Western Women: I Just About Give Up!

I’ve told my story here before – Filipina girlfriends, a Thai girlfriend with whom there was a major misunderstanding about finance and intelligence (she thought that I was richer than I am and more stupid than I am) and last
but far from least my marriage to a Filipina Princess which ended in divorce. That was in August 2012 (the divorce) and was the conclusion of a sorry episode which cost me a lot of time, effort, money and pain in obtaining a UK visa, bringing
her to the UK, etc., etc.

I am a bit old-fashioned, I suppose, in that while I’ve been in a committed relationship I’ve never cheated (I expect the same from someone I’m in a relationship with).

About eight months ago I happened to come across (on an internet message board on shared interests) an old dear who was more or less housebound due to illness. She was confined to her bed or her wheelchair. Her sole means of cooking was a
bottled gas stove which was condemned because of leaks. She lives about an hour’s drive from me. Her story touched me, and I bought her a microwave combi-oven, gave her a camping-style gas hob etc. I’ve done a fair bit of stuff for
her (happy to do so), taken her out, helped her buy a washing machine and an electric cooker, and so on. We get on well. She is an old dear who went back-packing in South America and teaching in Nepal in her 50’s, so we have a lot to talk
about. Happily I can report that with much encouragement she doesn’t need the wheelchair any more. We go out and about, she uses her walking-stick and leans on my arm and she has really made progress. So far, so good.

To come to the point: she has a daughter, 43, who is a teacher/lecturer in a London college. Single, not bad looking, about 5’8” and proportionately built. I know that she has severe financial problems through her own profligacy.
I arranged, as a favour to her Mum, to collect her from the railway station when she came to stay a few days ago (a two-hour round trip for me) and to pick her up and take her to her train today.

I collected her (she was late) and managed to get her to the railway station with ten minutes to spare. She was quiet and subdued and didn’t want me to wait with her. Fair enough, I had things to do.

I was a little disconcerted (to say the least) to receive a phone call from her mother a little later saying that her daughter was very upset that I had ‘come on to’ her. As far as I can recall, all I said was that I wished
she was staying longer, I would have liked to ask her out for dinner as she had interesting stories to tell about her trips to Nepal, etc. Yes, of course, I could see the potential for a relationship to develop and (to put it bluntly) I would
not have minded the chance to get into her knickers. But I kept those thoughts to myself and I honestly don’t know what I’ve done wrong.

The daughter is a bit of a feminist and goes on political marches, etc. Perhaps I inadvertently used the ‘wrong’ words in conversation, but I don’t think so.

I follow, of course, the ‘Eastern v. Western’ women posts here on Stick and I have my own views. I have suffered from Thai and Filipina women and I had thought that it would be safer, more reasonable, more logical, to find a
relationship with a woman not so much younger than me with shared values, able to discuss weighty matters, etc. I wasn’t asking for a lot but it seems that I was asking too much.

So here is the issue – I am fortunate in that I am retired on a good pension. Not enough to go crazy, but enough to live on with some to spare. My experience of Western women is not so good. My experience of Thai women is not so good,
either, and my experience of Filipinas is disastrous. Where on earth do I go?

I live in a rented house, my stuff can easily be packed into a 20 kg bag, my pension can be accessed anywhere in the world.

To be honest, this latest experience with a Western woman old enough to know better has ‘knocked me for six’ and I wonder whether there is a future for me here in the UK. I am not a predator, I’m just an ordinary bloke.
Time to think about moving on, I think.

Stickman's thoughts:

Indonesia, young man, that's where you ought to go… The more I read and the more I hear from long-term expats in South-East Asia, the more I think that Indonesia might just have what you (and many others) are looking for…