[kay]

Well, I have another 3.8 or so years till I finish my degree, so that’s an automagic no, until done. (There are very few schools with my program that have professors with my focus.) After that… I have 8 years where I *MUST* be practicing in the field I graduated in within academia (teaching or research), in some form or another. If I am not accepted to a university or something near the person that is, again, an automatic no because I cannot afford to pay back the $120k I’d owe the fellowship program. (Plus interest.)

Even all that aside, I’d probably do this if and only if we communicated daily and had many vacation stays over several years. I don’t trust people quickly, so it wouldn’t be an “OMGYOUREFORME!!!” within a short time-span. I might ask them to meet me in the middle, if they’re attached to family, etc where they are and I couldn’t find a position closer once I graduated. That said, upon graduation, I’m basically a leaf in the wind anyway, so if I’m accepted, I’d happily move there anyway – at least I’d know someone there, unlike when I moved to attend this program!

[Raell5]

I think I would move if I could trust the person and he lived somewhere I wanted to live anyway. Of course, I’m the one globe-trotting right now, teaching in southern Thailand, and love traveling the world.

A high school friend invited me to move with her to South America next year. I was thinking about doing that anyway and being with someone else would defray costs. But she’s a bit flighty, and not much protection in a dangerous country so I still want a male around. I taught in Mexico by the beach for a semester and loved it, though.

[Joy]

I wouldn’t travel to another country, but everything has to check out. I have to be able to find work if I’m the one going, or they have to be able to find work if they are the one coming. I would prefer to not be the one to move, but it strongly depends on a host of things. It doesn’t make sense to move to instability.

[Lenka]

It depends. I would probably move if it was somewhere in Europe but not behind the ocean. It would be impossible for me because of the price of the plane ticket itself, not to mention other problems like moving my pets and things I don´t want to leave behind (CDs, books…)
And I don´t think it´s a good idea to move to someone who is total stranger to me. How could I trust a stranger whom I´ve never met IRL? It´s crazy!
With people from Europe, there´s at least a possibility to meet several times, visit each other and find out how compatible we are. Real life is absolutely different from chatting on the computer. I wouldn´t trust anyone based only on computer chat. I have the worst experiences with it.

[Sandra]

Hi everyone

Well, I wouldn’t move to another country and I love where I live right now. I have lived on my own for 10 years. I love living in the UK, and my future is in this country. My goal is to be an inspirational, entrepreneur speaker on stage in London. I have thought about living in London, but like I said, I love where I live. I would ideally want a Serious and committed, Living Apart Together relationship, as I can’t usually go to sleep in the same bed as someone else. I would like a guy to move to live near me, if they didn’t live in this country. It’s a big ask, but that’s what I would want. I don’t like travelling on a plane, so unless I can get to see them by Eurostar, such as in France or Paris, the guy would have to visit me over here.

[Von]

(Laughs)

It seems pretty universal that everyone would want to meet in real life first, to make sure their getting-on-fantastically carries on there. Makes sense for sure!

Living Apart Together is the best phrase I’ve ever heard.

[Sandra]

Hi Von

Apparently 10% of the British Population have a Living Apart Together relationship. Otherwise referred to as an LAT – It’s a real term.

I met an older lady customer who has had a happy LAT for almost 12 years. She lived with someone before and it wasn’t good.

A LAT suits me well. Happily single unless the right ‘one’ happens to come along. I believe in the ‘one’ too. If not, single forever.

[Von]

Sandra, that is fascinating. 😀 I feel the same way as I did when I first discovered asexuality was an actual thing. I need to find a LAT group next time I’m looking to reduce living costs.

Cheers!

[Raell5]

I agree with you on the backpacking stuff. On my second Appalachian Trail hike the overnight shelter was gross-very 3rd world and in the morning I was covered in snow and had to break ice in a spring to wash my hands. The 40 lb backpack (I only weighed 105 lbs) put too pressure on my knees on those steep trails and my knees started hurting BADLY. I got backpack rubs and my new hiking boots gave me blisters. Yet the gung-ho bunch I was with wanted to go as fast as possible all day without even glancing at the scenery.
I was miserable.

