Prospective New Teacher. Expectations & Advice

[Old Republic]

@Psy

I can see women doing it much more then men can. Single men that is.

Would suck being a single man in the Kingdom, unless you got lucky.

[shadowjack]

Old Republic, you have no clue... coming from someone who spent 7 years in the Kingdom (happily married, but we had a lot of single friends there...). Don't assume because it is Saudi that nothing ever happens...

[Old Republic]

I am sure plenty happens in Saudi.

I am also pretty sure for some, not much or anything happens.

If I had to guess, the latter happens more often than the former.

I got a former coworker working in Saudi now, first year, and he says his love life / dating is non existent.

It all comes down to various individual circumstances. For myself, I am not going to expect to land at a school with many young attractive open minded single women or find many single foreigner women in my town. Chance I might would be a little disappointed.

I wouldn't complain if that was the case though haha

[shadowjack]

There is actually a lot of opportunity to meet women - you have to find the opportunities - they don't come looking for you!

[PsyGuy]

The next thing @SJ will be claiming is that the social opportunities are better than Bangkok.

[shadowjack]

@PG after being there for many more years than you, and integrating into many of the activities that are there, I can assure you that there are many women looking to meet men - and many men looking to meet women - and I am sure men for men and women for women. In a city of over 3,000,000 people with a heavy expat presence from around the globe, there is lots of opportunities. Again - NOTHING comes to find you. But if you seek out and get involved in groups, you will definitely meet women. Lots of my friends did. I, being happily married and my spouse and children with me, wasn't one of them. But we had a lot of fun in Saudi and it was definitely NOT what we expected given the stereotypes everybody had filled our minds with. YMMV. I can only relate my own fairly extensive longitudinal experience.

[PsyGuy]

@SJ

We dont agree.

[MrKamikazi]

ME versus other areas; IE versus EE; it's really a bunch of personal decisions.

I am entering IE mid-career. I would gladly take less money to teach subjects I like, to students who want to learn, and using my skills in science education if the other option is teaching ESL. As a mid-career teacher I also have the background to break into IE at the level where I don't have to make that choice. Clearly others, perhaps mostly younger folks but I don't want to judge, might well say that shorter working hours and the ability to start out earning more (with the trade off of not having much of an advancement route) is a better deal even if it means you are entertaining as much as teaching.

On the other hand my wife and I have no interest in the compound life in the ME (Saudi Arabia and UAE more or less). Pollution in big Asian cities isn't as big a deal to us although it is a factor. I can easily see someone making the opposite choice.