Ive been living abroad the past few years and it was night and day. in america, intimacy was a rare thing. outside the country, I've had zero issues finding partners who I find extremely attractive. Some of my well meaning friends back home warn me that they are "only interested in money" but I've never spent more than a meal at a decently priced restaurant for two. My current gf is significantly hotter than women who reject me back in the states and the only expensive thing about her is her love of instax photography. (that film ain't cheap, learn from me and do not get one of those cameras for your gf)
TLDR: if western women arent' interested in you, do everything you can to be able to sustainably live outside the bubble.
Personally, I don't want a woman that works because I travel and I'd rather she travel fulltime with me. However, in my experience, latinas and asians are some of the hardest working women you'll ever meet. They seek out education and a lot of them want careers. they just arent' super entrepreneurial. Thats more about the culture they come though. people in the third world get drilled into their heads the importance of getting the right certifications. Once you get that shrink wrap off, you'd be surprised how many do start thinking about starting their own businesses.
> Most of those women would already be in the US if they were interested in such a path to begin with.
I couldn't disagree more. most latin people dont' wanna come to the united states. they value family and community more. Besides, the united states is notoriously difficult to come in legally. I'm trying to get my gf a visa and the application process requires a full interview, a year of waiting AND a nonrefundable fee. its not a surprise to me at all that people try to come in illegally.
It's a very niche target you're aiming at. Most people want kids, most people want someone who works, and most people don't want to travel fulltime. Your advice really seems tailored to you and no one else.
not at all. yes I have specific needs in a partner but there are plenty of women in colmobia, mexico and elsewhere that would be happy to live in the united states and start a family. my partner and I discussed it and she's happy to do so when the time is right. She's young enough that we have plenty of time.
by all means, if you like the attitudes of american women, go for it. but if you're a good guy and jsut can't seem to be valued by them, I also suggest getting out of the country and seeing what you can find. even if things dont work with my partner, I personally would never date another american woman. I wont say why because I would rather not get downvoted.
In my circle of professionals, most wives with small kids don’t work and even many of the wives that do work, the husbands can afford for them not to work. One entire income goes to things like college funds, investments, vacations, etc.
But you said in another reply that you made $700K and you really still need to worry about having a wife that works or her income?
I’ve travel full time for a year when I was making $225K with my wife and next year we plan to travel at least through the summer.
So I was downstairs at my hangout spot at the bar where I’m good friends with the bartender. A group of us started talking and this 45 year old lady who was attractive, a lawyer, multiple paid off properties, with two small kids going through a divorce and she was saying if she gets serious about someone, it would have to be someone who could pay all of the bills so if she didn’t want to work, she didn’t have to.
But if she did work, her money was her money. She would use it to buy for her kids, help her family (aging parents mostly). Her husband shouldn’t expect “her” money to be used for household expenses. Funny enough, I have a cousin who is in her early 50s also a lawyer with her own practice, divorced with two grown children and a 14 year old who feels the same way.
She wants to be able to stop working. You would be surprised at the number of self sufficient American women who really don’t want to work.
For me personally, I’ve been married since I was 38 and my wife was 36 and we agreed for her to stop working when I was 46 and she was 44.
First I didn’t want her working during Covid in 2020 and then after Covid we started traveling a lot including a year of doing the “digital nomad” thing flying one way across the country. I had just gotten a job that was paying 7x more than she was making.
She has her hobby/passion projects that bring in a little money. But that’s about it.
I too could live in a world of not needing a wife with any income if I chose to live in BFE or moved to Thailand. However, I want to raise my kids in a decent community with ample opportunities and be in a region where I have a good amount of career options rather than being tied into the singular (low-pay) employer that exists within the region or be stuck in remote-hell.
Then don’t live in the Bay Area? I make less than a 3rd of that and live in a nice condo with multiple bars in walking distance - including one downstairs, restaurant downstairs, multiple pools, two gyms. Max out my 401K and HSA and we have over a dozen trips planned this year including a few to see family. But most just to check things off of our bucket list. We are flying out to Las Vegas next week just for concert.
I didn’t make over 200K until 2021 at 47 and I have had two nice houses built over the years, we just bought our condo three years ago.
There is an entire United States outside of the Bay Area and there is a such thing as remote work.
The median home price in the US is $410K.
I had my second home built in north metro Atlanta in the “good school system” in 2016 - 5 bed/3.5 bath/3100 square feet for $335K and sold it last year for $670K.
Funny enough, in 2020, an Amazon Recruiter reached out to me about as an SDE job that would have required me to relocate after COVID. Even with the $100k more than I was making I could have negotiated, I couldn’t have reproduced my lifestyle in Seattle.
I did keep talking to the recruiter and they suggested I apply for a “permanently remote”[1]/“field by design” role at AWS Professional Services based on my background. It only paid $55K more. But allowed me to work remotely and a year later, we moved to state tax free Florida saving more money.
[1] As of this year, even the “field by design” roles have an RTO mandate when they aren’t on a customer’s site. Luckily I left in late 2023.
> I also means that if I lose my work, we're completely fucked and I better find another job very fast. That $20k/month you gotta pay for the home ain't gonna disappear on its own.
You’re really thinking that statistically the chance of you finding a spouse who has an income that can support your budget if you are out of a job is likely?
Guess how little I stressed when I got Amazoned in 2023? I didn’t need to chase BigTech compensation to be comfortable.
My Plan B was a regular old Enterprise CRUD job. I’m now making around what I did at AWS working (remotely) at a third party consulting company. There are some remote jobs out there. At some point, I’ll probably try my lot as a “fractional CTO”.
BTW, when I was living in Atlanta in 2020 with the big house in the burbs in the good school system, our total budget including our mortgage was around $8000. I only put 3.5% down to have it built.
> I too could live in a world of not needing a wife with any income if I chose to live in BFE or moved to Thailand
You don’t need to move to Thailand - just out of the Bay Area.
Pay for me with your money, but what is mine is mine.