I thought about the problem, then invented a device that makes me four-footed and takes the weight off my legs on steep hikes. I only touch the ground lightly every six feet, I can’t slip, and it also uses my own gravity weight to power me forward so that going uphill or down takes almost no effort. Now I can hike all day even with a backpack..no problem, no sore feet or muscles, and it also supports to weight of my pack.

But backpacking the “normal” way is no fun at ALL, unless it’s only carrying a day pack and I can mosey along at my own pace, taking side trips to photograph birds. All that “through-hiker” charging around to beat the clock wastes perfectly beautiful nature ops

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Raell5.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Raell5.

[Raell5]

I wish I’d known about asexuality before. I always assumed I was a normal heterosexual female with a few fixable issues, if any. When a transwoman friend gave me a clue I realized I’m partially transmale as well as gender fluid. When I went to androgyne forums I found that many of them are asexual as well due to the gender mixes canceling each other out. That’s when I realized demisexuality was a thing.

I thought my celibacy growing up was from having “good Christian character,” and my tendency to become sexually attracted to someone ONLY after over a year of close friendship seemed more of an inconvenience. I typically wouldn’t break up with anyone to avoid the long, tedious process of finding another partner, as I thought I should do, to prove myself “normal.”

After my parents passed away I decided I didn’t need to be married to please them so went single for the past four years while in Thailand, where being single and androgynous is more the norm than not. Even married couples typically live in different towns.

Still I would love to have partner for safety’s sake and because like-minded people can make life more fun. I had a 22-yr-old Thai police lieutenant platonic friend for a year, soon after arriving here.

When he asked me to give him English lessons I said I’d exchange them for Thai lessons and if he drove me to the best local birding spots and national forests. It was FUN! He’d be waiting in the parking lot when I got back from work and we’d play football (soccer) until the stars came out, then watch meteors and name stars and constellations (strangely, most of the Thai seem to know the stars and their names). We’d leave before dawn to travel to Khao Yai National Park where we’d hike for hours.

He was able to keep up with me, and hid his fear when I photographed wild elephants and snakes.
We were like best male buddies, cracking jokes and listening to cool music-we had the same musical tastes-discussing the latest political situations.
We hung with his friends also and I even took short local trips with him and his family.

He was my PLAYMATE..but no sex.

When I moved after a year I felt bereaved and later we started Skyping and messaging, though it has tapered off to occasionally now.

I remember wishing desperately that there was some social configuration where we could share a house as friends and run around together without sex being involved, although I’m told he is very handsome. He never had a girlfriend the entire time we hung together, so he might be asexual as well, or gay, but since no significant other showed up to threaten me in a year, maybe not.

[Lenka]

Rachel,
I think he might be asexual (or demisexual), I can´t imagine a typical sexual men who would act like him, unless the culture in Thailand is so different from Europe and USA and it is normal to have sexless relationship, and have sex only after marriage. I don´t know how it is there.
You should ask him if he´s asexual and if he is, you should ask him out. This is the chance which can happen 1X in life. For the most of people it will never happen…

[Sandra]

Hi Rachel, find out why it’s only occasionally now, and if he is still single, go for it.

[Raell5]

Wow. I could never do that. But I’m flattered you think I can. Must be what normal people can do.

My Thai friend and I relate only as male pals-no sexual topics were ever even referenced…EEEW!
Besides, I’m 62 now and he’s in his mid 20s, getting his Masters in political science, and lives 14 hours away, in Bangkok. I live in southern Thailand, near the Malaysian border. He hopes to work at the UN after he gets his degree and has been promoted at work since I last knew him.

I did cautiously ask him once that if he ever got married, would it be to a boy or a girl and he looked shocked and said, “A GIRL,” so I felt relieved. So many in Thailand are bisexual that I was constantly nervous some male lover would show up and threaten me, and if he’d had a girlfriend she would have forbidden him to hang with me. He could still be bisexual, since Thai typically marry the opposite gender but have lovers with whatever gender attracts them.

I know males seldom do anything without a reason, so I understood he hung with me to hone conversational skills and get “free” English lessons. I wanted a playmate and someone to drive me to remote, dangerous birding spots.

