Girlfriend Only Has Guy Friends

• David Tian Ph.D. identifies the red flags for this situation where the Asian girlfriend moves away to the West.
• David Tian Ph.D. talks about the differences of dating in Asia and the West.
• In this Man Up episode, David Tian Ph.D. explains what men should understand about dating women from Asia or relatively sheltered backgrounds.

Boom! Stop. I’m David Tian, PhD, and in this video, I answer the question: What to do if your Asian girlfriend moves to the West and only has guy friends? Welcome to the Man Up Show.

Masculinity for the Intelligent Man. I’m David Tian, PhD., and this is Man Up!

Hey, I’m David Tian, PhD., and for over the past 10 years, I have been helping hundreds of thousands of people in over 87 countries attain success, happiness and fulfillment in life and love, and welcome to Man Up. I think it’s Episode 215. You’ll see the episode number somewhere near this video, and I’m in Bali at our penthouse suite. You see this beautiful infinity pool, and the sun is setting. I got to shoot this quickly, get that exposure, and I got a bunch of friends around, but they are currently out of the suite except for one. Taking advantage of this quiet time to shoot this Man Up video.

Alright, there’s a question from Brandon inside the Man Up private Facebook group. So, join the private Facebook group. All you got to do is click the link, hit click to join, and we approve requests every day. This comes from Brandon inside the private Facebook group. He originally asked it back at the end of August, and I kept putting it off. I wanted to answer it, but I kept putting it off because it was a lengthy and sort of sensitive topic. I took so long that he came back with an update, and the situation had evolved as I had predicted, but I didn’t get to put out my prediction before it happened.

And then he updated us, and now I’m like, “Ah, I can’t dilly-dally any longer.” So Brandon, here is your video. I’m going to address your original post and then your updated version. Now, it is really long and that was another challenge, and the reason why I procrastinated because I wasn’t exactly sure how to summarize it. Here it goes.

“Hey, Man Up men. I’m a 30-year-old Canadian living in Taiwan for a couple of years. My girlfriend is a 24-year-old Taiwanese in a one-year working holiday in Australia.” Okay, they’ve been on a one-year long distance relationship, and their original agreement was that she would come back to Taiwan after her one-year working holiday in Australia ends. He says,

“Now, after several months of long distance and a 10-day trip together, my girlfriend shared with me yesterday she doesn’t want to feel rushed to come back to Taiwan and might want to stay longer, and she will not come back for a year if she does come back.” In other words, she’s going to extend for another year, “and wants me to move there instead.” She’s telling him to move from Taiwan to Australia.

“There has been no other parties on either side involved. We made it this far through honesty and sometimes painful honesty and consistent support. This caught me a little off guard”, he says, “I can tell she doesn’t want to call it quits. She just doesn’t want to come back and wants me to come to her instead. I think now that we’re over half done the year, the idea of coming back to Taiwan is testing her.” Okay, so he goes on in more detail and it’s not actually that important. He also gets really emo in all of these various posts and replies to other people. I’m going to skip some of that.

And so, she’s 24. I don’t know. Westerners think that’s a big age gap. That’s an average age gap, actually, six years difference for married couples in Asia, especially is an average age gap. “I understand that her being younger, she just wants to take time to explore, and I get that, and do my best to support her. Plus, I’ve struggled at times with her having mostly guy friends over there.”

One of the issues is a lot of guys in the West and in Western liberal countries get shamed into accepting behavior that is just pathological. Maybe that’s the wrong word, maybe taking it too far, but is just psychologically unhealthy. And this is one of those examples. I can tell if you’re a Westerner in an Asian country where the language is not English, which would be everywhere except for Singapore, you probably feel quite isolated. You don’t get plugged into the surrounding culture very much, so you’re off on your own, and you bring whatever liberal, or conservative in some cases, culture from your home country to your Asian country.

Brandon’s case is probably a liberal upbringing, so he’s going to be always backing away from asserting himself and his feelings, saying, “She should be allowed to have whatever situation” even though it makes him feel uncomfortable, but he feels like he shouldn’t speak up because equal rights or whatever it is. Those politically correct liberal views from how women should live that make men feel uncomfortable are generally not psychologically-grounded or empirically-grounded. They are just more rights-based.

The fact of the matter is: It does make you feel uncomfortable, Brandon, and that’s not something you should just repress. Hey, liberal social justice warriors or whatever, he can’t just repress it. If he does, he’s being dishonest with his own feelings. It’s better for him to be honest and forthright, even if you disagree with him. Everyone is free to disagree with each other, but you shouldn’t be imposing your view to force him to pretend like he agrees with you, when in fact actually he’s not. He’s just paying lip service to it.

