). This is the Philippines so that kind of thing is not uncommon. She never directly asked me for money, but always guilt-tripped me into it after spending time with me. To be fair, it was a trivial amount for me but a huge amount for her.
Towards the end, she was becoming extremely clingy. Crying, saying she loved me. Maybe she meant it. I really don't know. I do know that she was messaging other guys, but that's kind of her job. I was pretty honest the whole time that I could only stay a short time and wasn't looking for a long-term relationship. She seemed to accept it but she seemed genuinely sad.
After I left, I got a message from her. Saying she's pregnant. Uh oh... I mean, yeah I've taken sex ed I know these things happen... but I didn't think it would happen to me. She said she was taking precautions, and I believed her because she's experienced. I have no idea if (a) that's true and we just got unlucky (b) she's an idiot or (c) this was a deliberate trap. For what it's worth, she's catholic, but in that super-flexible 3rd world way where you just cross yourself and burn a candle to be forgiven all sins.
Anyway she wants money, naturally. She says it's for abortion pills. She's not asking for much, but I'm worried it will only increase from here if I pay it. I'm also worried that she might be telling the truth and actually have the child. This is a very impulsive, unstable woman. I can afford to give her a little money but don't want to get blackmailed forever. But I also don't want to be a scumbag and leave an unplanned child in a third world country.
...help?
(edit... should I just move to the Philippines and raise a family there? the living there is really cheap so i could afford it. But there's really not much to do there except drink, fuck, and pray)
She's not like other bargirls, bro. You're definitely not just another John to her, bro. Plus, sex workers would never lie to their clients, bro.
You went all the way to the Philippines to spend your time with a single-mother prostitute? The Hock would sound like a better use of time to me.
And then you nutted inside her. Are you intentionally speed-running the cardinal list of "things not to do" as a Western man in Southeast Asia?
I understand the thought of having an out-of-wedlock child with a single-mother prostitute is rather unpalatable, to say the least. Especially a potential daughter, who would almost certainly follow in her mother's footsteps.
An expected value calculation is tough: while the severity might be high (she's pregnant and the baby is yours), the probability is low. Here are three possible avenues to consider:
You're telling on yourself with that problematic remark about there being nothing to do in the Philippines except drink, fuck, and pray. It betrays a reductionist, colonialist attitude toward a country with a rich history, a diverse region with a stunning variety of cultural and geographical beauty. After all, what kind of sick fuck prays?
You've clearly never been there. And you misinterpreted a lot of what I said. so whatever. thanks for trying I guess.
Confidently asserted, yet wrong. I indeed have been there. While I didn't spend any time with single mothers, prostitutes, or single-mother prostitutes—I did bang a high single digit number of non-single mother, non-prostitute Pinays. And none of them asked me for money (whether directly or indirectly) nor was there any sort of weird drama afterward.
Not that it requires having been to the Philippines nor having any experience with Pinays to spot the red flags described in your thread-starting post. Nor is the theme of women-playing-men-for-money specific to the Philippines, or SEA, or even specific to foreign women with Western men. Women using their sexuality to get resources out of men transcends time and space. It doesn't take a chef to suspect if something smells like shit.
I thought the sentence right after the one you quoted made it obvious I was joking, if the sentence itself and the one preceding it weren't already obvious enough: "After all, what kind of sick fuck prays?" Wild speculation, I know, but might stubbornly overlooking cues perhaps be a recurring tendency of yours?
You could consider mustering up a fraction of the disagreeability toward her as you've displayed in this thread toward people replying to you.
I'm being curt because for me this isn't just shitposting on the internet or idle speculation about something abstract, and I have to actually figure out what to do about it. Most of the replies I've seen are people like you who just want to tell me what a horrible person I am, or others who just googled "philippines scam" as if I'm not aware of the possibility. Believe it or not, I'm not a complete idiot, although I freely admit that I have many personal problems. But dealing with this situation is just more important to me than sparing the feelings of anonymous strangers who are trying to take a dig at me.
Anyway she sent me photos of her at the hospital today, recovering from the abortion. So it wasn't a scam. (yeah yeah I hear you thinking "but what if the hospital photos were also fake!" she's not some expert photo editor or stage magician). Turns out I actually know more about my personal life than random people on the internet.
It was a mistake for me to post this here, I know. People on this site just want to speculate about abstact issues, not deal with anything real.
I don't think that's true Bah on either account and I'm glad you posted it, I think many people here would deliver the same advice and tough love to a friend of theirs.
Have you ever had a friend who is smitten with someone and not thinking clearly? Every post I've seen in this thread comes off to me as people who are trying to knock a friend out of their lovestruck perception of reality. Some of them are a bit harsh, but mostly in response to you fighting being knocked out of this lovestruck state.
What would you tell a friend if they came to you with a question, "Hey, so I may have impregnated a single-mother Philippine prostitute I picked up at a strip-club and I'm thinking about moving there and starting a family with her"?
What would you say to your friend if you think the above decision was a really bad decision? Your responses in thread come off that you kinda want this fantasy to be true and that you found love and a family. If you choose not to do the above, I think you should spend a lot of your effort to find a woman in the US and start an American family. Something is clearly missing from your life you really desire and I want you to satisfy it, just not in a way which I think will lead you to disaster.
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