8 years ago
3
How Traveling Solo Destroyed My Dating Life
After breaking up and traveling mostly solo to three continents in three weeks, year-ago-me learned a lot. For starters, I learned that there is this massive thing called a planet that is filled with millions of people! In fact, I'm pretty sure I thought I was in love twice while abroad, which made me realize that you never know where in the world your actual soulmate is.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com
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TL;DR: Pretty rich white woman goes on extravagant trips through exotic locations, says she's doing it in spite of facebook, then posts all her photos on facebook. Spends the entire article talking about how the assholes she now dates are different from the assholes she used to date as if that were some kind of deep revelation.
Look, travel is great and it can expand your horizons but it's ultimately an ineffective method of changing yourself. In fact it's a great way to avoid your real inner issues by simply changing your external environment and pretending things are different now.
Maybe this chick has changed but it's obvious that she's neck deep in narcissism (mylifesamovie.com? Seriously?!) and is completely avoiding the reasons WHY she's dated assholes in the past by taking selfies at waterfalls. The second she runs out of money or gets sick of travel she'll come back as the same self-centered and immature person that blames her misery on everyone else without working on herself or helping others.
I came here all grumpy and ready to rail at the article, but you nailed it so I don't have to. Thank you.
You touch on a very important point about travel... That, ultimately, it's an ineffective method at changing yourself. I've seen so many people, both travelers and expats, who, consciously or unconsciously, ran away from their problems abroad. And the thing about living in a foreign culture is, you're allowed a wider margin of asocial behavior as a foreigner. It can be "liberating" because you're much less exposed to the negative reactions of the people around you.
This is especially true in developing countries, especially those with a large influx of tourists. Thailand, for instance, is filled with foreign weirdos who don't give a crap what the Thais think of them, and thus can be "themselves" at the expense of ever having any semblance of a connection to the locals.
Actually establishing links with your host culture takes time and effort. A friend of mine once described it as going through your awkward teenage years again, except you've been through this shit already. It means not expressing yourself well, behaving in ways that are strange to others, not having as many resources to cope with day-to-day problems.
This is really nice motivation to go out and visit new places on my own.