There are more things going back and forth, and here’s some more red flags. Some of the guys in the group were coming back to him on the original post saying, “Here’s one red flag. This is one red flag. Here are all these red flags.” And he’s saying, “No, these aren’t red flags.” And he says, “There are even more red flags” I’m starting to mention some of them.

“For instance, the feeling that she may be cheating. I know, man. I’ve had it too and we’ve gone through an argument or two about it. She has mostly guy friends. Not too long ago, she asked if I could help record a video, so she could say happy birthday to a mom of one of her guy friends there. The background also that I skipped is, she is mostly couch surfing. She’s staying with some relatives in Australia, and half the time, and then the other half the time, she’s couch surfing with dudes.” They’re all dudes he says on these couch surfing networks, and she happens to just be sleeping in their apartment on their couches, not even Airbnb deal where she gets her own private room. She’s just sleeping on the couch it seems. That’s what couch surfing is.

He says, “I thought that was fucking weird and suspicious. Granted, she and a girlfriend used to live with this guy there and he’s been a supportive friend of hers. But still, sending a video for another guy’s mom, a guy she’s only known three months or so, I thought that was fishy. I asked if anything has happened, if she has any feelings for this guy. I could accept that and move on and finally bury the hatchet.”

“But later when I asked if she sent it, she did anyway because she said she would. I finally told her I’m not cool with that because it comes across as sketchy and makes me feel uncomfortable. The worst move on her part, and I chalked it up to immaturity.” Oh, right. “And believed her when she says nothing happened. Not only had she explained, but my instincts told me if she was cheating, she wouldn’t ask me to hold her camera while she records it. She would do it herself and hide it. Women are slick about cheating. They bury that shit. In this case, she didn’t have anything to hide. I really think her immaturity just came through. She can be naive at times at how she comes across. But anyway, that’s just an example.”

And then he posted an update after sleeping on it. Basically, he’s got four points, and he basically says, “I’m going to double down and really invest in this love relationship and show her I love her.” That’s where it was. And I was just like, “Dude, I need to make an episode for you. Wait for it. It’s coming.” And I didn’t get around to it in time, and then he posted an update about two weeks later. And he says,

“Update: My long-distance relationship of eight months just ended.” Everyone kept telling him. “Go through the Relationship Red Flags free course that we have in our master class.” Everybody should go through that. Every man needs to go through that, especially if you live in a Western country. Actually, no matter where you live. I’m going to get to the east-west thing, because it’s a very important distinction. And he says,

“I read it, and I’ve gone through it”, and he’s also gone through How to Get Over a Break Up course free course that we have in the master class. All you got to do to get those courses is to join the private Man Up Facebook group, and then you read the instructions in the pinned post, click the link, you’ll get the courses.

“It went from her agreeing to come back to Taiwan for a year, and then us moving to Canada after with talks of marriage, now to her saying she might want to stay in Australia, to now finally her saying if she has the option, she will definitely stay.” Basically, she’s staying and he finally said, “That’s enough.” And he says, “But we are going to be here for just one year, mixed with travel in between.” So he’s saying he’s being reasonable, “We’ll mix it up, Australia, Taiwan” but he says, “That’s not good enough for her. This isn’t good enough for her. Well, that’s okay if that is her true feelings. I just wish she knew this earlier.” Basically, she dumped him.

“I know moving for someone is a massive thing and I wouldn’t ask anyone for it. But when someone you love goes from giving that word and wanting to be with you, to saying the initial plan with you is their backup if staying doesn’t work out in Australia, well, it just hurts. In retrospect”, he says, “I see where it fell apart.” So, he says, “For so long, to save money, she would use couch surfing to save money. Unfortunately, all these places were guys’ places. She says she couldn’t find a female host.” Man, you could just look that up on the internet yourself, dude, to verify. I find that very fishy.

“But anyway, I could trust her but not the guys she was staying with.”

I was never comfortable with it but if she needed to save money before getting her place, okay. But this was a trend as she traveled around. She broke it up by having family stays but couch surfing at guys’ places continued until this end. Mix that with the fact that she hung around mostly with guys and I always wanted to ask this, “Is that a red flag?”.

Yes, it’s a big red flag, a girl having too many guy friends. It’s not just she’s got guy friends, it’s the ratio of guy friends to girl friends. If it’s mostly guys, she’s probably very sexual and she probably also likes the attention. Unless she’s gay, like if she’s a lesbian, so maybe they go hunting for girls together. But even then, lesbians don’t really get along that well… Anyway, enough about lesbians.

