Hey YouTube, Alex here and in today's video I'm going to discuss this topic.
You're not invisible, you're just annoying.
And I know some people are already frustrated hearing this phrase.
I know some of my videos recently have been actually critical of some expats, but I have to be honest, by no means does this phrase apply to all expats, uh, or even a majority of expats.
I actually met a lot of guys who were down to earth and relatable in my journeys through Southeast Asia.
Guys I'm friends with to this day.
I love to sit down with them and hang out if they were uh sitting across the table from me here in California.
But I found that some of the bad actors or some of the expats I didn't particularly care for, they would use some of these phrases to describe their situation that I'm going to mention here.
and as kind of a shield from accountability.
I think that's the best way to put it.
So, let's go ahead and get into it.
I've got five points for you.
We'll go ahead and uh get into point number one.
Point number one, the phrase I'm invisible is egreserving and low agency.
Uh so, what do I mean by this?
Well, if I say I'm invisible, that's a way to say I don't have social appeal and I'm not financially stable.
Uh, so you have some guys that say, "Well, nobody will pay attention to me." Uh, but they're rude, they're off-putting, they're uh extremely financially challenged, they're always bugging people to borrow money, they're disrespectful, they have poor hygiene.
Um, they could have any number of qualities about them that make people not want to be around them.
I've met number of expats that just seem to not pick up on social cues.
Uh so they'll bring up an awkward or uncomfortable subject and people will just kind of give them a strange look and they'll keep talking about it as though it's totally normal.
Um you see this somewhat I'm not into the bar scene in Southeast Asia, but some guys are really into the bar scene, specifically the nightlife bar scene if you can read between the lines.
And they assume everybody over there is also equally into the bar scene.
And so they'll uh bring that up about how they got ripped off or they got scammed or this or that and it's like you know you're you're not invisible in the west.
It's it's more so uh perhaps you cannot afford to participate in that kind of activity and so you come over here where you can and it's not that uh you know it's not so much that the women aren't interested in anyone in the west.
It's that they're not interested in these specific guys.
Um you know the wages are fairly high in the west.
A lot of women can work for themselves, make their own money, and just because they're not interested in a specific guy.
Uh, you know, he he may make it out to be like the system, it's a system, and it's like, well, do you work out?
You know, do you shower regularly?
Do you uh get haircuts?
I know I've been critiqued for not shaving my beard.
Um, and it's just like, you know, I think about it in the case of myself.
It's like I don't feel invisible.
I just feel like I haven't earned um attention and that's okay.
Like I don't demand it.
You know, at this YouTube channel, everybody is opt in.
People can choose to watch or not choose to watch.
Uh, but I see in the west some people that feel invisible, they go around demanding attention.
I think about uh somebody I know fairly well that they uh scream and yell at customer service and then they get angry when they get put on uh back blacklists, right?
They call in customer service.
It takes a long time for them to get attention.
Uh they go to a restaurant because they're rude or disrespectful to other waitresses.
They get slow service or they might get the gruff waitress that uh isn't afraid to throw them out.
It's not that they're invisible.
It's that they they're not appealing, right?
They just they're rude.
They're disrespectful.
And in the modern economy, attention we live in an attention economy.
So it's like, why would I pay attention to you when you're unpleasant to be around?
I can listen to a podcast.
I can watch a TV show.
I can call up a friend.
Um you might be tolerated in a place of business.
Uh but it's um people aren't thrilled to see that person.
And that's we're going to move into number two which is uh currency buys attention.
Attention is economically um gated.
You know people have to basically figure out okay what how much attention can I afford?
Right?
If I'm not willing to spend the money uh to go to a fine dining restaurant all I've got is a McDonald's budget.
Then I've got to accept if I go to McDonald's I'm getting the attention I'm paying for it.
It's a quick here you go sir have a nice day.
It's not, sir, would you like more water?
Would you, you know, you get what you pay for?
