Dating when you’re unemployed is impossible

Covid hit my industry hard and I’ve spent the last couple of years cycling through bursts of employment followed by layoffs and long stretches of unemployment.

I really want to meet someone and start building a life together, but it feels impossible right now.

One of the first questions people ask each other on a first date is, “so what do you do for work?” “I’m unemployed” isn’t very attractive response, even when you’re a straight woman.

I worry guys will think I’m using them, or they’ll judge me for not having a job. Hell, I judge myself. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed.

Five years ago I thought I’d be engaged or married by now. I can’t move forward with my life until I have some financial stability, but I just can’t seem to catch a break.

Plus it’s not like I’m getting any younger. I don’t want kids so that’s not a concern, but I know for women the older you get, the harder it is.

I feel like I’m watching the life I want slip away.

My bf is currently having financial issues right now due to bad choices.

I sympathize with him and I’ve offered to help as I am in better standing as of the moment but he refuses every time.

He says he’ll figure something out himself, so I leave it alone and do not bother him too much about it.

I used to have a part time job at a restaurant around the Clarke Quay/Chinatown area during my study days and often work the dinner shift.

There’s this other colleague of mine who is a working adult that frequently does the dinner shift with me but has a full time job in the day.

The job does not pay very well, just average at $10/hour and so I have always wondered why he would want to come and work in the evening after his full time job ends.

One day while on the job, we went for a break together.

Out of curiosity, I asked him for the reason why was he working so hard and holding two jobs.

He shared with me that the reason why he came to do this part time job is that his salary from the full time job is credited to the wife’s bank account.

His wife insisted that the salary from the full time job be credited to her account because she thinks that he does not know how to control his money.

He would then receive an allowance of $800 a month for his food and transport from his wife while she would save the rest for him.

He said that he does not know how to survive on $800 a month and so decided to take up a part time job to earn some extra cash and even though the amount is not very significant, it helps him to pay some entertainment bills when he meets his friends.

He mentioned that he did not tell the wife about him working a part time job as she would most definitely take his salary away also and so he lied to her that he has to work late at his full time job everyday as the company is considering to promote someone to take up a higher post and he did not want to miss the opportunity.

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I recently met a girl friend of mine for dinner, we had not met for a few years as our schedules constantly clashed.

After dinner, I asked her if she wanted to go for dessert or for some drinks and she said that she did not want to drink this week as she was drinking almost every other day.

I probed further as I knew her as someone who does not really drink and will only drink socially and she began to share the reason of why she was always drinking everyday.

Says it is because boyfriend is ugly

She mentioned that her boyfriend would always stay over at her place everyday and every time when they stayed together, the boyfriend would always want to ‘do it’ with her.

However, she does not feel like doing it with him because he is fat and ugly and because of her constant refusal, he has quarreled with her many many times.

The noise from the quarrel has woken up her family many times and to not disrupt her family’s sleep, she just decided to go ahead and let him do what he wants but because she does not like the idea of her fat and ugly bf ‘doing’ her, she would drink to get drunk so she can sleep through the process.

She went to say that she could not even go out to meet her friends because her fat and ugly bf always controls her and that she could only meet me because he was at reservist that week.

Cannot accept change

I asked her if she could not stand him anymore, why did she not just end things with him.

She told me that whenever she mentions it, he would always promise to slim down and change his bad behaviour or he would always use his life to have a ‘hold’ on her.

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My friend and I always chiong Thai Discos in Singapore together as we go for the same reasons, Siam Bus and the Chinese ManYao music.

While I enjoy the company of the Thai girls inside, I am not a gullible as my friend.

To me I know the girls are mostly here for work and to make a quick buck and whatever they say when they entertain you cannot be taken seriously but my friend sees it otherwise and is always ‘helpful’ towards them.

I still remember the last time when we received a payout in our bank due to the GST voucher being credited into our banks, my friend jio-ed me to go and chiong at our regular hangout.

I guess the Thai girls also know that we just received our GST voucher as they were more aggressive in pushing for flowers and sales that day.

After drinking and some flirting, my friend’s Thai girl started sobbing and told him that their family’s cow in her hometown is ‘sick’ and could not plough the fields.

She then asked my friend if he could lend her some money from his GST voucher for her to send home first so that the cow at home can be treated and continue to work for their family.

She went on to say that if the cow does not work, her family will suffer as they would not be able to farm their crops to sell and they still have a lot of things to pay off like repairs for the roof at their home and her brother’s education.

