In the Philippines, to make 250,000 Pesos a month, LEGALLY, by the time you’re 30 years old. Seemingly an impossible task no, unless you are a young entrepreneur who typically has the backing of wealthier parents. The impossible is a lower middle class Filipino 31 year old making 200,000 pesos a month. While working from home.

He’s doing this because he knows how to code. He knows Linux. He knows how the internet works, how voice calls get turned into IP packets and back into voice signals. The terms G729, Asterisk, and Ubuntu don’t scare him. In short, he knows something that everyone can learn for free but few people are very skilled at. He is a computer geek and he is very good at what he does.

And because he is good at what he does and not many people are that good, he gets paid a lot of money for his services. He basically gets paid for his brain, for all the time he’s spent hunkered down in front of his computer fixing some broken line of code. The thousands of hours he’s spent doing that (They say it takes 10,000 hours to become a genius at something and he’s definitely at genius level) have now translated into hundreds of thousands of pesos he collects from clients all over the world.

From the comfort of his own couch. While gets to play with his kids.

The lesson here is if you have the desire to make a really comfortable living for yourself, learn some Java, HTML, to program, code or the ins and outs of VoIP networks. Maybe you’ll make 250,000 Pesos a month too from home.

However, a few months ago, I went on my last date. I say it was my last date because by that point, I was so unhappy with the dates I had (some of which were blind dates), that I was going to go on a self-imposed date break. No dates for a month. I was ready to impose that date break until I went on a date with the girl who would, some 3 months later, become my girlfriend.

She became my girlfriend because we both discovered we had a passion for extreme dating, Manila style. We both discovered we had a passion for finding the new, even if it that meant escaping the comforts of our walled villages. Finding the new often involved treks for Chinese food in Banawe Street in QC, to drinks at the Hobbit House in Ermita, and back to the posh surroundings of the Fort – all in one date. In fact, we didn’t have our first movie date until after we became a couple.

So the whole purpose of this post is to share our experiences (extreme) dating in Manila. There is so much to do, eat, see, drink, and experience in Manila, yet most couples never get out of the endless cycle of “dinner and a movie.” If you’re one of those couples stuck in that rut, go on an extreme date and I guarantee it’ll give you and your partner plenty to talk about.

I suggest starting at Divino’s – the location of our extreme date #7.