And so, uh, some of these guys, they're thinking, well, I have a McDonald's budget in the United States, but I have a sitdown restaurant budget in Southeast Asia.
And so, the um, and this is something I'll talk about later in the video, but the waitress or the waiter has to be polite to them, right?
If you go to a sitdown restaurant in any country, you're going to expect a higher level of service than you would in like a fast casual or a fast food restaurant just by nature of paying a higher price.
In some cases, tipping culture.
And so when I think about it, it's like why is it that uh you're not getting attention?
Well, you're not really offering value either economically uh or through like teaching a skill set.
There's positive or pro-social ways to get attention in the US.
Uh you if you're, you know, somebody that can afford to do so, you could donate to charity, you could work for a charity, volunteer your time.
Uh there's a lot of ways, positive ways to get attention in the US.
But I find that some of these expats, whether being too selfish, like I'm not going to volunteer.
I'm not some uh chump to go and and donate my time to a charity or volunteer at a church or participate in some kind of social group or no, I'm keeping my money for me.
Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me.
Uh it's all about me.
Um like a a Ebenezer Scrooge type type of personality, then they have to accept like I'm not getting attention.
I know of a number of um guys and I I'm going to get flack for this, but some boomers and uh where I'm from and particularly like uh you know boomer men that they lash out and they they confront people.
They're disrespectful to people and then they turn around and crying.
Nobody pays attention to me.
Like I noticed they try to force people into conversations with them.
It's like, "Dude, I don't I have other things to do.
I've got to go to work.
I've got to uh do chores.
I really don't want to interact with you.
You've proven yourself to be an unpleasant person to deal with.
From what I can tell, nobody else wants to interact with you either.
You don't really offer much of value to the world, and you're generally off-putting.
Uh, and I'd rather hang out by myself or with some friends that aren't so unpleasant to be around." And in uh many of these cases, these guys are too cheap to try to make a positive impact.
It's like, okay, you're wellto-do.
Your generation holds the line share of the wealth.
I don't expect you to be nice to me, but it's almost vampiric where it's like, I don't want to help anybody else out.
Um, you know, this ladder pulling, it's like, look, if you feel unhappy, if you feel isolated, like nobody cares about you, go donate at a home, go donate your time at a homeless shelter.
you don't even have to if you're financially set up to where you don't have to work anymore and you're physically capable.
Uh maybe you go and you uh volunteer your time at the library, teach a class, like you're not totally inept and a victim.
Uh but I find that a lot of these expats, they they cannot buy the attention they want in the US and so they'll go to uh Southeast Asia where they can afford it.
So the next point would be moving abroad doesn't fix social skills.
It just lowers the cost of attention.
So a number of these guys that I met, they're not they're not all of a sudden socially uh strong people by moving abroad.
Uh just because you move to a different country doesn't mean all of a sudden you know how to communicate with people.
You pick up on social cues well.
You know how to get along with people.
you know, how to um pay attention and show genuine interest in somebody's story.
I found that a number of them, well, let's just let me just tell you about me.
Oh, yeah, that's good about you, but just let's talk about me.
I'm I'm the more important person here.
I want you to pay attention to me.
I'm going to sit here and tell you a story I've told uh 300 times that nobody cares about uh because it's all about me.
And so, they still bring this mentality or attitude abroad.
And back in the west, people would just ignore them.
Like, okay, dude, whatever.
I'm, you know, I'm not, nobody's going to come over and listen to you talk about yourself for three or four hours.
Eventually, people, well, one, a lot of people have family.
So, it's like, okay, you're not part of my immediate family.
And then even if you're part of my family, it's like, okay, if I have kids, do I pay attention to my kids or some um you know, lonely person who talks too much and wants to like basically tell me about how they've been victimized by the world and how everybody is treating them unfairly.
And it's uh you know, just going abroad, it just lowers the price of attention.
like, oh, you know, drinks have really gone up in my hometown, but if I go to Southeast Asia, I can go to a bar where drinks are $2 or $3 each, and I can sit here and demand attention from the bartender or the waitresses, where uh in the West, if I get a little um touchyfey, I'm getting booted out of the bar.