No, this is a big red flag. It’s not so much that she’s got a lot of guy friends. If she has a lot of friends, period, that’s fine. But if she has almost all guy friends and almost no girl friends, that’s a big red flag. Because why? If they’re in their 20s, if they’re relatively young women, and her guy friends are single, which is probably the case, what do single guys, especially when they’re young, do? They go out and club, and hunt, and try to hook up.

And so, if that’s the sort of activity, if they’re dudes dudes. If they were like feminine guys, that’s a different matter. Maybe they love to do art together or something. In general, even if they’re into art, that doesn’t mean that they’re feminine dudes. If they’re closeted gays, then maybe. But otherwise, if they’re straight dudes who are single and do not suffer from severely low testosterone, straight dudes who are single are going to go and do straight dude who are single things. She’s with them, and she likes that. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have so many of those friends and be with them.

And of course, she likes the attention if they’re straight guys and she’s a female. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be in those situations and continue to look for them. “I mean, I’m fine with her having guy friends, but just guys? That’s a little weird, especially mixed with long distance and staying alone at guys’ places.” That’s the biggest red flag. She’s couch surfing at guy after guy’s place.

It’s too much to take. “It would turn into doing sketchy suspicious things, me responding by saying I’m not cool with it, and her giving excuses and not understanding how I should feel in my position.” You should’ve just let her go. I have a Reality of Women seminar that every man should see. Go and YouTube search that. One of the things that falls out of that is females enjoy sex. In fact, they enjoy sex as much as or more than males. On top of that, they have short-term mating strategies that generally are politically incorrect to talk about.

It’s stupid because it’s so science. There’s so much science behind it, that females like to have fun, and pleasure, and hook up, and all of that. They just don’t like to be open about it because then they’re vulnerable to slut-shaming. They don’t want to be called sluts, but they want to have all of the freedoms that men do with hooking up. And they take that, especially in the West, the liberal West, women hook up. In fact, they hook up at higher rates than men because they can, because it’s easy if you’re young. You don’t even have to be attractive. If you’re a young female in your 20s in the West, all you got to do is stand at a bar and it’s just a matter of time.

If you’re incredibly unattractive, it might take hours, but it’s just by closing time and you keep saying yes to every guy who walks up to you, you’ll get laid no matter what. Attractive women will have to fight off 10 to 20 dudes a night. They can. They actually have to resist the temptation to be promiscuous. Men have to learn some fucking skills in game and shit to be promiscuous. Women have the opposite. A lot of women just give into the temptation because there’s no social mores against doing that. Now it’s like, “female empowerment, blah, blah, blah.” Except there is now also slut-shaming.

On the one hand, you don’t want to openly say that you’re being promiscuous, but then underneath, under the table so to speak, maybe literally, you’re being promiscuous. That was a big point that I made in Relationship Red Flags course, in the Reality of Women According to Science course. They’re allowed to do this. Society has allowed them to do it unless you’re in Taliban-controlled-whatever, some Middle Eastern countries will still control the women that way. They don’t allow them to do it.

But everywhere else, very quickly becoming liberalized in that way, adopting Western values of liberalism. This is the dynamic that’s really important for you to understand, Brandon. Let me just finish off what he’s sharing here.

“She would meet a guy off the internet at night and have a drink when she wanted to socialize. She would send a new guy friend’s mom a video to say Happy Birthday. She would send selfies to a couple of guy friends. She would stay a guy friend’s place whom she never mentioned for months. I call her and she’s out for a night walk with a guy she’s staying with. Granted, she said this guy was disgusting and would never let him touch her.” That’s ridiculous, unless he’s gay. That’s just ridiculous. I can’t believe you’d believe that. “Completely oblivious how she came across.”

One of the other situations that I can’t find here because he’s written so much, is that she would stay out partying late at night. That’s another big red flag, by the way, staying out late at night and getting drunk. And then saying, “It’s too late to get home safely, so I’m just going to sleep on this dude’s couch.” That’s a huge red flag.

He says, “I gave all the patience I had to this discomfort of her travelling around in this fashion, hanging out with guys like this, only able to hang on because she would be upfront with me.” Yeah. So, players. This is what players do. Dude players, one of the pernicious strategies about being open about your multiple relationships, is when you’re open, it actually takes away power from the female to act because now she’s like – she can’t get mad at you because you’re open. What are you supposed to do? That’s the best policy. You should be always be honest.

But see what happened to Brandon? He had a player girl, and she was open, so he’s like, “Oh well, I guess I can’t say anything about it.” He’s already into her and addicted to her. It’s a thing that he can’t have, right? So, the thing you can’t have is the thing you want. And that creates that dynamic of the chase dynamic. Anyway, he says, “But every man has his breaking point when nothing changes.” Good, Brandon. I really hope that you learn from this experience of going forward. You’ll see these red flags much quicker, and you’ll reach that breaking point much faster. So, there’s so much more, but I’m going to just stop it there.

