Quote from John Freeman on October 26, 2023, 9:14 pm

Goals

• Have 5 female friends
• Start cold approach again
• Organize charity events (I did it in the past once)
• Go out in the bars again
• Post pictures on my IG account.

Quote from John Freeman on November 10, 2023, 6:55 pm

I'm in Brussels right now for a training in pediatrics.

I have to say that I quite like the city. I came her once and found it ok. But this time I have a better feeling about the city. Lucio advised me to go for 1 million people cities for choice and I agree. I've been here for 24 hours and I got 50+ matches on Bumble. Compared to the 1-5 a week in the city I'm currently living in Switzerland. The radius is set to 65km (changed it to 50km now). City is 1.2 million and metro is 2.5 millions.

So since I learned about dating markets and the difference it makes, I've been trying to figure out what is the best dating market for me.

I know I tend to over-analyze things. However, some things come in to play on these dating markets:

1. The local physical stereotype (dark skin, tall, etc.): the "average woman". The average mexican woman is different from the average german woman physically speaking.
2. The local culture: norms, beliefs, social expectations, behaviours, customs, expectations. How one feels about the local culture: do you like the food, the way people think and treat one another.
3. The local character: this is basically derivative from the culture. Are people more extroverts or introverts, individualistic or community-oriented, etc.

So based on this and my travels in the past 10 years, I've got a few candidates regarding this:

• Sweden
• Norway
• Denmark
• New Zealand
• Australia
• Canada
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Belgium: new addition to my list.

So from my recent experience in Belgium, I have now a plan. I'm going to spend a week-end in the cities I'm aiming and see what I get passively from Bumble and Tinder.

I tried doing this remotely but women see that I'm in "travel mode" so it does not work as an experiment.

I'll go to Australia in Feb-March, have been in New Zealand already, so this leaves:

1. Stockholm: I have a close friend there that I want to see anyway. City: 1 mil, Metro: 2.4 mil
2. Oslo: city 700'000, metro: 1.6 mil.
3. Copenhagen: 660'000, metro 2 mil.
4. Montreal: city 1.8 mil, metro 4.3 mil
5. Amsterdam: city 920'000, metro 2.5 million.
6. Warsaw: city 1.8 mil, metro 3.1 mil.

Also, Lucio gave me a good advice to focus on 1-2 things and a couple major drawbacks to make a choice to go abroad. So my priorities are dating and work. Self-development and health I can do anywhere. I de-prioritize finance, family and friends. Otherwise if I check all the advantages and disadvantages of each country it's impossible to make a choice. Because it all evens out in the end. Some countries are worst than others but those are semi-equivalent in terms of development, rights, quality of life, job market, etc.

I'm aware the list has not changed since the beginning of my project when I was looking for a country more progressive than Switzerland. However, now I have a different perspective on them: dating.

Off-topic

Update: also something quite important that I learned from Lucio. The difference between dreams and goals. I do agree that we must have goals. I also think that it starts with a dream. The trick is not to stay at the dream level but make it into actionable steps. That's what I'm doing here.

/Off-topic

Quote from John Freeman on November 10, 2023, 8:47 pm

Regarding finding suitable dating markets I’m now testing to look for markets through Internet that are disfavourable for women to find one that is favourable to men. Instead of looking for good dating markets for men. Since it’s mostly a matter of men:women ratio. If women are complaining about a place it means the ratio is probably favourable to men. And it’s easier to find negative information rather than positive. People tend to report more negative information rather than positive. Machiavellian thinking here.

Something else I realized: whether it’s my origins, my face, my personality, etc. I appeal to a niche of women. So instead of viewing it as me being a victim I view it as a problem to solve. The large number approach solves for this.

If the admin feel this journal belongs more in the dating section, I’m ok moving it of course 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on November 11, 2023, 6:44 pm

Just a quick note on this:

Quote from John Freeman on November 10, 2023, 6:55 pm

I'm in Brussels right now for a training in pediatrics.