They're throwing me out.
They might call law enforcement.
Uh I don't I don't get the same I don't get the same patience extended to me in the West.
I'm going to be told, "Sir, uh, you need to leave.
I'm going to I'm going to have my drink uh requests for more beverages turned out." I'm not saying it doesn't happen in Southeast Asia.
I've I've seen some people get kicked out of bars just in passing, but I think it's the threshold is higher in Southeast Asia.
I think the tolerance is higher due to uh wages just not being as high, due to the the cost of um getting attention from other people being not as high.
people are harder up.
They're like, "Ah, okay.
Well, yeah, like I don't really want to put up with him." But he he tips me uh a decent amount of money where in the West he couldn't afford to tip.
He couldn't afford the drinks or the tips.
Here, his amount of tips is actually enough to make a difference in my life economically.
So, yeah, these guys, they they assume uh just because I go abroad that I'm some I don't know, Rico Suave or whatever, I'm I'm a hot shot.
And it's really just like you moved from being the small fish in a large pond to being the big fish in a small pond.
And I saw this a lot uh with guys that would start out being pretty friendly with everybody and over the course of the time uh basically burn all their bridges and run people off like they probably did in their home country, but they could kind of pretend that they were a different person.
They might have started off kind of humble because maybe life in the west humbled them.
uh they went through a nasty divorce.
They are estranged from different family members and they go over there and all of a sudden people are paying attention to them.
You have a lot of expats that are retired and have a lot of free time.
You have a lot of locals who uh their time can be purchased for a pretty low price and they I don't know they get it in their head like I'm this hot shot and they uh they rub a lot of people the wrong way.
They uh in some cases they mistreat people and they just expect to get get away with it because they I think they're conscious that their purchasing power is making a difference, but I think it's difficult for some of these guys to admit it to themselves like, "Oh, I'm I'm really not that great, but I can delude myself uh that I am." The fourth one would be lack of self-awareness.
This is something I alluded to earlier in the video and really uh small bits of attention get raised up as indicators of being high value.
And a friend of mine uh mentioned this actually.
I'm not going to name him, but he's a YouTuber.
All of you have probably watched.
And he said, uh, is she being friendly to you because she's genuinely interested or is she being friendly to you because she's the cashier and she's got to uh take your money, give you your change and your order number?
Is it legitimate that she's actually a nice person that likes you back or is she in a service job where she has to express a general sense of respect and uh kindness?
And that was I noticed that a lot where guys would come to me and oh the waitress, she was so into me, man.
And oh, you know, I was just I was chatting her up and uh you know, I got her Facebook or I got her phone number and I think she's going to be my girlfriend cuz I'm I'm just such a good-looking guy, man.
I'm just so you know, I'm so handsome and I'm hot stuff and uh you know, back in the my home country in the West, I was invisible to women because they're all feminists and they're all bad and this and that.
But here, these women know what a real man looks like.
uh you know and and you see this happen from like a a quick 15 20 second interaction in throughout Southeast Asia where it's like okay man that's her job like if you were in the US well she's probably making good money on tips and yeah she'll be friendly she's probably not going to flirt with you that hard unless she's really hard up for money maybe uh a new college student that's just moved to a new area and is really trying to earn some money to get ahead but in the US she's just going to probably roll her eyes or make fun of you in the kitchen uh when you're out of eyeshot or earshot.
And uh you know I don't I just this is something that really stuck out to me where it's like okay come on man if you ever like if you ever worked in a restaurant which I've worked in a restaurant you're going to be friendly to customers.
You want to keep your job.
You want your business you want the business you work for to be successful so you keep your job.
Um you want to make your managers happy in case you're trying to go for a promotion.
There's all kinds of reasons why you would be nice to a customer.
Uh, and I think very rarely is it, oh, you know what, this customer, even though he's um not like somebody I'm interested in, uh, you know, his his um or not somebody that I would be interested in if we were in his country because he's here, I'm interest No, no, that's that's not the case.
