5 Things I’ve Learned From My First Year Abroad Am I homesick? Or am I just sick of home?

It seems like it was just yesterday I was running off the plantation in search of a life in a beautiful, sunny, libertine paradise.

Already, I’m just about to cap off my first full year of living abroad. I selected the Caribbean for my first experiment in living abroad for several reasons. First, it’s close to home, being only a two hour flight away from the U.S. Second, it’s Latin America so it’s still wild and free and I speaky the Spanish. Third, the women here are hot as hell and insatiable. Fourth, it’s warm and sunny with an average high of 85 degrees year round. And fifth, the island of Hispaniola has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

What are my conclusions after living here for a year? Am I homesick? Hell no. Am I happy? Absolutely. This without a doubt has been the best experience of my life so far. I’ve done more living and living on the edge in the past year than the previous thirty some odd years of my life before.

I have also been living on a fraction of the cost of my former corporate drone lifestyle. In all honesty, $500 covers housing, food, electric, and Internet, the basics. I will have to admit my partying budget for booze and other recreational consumables has soared. Here are five conclusions I came up with on the motorcycle ride back to my house from a hot girl’s apartment this morning.

1. I don’t want to come back to America.

I look at Anglo America as a figurative prison of sorts. The entire society is geared towards nothing but consumption for consumption’s sake, and creating problems with people’s lives to create profit. When I think of my future I always see myself either being here on an island or in any number of exotic locations. (Some more adventures in Southeast Asia are definitely on the agenda). The worst nightmare I have is going back to the lifestyle of working 50-60 hours a week to keep up a bunch of deadbeat bums and illegal aliens with my tax dollars and the sweat off my brow.

2. I have gotten used to true freedom.

I can do just about anything here. Literally, I have never felt this kind of freedom before. There are no checkpoints busting people for DUIs on Saturday night. The police by and large leave people alone. Many small infractions can be taken care of with a $20 bill. Quite simply, this island is a Libertarian’s paradise as almost nothing is illegal and those things that are illegal are loosely enforced. You have to be quite an asshole to win up in trouble with the law here.

I imagine the intent of the Founding Fathers was something like I enjoy here: freedom to do just about anything you want within reason. Where did this ideal get lost and a micromanaging nanny state become the norm? It’s totally insane and upside down.

3. I feel more masculine than ever.

Almost nothing scares me anymore. I don’t go around watching what I say or how I say it like I did when I worked in the news industry. I drive a motorcycle as transportation daily, as does most of the rest of the population. A man either sinks or swims here pretty quickly.

In contrast to rabid feminism, women expect me to tell them what to do. I was having a conversation with a neighbor just yesterday and she commented that she expects her husband to be “the man of the house.” Why the West felt the need to reinvent the wheel, changing a cultural and familial practice that has worked for thousands of generations is a mystery. Under men leading the family the human species has prospered. It was the blunder of all time to abandon this model, and women as well as men are happier when feminist boilerplate is not adhered to.

By the same token, I realize that I must be able to stand up for myself and carry myself like a man. A weakling will get taken advantage of in this environment. You can’t be a bitch here. If you are strong inside and outside you will get respect. If you aren’t, you will get fucked.

4. I have more women than I can handle.

I go through several women a week. It’s amazing to compare and contrast this experience with the experience of putting in so much effort for so little return back in Anglo America. A libertine culture is a wonderful thing in my opinion. Threesomes, all but unattainable back home are easy to come by here if you have the right connections and the reputation of being a bad boy.

I realize a lot of my success is due to not only game but hypergamous female instinct. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is my motto.

I have had so much success with women I can’t drive through town on my bike without some girl I’ve banged shouting at me or waving at me. It’s really incredible having this much access to twenty-something flesh, and a reminder that contrary to what we are told sex will often cure what ails ya. A man can even have so much sex he occasionally gets burned out on it. But too much is better than ain’t enough. Maybe Americans are angry and hateful online because they aren’t getting laid on the regular in a sexually repressed culture? The thought has crossed my mind.

5. I realize what it means to feel alive.

I have never felt more alive in my life. Whether it be playing pool and dancing with one hot girl while another hottie you’ve been banging walks in and both of you have to hide your feelings for each other, or learning how to have a backbone when conducting negotiations for housing or buying things (everything is negotiable here), this corner of the world has a way of bringing out the best in a man.

That’s what makes Latin America great to me. A man is still expected to be a man and can be a man. The rewards for a strong-willed man can be almost limitless. This can be summed up in two general themes: Possibilities and experiences. A man is not alive if he only exists to create profit for other people and has no life outside his job and career.  One of my idols, Charles Bukowski, said it best:

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

A man is alive if he wakes up everyday wondering which avenue of possibility he will pursue that day and what exciting experiences (and stories a man will carry to the grave) those possibilities will bring. The great Burgess Meredith flawlessly explains this concept in Grumpier Old Men:

Well, let me tell you something, Johnny. The first 90 years, or so go by pretty fast. Then one day you wake up and you realize that you’re not 81 anymore. You begin to count the minutes rather than the days and you realize that pretty soon you’ll be gone. And that all you have, see, is the experiences. That’s all there is. Everything! The experiences! You mount the woman, son. Or else…send her out to me.

Indeed, experiences, not things. That’s where it’s at.

Is Living Abroad is Right for You?

What do men do when their government turns into a tyranny and their women become repellent? They either look for greener pastures or overthrow such a system, or both. The critical mass has not yet been reached to overthrow the current tyranny. In the meantime, the man looking for adventure will surely find some, and in many cases it may be closer than you think. There’s a whole other world burning just south of Anglo America.

My advice for those who want to pursue this avenue of personal fulfillment: Get out of debt, stay out of debt, limit interactions with women to fun and games, become a minimalist, and dive in. You won’t miss the mall, McDonald’s and loud, obnoxious women as much as you might think.

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