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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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Along the lines of what Amadan said, I think you need to first think about what the long-term future looks like with all of the options you are considering.
Say the woman at least intends to be genuine and the baby is real and actually yours, and you actually move there and attempt to raise a family. Do you really know this woman well enough to know what a long-term relationship with her would look like, across such a huge gap in culture and wealth? I don't know what you did with her over those weeks, but did you really see her in enough situations to get a feel for who she really is? Do you speak any of the local language at all? And what of your friends and family and any career you may have here in the US (assuming you were born and raised in the US, or wherever else you're from), what will they think of you when you tell them you're moving to the Philippines to marry and raise a family with a local stripper? What if it ends up not working out and you have to move back?
Or say you go along with the idea that the kid is real and yours and you want to support it. This will be an obligation for decades, and it will almost certainly come out eventually. What if, 8 years from now, you get into a serious relationship with a regular woman in your actual home city? She will eventually find out that you're sending money to and communicating with someone in the Philippines. What will you tell her and what will she think of you as a result of that?
Or option 3, you just block and ignore her from now on and completely forget about her, possibly sending money for an alleged abortion before doing so. This option closes the door on this unfortunate situation for good. Nothing in your current life or future will be affected by it, nobody will know except your own conscience and the people of the Motte here.
When you think about it like that, I think it's clear that Option 3 is the only real choice. Does it feel a little bad? Yeah maybe. But you acted like a total douchebag travelling to the Philippines and having unprotected sex with a third-world sex worker in the first place. There's nothing to do now but complete the act and ditch her. There's no magic pill to get out of this cleanly for you. If you feel bad about it, congratulations, you've discovered that you are not actually a total douchebag. Therefore, cease doing douchebag things. It's not really that bad in the grand scheme of things - you screwed up, but you've learned some about who you are and why you should not do certain things. And yeah, 95% chance she's scamming you and the kid is fake or not actually yours, and if it's the other 5%, well she's in the business and not a little kid, she should damn well know this is a possibility by now, and if not, it's about time she learned. Either way, she already has a big family and 2 kids, she'll be okay in the long run whatever the actual deal is here.
Let me see if I understand your logic. You're telling him to knowingly and intentionally abandon a woman and his potential child, and the proof that he's a better person is that he'll feel a little bad about it afterward? That's not character growth - that's learning how to rationalize being a selfish coward. Bah was considering sacrificing his entire life to do what he thinks is right. You don't even care if it's a scam or not you're telling him to sacrifice his integrity to protect his comfort, and then pat himself on the back for it!
The ironic part is that he would only be a douchebag if he followed your advice. You act as though he treated her like a third world pump and dump, but he is in love with her! He met her family, spent his time with her, sent her money for an abortion - because he's smitten. And you tell him, assuming it's real, that instead of taking personal responsibility for his actions, he should run and leave his own kid being raised by a sex worker in the third world? And for little more than the negative opinions of others? And then cap it off with a rant about how she needs to take responsibility for her actions?
I might think Bah is a naive lovefool, but I at least admire his commitment to his responsibilities, scam or not. I think you are a douchebag.
Edit - Bah replied while I was writing this saying he isn't in love with her and the problem is solved, but since your advice assumed he was too, I'll leave this comment as is.
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