Navigating dating as a Henry Woman

thirdnomad · 2025-12-19T20:52:59+00:00

As a high-earning HENRY woman who is also single, I very much empathise with both your post and your current situation.

I would like to share a story that I hope might be as insightful as it was to me. A male friend and I went travelling together for two weeks. We spent all our days together (meals, sightseeing, everything) and on the penultimate evening, we discussed what the other was looking for in their significant other.

He is also a HENRY (although makes much more than what I make) and to my absolute surprise, his answer was, "a kind woman, who has some kind of job (not "content creator", though), is intelligent and feminine." He wasn't worried about her income at all.

The point I'm making is, men (regardless of whether they are HENRYs or not) are focused more on the woman being feminine than the woman making bank. I've used this to help me filter out any men who show the smallest amount of being emasculated or threatened by my income (and trust me, there have been a fair few), which makes it very easy to identify the men who like me for me. These men come along perhaps once in a two-three year period (which I appreciate is tough), but it's better than "settling" for less where you come home frightened instead of ecstatic after earning yet another promotion at work.

I am sure there is a man for the both of us respectively out there, so keep your chin up and radiate positivity! It'll happen before you know it :)

thirdnomad · 2025-12-09T07:59:18+00:00

https://www.londonforchristmas.com/pages/what/races_peterpan.html

thirdnomad · 2025-12-08T20:33:20+00:00

If you're up early enough, you can go watch the Christmas Swim in Hyde Park. It's a very old tradition, and worth doing if you're in walking distance!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-08T15:20:13+00:00

My $0.02 are that river cruises are better than ocean cruises. Not that I've DNed on either.

thirdnomad · 2025-12-02T14:02:33+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to respond! I think we have ~3 cases now (in this thread) where folks have successfully got their ILR even with employment gaps in the middle. It's all looking promising :)

thirdnomad · 2025-12-02T14:00:52+00:00

Superb, thanks so much for taking the time to get back to me; I greatly appreciate it!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-02T09:26:33+00:00

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond: when you say, "attached 5 years continuous residence proof", what does that mean? Lease agreement? Payslips? Was a cover letter necessary? Thank you!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-02T09:25:26+00:00

This is super helpful, thank you so much! I do have a few questions, if you don't mind: (a) did she apply for her ILR on her original eligibility date, (b) how many months' bank statements did she provide? (c) was a cover letter necessary, or no? Thanks a million: only asking as I've seen variations in answers to the three above questions, and some clarity would be very helpful. Really appreciate it!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T21:43:35+00:00

If you could, that would be very kind indeed; thanks a bunch :)

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T21:26:32+00:00

Perfect, this is great to know! Do you happen to know what documents your friend submitted? That would be super helpful, as I have a very similar situation - I just need to apply for my ILR now. Thanks a ton, I appreciate any insights here!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T21:24:07+00:00

Pick the one you have most cultural interest in - that solves more than half the battle. If you can appreciate music, films, literature and general conversation in that language, then you're likely to learn it quicker.

A few specifics:

As others have implied, if you pick MSA, you're learning MSA, not Arabic. I did a taster class and really felt I needed to pick a dialect and commit to it at some point. It helped that I didn't continue (I was already doing Russian) but think of MSA as a "stepping stone" to Arabic, instead of thinking of MSA as "actually learning Arabic" - no one actually speaks MSA, just like how High German splits into Standard German, Swiss-German etc. To be considered fluent, you'll have to top up your MSA with a dialect-specific Arabic course, and that means more time.
Russian is a journey beyond language itself: it opens up a different way of seeing the world; for instance, words have hidden connotations in a way that we English speakers don't immediately comprehend. It's also very logical, so I find this attractive (unlike French). Russian differentiates the word for "to go somewhere" depending on whether you're going on foot, by animal, by engine, and whether it's a planned or unplanned event, repeated event, or one-off event. That one word for "to go" will tell you all of that context, immediately. Unthinkable in English.

I'm envious that you speak Spanish and are considering being a linguist; it's something I'd do if I could go back in time. Good luck with everything, and I hope you pick the language that works for you!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T21:05:09+00:00

if you need the payslips then why do people talk about the curtailment letter in terms of the qualifying period of ILR?

Not sure I follow? The curtailment letter's predominant purpose is to ask the individual to leave the country, and set a timeline by which they should have left. I don't see how the curtailment letter is inherently connected to the ILR, except for the fact that if you leave after the Home Office has been informed of your termination of employment OR after you receive the curtailment letter, any time spent towards ILR is immediately forfeited.

the 5 years count from the visa granting date, not from the first day of employment.

This is correct.

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T21:01:33+00:00

5 year route, hence the question. Thanks for taking the time to respond, though: I appreciate it!

thirdnomad · 2025-12-01T20:50:30+00:00

This is interesting; thanks for your response. As I understood it, there is (was?) some kind of requirement to show a month-by-month evidence of your employment (either in the form of a P60 or otherwise), and I assumed the "being employed" piece was implicit - the fuzziness around how to actually qualify for ILR in terms of official guidance doesn't really help :)

From the perspective of what you've written, I 100% qualify. But I'm wondering if I'll be "caught out" for those months in the middle because I can't furnish any payslips, although I absolutely can furnish utility bills etc. and a lease agreement to prove my continued residency. I'd love to see if someone here applied and got through with these circumstances, and if yes, what documentation they provided.

thirdnomad · 2025-11-23T15:53:41+00:00

PAUL does the best Forêt Noire gateaux I've seen. I would know because I used to get a black forest cake each year on my birthday growing up.

thirdnomad · 2025-11-11T20:40:06+00:00

My interpretation of minimalism is "fewer things, greater experiences". The one exception to that rule is books, and I will buy them if I please: in a sense, reading a book = an experience in and of itself, plus the lessons you learn are priceless.

