
Well, you know, let’s face it: plenty of guys have only one reason for going abroad to teach.
Cootchie.
Men think that the moment they step off the plane they’re going to be surrounded by adoring women slavishly catering to their every need.
Unfortunately, there’s some truth to this. Not as much as people think, but some.
Teaching English abroad you will see the fattest, stupidest, dorkiest, most unattractive male teachers with incredibly hot young girlfriends. It’s a simple fact.
Now, why is this?
Certainly not because we’re so fucking charming.
Sometimes it’s flat-out because of money. The going rate for a live-in common-law wife in Thailand in 1995 was about $100 a month. Sounds a bit brutal, but they were far from being the least happy relationships I’ve ever observed. As long as their expectations weren’t too high.
Sometimes it’s about passports. Young ladies in Asian and Eastern European countries are often desperate to emigrate, for a variety of reasons, some good and some bad. It’s usually the poor sucker of a teacher who suffers in this case, because after they get their legal citizenship they’re usually straight down to file for divorce and find a man who isn’t such a loser.
Sometimes it’s about fashion. A foreign boyfriend is as much a fashion necessity as a Gucci handbag and a mobile phone with a color screen in some countries. Then of course there’s the issue of free English lessons. “Find foreign friends!” recommend many books on how to improve your English. Never mind that has about as much to do with friendship as a trip to a brothel.
Often it’s a combination of all these things, or course, and sometimes it’s actually about misguided romanticism. And here is where the real trouble starts.
Take a girl who spends all her life watching American films and TV shows and listening to American music. She knows life would be better if she’d be born in America – free from tradition, responsibility, social expectations. She could be like somebody from BEVERLY HILS 90210. And then she meets her new English teacher – the ambassador of this good life. He represents everything she’s ever dreamed of – freedom, wealth, COOL. He’s different from all the other guys she knows.
Now take this schmuck who never really fit in back in America, Austrailia or in England. He had nothing going for him back home and he’s too lazy and shiftless to get a real job abroad, so he cruises into the world of English teaching.
Suddenly these hot young chicks are making cow eyes at him. He feels like he could kick James Bond’s ass.
Now, unfortunately, how long is it REALLY going to be before this chick sees that this English teacher is neither cool, free, wealthy, or even particularly interesting? That she has nothing in common with him? That he’s too old, and something of a drunk, and dresses like a bum?
Well, it depends how many other foreigners there are in the city, of course.
So is it a bad thing? Maybe. It can cause problems in the classroom. Is it immoral or unethical? If the students are of legal age, probably not, since most language schools are about as much like real schools as McDonalds is like a real restaurant.
Then of course there’s the issue of dating fellow teachers. Also common. Two foreigners living abroad can’t hardly help but fall in love. Like a damn Graham Greene or Hemingway novel.
I never dated students my first year in Thailand. Even though I got a few love notes, they seemed so shy and terrified I could hardly imagine how painful it would be to try to follow through. I stuck with bar girls. In Korea I was to discover that dating students was quite a bit more feasible, but finding most of my students both unattractive and boring, I ended up going out only with two, as described in my “English Teacher – SUPERSTAR” entry. I also had a few dates with a Korean teacher who had studied in America – nothing much happened and her beauty was exceeded only by her incredible shallowness and boring prissiness.
In New York in 1997/98, however, the hammer pretty much fell. English Teacher X is not a bad looking fellow, and it’s certainly not too difficult to be the best looking guy at a language school. I was 28, at least a decade younger than most of my colleagues and considerably better groomed. I didn’t smell funny, either.
And New York is a lonely fucking place.
First I succumbed to the unsubtle advances of a fellow teacher. On the surface everything seemed just dandy. She was about my age and a beautiful and intelligent girl. Unfortunately, the New York Neurotic personality, politically correct university education with artfag leanings, and the Italian-American enthusiasm for arguing mixed badly in this girl, and clashed hideously against my blunt, sardonic negativity and sarcasm. Within a few weeks we were at each other’s throat and then she began making a show of simply refusing to speak to me at all. I tried to apologize and she suggested she would call the police and have me arrested for stalking. So I put all my energy towards ignoring her, too.
This went on for several months, nobody in the world being more stubborn then English Teacher X.
Soon I discovered from a colleague that a student from another class had eyes for me. A young pretty girl of 20 from Moldovia. As is English Teacher X’s tendency, I stalled and hesitated until she threw herself at me at the school Christmas party. We were caught making out in a classroom by, of all people, the teacher I had dated a few times.
I waited for that to blow up, but it didn’t, and the Moldavian and I met every Saturday afternoon to blissfully drink, mope and have sex in my tiny apartment while the rain fell outside. It always seemed to be raining.
