Nah, I like this board too much already. I have been thinking of joining SDMB for a few weeks now. One board I did leave was the misc section of the body building form because it ended up being too edgy for my taste. It was interesting seeing them tearing apart this one adult star. Then trying to notify this one married guy that his woman was in an adult film. I only posted it here because I see no reason to post it in multiple places.
If I get a chorus of “I told you so” I guess I had it coming.
> So you don’t have a job at the moment. What do you live on? Are you living in
> your parents’ basement? Do you have a college degree? What jobs have you had
> in the past? Why do you think you can get a job if you get this certificate? So are
> we to understand that you’re 26 years old and this is as close as you’ve ever been
> to getting a job - studying for a certificate that you think might get you a job?
> Where would you get the money for her ticket to the U.S.?
I live on disability since I have autism and I am currently living at my folks.
I have never had a formal job in my life. I make more money on social security then I would otherwise in a minimum wage job. I have a high school diploma.
I can get an entry level help desk job with this CCNA certification. Then I work towards my CCNP which takes 3 exams and can land me a senior position with enough years of experience.
I am going to need a job to afford any tickets. So this is going to be a lengthy progress.
T-Minus, as the parent of an 11 year old spectrum kid, I hope you don’t mind if I ask a few questions? Was all of your schooling in mainstream classes? Did you have an IEP? Do you prefer communicating via computer or in person?
You have decent written communication skills and I always find it interesting when someone on the spectrum can explain why they do things a certain way. Thus, I am finding your thread to be quite informative. Thanks
(My child is functioning but can’t do a regular class, and she’s a couple of grades below her age as far as reading, writing and 'rithmatic goes.)
Yes to all these questions. She knows I live with my folks and don’t have a job but she doesn’t care. I just talked about how we should visit instead and she completely understood.
@china guy: Yes I had an IEP while I was in school. Communicating on the computer is easier for me for sure, but I guess I am just mostly shy in person but I have improved. Half of my classes were specialized with the other half main stream. I had an assistant that would attend classes with me in those classes. They helped me keep notes and make sure everything was done on time.
I almost didn’t go to prom since I had no date with me. So I ended up going with my cousins girlfriend , which was a little awkward but we had fun. My friend went with me and also had a date. Now it seems like he is just a slave pushing in carts while working for Smiths, a former shell of himself. He used to happy and go lucky, but I don’t know if the have him on meds or what the deal is.
As far as having no job…if you do go through with this, one of the requirements for both the fiance and spousal visa is that you can prove she won’t be a burden to the USA financially. Normally that means providing proof that you have a job that will provide for both of you. Lacking that, you have to get someone else, ie your parents, to sign a legally binding bit of paper basically promising to cover for her financially. And allowing the government to come after them for reimbursement should something happen to you two and she ends up on like food stamps or something. Go see her. Take lots of pictures of you two together. Send emails back and forth, save those. Save chat logs. All those things are needed to prove a valid relationship for the eventual visa application, which costs a couple thousand dollars even if you don’t involve a lawyer.
I have a question, if she came here for work/school and we didn’t get married; how would that work out in theory? Thanks for the info angelsoft, now I know what I am really getting myself into. Could she work while I supported her?
She’d have to get approved to work and that’s only after you get approved for the spouse/fiancee visa I believe. I never did that part. It’s MUCH more likely to get her here on a student visa, just because work visas are pains in the asses for companies and very expensive for them. They only really do it for people who are ‘worth’ it, ie not blue collar workers most of the time. When I was going through this with my ex-husband, he initially came out on a student visa so we could get to know each other better. Once we decided to marry, he returned to Japan and we started the paperwork for a fiance visa. Technically you COULD marry her while she was out here on a student visa but it would be very very difficult to convince the immigration officials that she hadn’t come out here with that intent in the first place. Add to that the fact that she’s from a country that’s considered high risk for immigration fraud, you need to do everything by the book. Visa fraud is a very serious offense and could (theoretically) ban her from the US for 10+ years, and get you heavily fined or even jail time. It’s not an easy process and from the point of starting the application it can take a year or more to get to the end. As many many other people have suggested, visit her or have her visit you. If not only to get to know each other better but to gather up proof for any future visa application.
