I have been living in the UK for 6 years. I initially came here for university and now I work a corporate job in accounting.
Other Eastern European men might be able to relate to the below.
Life in the UK is quite good - I have a large network of friends, mostly expats from my home country and other European countries. I am quite happy with the lifestyle that my salary provides, the work-life balance, the career opportunities for low to mid-level positions, the infrastructure, the lack of bureaucracy, etc.
However, there are is one area of concern: Dating. Dating has proven to be incredibly difficult. From my and my friends’ experience, most British women are not interested in anything beyond a hookup or short-term relationship with someone from Eastern Europe.
Also, from my experience, most Romanian women in my age range in London either moved here together with their partners from Romania, or (usually the more educated, cosmopolitan ones) are either looking for a British partner to better integrate into the culture here, or want to try things with other European expats (typically Western / Southern European) to experience other cultures while they are young. Nothing wrong with that, but that means that the dating prospects for people in my position are quite bleak.
Before you comment saying that there might be something wrong with me personally, I must say that I believe that is not the case. Out of my close group of friends (6 guys), only one has been able to find a relationship here post-university, and that is with a girl from South America. Another one came here with his long-term girlfriend from Romania. They broke up a year ago, and the girl got into a relationship with an Italian guy shortly after, while the guy is still single and not having much success. Therefore, I am not alone in this regard.
My perception is that being from Eastern Europe has a series of negative stereotypes associated with one’s origin if the individual in question is a man, especially when interacting with Western Europeans (from my limited experience, this does not really seem to apply to interactions with Americans). However, for women, that does not seem to be the case (or at least not to the same extent).
Having said that, I am not really sure if the solution would be to move back to my home country, or perhaps try somewhere else. I feel like I would do a lot better in terms of dating, but then I would definitely not be enjoying the lifestyle I currently do in the UK (accounting doesn’t pay much back home) + a plethora of reasons why I left initially.
What are your thoughts on the above? I am more than happy to have my views challenged.
I am from Brazil and my partner is Romanian. He never had a relationship before me, only some hook ups but that was his own decision. But having interacted with other Romanians through my partner’s social circle I can tell most Romanian men enjoy having a long term relationship, finding a partner for life. That can be very hard, but coming from S.A. we are very used to romantic relationships occurring naturally.
I’ll share with you something that I see in Brazilian men that always have good relationships, like my brother, and friends. They don’t look for relationships most of the time. They prioritize their hobbies and when they feel like they want a female presence they go to social gatherings like clubs, pubs, or even sport events depending what is it that they enjoy. There they find females that interest them, approach them somehow (use their charm, smile, and be straight forward), take their number, and they move on, wether the girl said yes or no they just keep living their lives, only when their agenda is empty that they will look for the girl (my brother for an example used to have 8 girls in his “list” - this is what his ex gf told me when they used to be together). So I think what Brazilian men do is they make themselves seem more valuable, kinda like real estate, the more people wanting that piece of land the more valuable will be. But they don’t necessarily tell the girls about each other, but Brazilian girls are very nosy so we will know. But the point is, they feel wanted, so this boost their confidence. And my brother only got into long term relationships. All the girlfriends wanted to marry him. Right now he has a gf for more than 10 years and they’re going steady. She was introduced to him by his friends though, but it took him many years to actually make a good circle of friends that could introduce the girl of his life to him. And even so he doesn’t want to marry yet lol.
So my advice is try to make your life more interesting by doing things that you enjoy, when you feel happy you are more confident and attractive, this will help you attract girls that are in sync with you. And be open minded because in europe people are so divisive, obviously people have different cultures but if the attraction is there nothing will get in the way.
Good luck!
#facepalm
I’m somewhat of a Brazilian guy myself
That is, in the way you date? How is that going for you? I really think OP needs some boost of confidence, because it’s impossible that dating is that hard in a country so diverse like the UK… Don’t you think?