Getting Excited for the Wrong Reasons Isn't Wise in the Long Run
Since before we met even, we’ve been observing men and women who come from different countries meet, and in many cases get married. We met and are happily married. We’ve seen and heard a lot of stories, and based on it, we’ve come up with a list of top mistakes in dating Filipinas. Before we get into this list, we want to be clear that when we say we are an online dating site, we mean that we are a site where people can meet to become friends first. We do not believe in premarital or extramarital sex, don’t encourage it, and don’t recommend it. We do believe in commitment, marriage, and family, and when the right person is there, we encourage it. Some people who have visited other sites with many Filipina members at times get confused and think that online dating must be immoral because we encourage casual sex (we certainly don’t). Maybe other people or other sites have different definitions of online dating. We encourage you to find a site where the owners and other members share your basic assumptions about this.
Dishonesty - We believe that for two people to join to form something greater, that honesty is important, and dishonesty is a dangerous poison. We strongly encourage our members that when they are corresponding or chatting, take the time to make sure what you are saying is true. Even if you are afraid you might disappoint someone else, it’s far better to be honest from the beginning, rather than start a life based on a lie. We believe that honesty is the way to develop trust and love, and that dishonesty interferes with our ability to trust and love one another. If what you are looking for is power, sex, money, or status, I’m sorry but that’s not compatible with the atmosphere we try to nourish here. We encourage those who seek to fulfill the guidance to love one another, and who believe that requires honesty, to take the time to join our site and meet fellow believers.
Obsession With Appearances – We recommend that our members focus more on profile text, and messages, rather than photographs. First of all, this is because as much as we would like to be able to guarantee that a member’s photos are of the member, we can’t guarantee that, and we know for a fact that some members post pictures of other people. But most of our members who have posted photos are posting photos of themselves. Yet we still recommend that our members do not pay the photos much attention. One of the less-appreciated aspects of human relations is that single people might look less attractive because they feel loney; but later in the company of a caring partner, they may blossom through confidence to be more attractive in the eyes of anyone who was paying attention. On this same topic, about once a week, we get an email from one of our gentleman who is inquiring about a lady from our site, and when we look at the lady’s profile, we see a picture that looks like it could be from an advertisement for bikinis, full of curves or cleavage. (We delete the pictures immediately.) We believe that these kinds of pictures are not of ladies who are mature enough to have healthy relations of any kind with anyone. We recommend you avoid them. Unless you are a man who is obsessed with his own appearances, who cares more about his looks than his actions, then you will have a values conflict with a lady who is obsessed with her appearance. It’s important to think about what your values are, and to find people who have compatible values. This is much more important than trying to meet people who remind us of advertising models.
Getting Too Excited About Easy, Outgoing Ladies - It’s natural that we can get excited if we write a note and the recipient responds very quickly. But is that actually a good sign? More likely, if you get a response right away, you’re dealing with a professional scammer who is spending all day at the computer. It’s actually a much better sign if you have to wait a day or two for a response. Likewise, if you find yourself very excited because someone is very outgoing, forward, and not shy, not humble, you might want to take things a bit more slowly. Many of our finest ladies are conservative and/or shy. They may not want to post photos of themselves, they may not have any experience with meeting men in a context like this, and might be shy and more innocent. This doesn’t mean they are not worth getting to know, however. But it does mean you might need to make more of an effort. Think about it. The ladies who are very upfront, outgoing, aggressive even, might be easy;but do you think they will be faithful, humble, obedient? We recommend that our members should make a special effort to write to especially those members who don’t have pictures and who might have short descriptions. It only takes a few moments to write a short message, and you never know what beautiful gem you might find hidden beneath modesty.
Sending Money - We believe that a person who is not responsible for his or her own financial situation isn’t ready to look for a partner. You may have even been tricked by someone who isn’t the one in the pictures, who may not even have the name or even gender or ethnicity of the one you believe you’re talking to. We strongly discourage our members from sending money to anyone they meet online who they have not yet met. In fact, it’s against our terms of service to request another member send money. Please report any member who does this, whether it’s in a private message in our site, in our chat, or in a message or chat on another service. We suspend these members immediately, as they have nothing to offer our membership. If any member asks you to send money, whether it’s for internet fees, clothes, food, medicine, cell phone, debt, tuition, or anything else, just say no — forward the message to us, forget about that person, and move on. We have thousands upon thousands of quality members, and there’s no use wasting one more minute of your time if you’ve found that one of your chat mates behaves in this way. There is no excuse for it. If you have any questions, please email or call us.