She swore her undying love for me. I couldn’t help but be moved. As I said, new York is a lonely, grey place. In the winter it’s cold and grey – in the summer it’s hot and grey. I had no other people I enjoyed being with. I never had fun when I went out to bars, they were full of poseurs and guidos. Of course I suspected she was dangerous – she had “father issues” as they say, and was inclined towards bursting into tears for no reason and discussing suicide. More worryingly, she seemed to actually believe long hair and an earring were vitally important extensions of a man’s personality. I had cut my long hair when I was 23, and wasn’t too inclined to wear earrings. Or leather pants either.
Lord she was terrific in bed though.
I wanted to try to be a good boyfriend. I’d never done that before in my life. Age 28 seemed a good time to try. Another student, also from Moldova, asked me out on a date one night and blatantly offered me sex. She was lonely because her husband was back in Moldova and she offered it with no strings attached. I turned her down. What a hero!
One day I went into the staffroom and was asked if I was going to join the other teachers at a group dinner they were having on Friday. I declined, as I always did, because I knew the teacher I had dated would be there and I disliked the tension. We still studiously ignored each other, except for the odd bit of character assassination.
She suddenly, appropos only of this refusal to join the group dinner, flew out of her chair and began screeching obscenities at me. I sat there numbly while she shrieked and shouted embarrassing details of our little relationship. The other teachers tried to quiet her, but she eventually chased them all out of the room, locked the door, and continued screaming at me.
It can safely be said that English Teacher X has always had a way with the chicks.
Eventually the manager came and banged on the door until she let the others in. The nighttime manager took us into his office and made some general attempts to settle things, but my colleague was nearly insane with anger and continued screeching obscenities until she was escorted out of the building.
I was in shock, and I explained what had happened to my evening classes, with the expectation that I would not be working there beyond the end of the week.
Surprisingly they did not fire me. They needed teachers that badly. My colleague was out on her ass, however. I felt horrible about it in retrospect – I wouldn’t have been such a dickhead if I’d known she was really mentally unbalanced. I’d just thought she was a bitch.
I was devastated with depression over such a sordid and stupid incident. I was embarrassed even to go into the staffroom. The Moldovian comforted me. She cooed sympathy and affection at me as we lay on the uncomfortable mattress in my empty mice-ridden crappy efficiency apartment on the Lower East Side.
My boss (the mountainous Samoan woman), and the manger both tried to console me. It wasn’t my fault. I was a good teacher. Don’t worry, everything would be all right. They felt very maternal towards me, I think.
I tried to be confident. My first instinct was to run like a bastard, but I knew it was time to stay and fight. New York had beaten many, but not me. I had my sweet adorable little sexually creative girlfriend. I put all my savings in a six-month CD to help remove the temptation to flee.
“I can’t leave for six months now,” I purred into the Moldavian’s ear. “You think you can love me for another six months?”
“Definitely,” she said, and unbuttoned my jeans.
Within about a month, she had left me for a 24-year-old Russian guy with long hair and an earring. They were both studying at the school, so I got to see them walking around holding hands at the breaks. She never bothered to say goodbye, she just stopped returning my phonecalls. She simply smiled and said she had to hurry off if I tried to speak with her. They both worked in the art gallery across the street from the school, churning out landscapes and easily-saleable portraits for $8 an hour. So even during the day I could often see them at lunch breaks.
Trapped for five more months, I began abusing over-the-counter sleeping medication and various herbal supplements purported to enhance sleep, like Melatonin. This threw me into a depession so terrible I almost just gave up and continued working in New York. I had something like “Battered Wife Syndrome” – I reasoned that New York must be the best place in the world, otherwise why would I put up with such abuse? I found another girlfriend, a very pleasant-natured Polish girl of 18, who was also a student. We enjoyed being together well enough, but love stubbornly refused to blossom in the scorched earth of the Moldovian.
Fortunately Former Teacher Q (see Case Studies) and I had come up with the plan of going to Egypt and Israel – he’d stolen a lot of money from a bar he worked at – and I began to try to wrench myself out of New York’s miserable jaws. So battered and shell-shocked was I that I actually intended to return after a three-month holiday.
Away, I felt better almost at once and realized there was no fucking way I’d ever return to New York. People say you shouldn’t run away from your problems. Sounds like the credo of the battered spouse to me.
So to all of you Frumpy Idealistic types who are sitting around on Dave’s ESLcafe talking at great length about how immoral and unfair it is for teachers to take advantage of their starry-eyed young students – fuck off and die.
And fuck you too, Olga, wherever you are.