Hello from beautiful Pacific NW US

[silversurfer]

  Age 42, retired early from life in general.
I gave up on finding a mate for long time, eventually started back up by looking outside the US.
Long time later here I am with a story or two to tell and lots of unanswered questions even now.

[BillyB]

Welcome to the forum Silversurfer. I used to read the comic books.

[Trenchcoat]

Silversurfer and you're only 42?

[tfcrew]

Long time later here I am with a story or two to tell and lots of unanswered questions even now.

By all means

[silversurfer]

Welcome to the forum Silversurfer. I used to read the comic books.

Was kind of a play on words, I don't look my age (yet) and suspect the grey may show eventually. It's a family trait.

[silversurfer]

By all means

Won't cover much, i'm a pretty private individual. I've seen a lot of BS over the years.

Basically life long introvert, never had much luck with the ladies. Eventually came to the conclusion after being told in my early twenties "you're too old" or "you're not old enough" (way too often I was always not good enough in some category) that women could go to hell and I was going to be content to be just good enough for me.
For what it's worth I wasn't really looking outside of appropriate age ranges.

Enlisted at 22, I was the second oldest person in basic training (old man!  ), left a few years later on medical issues. I was carded at bars frequently up until age 38. I thought it was funny recently when I showed up to a restaurant with my dad who's 72, the waitress asks me for my ID. I handed her my ID and explained that it was 42nd birthday, my father gleefully explained "this is my son and i'm 72" she looked skeptically at it and handed it back me. My father didn't start looking "old" until late 50's.
 
Tried the online thing a long time ago when that started coming around, found that in good ol 'murica the spirit of scamming is a live and well. Money was stolen from me.
Some of my previous experiences before and after trying FSU dating was distilled into a blog post. These days I blog for the sake of putting the gerbil in my head on the wheel and letting it spin.

I've dabbled in photography a bit, even interacted a bit with models featured on maxim/playboy and so on. So when trying FSU dating sites it didn't seem weird to me to see good looking women in FSU areas. I know it's a hotbed of recruiting for modeling talent, some of the most in demand models in the industry have come from there.

Some women I could tell were fake because i'd seen the photos posted in model mayhem, I think they are becoming more sophisticated now and actually hire out photographers to take photos of themselves or unknown women looking for exposure/free portfolios in exchange for posing. Those photos then get posted on these sites.
Photography, despite the explosion of camera phones and sh--ty social media software filters, is still an exploding industry.

My life experiences have caused what some might consider early onset of curmudgeon-ism and a strong nihilistic attitude towards humanity general.

The well meaning but conflicting advices i've heard over time such as "Well if you stop looking, love will find you" or "Well if you don't look, you'll never find it", both seem to be worthless as i've tried both.   

[msmob]

The well meaning but conflicting advices i've heard over time such as "Well if you stop looking, love will find you" or "Well if you don't look, you'll never find it", both seem to be worthless as i've tried both.   

Welcome, silversurfer

Dating / finding a partner is as much about luck as endeavour.  You can improve your 'luck' by reading lots of opinions on here and deciding which best suits you.

[Trenchcoat]

Won't cover much, i'm a pretty private individual. I've seen a lot of BS over the years.

Basically life long introvert, never had much luck with the ladies. Eventually came to the conclusion after being told in my early twenties "you're too old" or "you're not old enough" (way too often I was always not good enough in some category) that women could go to hell and I was going to be content to be just good enough for me.
For what it's worth I wasn't really looking outside of appropriate age ranges.

Enlisted at 22, I was the second oldest person in basic training (old man!  ), left a few years later on medical issues. I was carded at bars frequently up until age 38. I thought it was funny recently when I showed up to a restaurant with my dad who's 72, the waitress asks me for my ID. I handed her my ID and explained that it was 42nd birthday, my father gleefully explained "this is my son and i'm 72" she looked skeptically at it and handed it back me. My father didn't start looking "old" until late 50's.
 