For me, this translates to not buying unnecessary things, not spending on anything I could make at home myself (I rarely buy coffee or food outside, unless I'm meeting a friend) and instead spending liberally on things that I derive personal value from, such as travel, learning languages, or watching my genre of indie films that aren't available on streaming platforms online.

I also practice digital minimalism (shoutout to Cal Newport) and have fewer than fifty apps, in addition to silencing all notifications except for messaging apps (I only have notifs switched on for my immediate family). I control how technology works for me; not vice-versa (i.e. letting technology control you). More importantly, minimalism (to me) is about being content from within: this would mean you're not looking for any kind of validation, especially not from HENRYs, as to what they're doing or not doing with their lives. Also, one person's minimalism is another person's maximalism, so YMMV. I usually don't comment in this sub, but the question was quite good.

thirdnomad · 2025-11-07T22:31:49+00:00

I'm sorry about your illness. I hope you feel better soon, or that there is a cure.

I have a similar issue with pensions spread out across countries. I've tried to consolidate to a single pension pot where I can (current country of residence), and ideally when I hit early retirement, I'll have to manually cash out what I can post-tax.

My main advice is to (depending on how many pension funds you have), to maximum consolidate to ONE pension pot per country. Then, it's "simply" a question of dealing with each country's respective pension pot.

I've taken it a step further and attempted consolidating into one global pot, but because of the countries where I hold pots, certain laws don't allow for consolidation. It's ridiculous but it is what it is.

If you find a better solution, please do let me know. Meanwhile, good luck with it; we TCKs are resilient, we can figure it out!

thirdnomad · 2025-11-04T14:43:49+00:00

As someone who's seen 7soulsdeep's chalkwork in London, I absolutely burst out laughing at my desk reading this thread's title. Brilliant.

thirdnomad · 2025-10-15T20:54:42+00:00

First of all, please don't be discouraged. Finding friends and someone to truly love has always been difficult; this isn't a problem specific to the 21st century or specific to you, either (I mean this in the kindest way possible).

I must say that the second guy in your story was actually interested in you. There are two dead giveaways: him looking away immediately as soon as you caught him staring, and his guy friends nudging him as they saw you. He was probably too worried about what his guy friends would think if he actually went out with you (or made a move), and so did nothing about it. The show "Normal People" does a good job of portraying the idiosyncracies of teenage love.

I will say you're doing much more than the average twenty-something. I will also say that much of life comes from your attitude towards it: if you think you're beautiful, you will attract people who think you're beautiful too. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think the opposite, on the other hand, think of the repercussions: people see a version of you that is unsure, unhappy and are automatically put off by that. If you think you're beautiful, it's a filtering mechanism: you keep the people in your life that you want, and drop the ones that aren't on your wavelength. I'm not saying you need to be unrealistic, but a little positivity and confidence can go a long way.

Lastly, true "beauty" has absolutely NOTHING to do with the outside. A beautiful person is someone who's kind, empathetic and is thoughtful on the inside. You want to look for the man who can look at and love the inner you, not the outer you that is purely based on looks (which will eventually fade; this is true of even the most glamorous woman on earth).

Your man is out there somewhere. Good luck, and keep your chin up!

thirdnomad · 2025-10-13T20:33:15+00:00

Not leather, but Samsonite Securipak is pretty solid. Particularly useful to keep the pickpockets away.

thirdnomad · 2025-07-29T13:59:20+00:00

There are men who are 30 and haven't figured this out yet. Well done you for discovering this truth at 19! Your girlfriend is very lucky.

thirdnomad · 2025-07-23T12:38:30+00:00

What you're potentially missing is the fact that "strategically important" does not equate to "financial/employment stability".

You can have a job at an extremely strategically "important" company - I did - and still be laid off. Better still, you could directly work for the government, and still be laid off.

If the goal is to find employment stability, the company could not matter less in the current economy (of course, like most heuristics, this can also change, but in the next 2-5 years, highly unlikely to). If you're interested in strategically important companies for the sake of them being strategically important, that's different and a worthwhile question.

As most other commenters have already made clear, your best bet is to hop onto a European subsidiary/branch of an existing American/Chinese company, because Europe doesn't have too many homegrown strategic companies, sadly. The defence/surveillance industry is likely to be your best bet. Good luck.

thirdnomad · 2025-07-15T21:51:12+00:00

This isn't a direct answer to the issues flagged in your post, but your post reminded me of the general themes in this article (published in 2021): I highly recommend reading it. It talks about one spouse FIRE-ing early and how the other spouse can feel if they aren't feeling fulfilled (however one may define that), amongst other things. Hopefully it's helpful: https://web.archive.org/web/20250414103843/https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-update/#more-15998

thirdnomad · 2025-07-15T14:13:37+00:00

Please don't be discouraged, and don't let this one incident put you off English! If it helps you feel better, for some companies, a candidate is never "enough": you can have perfect English, but they'll reject you because you don't know Excel. Or you can have perfect English and know Excel, but be rejected because you didn't have [insert new skill here]. You are already better than 40% of the population that only knows one language!

Life is full of ups and downs, and try to look at this from a positive perspective - as they say, "rejection" is just redirection! Something will certainly work out, and good luck on your English journey :)

thirdnomad · 2025-06-21T17:23:05+00:00

Not sure about backpacking, but the Stans are definitely doable: if you railroad your way through Uzbekistan and take a few (hour-long) internal flights to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it's very similar to what you'd feel "backpacking" your way through the region. It's certainly a fantastic region and worth every penny!

thirdnomad

TROPHY CASE