TexasFlyer
Living the Dream (well at least trying to)
A strange thing has happened in my life....
I'm 34 and single now for the last 10 months. This is now the longest I ever been single (last record was around 9 months back in 2002/2003)! I moved to Georgia in August last year and settled in downtown Atlanta in October in order to accomplish my goal. The goal was to slowly wind down my long time business which offered a lot of money but I never enjoyed. The business was purely used to get me the money to become 100% debt free and save up enough money in cash to live on for 2 years and pay for the majority if not all of my flight training. A well thought out plan for a career changer to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a professional pilot.
And here I am now. First step of the mission accomplished. The business should be fully dissolved come the Fall. And I still have over a year of money left to live on in the bank and 80% of flight training was paid for with cash (after all, I need some kind of debt just so the credit people know I exist, so the small SLM loan does the trick as it's not that material to me since it's so small and the only debt I have). And by that time my business wraps up, I should also be entering the ranks of a new CFI. So the goal is almost completed after many many years of working to get here...
So that's all good. And to me shows a huge level of responsibility, good judgement in career planning, and being proud to be one of the few in the world that is pursuing their life long passion and not being stuck in something they do not enjoy. I believe that means I have a lot to offer someone else too. Here is the challenge I come across:
In the past, it's always been easy to find a girlfriend. We'd date for a couple days and quickly it would develop into a great committed long-term relationship. I rarely had a date not turn into a substantial relationship in the past (hence why I really never dated since good things just developed from the get go). My history is the majority of the time things lasted from 1 year to 7 years historically. Only two relationships were shorter than that and up until 10 months ago I only had a couple one night miscommunication. And the majority of the time all my relationships ended when I had to relocate to a new city for my past career situation since my girlfriend at the time always was tied to the area we met. So understandable. I chose the money path which would get me into a cockpit eventually over that relationship by my own choice.
But here is where I am now. In Atlanta, I have met several women so far. We go out for a night and have had great time. Sometimes even a second night, so long as career was not talked about the first night. Within the first night or two out in every case career conversation comes up. Upon them finding out I am going to be a Professional Pilot, the date is pretty much over. They seem to have a bad image of pilots.
Here are examples from over the last 6 months I faced:
* One told me her father was a pilot and she would never have a relationship with a pilot because of that (end that date).
* Another tells me she will not date the 3 P's because her and her friends believe they all lie and cheat (Politiicians, Police, and Pilots). Okay, that made me laugh and I had to dig deeper into such a weird statement. I concluded that girl was whacked since I would say she has trust issues with anyone she would date (so no thanks anyway).
* Several others just simply tell me they would never consider marrying a pilot because there is no stability and they are never home. So it would be a waste of time to date one. And there is no winning the argument when I'd explain that I'd actually be home more as a pilot than I was in my past as a 60 hour a week executive working from 9am to 8pm (sometimes until 10pm or 11pm!) five to six days per week in order to meet corporate objectives! Not to mention there was no guarantees my business would survive day to day. I know of very few careers where stability is guaranteed any more. (well, end those dates too since their mind was already made up that pilots are not good future husbands and a logical discussion was not being received well).
So here I sit. Thinking for once things would be easy since I have real plans now of being more flexible with my career where I would sacrifice my Pilot career for a relationship (meaning, I would take a second rate flying job in a location my girl wanted to live versus pursue the best long term career choice like I have before which moved me around the country a lot, ultimately now landing me here in Atlanta). It's also clear to me that I would have more time on my hands to invest in a relationship since the 60+ hour work weeks are ending (meaning I will have more than 4-5 days off per month for the first time in many years so my girlfriend would not have to pretend to enjoy meeting me at the office and going to business functions that become part of my past social life on a regular basis... thank god all that is done with!). The only negative is that money will be ten times less as a pilot, but money does not yield stability by default since if my last career was to falter, it's not easy to just run out and go make a couple hundred grand in a new place you are not proven yet. And I see flying as no less stable than my past business since the consulting world is also tied directly to economic cycles as I experienced when 9-11 wiped me out and I had to start over and only climbed the ladder so quickly through good decisions that were simply made on "gut feelings" (that means I got lucky where many of my competitors did not). After all, if companies in general are not growing, they have no reason for me as a consultant or as a pilot. So overall, I seen my new found flexibility in regard to relationships along with me being a pilot to result in a more positive thing when it come to relationships for the reasons I just mentioned.