“Now, I’m not perfect and God knows I have my issues, but looking at the red flags, the glaring one of hers is immaturity, but I always thought she’d just grow out of that because she does want to grow as a person. I guess come to think of it, as this has unfolded, she actually had less of what matters, like empathy and maturity, but she’s held a lot of the compatible interests and life dreams I hold dear. Plus, she’s naturally gorgeous and the hottest girlfriend I’ve had to this day.”

Generally, when guys say that stuff, “She’s the hottest girl I’ve ever had”, that’s a big red flag for that dude because it means he’s not thinking straight, because that should not really factor in. I mean, she should reach a certain threshold of hotness, but if you’re holding on to her. If he says she’s the hottest girl I’ve ever had, that means you don’t think that in the future… I already made a whole separate video on this, but almost every mature man that I know who settled down and got married, and he’s happy in his relationship, didn’t settle down with just the hottest girl he ever hooked up with. By the way, if that’s one of your metrics, there’s always going to be a hotter one, by the way. Constantly, every day, every year, coming back into the mating market.

That’s a horrible metric. Anyway, when you hear that, to me, that’s a red flag because I’ve seen it so often that that trips guys up. “So, seeing how rare of a mix she is, and that way really fucking hurts, especially since we talked marriage, I saw her as potential wife material, but that future is broken.” How could you see her as potential wife material if she’s sleeping on dude’s couches everywhere she goes? That is not wife material at all, that’s like the opposite.

And he says, “Every damn week, it was something new with her, always doing something sketchy. Yes, she was honest about what she was doing, but she lacked any common sense for how things would come across to me. She would just do whatever she wants with any thought…” Now, he’s just explaining her away, making excuses on her behalf.

Anyway, a lot of the guys in the group already educated him and called attention to the red flags. He is a smart guy. Once he sees that a girl having a disproportional number of male friends, especially couch surfing exclusively on guys’ couches for a year, is a huge red flag, and pretty much a deal breaker, now he’s going to learn from that, right? Brandon, you’re a smart guy, and now you see it.

Let me tell you something that no one else has pointed out and I don’t think anyone else in the whole fucking world is equipped to say. I kept waiting for somebody to say this so I wouldn’t have to shoot the video. Here’s the special thing, and has come up to 10 points, and you have earned it. If you are watching this now, you have earned this special point, and this is a little bit too much truth for politically correct types to accept.

Asia had a different culture, and still does to a certain extent. But because of the infiltration of Hollywood, MTV, all of that Western culture… And in fact, you can argue that Communist China is westernized because the communism came from the West as well. Pretty much all these different systems, politically and culturally, are now pretty much Western. Sorry, I got to turn off that notification.

What happened in Taiwan is – this is quite common. You get a relatively-sheltered, culturally-sheltered Asian girl, who grew up, was born and raised in that Asian country, that had – because of the language barrier – not as much penetration of Western pop culture as you would expect or you would find in a place like Singapore, which is pretty Westernized, actually. They don’t see it, but for someone who travels around a lot, Singapore is the most Westernized Asian country.

But Taiwan is not as Westernized as Singapore because of the language barrier. So, it’s not as easy for people to get drawn into movies, especially if that’s fast dialogue because they’re reading subtitles in Chinese, which are already difficult for the average Chinese person to read. So, then she goes to Australia because there was enough of the West to entice her to go to Australia, versus, say, doing an exchange in Japan, or Korea, or all these industrialized nations that are just as modern and can give her all of that educational experience or whatever. She likes the West, so she goes to Australia.

The thing about Western countries is the dudes are more empowered. I’m going to tell you the truth, Taiwanese dudes. The majority of you guys don’t step up when it comes to mating and dating. A girl walking on the streets of Taipei will not be approached or rarely be approached by a Taiwanese local male who was born and raised in Taiwan. If you have your girlfriend, and she’s hot, and she’s walking down the streets of Taiwan, you don’t have to worry. Dudes won’t approach her unless they’re the black dude throughout Asia, some fetish thing, and they’re very empowered. They’re like, “Yeah.”

Or the Italian dudes who come over and are like, “Yeah, we’re Italian.” Okay, actually, I can’t do an Italian impersonation. Anyway, there’s certain cultures where the dudes feel very empowered. I would even say the Middle Eastern dudes can be because of their disrespect of women. I’m telling you the truth. So, what happens is she’s sheltered. She comes from a relatively sheltered place, Taiwan. She has not been exposed to the sort of masculinity that is attractive to that type of woman. The girl will respond to that.