I have to say that I quite like the city. I came her once and found it ok. But this time I have a better feeling about the city. Lucio advised me to go for 1 million people cities for choice and I agree. I've been here for 24 hours and I got 50+ matches on Bumble. Compared to the 1-5 a week in the city I'm currently living in Switzerland. The radius is set to 65km (changed it to 50km now). City is 1.2 million and metro is 2.5 millions.

Upon first moving it's common to get a boost and more matches.

But that big of a jump, in my opinion, may not just be the "moving bump", but the sign of a (much) better market.

And a potentially feedback for you.

OFF-TOPIC

Same as I asked Power Duck, would you be cool with moving this journal in the dating section?
One of the reason besides being more on topic: it doesn't get drowned out by general journal updates.

OFF-TOPIC

Quote from John Freeman on November 12, 2023, 8:20 am

Thanks Lucio.

I was also wondering if it was a glitch. Well, I did not get 50+ matches everyday but I would say around 10 yesterday. And girls keep messaging me. I actually had more messages and could not really follow up in the time I had. So closer to a woman's experience. That's basically what I'm aiming for: abundance. Not for the sake of it but to be able to go from quantity to quality.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on November 11, 2023, 6:44 pm

OFF-TOPIC

Same as I asked Power Duck, would you be cool with moving this journal in the dating section?
One of the reason besides being more on topic: it doesn't get drowned out by general journal updates.

OFF-TOPIC

Yes, that's also what I proposed. It was in light grey so easy to miss. I also think it's better:

Quote from John Freeman on November 10, 2023, 8:47 pm

If the admin feel this journal belongs more in the dating section, I’m ok moving it of course 

Quote from John Freeman on November 12, 2023, 8:45 am

Thinking about belgian culture, I see that the open-mindedness and tolerance is what is similar to some other cultures I feel comfortable in. I'll write more about it in my journal.

What I want to document here is that my relative success on dating apps in Brussels probably has to do with open-mindedness (openness in the big 5). With my physical type, personality and life experience as I said previously I probably appeal to the open-minded, curious, well-travelled women. As probably other men here do. My type is probably: the exotic intellectual caring man. It sounds corny and/or boasting but I'm not a chad. I look from northern africa/arabic country but my mother tongue is french and I come from Switzerland. I know women I've been to liked especially the French accent. Writing this I now see how I can turn all of this into a strength but I was semi-blind to it before.

That's the niche that I probably appeal the most to. This helps me to see my skin colour as an advantage as many african (descendant) do. They appeal to the women looking for them so then it's easy as they love the type. Same with my physical type with women: I can tolerate a less classically beautiful women if she has the physical features I'm attracted to. Similar for women who don't have my "physical type", they can be prettier but I'm not as attracted. It's a matter of tastes. I'll take an example: let's say somebody prefers chocolate over vanilla. This person when faced with a higher quality vanilla ice cream or a lower quality chocolate ice cream will probably prefer the lower quality chocolate ice cream.

So now it's about reverse-engineering that. That means not only looking for countries, cities where my type is sought after. But also the places where the women looking for this type go out and the activities they do.

I came to this conclusion about open-mindedness vs narrow-mindedness when comparing Switzerland and Belgium. That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to leave a few years ago. I was not as socially intelligent as I'm now so my desire for open-mindedness was also me not understanding the importance of norms and not making people feel uncomfortable. I was also not as aware about the importance of fitting in to get the benefits from belonging to the group and adhering to the group's norm. I was too much of a misfit and non-conformist. I still think it's important to be a non-conformist. Free-thinking is a very important value for me. However, one can be a conformist publicly and a non-conformist in the private domain. That's what many swiss do. Behind closed doors kinky stuff can happen. In public, they don't talk about sex and it's considered very vulgar to do so.

That's also probably why I have more success when setting my dating profile to Bern. There are more progressive people than the one I encounter in my city. Where I live, people are way more judgmental and closed-off.

I'm aware this post might sound a bit PR and I accept it. To me, it's more about turning around the mentality from "my type don't appeal to women" to "how can I use my type to find my type of women". So turning things from negative to positive self-perception.

