Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

In both of those cities there are many many more women – and therefore more single women – than men. The supply and demand of this means that men are able to be either more selective or much more poorly groomed and do quite well for themselves. It means that we can be slack and indulgent in a land of plenty while the other team gets vicious on a barren gaming field.

In both cities the reason might have to do with migration patterns. American women who are better educated these day then their male counterparts, flock to cities for jobs and husbands. They want guys of comparable education and earning potential, say Richard Florida, author of the Creative Class. According to Florida’s singles map there are 210,000 thousand more single girls than guys in the New York-Northern Jersey area.

When their are fewer options those options start looking a lot better. Some people will even eat at Mcdonald’s when that’s the only thing open.

In Bangkok this situation is even more wonderful (from a guy’s perspective). There are 547,000 more women than men in the marriage year between 20 and 44 – that’s a huge number when the group we are talking about has less than 3 million.

This enormous gap (500,000!) is due to a massive in-migration of women into the city and a flight out of BKK by the men according to a report from the Economic Institute at Kobe University. Bangkok is a service economy of finance, hotels, and restaurants – all areas where women are thought to better employees in Thai eyes.

Bangkok’s men (who like American men are less educated than their female peers) often leave the city to work in heavy industry and manufacturing.

This leaves the city incredibly gender lopsided – walking around Bangkok ourists often wonder – where did all the men go? The images of the protests were so female dominated that it felt like you were looking at a women’s liberation movement instead of an anti-goverment rally.

But that’s just Bangkok.

Did I come to the wrong rally?

And its for that reason that you hear the same complaint from women there that you do here in big NYC – all the good ones are taken and the rest aren’t too good.

When I tell people that I just spent five months/eight months/a year traveling, I almost always get the same response: “How on earth did you have money to do that??”

That question kind of irritates me. Traveling is one of the cheapest things you can do. Come on, what else can you for a month and only spend $500 doing it? Pay rent, maybe.

But traveling is much more fun than paying rent, that’s for sure.

And with the way I travel, $500 a month is almost streching it. I could get by with less if I had to. That’s because when I travel, most of the time I go couchsurfing –that means I stay with local people in their houses (for free!) and get an amazing experience as a bonus.

For me, couchsurfing is such a natural thing to do that I find it amazing when people travel without utilizing the service, or worse, without ever having heard of it! Come on people, it is the greatest invention ever! I have met some really cool people through couchsurfing, and I have visited local households all over the world, from Jakarta to Santiago de Chile, from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires. Those are also my favorite travel memories. I don’t remember most of the hotels I’ve stayed in, but I will always remember the Vietnamese family in Hanoi who hosted me for four days and drove me around the city with their motorbike. When I travel, I want to see how the locals live. And that is what couchsufing is all about.

So the idea between couchsurfing is that members around the world open up their houses for strangers (or more accurately, for friends they haven’t met yet!). And then anyone within the community can ask to go visit them! Most guests only stay for a couple of nights in one household, so it’s not a terrible strain on the host. If you want to stay with someone, you just email them and then they will decide if they want to host you or not.

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