His only other interest might be if he wanted a “green card” marriage, but he never mentioned it. Besides, I would never do that.

[Von]

“I remember wishing desperately that there was some social configuration where we could share a house as friends and run around together without sex being involved”

I hear ya. That said, at least there’s no active social stigma against it (like homosexuality in some places), but rather just the difficulty of finding someone who wants the same thing you do. I guess that’s what this (and other) websites are for, though.

I suppose there is also a bit of difficulty in that the all-present system of hetero marriage and childbirth also tends to blind people to other options, so someone might not be ready for that sort of future even if they are in fact asexual.

I would totally ‘green card’ marry. 😉 Why not? If you get on with someone, just sign a prenup and then reap the benefits of dual nationality! Although since you live in Thailand I guess you don’t really need it there…

[Raell5]

Well, now that we’re not running around in the jungle or playing soccer together, I suppose he’s not doing me much good. I suppose he’s getting older and more responsible now, probably realizing that it’s not socially acceptable to be running around the hills with some older foreign lady.

I keep planning to go back to Kentucky, so I should find someone to hang with there. I’m looking for a playmate/companion who will actually join me in my activities. He was perfect as long as I was teaching in Saraburi, Thailand though. I moved after a year and now I’m in the south of Thailand so I can go to the beach.

[Sandra]

Hi Raell5

I guess I am none traditional in the sense I prefer to be with someone younger, but very traditional in the sense, I would only be with someone for love. That is why, nothing else. I would want a mutual loving, committed, serious relationship, with just one guy. For love. Of course he would be my soulmate and have shared interests, wants and needs etc, too.

[Raell5]

Sounds perfect! I can’t think of my Thai friend in romantic terms at all, but I would like someone my age, with as much in common as possible. I actually had that for 8 years but the man was bisexual, with many female characteristics, which I loved, except for an “extreme jealousy” one.

He was jealous of anything that took my attention off of him, including my job, so the relationship didn’t work long-term. But he was PERFECT otherwise.
He’s my age, masters in engineering (he helped design the B-2 bomber), an airline pilot with flight privileges so we traveled the world, a vegan, VERY fit, tall, looked like an escapee from a Las Vegas male strip show, gave me 2 hour foot rubs every night, was a musician so we used to jam together, ride horses together, went camel trekking in Australia, camping in Tasmania, etc.

He endured 1.5 years of courting me without a reward to win me over in the first place. I’m guessing he must have demisexual tendencies also. He even came to see me in Thailand last year to try to persuade me to return to the USA with him. It was working, until I realized he was still the same way as before, so I didn’t come back with him.

Being demisexual I still can’t think of anyone sexually except for him. The thought of hanging with someone new for another year or more to feel attraction is discouraging. Probably best to hang with another demisexual who won’t “suffer.”

[Von]

Sounds like a lot of positives for only one negative.

Might be worth taking this guy to couple’s counselling and sorting out this jealousy thing rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

[Raell5]

I know what you mean. What a waste. But here’s the thing. Think of the most passive-aggressive jealous girlfriend ever depicted in a movie or experienced. Then add cunning and high intelligence with a six-ft male body of solid muscle and one has a dangerous combination. But if I could have hired a couple of body-guards to protect me from sabotage I’d probably have tried to keep him.

I lack the female brain chip needed to control men and make them behave. Since I treated him like lover/friend and did nothing to curb his behavior he felt free to get revenge in secret. He’s since moved on, hopefully to a more “female” female who will use her instincts to keep him in line.

I keep wishing I could rent him for a weekend, though. I might be asexual with everyone else (at the moment) but once I have been with someone long enough I have an almost scary libido with a love of variety, mild S&M and gender role swapping, He was the first person to match me in that without ever losing interest or slowing down. The old pennies in the jar wedding story didn’t apply to him.

I’ve wracked my brain for a way to safely take him back, but I’ve had too many too close calls.

[Raell5]

A link to a photo of my “ex” and I at Krabi Bay when he visited last year.
How do you copy photos from picasa web album into this forum?

https://picasaweb.google.com/100046980955983551622/November162014#slideshow/6082282033419240434

[Author]

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