Seeing her so called ‘plight’, my friend logged into his iBanking to see if he had received his GST voucher and asked her for her Paynow.

He then transferred her his whole GST voucher amount and an extra $500 for her for her ‘sick’ cow and also extra money for her family.

Of course, she hugged him happily and thanked him for his money.

After two to three days, we went back to the Thai Disco and was told by the other Thai girls that my friend’s Thai girl had ran away.

They also mentioned that she has been using this trick on many other guys ever since the GST voucher was given to us.

However they also said that only one more guy plus my friend parted with their money for her.

While my friend had only gave her around $800, the other guy gave her almost $3,000.

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I recently went to Bangkok, Thailand with my Girlfriend for a short holiday.

I had wanted to go on this trip with my boys but she insisted that she wanted to come along and since my boys only want to go Bangkok for the drinks and ‘specials’, they did not come along and so only my girlfriend and I went.

My girlfriend is a goody two shoes and quite innocent.

Her plan while we were at Bangkok was only to go for shopping and food and visiting some tourist places while I agreed and decided to go along with her plan, I had wanted to also go for massages, those with ‘specials’ of course.

I already had certain contacts in Bangkok whom I knew provided ‘specials’ and I knew I had to device a plan to go for it while at Bangkok and not make my girlfriend suspect.

I began to research for places in Bangkok near the massage place which has nice good/chill spots and decided to ask my girlfriend to wait there for me while I went for my massages.

The day came and after we walked for almost a whole afternoon around the streets of Bangkok, my girlfriend started to feel tired and wanted to sit down for a drink.

This was when I knew it was the best time to execute my plan.

I told her that I was feeling sore in my whole leg and told her that I know a place in Bangkok which provide very good foot massages and there were a few nice places to chill around there.

I suggested that she waited for me at one of the cafes nearby while I went for my ‘massage’.

She bought my story and I left at the cafe and rushed to meet my contact in Bangkok for my ‘massage’.

After releasing all my ‘tension’, I left the place a very happy man and went back to meet my gf who did not suspect anything.

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I went to a friend’s birthday staycation some time back and after the main party ended, a few of us stayed back to have drinks together with him and his girlfriend.

We started off playing games and after many many drinks later, we started to talk about almost anything and everything that came to mind as we were all already high.

Out of a sudden, my friend turned to his girlfriend and asked her to stop asking him to lick her ‘down there’ anymore whenever they were doing it as he did not like the smell there.

When his girlfriend asked him what it smelt like, he described the smell as similar to rotten eggs, salty fish and a bit of sotong.

He also said that every time he was forced to go ‘down’ on her, he would hold his breath as the smell there was too pungent and it was simply unbearable.

If it was possible to do so, he would have took a whole can of dettol disinfectant spray and sprayed the whole can at her ‘down there’.

Hearing this and due to our tipsy state of mind, we started to laugh out loud which made her feel awkward and embarrased.

She started to KP him and told him that the reason why she would ask her to go ‘down there’ was because he had a small banana which could not satisfy her needs.

She also said that there is gender equality now so if he wanted her to go down on him, she expected the same from him.

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My ‘sister’ and I only had each other when we were young, she’s older than me by quite a bit, almost 17 years.

Whenever I asked about our parents, she would always tell me that they had passed on long ago leaving the two of us behind.

I believed her even though I had never seen any photos of evidence in our house of our ‘parents’ existence.

Whenever we go out, people would also ask us how we are related as we look quite like one another but our age gap was too big.

I had never suspected anything but all these changed one day when I happened to chance upon my birth certificate which she had carelessly left it on her table and left home.

Turns out that she is my mother

It was the first time that I saw my birth certificate and while I was looking through, I noticed that the particulars of my Father was blank while what shocked me was the particulars of my Mother were those of my ‘sister’.

I called her to come back immediately to find out what had happened.

Went she came back, she cried as she hugged me and called me ‘son’.

She asked for my forgiveness for hiding this from me all these while and explained that she herself is an orphan and had no one with her growing up.

She then met my father who toyed with her and left her after making her pregnant with me.

She was at a loss at what to do but still decided to give birth to me in the end.

As she was only in her late teens when she gave birth to me, she did not want people to look at her as a young single parent and so she started to lie to everyone that I am her brother.

Should I forgive her for lying to me?

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