Uh, you know, I find waitresses in Southeast Asia to be generally nice, friendly.
Um, but I don't mistake them doing their job for being interested in me.
Uh, I, you know, I think all of us have probably flirted with a waitress in Southeast Asia at some point or another, but I think those of us who have self-awareness realize, oh, she's just being nice.
She's just doing her job.
It's not because I went from being a three in my home country to here I'm a nine.
It's, you know, guys like to tell themselves, some of these guys like to tell themselves that, like, oh, they just didn't know me, uh, back home because they're the bad ones.
And it's like, no, like if you are a guy with a lot to offer in the West, you you will have some amount of success uh and dating.
It's like it used to be.
No, I think it's dating has gotten not that good in the West, but it's not this totally I don't believe it's this totally um is as terrible and horrible uh as is what some people make it out to me, but more importantly, it hasn't always been bad.
I mean, I think it's uh you know, I think it's gotten worse, but there was definitely times in the past where it wasn't so bad and where uh if you you know, met a good person, um you could have a greater level of success than what is common today.
Um so, this one maybe I'm in some ways not so much forgiving about, but I think things have changed.
But um yeah, you just you see that in in the um in Southeast Asia.
Be prepared for that if you go over there.
Uh you're you're going to hear guys tell you about how uh it's normal uh to to get all this attention in Southeast Asia.
They don't want to admit that it's transactional.
Somebody's doing their job.
Somebody's being paid to be nice to them.
And they couldn't afford such attention back in the West.
The fifth one is that they uh I I see it for some of these guys is they're changing their social environment to fit their limitation.
So uh you don't hear about like um Tom Cruz, uh Leonardo DiCaprio, uh you know, these types of actors, famous actors.
You don't hear about Tom Brady.
I'm going to move to Southeast Asia.
That's I've decided.
That's where I'm going to live.
because these guys don't have dating or social limitations.
Anybody would most people would like to hang out with Tom Brady or Tom Cruz, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Most people, even in a platonic way, like even just guys getting together to watch a sports game or uh you know, hang out.
I mean, it's not there's there's they have those social limitations where uh if you're, you know, if you're the average guy, you're you're probably spending a lot of time alone.
I mean, that's just been my experience in the West.
That's the experience of a lot of guys.
You go to work, you come home, you do chores, you go to bed, rinse, repeat.
And it's okay, like I I think what this comes back to, it's okay to admit, man, my life's not that great in the West.
I probably had something to do with it.
You know, I didn't make great financial decisions.
I didn't work as hard as I could have in um college.
I didn't work I didn't go for that promotion.
Maybe I could have worked harder to get along with my boss there.
What what could I have done uh in the past a little bit differently?
And and I recognize it's not good to dwell on the past, but I acknowledge that some of my lack of success in life has been on me.
Maybe not all of it, maybe not 100%.
But a pretty good chunk of it has been on me.
And I don't go to Southeast Asia uh anymore.
or maybe I did when I was a little bit younger, but um thinking, oh, I've turned into, you know, um this hot shot just because I've changed uh changed locations.
It's more so I'm just in a different social environment.
I'm more interesting over here.
My modest amount of money goes a lot further over here.
The fact that I can help people practice English where in the US that's not really an asset to the same extent over here, people want to practice their English.
people are curious about Americans.
People uh they have are more relationship oriented in general.
They're not so money oriented to the extreme that they are in the US due to cost of living.
Um there's there's a lot of uh a lot of reasons as to why a person is has struggled socially in the west and why they moved to Southeast Asia.
Is it always the case?
Uh maybe not necessarily, but I think it's often the case.
A fair amount of expats are just off-putting people.
They're unpleasant to be around.
They uh go to where they can have more uh control.
And anyway, let me know what you think down in the comments below.
Maybe you disagree.
Maybe you think I'm full of it.
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Bye-bye.