Tried the online thing a long time ago when that started coming around, found that in good ol 'murica the spirit of scamming is a live and well. Money was stolen from me.
Some of my previous experiences before and after trying FSU dating was distilled into a blog post. These days I blog for the sake of putting the gerbil in my head on the wheel and letting it spin.

I've dabbled in photography a bit, even interacted a bit with models featured on maxim/playboy and so on. So when trying FSU dating sites it didn't seem weird to me to see good looking women in FSU areas. I know it's a hotbed of recruiting for modeling talent, some of the most in demand models in the industry have come from there.

Some women I could tell were fake because i'd seen the photos posted in model mayhem, I think they are becoming more sophisticated now and actually hire out photographers to take photos of themselves or unknown women looking for exposure/free portfolios in exchange for posing. Those photos then get posted on these sites.
Photography, despite the explosion of camera phones and sh--ty social media software filters, is still an exploding industry.

My life experiences have caused what some might consider early onset of curmudgeon-ism and a strong nihilistic attitude towards humanity general.

The well meaning but conflicting advices i've heard over time such as "Well if you stop looking, love will find you" or "Well if you don't look, you'll never find it", both seem to be worthless as i've tried both.   

We're much the same here Silversurfer. However, from what I've found and so far seen in the FSU women don't have the same pickiness as women in the west. That's not to say they have low standards, they are looking for someone who is right for them, but they seem to take a man as a man - someone who occupies a specific domain in the gender equation they themselves do not wish to move into. Hence they are not on a tickbox exercise like western women, sure they'll want typical stuff like guy to be a good man, warm heart (loving, caring) gentleman, not an alcoholic, serial gambler, etc. They don't tend to be on the 'ok, this guy doesn't measure up to the mark I've arbitrarily set' or 'ok, there's this guy who's decent enough, but there's another guy who's one level higher/got more of what I want'. They just want a guy to love them and care for them from what I can see . That's the decent girls though, the ones that are not scammers. Sure you'll get girls that are more attracted to a guy with money possibly more so if there is a big age gap. Many want at least a comfortable life where the guy can support them to at least some extent so they don't have to work 12 hours a day or whatever. They still want a guy which is right for them though and not just a cash cow, well the good ones at least.

What I'm saying Silversurfer is from the little I have so far seen the 'real' decent girls are far more better and easier to get along with than western women. There is no psychological barrier they put up like western women while they rank you to see if your good enough. They are feminine and much easier to interact with, without all the 'hey is this guy trying to move in on me' of western women.

Your main is that you have to actually get over there, from your profile you've spent all these years online, chasing scammers and never actually gone to FSU to meet 'Real' women. We all do the online dating thing and there's a lot of frustrating bs on there, but you need to push aside the bs profile and look for aspects of genuineness in profiles and messaging with the women. You say you have done a bit of photography where they deal with models for mags etc. Well the same photo shop bs is used on dating sites. So don't do for these profiles but instead go for profiles where the girl is genuinely 'naturally' beautiful, i.e not aged 30 when shes's looking like she's 18. I've actually found over the course of a year that I'm actually turned off by lads mag front cover photo's, there plasticy, false and phony and are not something natural I can aesthetically relate to. Worse case scenario Silversurfer, if you really do struggle finding the least bit 'genuine, real profiles/ladies online' is to go out to FSU even without anyone lined up, just on holiday and see/meet the women as there are over there. Then you'll see what I mean.         

[BillyB]

Dating / finding a partner is as much about luck as endeavour.  You can improve your 'luck' by reading lots of opinions on here and deciding which best suits you.

Luck is a wonderful thing but nobody should need to rely on luck to be successful in life or with the girls.

[Ashertova]

Where is this place? Are there opportunities like this often?

[msmob]

Where is this place? Are there opportunities like this often?

Ashertova !

perhaps you could start your own intro thread and explain how you are looking, but have a spouse and haven't made a trip to the FSU, yet ?

If you are in Thailand ... the FSU starts coming to you, soon ?