To think that women going on holiday to places like Tunisia should be warned

[Moomin8]

By holidays reps About these men who are waiters / bar staff / animation workers looking to get money from older (or younger) western women by this 'Bezness' culture?

My friend is 40 and met a Tunisian guy who is 24 - he was working in the Tui hotel resort she was holidaying in. He's just asked her to marry him and she's considering moving her two little dds to Tunisia. Cue photos of diamond encrusted gold engagement ring. She has only spent about 3 separate weeks with him!

She will want to believe he's different I guess. But really, what I hear is that these men are sometimes players of a very long game, will keep up the act for 3 years or more to get what they want (a visa, or money / access to wife's possessions so that he can then afford to go back to Tunisia and pay the dowry for his 'real' wife).

I don't think people are aware of just how these people operate. My friend is a vulnerable person. My heart sank when she announced the engagement 🤦🏻‍♀️

You are probably lucky if they leave you once getting here. Ex colleague married a Tunisian she met on holiday. He lives in the UK but to keep his visa they have to earn over a threshold. She works 60 hours a week and he apparently can only get part time hours. He has been seen on multiple dating sites and out with far younger women, plus he never cooks or cleans. She runs herself into the ground trying to keep the cheating waste of space happy.

Middle Eastern people tend to think very logically about marriage (I am middle Eastern). It is extremely unlikely that someone would decide on a marriage on 'love' alone- other factors would increase or decrease the eligibility of a potential spouse.

For example, it would be extremely unusual and unlikely for a young man/ woman who has never been married to want to marry someone much older or someone who has children from a previous relationship.

If their family is supportive of such a union, it makes it even more likely that the man/ woman and their family is seeing an additional benefit in such a marriage and this is likely a visa for a lot of non-EU countries.

Frankly, there are a lot of very well educated and wealthy middle/ upper class people in many middle Eastern countries (including Tunisia and Turkey) but these people don't work in hotels. Hotel employees do tend to be from the lower classes of that country and that makes it more likely that they are after money.

Most of these women are only ‘victims’ in the same way people who get scammed by Nigerian princes needing your bank account details in order to unlock billions to share with you are. In the Nigerian scam, it’s the victims own greed and superiority complex that gets them done over. If the exact same email came from Keith in Norwich, they wouldn’t fall for it but they see the Nigerians as simple and that combined with the marks own greed makes them easy to scam.

I think it’s the same with these women. A lot of it comes down to their own prejudices. They have been taught to believe that white women are the most desirable women and every other race wants them even over their own women. Therefore they think it’s plausible that 20 year part time lifeguard Ahmed fancies the pants off them. They are a 55 year old sized 18 woman but they are white with blond (stringy) hair so to them it’s perfectly plausible that he would be madly in love with them and not with a woman of his age group from his own culture.

You see the delusion on here regularly when people put up threads of best and worst holidays and someone inevitably states that the locals were all over their blond haired blue eyed child. I mean it’s not as though people in poor countries equate Northern Europeans with money so are very nice to them, no it’s because they genuinely prize the blond kid from Leeds above their own to the point they may even want to snatch them. These same kids will turn into the future 55 year old scamming victims.

If a woman in her forties can’t figure out that the twenty something Tunisian waiter is playing her then no amount of warning is going to help.

I dunno tellmetruth, my Iraqi friend, when she goes back to Baghdad, keeps a microscopically close eye on her 6 yo blond haired child.

SeaEagleFeather, if your friend has to keep an eye on her child in Baghdad it’s because she either has her own prejudices (because has anyone actually tried to snatch her blond child?) or she knows there are elements who see a Northern European looking child as a route to money either through flattering the parents or through kidnapping an obvious Northern European for political reasons.

None of these reasons are because they prefer the blond child over their own.

I went to Turkey 25 yrs ago and the men there were vile. I was there for 10 days and got 3 marriage proposals. Nothing changes.

Although it's really not as easy to get a UK visa as many seem to think. So many hoops to jump through, criteria to be met, money to be paid over.

Yep, my friends husband is American and it has been difficult for him to get a work visa. They've been married for 15 years.

As far as I know, the only people who go to tunisia are women in their 40's-80's who want a shag.

I thought that was common knowledge?

@Andysbestadventure because Tunisia has no cultural/historical sites worth visiting at all.

@Andysbestadventure my friend has really fallen for this hook, line and sinker. she's head over heels.

It could go on for years as far as I can see.

