> High levels of intellectual ability allow you to write software with better abstractions and cleaner interfaces.
If anything, the opposite is true in my experience. People trained in writing clean interfaces write clean interfaces. The very purpose of abstractions (etc.) is to reduce the cognitive load on the programmer. The dumber the programmer, the more he needs those things.
What is the visa situation? The only thing stopping me from doing something like that is that I dislike the idea of border hopping every 3/6 months and I am definitely not going to go through the hassle of obtaining permanent residency in such a country.
In Thailand you can stay one year on a tourist visas. Every 3 months you have to go a Thai embassy outside of Thailand to get a new tourist visa. Then you have to go somewhere else for a few month and you can repeat the one year cycle.
I did got through the hassle and setting up a Thai company. This gives me a 1 year multiple entry visa and a work permit. Cost around 2.000 USD. An agency will handle the paper work for you.
It is a hassle no matter if you choose to do what i did or if you do the tourist visa, but it certainly is possible to stay and work for years in Thailand and many do although it is getting more difficult.
So yeah, it is possible to try to live here for a year on tourist visa, and if you fall in love with the place as I did, you have options in regards to make a life time stay and to get that work permit so you are legit.
I have been working remote from here for 6 years so far and counting )))
Nowadays, it seems possible to grow traffic without any external help. My simple website has grown from 0 to 9k monthly UU without a single backlink, I simply submitted it to Google.
That despite being physically fit, at the very least decently looking, earning well, having interesting interests (such as doing a cool PhD and being a competitive dancer), despite having a decent social network and meeting lots of women, I will likely die a loveless virgin.
You're probably being too picky. There are lots of women who would practically throw themselves at somebody like you describe, no matter how shy you are, if you faintly returned their interest. We all have our standards, but it's a bit disingenuous to claim that you're cursed to a lifetime of virginity.
I may have some standards, but I have never had a chance to reject someone. This is actually very puzzling to me - most guys seem to at least have the option of meeting the extremely unattractive / obese women. I don't.
something doesn't add up. If you have any close friends or relatives, discuss with them. They are very likely to point out that you are sorely lacking that one piece of social skill. Once you improve that there will be no lack of meeting and choosing right woman for you.
Ps: From 40+ yr old married guy.
It is true that not all therapists are good. Not all doctors or lawyers or engineers are good, for that matter.
I will say that people are complicated, and as a person dealing with people it can help to have another person who understands and respects you to help you figure it all out. You have to be ready to listen, though, and that isn't always easy, but when your own understanding of the world fails, it helps to consult another persons to see what you could be missing.
More correctly, it will give you a toolkit for identifying vulnerable women who do not have the self esteem to detect and avoid abusive relationships, and a set of behaviours you can use to exploit their insecurity to build physical relationships with women you despise. If you're looking for relationships that have emotional connection, support, and mutual respect and understanding, you may want to look for advice elsewhere.
I have studied the Red Pill in quite detail. It is not really for me to apply (being shy is the opposite of imposing your will on others), but I think the principles are sound. At least I couldn't find any hole in this "worldview", though I would love to, since the the picture it presents is very bleak.
It's possible that you may be inadvertently behaving in ways that amount to "sexual anorexia", a pattern of actions that amounts to self-sabotage where you unconsciously prevent yourself from getting the very thing you want. Maybe these will offer a different perspective:
I am assuming you're a man. If all of what you said are true you almost certainly will not die a loveless virgin. Give me contact info if you're open to assistance.
I had to make a concerted effort to put myself in social situations. I used Meetup.com and went to anything that looked remotely interesting in groups that had women in them for two straight years, and just kept showing up at groups and making small attempts at chit-chat until people started recognizing me and started inviting me to other things.
I slowly became a lot more comfortable talking to people I didn't already know well (I'm still not great at it, though). It led to a few dates (not as many as I was hoping, but some) and the whole process got me more comfortable around women that I met via other methods, like online dating. Eventually one of those decided to stick around and we're getting married in the next couple of months after dating for over four years.
It took a lot of time and energy though, time I previously would spend hacking away at personal projects (I still did them, just a lot less). My social circle shrunk quite a bit after we started dating for awhile and I stopped going to meetups regularly. But that was one of the main goals I had for attending them and it ended up being successful for me.
It's pretty funny, I'll tell people I know from these groups that I'm a shy guy and an introvert, and they'll tell me "What are you talking about? You seem pretty extroverted to me!" They never saw the years where I only had a few friends I hung out with regularly and had trouble speaking to anyone else, though.
If I could, I would have gone back in time and started the process way back in college (but it would have been school clubs then).
I don't know if something similar will work for you, but you might want to consider it. If there's already several people you see all the time, you might want to try meeting some strangers, as they don't already have preconceived notions of who you are. Part of my personality was re-inforced by my friend group, and it took meeting a whole new set of people to allow me to help rewrite those perceptions.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I spent the past year going out so much... Some weeks I went out every night. Clubs, parties, Toastmasters, interest groups, assorted meetups, ... to no avail. I think I'm done with that, back to square one, writing code from my "basement", talking face to face to maybe 1-2 people a week.
Before you were a competitive dancer, you were not a competitive dancer.
Before you are not shy, you are shy.
Just as you‘ve learned to become a competitive dancer, you can learn to become a non-shy person.
The bad news is that it’s probably a lot of work. But so was becoming a competitive dancer, I assume.
Look for a professional who can professionally help you learn what you need to learn.
I‘m well aware that my comment might feel very arrogant. But I’m making it in a certain spirit: Long ago, someone told me that what we all really need is someone who tells us that we must do what we can do.
Went to do a PhD in bioinformatics at 1/4 of my previous salary. Soon after starting, I unexpectedly got awarded one of the best scholarships in existence which doubled the pay. Having the freedom of a PhD student and a 3k EUR net monthly salary is pretty sweet compared to how most people live.
Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that I cannot be happy doing an office job and will announce my decision to quit the employment next week. My current plan is to continue the PhD in the same lab, unpaid and remote, and find the least time-consuming job that will pay me 1k EUR a month - which will likely be writing PHP for one of my previous clients one day a week.
*top in Poland, of course, since the academic record of a typical Polish professor resembles that of a decent-but-not-great grad student in the US (Google some profiles and check on Google Scholar if it sounds like an exaggeration)
Krakow can be really nice and interesting, but you should probably be white and Western. Otherwise, you may be setting yourself up for a tough time (not because of any recent events).
As a Pole who moved to Vienna from the UK, I disagree very strongly.
1. Most (as in, over 50%) young adults smoke cigarettes in Vienna. You will inhale the smoke basically everywhere, in particular inside most bars or clubs, but also on the streets. On a windless day, the entire city reeks with smoke.
2. The public transport may be cheap, but the quality is poor. Not very punctual and the trams/buses/trains generally lack conditioning which in the summer turns them into 40+ degrees sweaty, stinking meat containers. To remedy this, they were handing out deodorants at the stations (seriously).
3. You won't be getting a long-term apartment without paying ca. 7 months worth of rent upfront (3 mo fees / 3 mo deposit / 1 mo first rent).
4. Any kind of self-employment is prohibitively expensive unless you charge of the order of €100/h. As a result, if you want to hire, say, a low-end personal trainer, expect to pay of the order of €100/h.
5. The typical level of customer service is really bad and could be described as "the customer is always wrong". It reminds me of Poland pre-2000s.
I have no idea why it is considered the most liveable city. I see very few advantages over, say, Warsaw/Wroclaw/Krakow/Bratislava/Budapest except perhaps the general level of safety on the streets.
And what's not done by Friday, is not done, not my problem really since I'm paid by the hour.