Failing to Verify Basic Identity And Other Web-Chat Mistakes- We offer a webcam chat service for our upgraded members. Other services, like yahoo and skype and gmail, also offer chat services that allow you to see another person on webcam. (We believe ours is the best option for our members, because when you chat using our service, you do not need to share your messenger address with others, and you are protected by our terms of service. If you give out your yahoo or skype id, you may find that it can be sent from person to person, and you may receive everything from solicitations for paid cam sex to bank card fraud. We encourage you to use our site for your messages and chats, because other members will be held accountable for what they say to you and they will be suspended if they break our terms of service. If someone asks you to leave our site for whatever reason to go to another chat service, and then solicits money there, simply report the member, and we will suspend them from our site. We have a zero tolerance policy for this.) In any case, you should always be sure to chat with any new contact using some form of webcam chat. You should verify that they are the person from the pictures, and you should verify that they are the one typing. Before I met my wife, I personally had an experience where I thought I was chatting with a person online, but was not careful, and then when I actually met the person, it became clear that she hadn’t been typing at all – she didn’t know how to type or even read or speak English – and that one of her friends had been typing while she sat at the webcam. This stuff happens, and you need to insist that you see the hands of the person you are typing with at least once, to see that they are typing. While you are chatting, you should also pay careful attention — is your chat mate also trying to chat with other people at the same time? If so, forget about her, and find someone who gives you the attention you deserve.
Trying to Impress the Parents / Failing to Be Romantic / Taking it Too Fast In Person – While it’s definitely true that family ties are close in the Philippines, and that the opinions of family members are important, if you are chatting with a lady, or meet her in person, remember to be romantic with her! Bring her a flower, or a card, tell her she is beautiful, listen to her and talk to her, wink at her. In general, don’t be the one to bring up talking with anyone in her family about a developing affection. If she brings that up, ok, but you should talk about your affection with her, not them, and allow it to develop by talking with her about it or just spending time with her. Most likely she’ll always bring along someone from her family when you meet anyway. You can talk with the others, but remember that she’s your focus. If you’re still just meeting for the first or second time, you don’t have to be overly romantic. Just one flower and one nice comment is enough. More can be overwhelming. Just take it easy. Meet for a short meal, and then go your own separate ways, and later arrange for another meeting a few days later. When you first meet in person after meeting online, it will take some time to adjust. It’s like starting all over, so take it from the top. Ask important questions, but ask them casually, questions about her education, family history, family obligations, experience with travel. Don’t ask anything that might be too embarrassing in front of her friends or family.
Falling In Love Online Without Meeting In Person - We recommend to our members who are serious to meet someone in the Philippines, that they plan a trip. Perhaps a two-week trip three months away. Then try to meet five to ten people online as friends who you’d like to meet in person. When you meet them in person on your trip, you can see whether what you had inferred or been told was correct, and see what feels comfortable. You can even take notes; there’s nothing wrong with being careful and disciplined at such an important time. A respectable Filipina would never object to you being careful and deliberate. Don’t rush into passion right away. Try to make sure you have a match of values first. Is it more important to live for the present, or plan for the future? Children? What church? Do you like gardening, or prefer spending time at the computer or in the library? Riding Harleys, scooters, public transportation, new BMWs, or ratty old cars? Of course many people can embrace new aspects of life when they meet new people, but make sure there is also enough foundation of commonality. We have had members who have met online and then not met any other members, just stuck with the first person they’ve met, and it’s turned out well for them. If this is God’s plan, then we can’t object. But we nevertheless think God would still approve of a couple that is meant to be, even if both parties are careful and deliberate and cautious, taking it one step at a time.
Trying To Be Too Cheap - Let’s face it, there are a lot of expenses that are involved in relationships. Transportation, potential visa costs, travel expenses, time off, relocation expenses. If it’s between continents, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars, plus months or even years of time. We have members who try to use their free-level membership as long as possible, or who even try to violate our terms of service and exchange contact information while still free members. Friends! Twenty dollars, or fifty, or even a hundred dollars, that you dedicate to membership in a quality website like ours with attentive customer service and thousands of quality members is worth every penny. So go ahead and upgrade to one of our top membership levels; there’s no need to delay to save a few dollars. The same thing goes for your first time to meet in person. Don’t worry if you’re buying lunch for three or four people. You don’t need to go to an expensive place, and you can set a clear budget – 300 peso to 1000 peso depending on the number of people attending and your lifestyle – but it’s ok to spend something to enjoy the company and the service.
If you have any other tips of “top mistakes” you have heard about, feel free to write to us, or add them as comments so that others can benefit from your experience.
Peter and Jen
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