It's not the reps job any more than a barman in this country to steer women away from wrong uns. Tell your friend to get a grip and not be taken for a mug. Holiday flings are all well and good if that's what floats your boat but should be left on holiday.

And I love Tunisia. It has tremendous culture, the people are warm and respectful and the food is divine. Ooh and the beaches are gorgeous. It was mine and dhs preferred 'fly and flop' destination when we need a recharge. I'm usually so exhausted when I get there that shaghong is the last thing on my mind!

Can there really be that many women who are unaware of this very common scam? There's little excuse for falling for this nonsense these days.

Tellmetruth4

i'm very impressed you know her reasoning. Seeing as she grew up there, has lived there many years, has endured the appalling wars, left because of direct threats, with her family going through civil wars and Isis threats, the increasing and extreme civil disorder and increasing poverty due to corruption and civil infrastructure and governmental decline.

When someone has lived in a country as a native, it's worth listening to their antennae. She's afraid someone will kidnap her daughter because she'lll be extremely valuable to sell on.

You are more than a little arrogant to assume, incorrectly, that you know what the situation is there.

You now have to meet an earnings qualification before you can bring a spouse over too.

It could go on for years as far as I can see

Actually no ... more likely it'll carry on until she either runs out of money or comes to her senses, whichever comes first

I had heard that what can happen is that the true nature is not revealed until much further down the line. At the moment she's probably convinced that he will take care of her both financially and emotionally.

But, you're right. People do have to be responsible for their choices. I can't say that I haven't made stupid dating errors. Will never forget the couple of dates I went on with this guy. 'Moomin, I'm in trouble. Please help me. I'm afraid to go home in case they stop me at the border' 😱 at least I ended it there and I didn't marry the guy!

I don't think the world "third world" is offensive, particularly (but then I have better things to do than go around being offended by anything and everything). I DO think that it's a meaningless word that suggests that the person using it does not actually know very much about the issues or country that they are trying to describe.

"Third world" has not been used as a serious term for decades, and is devoid of any proper meaning or definition. The commonest terms used these days are "low income" "middle income" and so on.

But just substituting "third world" for "low income" here, would be to completely misunderstand Tunisia. Tunisia is invariably defined as a middle income country --in fact, it's generally defined as upper or high middle income, or using terms like "emerging." It's not wealthy like the UK, but it's not in the same category as Nepal or Sierra Leone etc. and it is actually one of the more functional places in North Africa.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Tunisia

None of this alters the fact that many young men in Tunisia will be desperate to come to the UK. A major issue of most of the North African and Middle Eastern countries is that they often have excruciatingly high rates of unemployment among young men, due to high birthrates (=lots of bored young men) and stagnant economies. So you get young guys hanging around, precariously employed here and there, often not having a lot to do, and hoping to try their luck in the UK instead. It's understandable (but it's still a scam).

As for the situation--I think it would be nice for holiday reps etc. to point this kind of thing out. But they are not legally obliged to, and yes, the women who fall for this kind of stuff are very very stupid.

I am LOLing at the poster who made some comment along the lines of "Would you be saying the same thing if she were an older guy with some young girl?" Err, yes, in my experience, people are even quicker to say how disgusting that kind of thing is. And yes, I would be concerned about both parties in that kind of situation. It's risky for the young woman concerned, but young women are also capable of scamming deluded older men. I live in East Asia and have seen this kind of thing for myself.

I wonder why we are meant to look at the women as victims while reviling men who marry young Thai brides

I don't think women who hang around with young men in places like Jamaica and Tunisia in bars are of quite the same order as the middle aged men chatting up young women in Thailand. That said, I do think there are some ethical issues when the young "men" are under 18.

In some countries, there are concerns that boys who are underaged are effectively being encouraged by wealthy female tourists to hang around bars, drink a lot of alcohol, scam people and get into trouble, when they should be either at school, training, or in some sort of regular employment that will help them lead a normal lifestyle.

Women like that take advantage of young men who don't have much. They're buying themselves a man and think showering gifts money & experiences = 'I own him'.

They complain when they get what they deserve.

It isn’t just 20 something’s.

Friend married a 40 something guy that she met on holiday.

Costly disaster from start to finish.

I’m concerned you think your friend is vulnerable and not smart enough to see through a scam, but no one raises flags about her going abroad without supervision

No, but seriously, I don’t know how you expect others to look out for her re scams, she’s an adult

I fond it incredulous that women still fall for this. There is enough out there in the media to inform people that this is almost always a scam.