And the fact that she liked you, Brandon, and you’re white, and you’re working on your masculinity, so you’re going to be above average in masculinity in terms of aggressiveness, assertiveness, go and get it, go and crush it, passive versus assertive and so on. You’re more of like the step up and get it done type, versus the average man in the local population. So then she goes to Australia and now she’s surrounded by them. Now, she’s basically a kid in a candy store.

Now, you don’t understand this because maybe it’s politically incorrect to talk about race and culture. We’re not talking about race, we’re talking about culture, and she’s raised in a culture that is, when it comes to sexual issues, and dating and mating, relatively-sheltered, and then she goes to a place where it’s relatively liberal and free. And in Australia, if she’s at bars and so on, dudes are going to be hitting on her. If she goes to Europe, like I was just recently in Austria, you don’t got to worry too much there. In Germany and Austria, they are very by-the-book. Dudes generally won’t walk up to females and just start hitting on them.

I go back to North America once a year for about a month or so, and it used to be refreshing, but now it’s sort of a shock at how different the cultures are in terms of the way that the dudes approach mating and dating. There’s hollering, there’s the whistling still going on. And New York is a lot more grungy than I remember, a lot more. But of course, if you go to Italy, it’s even worse. I’m sure in probably a place like Spain, definitely you go to Latin America, South America, the cultures are just different, dude.

Imagine you take a girl who is relatively-sheltered, who is 24, Asian which is Asian female – that’s a very common fetish around the world now and she’s out surrounded by Australian dudes in Australia, hitting the bars and clubs. She’s sleeping on their couches. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? She’s a kid in the candy store who hasn’t been exposed. This is also why even if you as a conservative dude want to find a conservative girl, as soon as she – she’s going to have to have a very strong, rational reason for her prefrontal cortex to say no, and then exercise willpower to say no to the sexual temptations that are out there in the world.

It would better for both parties if they would just get their temptations out of their system like I did, so it’s not tempting them anymore. That takes a lot of maturity, and I’ll address that on the female side in a different video. That’s the situation you’re dealing with, man. So, when you date further in Taiwan, it would be best if that girl would have been previously exposed to Western pick up and the aggressiveness, and assertiveness. In a lot of Western cultures, they just grab the girls, physically bring them in. I know a common PUA thing is to just touch them on the small of the back right away as soon as they say hello.

Now, that’s acceptable. A lot of females in Asian cities, especially the big ones like Shanghai, which is actually nowadays a lot more cosmopolitan than Taipei. Taipei is, to me, whenever I go there, it feels like a really small town. Anyway, in 2004, when I started in Asia picking up chicks, you put your hands on the small of the back because that’s what you do. You don’t even think about it. The country girls they’ll push your hand down as you’re talking. It just puts them on edge because there’s that cultural difference in physical touch.

Nowadays, they are a lot more westernized so they will accept that. But where did that, just grab a girl and bring her close to you come from? Not in Asia. I calibrated my socializing style back then to Asia because I was spending a lot of time there, and I had to remind myself to escalate up to the touch. Of course, there’s some girls, if you read them right, they want to be touched and you go and grab them. But it’s the white guys who come in and just go boom boom.

A girl will give allowances to a foreigner in Asia a lot longer. “Oh, it must be the way. He’s used to this, wherever he’s from.” And he can get away with a lot more upfront. But still, you’re triggering these defenses on their side that you’re not even aware of. And now, that’s a long time ago. That was 13 years ago. And now, all of these Asian cities, the big Asian cities with populations that easily exceed 5 million, easily those ones, but Taipei I think is pretty small relatively speaking, 2 to 3 million, I think.

Anyway, it’s still relatively conservative for the girls who were born and raised there. If she’s Asian-American, it’s totally different. Asian-American girls will be used to American culture and American dudes. So if you get a girl from Italy, she’ll be so used to dudes hollering at her that it will have no effect on her. But if you get an Asian girl who’s never been exposed to that and suddenly she’s getting it, that’s what you had to deal with, Brandon. Unfortunately, there was no one who had one foot in the west and one foot in the east like I do. Now, I’m telling you, man. That’s what up. Look out for that as you go forward in dating in Taiwan.

Okay, the sun has set. I got to get some food. I am starving. Thank you so much for watching this. I warmed up to the politically incorrect stuff. That’s part of the reason why it took so long to get to that. Brandon, power to you. Thanks for waiting. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you’re watching this, enjoy the video. Join the private Man Up Facebook group. Click the link. Join the group. I will see you inside the group. Until then, David Tian, signing out. Man Up!