If you would have a spendable income of about 25.000 euro per month (approx 1.7 mio peso).
Where would you live in Manila where would you go and what would you do? Think restaurants activities etc
PS: not looking for financial/investment advice
When you count the tremendous amount of matches on dating apps it’s pretty hard to find someone genuine. I did. At least on some levels, we been together through some different things both not really knowing where this led to.
I know now that moving on is difficult but sometimes needed, even though the streets of makati won’t feel the same walking alone. The mornings and pooldays have a different feeling to it when you did those things together. We did a lot, me and her. Goodbyes are never easy but when there’s too much that happened between you two there’s eventually no other way then to let go. Feelings fade and memories stay.
I know that it could have been something
More than what it was now but I also know
I could not change what happened before and all
Such feelings wouldn’t dissappear by pretending this Sht didn’t happen. But then again you try to play it off, You try to balance things out and make right choices On what the best thing is to do.
Understanding you love someone enough to let it go is understanding that some day maybe things will change.
I know.
On my journey to become a knowledgeable afam within the community I’ve met an absolute boss.
Wilco, a German 6’7 guy of about 140 kg was the senior director and lead militaritian of the afam community in his area. He divorced his wife and has ever since then been in God tier afam mode. If we would have ratings within our afam community he would have taken a substantial part of the golden plaque of afam brotherhood and honor.
I was eating at a local fish Restaurant called Marino and there he appeared sort of mystical out of the dark, 6’7 tall long blonde hear white tank top and a babyblue short just over his knees. He walked into a car shop and talked with the sales guy about something, when he walked out I invited him over. I offered him a beer and asked where he was from, he told me he moved to the Philippines 4 years ago and wasn’t planning to go back. He divorced his wife and has since then rented a apartment in the neighborhood. He told me that over the last 4 years he had about 150 girlfriends, of which about 8 mary joy’s. He told me that when his phone would ring and it said mary joy he never really knew which one it would be.
That was inconvenient because 6 hated him and 2 wanted to marry him. He called it mary joy roulette. Also he hated his wife pretty much, this was understandable since she took half of his money. He was currently dating this girl and said he knew just the one for me. He made some calls and I got the number of Anne.
I told him we could meet again the next day and so we did. When I arrived at the bar he was all dressed up with 2 girls. One of them he introduced as his girlfriend and the other as Anne, now Anne was a 31 year old girl who clearly missed the boat of husbands by partying till her late twenties. She looked good and I’m sure she looked too good for her own good when she was 25. Now she was desperately trying to make up for past choices and asked me after 15 minutes if I was ready to commit.
I am ofcourse fully ready to commit but not with Anne.
Anne was nice though but a little bit too much over the place, she was a half project/hospitality/social media/restaurant manager/VA and by her stories I could clearly tell she was as clueless about where that was heading as me. Also she was all in on TikTok, now this is just my opinion but if your all in on TikTok at 31 you’re missing out at some more fundamental aspects in life in general. She did have a bubbly and outgoing personality so. When she asked me what I did for work I just told her I’m a financial advisor. I usually don’t really tell what I do because I don’t really know the agenda of people. Anne asked me if she could come with me to
My hotel at the end of the night but I kindly declined. Wilco said about 2 am he’d head home, we talked about the upcoming World Cup and told me he would go to dumaguete to watch it.
Anyway I’m not settling down until i reached my full Afam potential. And I’m also done with these western woman who have 2000 opinions and zero to offer. (On a complete sidenote that is haha). Take care guys!
All the best!
(PS I changed the names)
The main reason for choosing the Philippines as my new home was my girlfriend. Now since we parted ways I must say I do like the country and people.
I know a lot of people complain about a lot of things but in general I would say that if you find yourself complaining about the same things for over a year you should probably go to a place that you will like.
Because if you don’t like your life than you should go and change it.
What I like about the Philippines;
I like the dynamics in vibrant cities like Makati/BGC and at the same time not being for away from a island or beach.
People are in general friendly, open and not rude.
I think food like Bicol Express, Kare Kare and Kinilaw are great and also, especially in cities you can basically eat any kitchen you prefer.
Maybe unpopular opinion but people like foreigners on average.
In PH here you can get both sides, you can stay in a nice hotel for 18k per night with great service or also in a hostel for 500 a night. There’s something for everyone
So personally I’m not the ‘I want to live on a 1000 USD budget’ kind of guy but I do get that people do so because you get a lot for little. I do think that a lot of complaints do come from these guys so another unpopular opinion; maybe stop complaining if your basically homeless in the west but still can have a decent living here.
Well so to say I do think this country has a lot to offer for people in a lot of different circumstances, better enjoy it while your at it!
All the best!
On my journey to become a afam in the Phil I’ve met my fare share of people. From all classes, people who retired and are happily married to a Filipina, people who work in the PH and people who are basically pushing their luck on a 1000 usd pension and have a 19 year old girlfriend.
Me personally make a difference between expats and afams. The first one is contributing in someway and the other is more leaning towards complaining about the country they willingly live in with their ‘25 yo age gap girlfriend’. This is ofcourse just my take and it’s all very subjective.
Robert is a 57 year old US special forces retired lieutenant living of about 1100 usd, or at least that’s what he told me. I met him in Cebu on crossroads which was more or less my go to bar when I worked there. His girlfriend, Cherry Mae, was a now 23 year old girl from Samar who he met when she was 18. They had 2 kids together and Robert told me he is just in the country ‘10 x-ing’ things. He was referring to a farm land in Mindanao which he told me he bought 4 years ago and was now worth close to 600k usd..
Now Robert is not an expat, he is an afam by design.
