White Women and Indonesian Memories: a View from Washington D.C.

On my way to work each morning I pass the symbols of U.S. global dominance, the Washington monument, the White House, and the Pentagon, the Potomac River, but I haven't felt more impotent and frustrated than the 8th grade. Obama may be a rock star, but Brothers, over here and away from Jakarta, we're just middle-aged schmucks.

The 22-year old blonde intern at the office sneers at your paunch, grey hairs and 90s-era loafers. The sanitized smile of the Latina Barista at Starbucks says,

don't even think of asking for my number

The MILFs to be, hitting their early thirties at the gym, look up from their CrossFit or Pilates classes and look at you like you're a sex offender.

The humiliation comes from two fronts, in two forms: like two fists swinging at the same time ... and it's hard to tell which is more painful.

Perhaps they're equally bad. There's certainly no mouth guard to ease the pain. The two fists raining down on you are by no means covered in gloves.

Is it the lithe, 20-30-something who ensures you see her rolling her eyes before you even notice her? Is it her cell phone conversation that suddenly turns sardonic about how she's scared of walking alone on the sidewalk?

Or is it the other extreme: Obese and longing for a first love, she wears a black shirt and a tacky flower-patterned skirt, constantly looking up from her book at Starbucks, hoping against hope to make eye contact?

Based on false assumptions, she looks you over and sees you, single. She can tell you haven't been laid in a while. Indeed, it's all but impossible to hide ... or is it?

Can she just glance you over and assumed you've never tasted the high life? That you have no standards whatsoever? That you have never shared sheets with some of the most seductively sultry women on planet earth? That somehow, in some way, you're not the big loser you seem?

That once upon a time you were somebody: That you had the wit wisdom and intelligence of a man in his early forties, with the lifestyle inherent in college years ... with the lifestyle of a middle class Saudi Arabian exchange student to boot?

That once upon a time you were a denizen of a town known as Jakarta.

In desperation, you randomly hit on that lonely-looking frumpy wallflower type reading "50-Shades of Gray" on the train.

I don't think so

she says,

I kinda like being single.

(She clearly hasn't been laid since 9/11). But her Alaska-sized ass, fed by endless nights of Ho-Hos and chick-flicks tells a different story.

I know there's another way. It's called Indonesia and freezing my ass off on one off those D.C mornings, commuting amidst all the suburban stiffs, I've never yearned for anything more. The memory of honey-skinned Babes, gyrating against me at nightclubs, taking my taxi money in the morning, their numbers cramming my cell phone, keeps my hope alive in the grey despair at the heart of the world's superpower.

Soon I'll go back and leave all those over-entitled, whining, over-fed white women behind me forever.

Online dating was even worse. "HotChocoMama35" was her screen name, a single African American Mom, "looking for a good time" from Baltimore. I should've known. After climbing five floors through a crack den infested, semi-diseased complex in the Projects, HotChocoMama35 turned out to be a Walrus-sized mound of caramel blubber surrounded by empty KoolAid bottles, channel surfing on a mildewed couch covered in cumstains from the '70s. After a rant about how her 18-year son blew his chances for the army over a drug conviction, I left. The following dates, all with Heffalump Single Moms, weren't any better.

Hell, back in Jakarta, I wouldn't have looked twice at Starbucks Barrista or CrossFit Babe, (let alone HotChocoMama35), anyway. Flash back to that Kemang, Jakarta party three years ago. Me, pinned against a wall listening to a sexually-frustrated NGO manager breathing beer breath all over me, ranting about feminism and "the Men in this Town". What she really meant was young, single White Men in this town. Add to that, AusAid/USAID/World Bank/ Mercy Corps/Take Your Pic NGO/babe. I could've had them all. But an hour later, after a quick stop at D's place in Blok M, I had a hardbody from Indramayu on my arm and NGO/AusAid/USAID chick was nothing but a bad memory that faded on the first blowjob.

