Valentines Day Special, Follow up

The three parts (now four) of this series are opinion pieces. My opinion. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.

BKKSW

Reading again the first three parts and the responses received, I now realize I’ve been remiss in covering at least one major area. Perhaps I’ve done this intentionally, maybe because I don’t see myself in the role of counselor. In any case it is an area which needs discussion so please understand my intent is to be helpful and not one of criticism.

In Part 2, I advocated ‘moving on’ once you realized your values, ethics, and goals are not in alignment. I stated that you won’t change any female, much less a Thai female, to truly see things your way. The best you can hope for is to alert her to hide her behaviors long enough to get married and in some cases beyond marriage through a form of control. The control takes many forms, usually financial and often a visa or citizenship is held over their heads and in the worst cases custody of children. The problem with this is a ‘controlled’ woman is not a happy woman, and therefore she’ll eventually find a way where you lose control and much more. What you should be after is an equal partner in as many ways as possible, but at a minimum a woman who has the same values, ethics, and goals as yourself.

Reading the responses, there seems to be an inordinate number of men who say if they follow this advice then they would have to tell every woman they’ve ever met to move on. Yet they don’t see the “obvious wisdom” in their statements. I do.

If you find yourself not being in sync when it comes to the values, ethics, and goals of most women you meet.. then perhaps the problem isn’t with them? Maybe you need to improve and develop yourself before you’re ready to enter the dating pool?

And I say “before” with serious intention. Way too many men tend to compensate for their own shortfalls through denial, or maybe they just don’t realize, and then the compensation comes in the form of controlling women. Many don’t see it as control. They’ll say they’re “teaching her my way” or “introducing her to my culture.” Using their position of financial superiority and maybe even the lure of western citizenship, they ‘control’ the woman into conforming to their way of thinking against the core of her ‘values, ethics, and goals’.

This holds about as much water as a woman trying to control a man through tears, anger, and even violence.

The time to confront yourself about such issues is before you meet a woman. You’ve all heard the saying that you must love yourself before anyone else can love you? Cliché for sure, but nothing could be more true. Whatever it is about yourself that you don’t like needs to be dealt with either by fixing the problem or coming to terms with the issue in a way you can feel good about.

Such issues range from self image problems due to weight, looks, baldness, height, or whatever.. to baggage from past relationships where you’ve been burned for whatever reasons. Some people have anger management issues, some anti-social.

How do you identify your issues or the area(s) that need work? Easy.

First, self-image problems you already know about. You just need to be honest with yourself. Some things like height you can’t do much about short of shoe lifts and clothes that make you appear taller. However, all the others can be addressed to some extent through diet, visits to the dentist, careful selection of wardrobe, and in some extreme cases even plastic surgery. I myself have had laser eye surgery, braces for my teeth, and I’ll often pick out the best dressed saleslady at the men’s store to help me select my clothes. Tinkerbell at the barbershop down the soi keeps my hair from sticking straight up. Do whatever it takes to feel good about yourself. Once you feel good about yourself, at whatever level of appearance this may be, then it’s simply a matter of finding a woman that feels as good about your appearance as do you.

Second, you only need to identify all the reasons of incompatibility that you find unacceptable in the majority of women you meet. If you’ve found yourself ‘moving on’ (or like most people these have been problem areas in your failed relationships) for the same reasons for a good part of the women you’ve met, take note of the most common reasons. Some you’ll never find acceptable, but maybe some of the incompatibility of values, ethics, and goals.. is your problem. Maybe there are areas you’ll need to address through careful self-analysis, or possibly therapy. Self-help books, carefully selected, can help shed some light on problem areas.

This isn’t met to be all inclusive, but only to prompt you to look within yourself if you’ve noticed that women consistently don’t meet your personal standards for values, ethics, and goals.

I sincerely think that by taking the time to improve yourself, to feel good about yourself, to become happy and secure with who you are and the life you live, is the single most important action you can take towards a successful relationship. Becoming the sort of person YOU would want to spend the rest of your life with is the first step. Ask yourself, if a woman had your life, traits, education, age, appearance, and so forth.. would you be interested in her? If the answer is no then you need to work on what you’re putting up on offer to the opposite sex. Financial superiority is NOT a long term equalizer. Far too many men think it is.

Until next time…