Making Up for Lost Time

By Andy

As a child, I led a semi-sheltered life. For example, my parents wouldn't let me play tackle football (American football) and questioned everything I did, every move I made. Granted, my family and I were, and are still close, but the flipside to that coin is that they were constantly keeping tabs on me. Add to the fact that I was the oldest child, and there was insanely tremendous pressure on me to not only succeed and be a shining example, but to not screw up. Yeah, my life was highly scrutinized, and today, in a way, it still is, but on a much lesser scale. 

It wasn't until I was in college and even shortly after college, and ever since then that I really started "living." My workaholic Dad was shocked that I was taking road trips on my days off from work or school, and that the road trips increased in frequency. If I mentioned anything other than school, he was shocked from having such a one-track mind, that nothing else registered. To him, coming from the old country and a different generation, I should have started looking for a wife, and then started working on giving him grandchildren right after my college graduation ceremony ended. I was supposed to stay the course, forgo enjoying my free time and live the American Dream. 

Now, I wasn't being irresponsible, but I was partaking in things I never did before. Whether they were good ideas or not, I missed out on concerts and parties, and the only road trips I took while living under my parents' roof, were family vacations. Just to give you an idea of how bad it was, I couldn't even go out on a date without having to reluctantly play 20 questions with my old man. My retort was I that I wasn't ditching class or calling in sick to work on a regular basis, but I was just working hard, and playing harder. I was actually making up for lost time.

The Happier Abroad movement is, in a way, making up for lost time. For some of you, I’m preaching to the choir. For others, this is a revelation, and when you start traveling, experiencing things for yourselves and finding happiness abroad, you’ll understand more of what I'm talking about. I'm talking primarily about international dating as that is one of the main reasons for international travel. Travel abroad obviously opens up a whole new world to you, but dating abroad actually reveals to you what you've been missing out on.

Part of me feels sad, because my high school and college years were “wasted” in the dating world. There was never a good selection of women, yet it was drilled into my head that I had to take advantage of the small windows of opportunity to ask a girl out, to pop the question and take her off the market. Because bar girls weren't going to cut it, and if I hesitated, I was the loser. Yeah, I had to focus on my school and work, but somehow, I needed to make time for locking down a wife and fulfilling the American Dream. Taking the red pill changed my perception on that.

Part of me also feels cheated, because I know that, for example, all the dates I go on abroad in one week far exceed all the dates I ever went on in high school and college. On the surface, that seems pathetic, and it's easy to label me a loser for going so far away from home to "score." But, I seek something much deeper than a sex tour or wild threesome. I seek someone better than a tease who plays games and rejects me for the most ridiculous and trivial shit, or because I'm not some arrogant jerk that can't keep a job or stay out of prison. It's demoralizing to think about this part of my past, but that is a necessary basis for comparison, a reference.

When I see women’s profiles on international dating sites or when I travel abroad and see beautiful women everywhere, or when I go on dates abroad, I feel like I just walked in to some chocolate factory. Of course, I know that such women exist back home, but they are rewired very differently and there are far less of them. They are taken or “unavailable.” Years of that have screwed my mind up so much that the culture shock is that when I travel abroad, I constantly have to remind myself that such women are available because there are not only far less men, but the men generally don’t take care of their women much less themselves. It is still a mindfuck that women in foreign countries generally want nice guys and will actually give them the time of day. 

It still screws with my head that a woman who looks like a model and doesn’t think of herself as the most beautiful in the land, genuinely thanks me for meeting her for a date, and is genuinely happy to see me or even hear from me. I keep telling myself that not all women are scammers and gold diggers, but I still don’t let down my guard. At the conclusion of my date or my trip, I feel revitalized, but I also feel a mix of emotions. Foreign women ask why I can’t find a girlfriend or wife in the States, and upon me telling them, they are shocked. Some are also shocked that I’ve never been married or how my looks, not even model-like or bodybuilder but still decent, would warrant my ex-girlfriends dumping me or local women not even acknowledging my existence.

I knew that I would have never stood a chance with such women in college, for example. I only got multiple dates in one week once while stateside and that was several years and presidential terms ago. I think about all those lost years and it’s saddening to see how they were largely uneventful in the dating world. There was a way to get more women back home, but I would have had to swallow my pride and lower my standards. Fat chicks were never going to make the cut.

If I had known much earlier that there are greener pastures abroad. I would have gone abroad much sooner and not let years go by, waiting for a miracle or "my time." But, I’m glad and relieved I “woke up” from the lie I was living. So, now, I have to make up for lost time, and this is my awakening. I’m experiencing what jocks and jerks were getting away with for so long.

I now realize that I’m no longer playing in the Mickey Mouse league. I need to be eons better than some white knight who frequents the friend zone, because I am already better than that. Dating abroad isn’t some small-town, small-time fuckshitville, where, out of nowhere, my friends, or rather acquaintances, tell me to hit on some fat, ugly chick picking her nose and scratching her butt then picking the wedgie out of there, working behind the counter during our stop at McDonald's. It isn't some good-looking gal approaching me, asking for my number, so her obese friend in hiding can have it. International dating certainly isn't about me sitting at a table during a wedding reception, hoping and praying the land whale who just slipped and consequently did the splits because she was wearing high heels and miraculously didn't strike oil, doesn't ask me to dance with her. 

My past is full of time wasted on being presented with substandard women and hanging with the wrong crowd. I'm no longer out at bars or clubs, babysitting drunkards, because I don't have the time or the desire to associate with such people anymore. That's precisely why I no longer get calls from the police during the wee hours of the morning. I've filtered out a lot of horseshit and have had to let a lot of people go. I haven't fully evolved from my former self, but I've come a long way.

Now, I'm making more time for myself. The jerks, assholes, dickheads, slapdicks, dickweeds and douchebags are fading away or have already had their time. They are limited to the same local nonsense because that is the best they can do; they would be rubbish abroad. It's time for my hard and smart work to pay off, to be the good guy finishing first. I can't get back the past and change it, but I can definitely make up for lost time.

When you find success in international dating, you are happier abroad. When you are happier abroad, you’re making up for lost time. Think about it. Your time is now. Use that time wisely.