10 THINGS A FILIPINA FEARS When Dating a Foreigner

Pea turns the lens on herself and her fellow Filipinas, cataloging the fears, insecurities, and anxieties that consume them when dating foreigners. Rather than the usual advice-for-men format, this episode is a raw inside look at the female Filipino psyche — the cultural pressures, physical insecurities, and deep relationship fears that drive behavior foreigners often find confusing.

What's Covered ​

• The cultural pressure that underlies everything: "Married with Children" as identity

  • From birth, Filipinas are told by friends, family, parents, and the church that their primary goal is to marry and reproduce — it's "the bedrock of a Filipina's identity"
  • This explains why so many Filipinas already have a complicated past even at a young age: a husband, a child or two, and seem "almost desperate to settle down before the music stops and there's no more chairs available"
  • The Filipina life cycle is sped up dramatically compared to the West — by age 30, a Filipina without a husband and at least one child is considered "past her expiration date" by society
  • They're literally labeled "leftovers" at 30, while many Western women at that age are still finishing education and haven't seriously considered children
  • This is why "even nice girls from the province" already have a child and ex-boyfriends by the time you meet them: "You start chatting with an innocent-sounding Filipina and imagine they must spend every Sunday kneeling in church, but when you discover the reality it becomes obvious that they've been kneeling in other places as well"

• Fear #1: Their past

  • Getting a Filipina to discuss her past is "like pulling teeth" — in Filipino culture, people simply don't discuss those things
  • Filipino men rarely ask about past relationships; there's an unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" policy where men "like to assume we're all virgins, even with a child in our arms"
  • Then foreigners come along and bluntly ask about their history, and the first reaction is "duck and cover, run and hide"
  • They fear that exposing their mistakes will lead to rejection, especially with so many other options available to the man
  • This fear drives specific deceptions: denying having children (sending them to live with relatives), hiding debts, and drastically underreporting their "notch count" — Pea says "you have more chance of single-handedly raising the Titanic than of getting us to tell you our actual notch count"

• Fear #2: Physical insecurities — armpits

  • Unlike Western women who still receive male attention despite physical imperfections, Filipinas believe "one little flaw could be the difference between landing a good guy or getting passed over"
  • Armpits are a major obsession: many Filipinas have dark lines and "chicken skin" under their arms instead of the smooth underarms they see on Western women
  • This insecurity is so intense they'll keep their arms clamped together even when greeting someone at the airport for the first time
  • Pea acknowledges no foreigner would actually care: "I don't think I've ever heard a foreigner say 'oh man, I had to dump her — did you see those pits?'"

• Fear #3: Physical insecurities — dental issues

  • Dental work is low-priority in the Philippines and many Filipinas have cavities or crooked teeth
  • Adult braces are actually a status symbol because they signal you can afford the 80,000 pesos needed
  • Filipinas who've watched enough TV believe every Western woman has perfect bright white teeth, making them less likely to smile or even talk

• Fear #4: Physical insecurities — facial hair

  • Pea bluntly notes that while Filipinas are "among the most feminine looking women on earth," many are "oblivious to their thick lustrous flowing hair on the upper lip"
  • She advises: "If a Filipina is interested in dating a foreigner, it would be prudent to put away that obsession with armpits and pull out a waxing strip instead"
  • Jokes about slogans: "If there's hair on the lip, I'll give her the slip"

• Fear #5: Being inadequate in bed

  • Even Filipinas with plenty of sexual experience imagine Western women must know "exotic tricks and talents" they're not privy to
  • They view their own past encounters as "clumsy and brief" (which Pea says they often are) and fear men expect "exotic shenanigans involving whipped cream and swinging from chandeliers"
  • Pea notes she's never actually heard of a man ending things with a Filipina because of lack of bedroom experience

• Fear #6: Language skills

  • Despite knowing far more English than most foreigners know Tagalog, Filipinas feel awkward and incompetent about their language ability
  • Rather than trying to communicate, they sometimes sit in silence
  • They're happy to let the man order for them at restaurants to avoid pronouncing menu items
  • The universal fallback phrase: "whatever you want" — used to minimize their need to speak or share opinions

• Fear #7: Not measuring up to other women

  • Filipinas are afraid they don't compare to the "sexy, adventurous, sophisticated women" the foreigner may have dated — women who "can swim gracefully, climb mountains, and entertain wealthy guests at cocktail parties after Pilates class"
  • They have a distorted view of Western women based on media images: "You think of us one way, we see ourselves another way, but reality is irrelevant — it's all perception"
  • Their limited life experiences make them perceive themselves as inferior

• Fear #8: Abandonment — the core terror

  • The deepest fear: "That we'll give you the best remaining years of our youth and beauty and our devotion to you, and you'll end up leaving us"
  • This has already happened to many — "the men that say they love us one day are gone the next, sometimes leaving us with children" that make finding another partner even harder
  • It's not hypothetical; it's a lived reality they expect and wait for, all while "our clocks are ticking at a frantic pace"

• Fear #9: The "I'll get them before they get me" counter-strategy

  • Some Filipinas, driven by fear of abandonment, adopt an offensive approach: playing men against each other, jumping from one relationship to the next, "leaving them on fire and sinking with little care or remorse"
  • Pea calls this behavior "despicable" but traces it back to fear of being rejected or replaced

• The car dealership analogy — why it's different in the Philippines

  • Pea explains how Filipinas see the dating market: the Philippines is like "a giant car dealership with an endless lot of different makes and models, all of them for free"
  • Foreigners hold most of the cards — all they have to do is pick the woman they want, from Ferraris to Ford Pintos
  • Even if a Filipina thinks she's a Lamborghini, she'll get "dings and scratches" over time, and every week a "whole new shipment of brand new cars gets delivered to that lot right down the street"
  • The foreigner can simply "leave us by the side of the road and go pick out another one"
  • Pea acknowledges this may sound harsh and the man may not see it that way, but it's the perception — and "as we age, there's always going to be a shinier new model to catch your eye and nothing much stopping you from making a switch"

• Fear #10: Breast size

  • Pea saves this for last as a personal note — nothing strikes more fear into some Filipinas than how their chest measures up
  • She cites DailyMail.com and WorldData.info: Filipinas have the smallest average chest size on the planet (A cup), while American women have the largest (D cup)
  • She uses her whiteboard to show bell curve distributions — and the segment devolves into comedy as she implies the audience is too distracted to pay attention to the data

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