So for me, to optimize my dating strategy based on choosing an adequate dating market, open-mindedness in the culture is an important factor as I learned from this experience here in Brussels. I might be wrong but based on the information I gathered it feels like a good working hypothesis.

Edit: This study supports my observation regarding the link between openness and progressiveness (which is correlated to economical development I think). A country which is providing the basic necessities to most people have a strong state to offer these services. Once people have their basic needs answered they can go higher in the Maslow pyramid and for instance travel and discover. There are other factors that I’m considering but not exploring here (location, geography, history of the country) that also count. This is on a broad strokes level. I’m also aware that each study like this contradicts the previous. Grain of salt.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on November 12, 2023, 9:29 am

Quote from John Freeman on November 12, 2023, 8:20 am

I was also wondering if it was a glitch. Well, I did not get 50+ matches everyday but I would say around 10 yesterday. And girls keep messaging me. I actually had more messages and could not really follow up in the time I had. So closer to a woman's experience. That's basically what I'm aiming for: abundance. Not for the sake of it but to be able to go from quantity to quality.

That is wild.

Speaks a lot about what a difference moving can make -and you still only moved within EU and still Western and wealthy countries with more similarities than differences. Imagine the even bigger swings among even more different places-.

I'd definitely consider that a major plus and sign for moving.

Quote from John Freeman on November 12, 2023, 7:53 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on November 12, 2023, 9:29 am

Quote from John Freeman on November 12, 2023, 8:20 am

I was also wondering if it was a glitch. Well, I did not get 50+ matches everyday but I would say around 10 yesterday. And girls keep messaging me. I actually had more messages and could not really follow up in the time I had. So closer to a woman's experience. That's basically what I'm aiming for: abundance. Not for the sake of it but to be able to go from quantity to quality.

That is wild.

Thanks! I was as suprised as you are.

Speaks a lot about what a difference moving can make -and you still only moved within EU and still Western and wealthy countries with more similarities than differences. Imagine the even bigger swings among even more different places-.

I'd definitely consider that a major plus and sign for moving.

Yeah definitely. I do think that depending on our types there are markets where we are the hot commodities. The challenge is finding them. Then we can have access to the best mates. So I think that if one is self-optimizing and finds the market where he's hot stuff. Then the sky is the limit. Work in progress.

I'll give one out to Power Duck: Poland. In Poland they love the spanish. They want to learn spanish, dance the latin american dances, visit Spain, etc.

Quote from Transitioned on November 12, 2023, 9:12 pm

Being a somewhat nerdy guy always think of woman is having a bigger ROM.  They are programmed with the behaviours required to produce the next generation and keep us  evolving.

So think of this as the mandatory requirement.

Then the relationship is what you can build together 'the bubble' of team us.  A RPG guy should be good at world building.

Now you ve sorted out your app game and found the macro buckets to fish in there are micro buckets too.

I like nurses and eventually settled down with one.  I found the big nurse training centres in the countryside.  Messaged girls from that area.  A typical date was they would invite me over to their place cook for split a bottle of wine and we would do the deed.  Why was it so easy?  Gossip in a country town.  They wanted sex but with a ghost.

Unfortunately I also lost a decade of my life with my unhealthy obsession for mad arts chicks.  So I had two buckets.  Every year I used to go to the mind body spirit convention with the hottest female friend I could find.  Every guy there was either gay or dragged there by gf.

New aged meetup groups same.

Hang out in a suit with a lappie and swanky man bag in the cafe where they hold disney on ice.  Endless buffet of single moms.  You trap the trapper.  Provider sex without the providing.

I m not a pretty boy but never went without because I was always playing with  a stacked deck.

Wouldnt string along a girl who I didn't think I could have a relationship with unless I d made it clear it was a fling while travelling  etc. Remember it's men who are romantic not women.  Women have a ruthlessly efficient mating strategy honed by evolution. And I ve had many LTRs so what they were playing for was always on the table.