A man in serious like/love, who is ardently pursuing a woman, is a man on fire.

My friend, who is pursuing my female best friend, is such a man.

Since she lives in another country, when she came to visit, he picked her up from the airport even if her flight arrived at 5:00am.

He spent a lot of money accompanying her and her friends in Palawan.

When she came back to Manila, he accompanied her shopping and took her to nice restaurants. Two restaurants for dinner per day just for her to taste Filipino food.

And on the last day of the trip, he drove her back to the airport as if he was her personal chauffeur.

A man in love goes far and beyond to get the woman he wants. He spends so she is comforted, and tries to keep in touch so that she can get to know him.

“He keeps on texting me and telling me what’s going on with his day,” she said. “It’s kind of weird.”

It’s true — when I was in Taiwan and Hong Kong, guys do not just randomly text you to tell you about their day. They do not stick to you like glue and want to be in your company wherever you went.

Actually, the last guy who did that… I married. As they say back, “Kung may tiyaga, may ginhawa…”(There’s success with perseverance).

Back home in the Philippines, where people aren’t particularly tall, guys get the girls with an outpouring of attention, charm and personality.

Filipino guys are not particularly handsome. Their skin is usually mocha colored. They are not particularly tall and given our fatty pork diets, there’s almost always a belly.

But a Filipino guy is usually very charming sweet talkers. They know how to shower a woman with attention and to make her feel loved and cared for.

I asked my staff if they would give a man hope when he is in pursuit of her. They all answered, “Yes, if he will love and take good care of me.”

Filipinos are romantics, what can I say?

Unfortunately, my girl best friend is NOT Filipino. She is Taiwanese. Taiwanese women can be very practical.

And may be a bit superficial…

Since knowing my best friend, my husband has seen my friend get her heart squashed by multiple cute guys.

She briefly dated a cute young doctor whom she met in Boracay and had a passing fling. He lived in Los Angeles and she tried to keep in touch with him. In the end, he let her down by telling her he already had a girlfriend. JERK!

She dated a clean cut Korean consultant who had commitment issues. They broke up when she moved to Singapore.

In Singapore, she dated a New Zealander who kicked her out of his house for not cooking his dinner on time. In the end, it was his anger issues and their incompatibility that did them in.

Now, she’s dating around. Unfortunately, most of the guys she’s been seeing are a decade younger than her who don’t take her seriously. Older guys see her as too old. So she’s in a dating limbo where there doesn’t seem to be any better options out there.

Given the slim pickings, husband and I are betting on whether our Filipino friend will succeed in wooing my Taiwanese girl friend.

On one hand, she may not like him because he isn’t particularly tall (he is just my height) or slim. He’s not fat by any chance, but he’s not tall and slim. So if she is particularly superficial, she won’t really like him.

On the other, she is nearing 40 years old and has had her fill of tall yet arrogant assholes who don’t care about her. She’s already had a merry go around of men in Singapore, and the pickings for nice guys are pretty slim. She may give Filipino friend a chance just because he’s a nice guy who sincerely care about her and wants to take her seriously.

And while he lives in Manila and she in Singapore, his job can be remotely done and his talents are more in demand in Singapore than Manila. In short, it can work IF she wants too.

He has booked his flight to visit her in Singapore this November 2017.

Two days later, he’s changed his cover photo and profile photo to the following:

“Uh-oh,” I called husband. “It seems our friend is busted…”

“Your friend is kind of superficial,” my husband concluded. “Maybe it’s bad news.”

Apparently, friend couldn’t sleep the entire night last night because girl best friend was slightly discouraging. For men, chasing after women is a challenge, but only if there is hope. Maybe she has discouraged him from going?

Anyway, the story continues…. who will prevail?

Are women as superficial as we think?

We shall see…