I'm going to update this rather than start a new thread as it follows.
As some of you might remember I had a bust up with Ling on our vacation and made up afterwards.
However her smoking still really bugged me, I'd never had wanted to meet a smoker in the first place (I'm an ex-smoker myself). I tried to put it past me but it came to a head about a month ago and i sent her an email saying that we were not working out.
We made up about a week afterwards again...but it hasn't been the same since though I tried hard to make it work, she wasn't as warm to me as before, and i still have lingering doubts whether i could live with a smoker as a partner.
I had applied for severance from work and if my boss accepted was going to use the redundancy money to set up in china doing a TEFL and seeing if we had a chance, if things didn't work out I would have the buffer of the redundancy money to come back home.
I didn't get severance in the end and I'm not prepared to risk it all there in China without a backup. I want a wife and kids, a TEFL salary is going to be hard to support that in comfort. my current wage is more then adequate. if I was totally sure of Ling (new) being the One then I would take the chance, but she smokes and doesn't want to quit..so I'm not sure...
She took the breakup quite well, I think after the second argument she saw the writing on the wall.
Ok, there is more!!
I don't know how many of you know my initial story of my first visit to China, well it was a bit of an adventure and I was real glad to have the brothers to keep me. I ended up meeting a new girl there (looooooooooooong story!!) but after i got back the doubts crept in and I decided not to visit her again. She was really upset (we had met her parents and I was approved, everyone here knows how important that is, they even bought me a wedding present) and it was messy, real messy. We didn't talk for a couple of weeks but since then still chat occasionally on msn.
I never got closure with her and as i already bought my ticket to visit China I'm going to see her again and see if we have a chance or not, maxx don't kill me!
Her friend who introduced us initially is someone I still regularly chat to (she's married to a American guy herself and is waiting on the interview) and she has introduced me to another friend that is single and i think who is quite pretty too, she works as a full time interpreter in a bank and has almost flawless English which helps. If things with me and Ling (the first one) don't work out then the translator friend is the backup plan.
I don't know how all this is going to work out, if worst comes to the worst I'll have a nice trip with Lings friends and as I know Guangzhou fairly well I know nice places to go and things to do and can find my way round pretty well. So i'll be in Guangzhou from November 5th and heading back home on the morning of the 22nd.
I must admit I'm actually pretty chilled about it all, this trip I'm going to a familiar place and meeting people I already know, some very well so it will be like meeting up with old friends, hopefully I can relax more and let things take their course.
If any of the brothers are going to be in Guangzhou during that time let me know, would be great to hook up for a beer or two.
To be continued...!