Sure, I'm 43, overweight, unfit, bad fashion sense, no style. But hey, I can kick back talking Indy films, Indy bands, bad backpacking stories, cook up a mean Pasta Putanesca, the older guy benefits. Back in Indonesia those snooty bitches were competing to get down my pants. Here in D.C., I don't even get a look in.

Why fight the tide? The thing is, I don't think even the hottest and most eligible D.C. men would put up with the crap if they knew the truth and what was out there.

A sense of adventure and idealism sent me out to Southeast Asia, but the global financial crisis sent me back. On first arrival in Indonesia, I started teaching English, as do so many, looking to use my shitty business degree to get a better job and think about grad school. I did some aid contracting, copy writing, and a series of odd jobs before landing a gig as a manager with a services company. The tsunami got me back into aid and on the slow train to D.C. (Can't tell you f**kers any more lest torch my future job chances.)

One thing I've learned since: Feminism has given American women and White Women in general an unrealistic sense of entitlement and an arrogance that gives any Asia veteran an instant soft-on. None of the rejections every really bothered me. Those dates were just a half-hearted alternative to jerking off to any number of free Asian porn sites. The Brit women were the worst, both in Jakarta and D.C.: Sarcastic, mossy-toothed, opinion-machines, who thought they were being sexy and "sassy". Sorry, Luv, I didn't vote on the Invasion of Iraq, save your rants for the BBC comments page. The Ab-Fab women were ugly and please don't breathe on me either.

I would've been into it once, maybe back at college. A lay's a lay, I would've thought, taking NGO chick back home, banging her a few times, then be done with it. But out in the tropics, in South East Asia, there's just so much more to choose from.

If you want to put a bit of work in, you can go to Red Square, find an office girl on the make, buy her a few drinks and usually score. Or try one of the sites like IndoCupid or Date In Asia. If you want a job done on a deadline, of course, call a professional. Jakarta offers the consumer a smorgasboard of choices. Cut a deal with a massage girl, drop in to Blok M. Then there's Hotel Travel down in Kota. Once you know what you're doing, you can usually get service with a smile. And no diatribes about Virginia Woolfe or the unfinished mission of Feminism. The boys at www.internationalsexguide.com, can help. (But do read the f--kng forum before asking any questions).

The irony is that not even work is going well over here. Donations to non profits and beltway contractors dried up in the GFC. At first, things were looking up. Own office overlooking the White House. Staff, (mostly annoying interns). My college and credit card debt shrunk a little but not nearly enough to get financing on an apartment. Then the layoffs started, some of them hitting my formerly-smug 30 and 40-something married friends. Their kids had long passed the cute stage and were starting to turn into spoiled, tech-addicted annoying pre-teens. Conversations at the bar in Jakarta centred around sports, beer, getting laid, politics, business and work - real guys stuff. Here I have to listen to crap about ADD, gluten intolerance, co-parenting, prostate exams, and how to rekindle waning marriages.

I'm torn on whether or not to help these guys or keep Asia's best-kept secret. Deep down, I know if these guys knew what I did about Asia, there wouldn't be a single married white woman in D.C. There'd be a mass exodus to Asia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, hell even Bangladesh if that's your thing. (Take extra deodorant though). Sorry NGO chick: that's why most ex pat marriages collapse in Jakarta: you can't compete.

So I'm pulling out all stops to get back to Asia, preferably Indonesia. D.C, London, Canberra - all relationship and sexual graveyards. I hope in my lifetime, the armies of berated, middle-aged White Men will wake up and migrate to Asia en masse, if only to broaden the human gene pool. It's not as if NGO/Aid chick doesn't have an option. There's a whole miserable continent of poverty and strapping horny men waiting for her: Africa. It'll be good for the CV and even better ... she can take some of those ugly D.C. and Jakarta white chicks and get them off our backs. Everybody wins.

White Women and Indonesian Memories: a View from Washington D.C. is brought to you by Indonesia Matters, where you can book flights in Indonesia, and features listings of Indonesian hotels, like Kuta hotels, Sanur hotels, hotels in Jakarta and near Jakarta airport, and more.

Link to full article