is it my cluelessness or naiveness?

well, here we go... the story began when we first met with a cool quick conversation over a korean lunch dish on one saturday six months ago. The whole time things went well with good wine, nice delicious home-made dinner, hottie nights during weekdays, hiking, outdoors, movies during weekends.

Then, one day, suddenly, he started "it's not you, it's me." I knew it right away that he wanted this to end. I was confused since we still enjoy each other's company. I was speechless as he told me that his routine was to see and dump girls within 3 months. i was a special case that lasted 6 months.

I took it as that was what he wanted. I gave it a break. But, still, sometimes and many times, I just could not stop wondering why as he seemed to be a nice man and not a girl hunter or a player. is this becuase it's hong kong where things are changing fast so one has to keep up with the change? Or is it because of what? I'm really clueless. Any suggestions?

by the way, this is my first time dating someone like this here in hong kong. my past many years, i have been meeting with good, nice and serious men who wanted to marry me when i was not ready. in the past 5 years, i have been dedicated myself to my work and gave myself a big break on dating or relationship. now i start to reach out and got this 'fail to launch' guy as a beginning. anyone can give me more pictrues about dating and men in hk?

You were obviously dating someone neurotic and should probably be looking at him as having done you a favor for letting you go!


Ok, lets find a good analogy....


Seriously...if you have lasagna at one italian restaurant and its great, does that guarantee that the lasagna at every italian restaurant in town will be great? Probably not. What if the lasagna at that first restaurant was lousy, would you avoid lasagna at every other restanrant in town?


What I am saying is, you got one bad lasagna. So what? You know from experience that you have had a whole lot of good lasagna all throughout your life. You know you are even worthy enough as to have that lasagna yelling out "Eat me" from time to time...even when you werent ready for a full portion.


*shrug*


As a thinking woman...do you honestly feel that this one bad experience should scare the bejesus out of you for the future? Seriously...you REALLY think you should worry?


Sure you can go through all the usual course of emotions...the self doubt, the self questioning...like "Wow, am I really that bad a judge of character?" or "Holy Canoli! How did I not see that coming?" You know what? That would be making yourself out to be neurotic. Because really, its not you, as he said, its HIM! He's neurotic! Dont let that bother you. The fact he's come out with something so bizarre as to have a "Date and Dump" time schedule!!! I mean, seriously, WTF? And to have the cheek to tell you that you were a "Special case" to make it to the 6 month mark! Is that his idea of giving you a compliment and letting you down easy?


Lol!


You are NOT clueless, you are NOT naive...you just ended up with the wrong chump at the wrong time. Dont sweat it, its small fry. Its not Hong Kong, its not you, its HIM.


:o) Chin up, dont let this get to you...and dont carry this as baggage into your next and act like some tea leaf reader looking for "signs"...if you feel you need a bit of single time to get over the disbelief of having dated this rather bizarre specimen that came cloaked in normalcy...take your time. Hmm Kay?


Man, I dunno about y'all but I could SO kill some lasagna right about now! Mmm mmm mmm!

You're not alone RITUAL. It happened in Singapore and the rest of the world :-(

I feel for you, Ritual. I have lived in a few Asian countries and found it rather difficult to understand the guys in Hong Kong. I also found the dating scene a little more difficult there. The guy you mentioned was probably a commitmentphobe. I went out with one such person before. Everything went really great at the beginning and it was almost too good to be true. I can only hazard a guess that guys in Hong Kong have no lack of girls to pick from and men who are there, foreign men at least, are there for a reason - their impression of Hong Kong is it's an exciting city and a place to go wild in. I may be generalizing here but I always hear the Hong Kong-is-so-exciting-I-want-to-go-there-Singapore-is-so-boring-I-don't-want-to-be-there comparisons, so maybe different types of guys go to different countries.


But like you said, this is the first time you met such a guy, so take heart. There are still good guys out there to meet.

thank you for all supports, suggestions, and opinions... You all, including all who have contributed in other topics, have helped me broaden my view about dating and hong kong, a center of 'east meets west'. what i've learned so far is that some men do 'kiss and tell' while some men do keep their lists of scoring... the timing breaking up is also a pattern adopted by lots of 'white' men living/working in many big fast moving cities like NY, LA, London, Tokyo, Singapore, HK, one can name it. However, what is interesting here is that the vibrance of a flow of 'exortic educated asain women' is rather high while there is a relatively high 'supply' of many 'other women' working in HK. Men, including this ex guy of mine, are rather spoiled of choices available. It's rather silly for one (male) not to take advantage of this high supply.

As to me and my case, I suddenly leaned from many from this forum that a man can be a nice guy whenever it is neccessary to win a game. He was playing a challenging game in winning and dumping a woman as it is a pressure from 'peer' who can get him to be 'competitive' and wanting to 'win'. So, I guess, this is really environment of 'white men ego' that eventhough one is not natually that type but could not help being pushed to be in; thus to act like one without thinking of who he really is. I guess, I understand better now. I'm glad I let him go. I don't blame him for doing that as he may not realize he's already lost himself. I guess I have to get back to my own circle of life, which is surrounded by all good men. Hong Kong is not really a place for me to date or look for a relationship from a guy anymore. As a city, I do like it a lot but i don't have hope for some 'white men'. So, afterall, it's really both the city of the male dominant society and the men themselves (and certainly not all men).

I am not sure whether Hong Kong is a tougher or easier place to have a relationship than other places. It sure is challenging - but may be it is the same everywhere.

Speaking as a guy, the dating scene is certainly great with lots of interesting, educated, and independent women around (both local and expats). Sadly many of them are not interested in anything beyond having a good time (dates, dinners, sex, etc.) and definitely do not want relationships. This attitude seems to be especially prevalent among foreigners, with local women slightly more open to having something permanent (just based on my experience - might be generalizing here). "Commitmentphobes" captures it well, haha