He tells everybody who’s willing to listen that he is a) very rich b) made it for real c) is a seasoned war veteran and b) loves red horse to accompany his stories with. Robert is also a nice guy but a little lost in his own narrative, I could clearly tell by Cherry Mae’s expression that she heard this story about 1000 times every other night. I’m also pretty sure that she met him as an island exit-plan and that only halfway worked out for her.
After a night of beers with him I picked up the tab. Wished them a good night and know that next time he will probably be around, Cherry mae apparently hasn’t seized Robert’s ‘10 x’ farm land and that’s good. I hope she doesn’t or he will have a new story like Dave from Angeles.
All the best guys!
(I changed their names)
because I posted earlier about my endeavors with some girls I dated i thought i would share some absurdist questions I was asked during swiping (imagine everything in capslock):
Do AF AM ride boat?
- No every country outside of the PH has collectively decided to not use boats anymore.
Are you from AF AM CUNTRY?
..Which is probably ‘country’ - no born and raised Filipino here, that’s why I’m so white. And besides that, was there some sort of general consensus that everything outside of the Philippines is one country called AF AM country? What happened to borders?
Was there some Spaniard in 1500 who said fck it from now on we own the world..
CAN U BARROW MANEY?
Dude.. what?
I’m here swiping left and right not setting up a loan program. And in a literal sense, yes I could borrow money I guess.
Can U post me on ur profile?!
This is textbook consolidation on the girls side. Because everything is so much about social media here just saying we’re officially isn’t gonna fly. Or apparently not in province .
U HAVE AF AM FRIEND?
Uh yes since I’m from ‘af am country’ that’s kind of a open door…
Follow up: CAN U FRIEND date my sisters cousin mother? (brother father etc etc)
I never really got family relationships here it’s always someone’s mother of her cousins brother who needs something. I mean I don’t even know how to call that.
I did meet a lot of nice and well educated girls too but just a small recap, best all!
Divine and I met sort of funny. My first time in PH I was sick so I went to a hospital and was waiting in a sr citizen lane (didn’t notice). She said I’m in the wrong lane because that’s not for the afam, chatted a bit and shared phone numbers. I flew back to Austria and after that we kept chatting until we became official LDR.
She told me she really wanted to build a house so I helped her out with an architect, and planning. Eventually when the construction phase came I decided to help with it financially too.
After about 1,5 years I went back to PH. I was really excited to finally see her after all this online conversation. When I arrived on NAIA things got really awkward, her family decided to make a banner of my head photoshopped into a family picture with Divine on a 4 meters long print that said ‘Welcom lab’. I understand people make spelling errors but this was like the ‘no ragrets’ guy. The lab was supposedly to mean love in slang.
What was even more astonishing that she invited 12 people to pick me up and we had to do the first meet video for TikTok with her running into my arms for 3 times over cos the camera angle wasn’t good.
After about 12 hours of drived in a cramped public bus we came to a place she referred to as the ‘mountain mountain’. I never asked but I think that has something to do with how rural the area is. We went for dinner with her family and after some days of settling in I asked about the house.
She was very vague about it so I decided to check it out myself since I had the coordinates and pictures of the exact lot, when I came there: nothing.
There was no house no nothing there sat a complete empty land while I had laid architects construction and daily costs. I went back and asked Divine what happened, she told me that her uncle sister was sick and she was afraid to tell me but that she really plans to build it. I couldn’t believe it, what the actual heck.
I went to the place where according to Divine the home of the afam was, some Australian guy who lived with his wife there, I explained the story but I was shook. Well it’s water under the bridge but what’s up with this
After chatting for a couple months on a dating app I finally met Grace Joy, she was a ‘single mom who want afam bf’ or at least that’s what her bio reads.
I always thought it was sort of funny when you look from it from a screen that you have all these noises in the Barangay like roosters karaoke machines construction sounds etc. When I arrived in Bukidnon I was greeted by Grace and probably the head of the afam greeting committee (some guy that said he was her uncle). Family was quite large and we went eating with about 22 people for pinky bbq.
Is it just me or does every Filipino has a massive family? I mean back in Austria we usually had small gatherings but not casually having the whole neighborhood in a date. Anyhow, we got along pretty well but I did get a lot of questions to pay for stuff like medical bills and the tuition of her sisters cousin in law. During our conversations she said she want to become a influencer pinay/Afam couple vlogger.
But trust me, no girl is gonna capitalize on my face when that money ain’t flowing back to daddy. Crazy.
After being presented the 6th bill of overdue rent I took off. Her mom was asking me to stay but I felt like an ATM at this point. What I don’t get is that the girls play pretend and then when you roll up in their Barangay treat you like a bank. This narrow minded perspective on short term gratification will never help these chicks escape poverty or travel ‘to afam country’. Well whatever right more fish in the sea.
So in my journey of becoming the ultimate afam I also was trying to do some business in my spare time. Every now and then
I flew out to Cebu city to talk to some guys about investing there. On my way from Mactan to IT park I saw it. The main thing Filipinos love to talk about as it’s a life or death situation besides shopping malls and pancit canton, politics. Wide eyed between the ‘choose me as a mayor or senator posters’ there it was; the AFAM partylist.
This list solely consisting of fellow afams was a God tier list of fellow red horse drinking, country complaining expats that were gonna clean this darn country up!
I tried to contact the main blonde dude and figure out what he was about. Throughout my exploratory investment partners I found out he was living near Mandaue. Unfortunately I never got a hold of him and to be honest I don’t know if we could elect a main Afam representative to double down and get rid of that VAT on red horse litros but, I mean, I’d be down 100%. I guess it’s all a dream for now since I’m not even sure if you can get elected without the PH nationality,
But hey! Nice going my duderiños!!