If this is real, go see her. If you are even vaguely considering financing a trip for her to come here, and you are capable of travel, get thy ass on a plane. You are chasing the hard way, that has massive potential for failure. If her job doesn’t work out or she gets fired…off she goes, if she doesn’t do well in school, off she goes. I looked into these routes myself, going to visit her IS the easy way.
Americans have one of the easiest times getting around compared to 75% of the planet. An American passport will get you minimal hassle travelling to most of the world. My trip to the phillipines cost about $3k for 2 weeks, air, hotels, meals, activities, and we were living pretty large.
Oh they can. But on a student visa he was able to stay out here longer. He was interested in going to school here anyway so it was like two birds with one stone thing lol
Sit down with your parents and have a long talk about this girl. Tell her how you feel about her. Say that you’re thinking of getting married eventually. Introduce her to your parents during a Skype conversation. If you’re going to Tanzania, you and your parents need to have a precise agreement about how much a round-trip ticket will cost and how much it will cost for a room and meals while you’re there. You need to convince them that you’ll be safe during that time and you won’t get kidnapped and won’t give your girlfriend any money. Since you live with them, I’m sure they want to be sure that nothing bad will happen to you. You, your girlfriend, and your parents need to all be convinced that this trip will be safe and productive (even if it ends with the two of you deciding that you won’t get married). At this point, it’s up to the four of you to take responsibility for this trip. We’ve given our best advice, but we do not take responsibility for what happens. You have to be responsible for anything that happens from now on. Incidentally, since eventually you’ll need an immigration attorney, you might want to have one session with them right now to discuss what you should know at this point.
And yet. . . Even if you go there to visit her, that sounds worrisome. We’ve seen those stories of people who got suckered into traveling to some far off place and then get kidnapped and held for ransom. There was one such mention earlier in this thread.
Heck, even when one is looking on-line for a date in one’s own community, there are safety rules: (1) Always meet first in some neutral public or semi-public place like a park or library, and (2) always let someone else know where you’re going.
Hard to see how to protect oneself if you’re going to fly to another continent for a date that you find on-line.
Save hotel receipts, airline reservations, take pics of any papers as well. Get a phone app like dropbox that will cloud sync your pics so if you are separated from your phone. Local rechargable wifi devices will be cheap and easily aquired.
Pics are great, but things like airline travel can be easily verified by uninvolved third parties.
lol I edited those out of mine, just because I didn’t want some stranger reading anything that intimate. It doesn’t matter really as long as you have sufficient evidence to back it up.
Although there is a non zero chance, hundreds of americans a month travel to every third world backwater on the planet. As long as he is in a decent sized city he will most likely be fine. I was picked up at the airport in manila by a woman i had never met in person in an unmarked car with a driver. I survived without being sold for parts.
Start another thread, a poll; ask the married Dopers how many people they dated before they found ‘the one’. I’m not saying it can’t happen but it’s exceedingly rare to marry your first girl/boyfriend. (& if you were only in one open relationship then it wasn’t serious.) This Tanzanian woman you haven’t even met yet. Her skin texture, whether too oily or too dry or too ___ may not appeal to you; I can’t imagine not wanting to touch my lover. Your snoring may make it impossible for her to sleep in the same room with you.
Yeah, I’ve wanted pretty much every first date to be my last first date but that was before, not after said date. Some never got past the first date, some worked for a while until one or the other (or both of us) decided it didn’t. In short, it’s a bad idea to commit you life (& potential children) to someone you haven’t met yet.
I know a woman who’s beautiful; she is a model. I’ve met her a few times & spoke to her for 5-10 minutes at a time; she speaks normally & intelligently. In short, on paper, she’s wonderful. She recently spent a few days at my friend’s house for the first time when she was in her town. My friend told me in no uncertain terms to stay away because she’s whack-a-doozle; there’s really a whole lotta issues with her that my friend didn’t know about until she got to see this woman in her relaxed element. These are things you wouldn’t necessarily see on a chat session. You need to know someone long enough that they let their guard down around you & act like themselves as that’s what it’s going to be like if you’re married to them.
Wow, there are so many red flags here that the Bulls throughout the world are frothing at the mouth.
If you send money, I’m betting that’s the last you hear or see of it. I’d bet the farm on it. If 95% of your relationships have been online, you should have learned your lesson by now.