Ah, hence the confusion. Put simply. In my past business life I had next to no time or flexibility to build a relationship, woman loved what I did and had interest in me for the long term. They even made some interesting sacrifices on their end to be with me while they tried to convince me to not ultimately move away to be a pilot (they simply did not believe I would actually leave them to pursue the career path that would lead my to be a pilot, even when I told them I would). And now I am faced with such a challenge in finding a good relationship with a woman due to the pilot career word yielding the "I would never seriously date a pilot" theme I've experienced in Atlanta. Yet, I am finally in a place in my life where I could have a great relationship based on my circumstances. :banghead:
Is it a bad image of pilots in the Atlanta area?
Is there just a general misconception among woman that pilots are ego driven manics in an unstable career field and they all live a life of a woman in every city since they are never home?
Is this a pretty normal thing in general to experience?
Or, is it at my age of 34, the last things a woman wants to hear is 'career change'?
I'm 34 and single now for the last 10 months. This is now the longest I ever been single (last record was around 9 months back in 2002/2003)! I moved to Georgia in August last year and settled in downtown Atlanta in October in order to accomplish my goal. The goal was to slowly wind down my long time business which offered a lot of money but I never enjoyed. The business was purely used to get me the money to become 100% debt free and save up enough money in cash to live on for 2 years and pay for the majority if not all of my flight training. A well thought out plan for a career changer to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a professional pilot.
And here I am now. First step of the mission accomplished. The business should be fully dissolved come the Fall. And I still have over a year of money left to live on in the bank and 80% of flight training was paid for with cash (after all, I need some kind of debt just so the credit people know I exist, so the small SLM loan does the trick as it's not that material to me since it's so small and the only debt I have). And by that time my business wraps up, I should also be entering the ranks of a new CFI. So the goal is almost completed after many many years of working to get here...
So that's all good. And to me shows a huge level of responsibility, good judgement in career planning, and being proud to be one of the few in the world that is pursuing their life long passion and not being stuck in something they do not enjoy. I believe that means I have a lot to offer someone else too. Here is the challenge I come across:
In the past, it's always been easy to find a girlfriend. We'd date for a couple days and quickly it would develop into a great committed long-term relationship. I rarely had a date not turn into a substantial relationship in the past (hence why I really never dated since good things just developed from the get go). My history is the majority of the time things lasted from 1 year to 7 years historically. Only two relationships were shorter than that and up until 10 months ago I only had a couple one night miscommunication. And the majority of the time all my relationships ended when I had to relocate to a new city for my past career situation since my girlfriend at the time always was tied to the area we met. So understandable. I chose the money path which would get me into a cockpit eventually over that relationship by my own choice.
But here is where I am now. In Atlanta, I have met several women so far. We go out for a night and have had great time. Sometimes even a second night, so long as career was not talked about the first night. Within the first night or two out in every case career conversation comes up. Upon them finding out I am going to be a Professional Pilot, the date is pretty much over. They seem to have a bad image of pilots.
Here are examples from over the last 6 months I faced:
* One told me her father was a pilot and she would never have a relationship with a pilot because of that (end that date).
* Another tells me she will not date the 3 P's because her and her friends believe they all lie and cheat (Politiicians, Police, and Pilots). Okay, that made me laugh and I had to dig deeper into such a weird statement. I concluded that girl was whacked since I would say she has trust issues with anyone she would date (so no thanks anyway).
* Several others just simply tell me they would never consider marrying a pilot because there is no stability and they are never home. So it would be a waste of time to date one. And there is no winning the argument when I'd explain that I'd actually be home more as a pilot than I was in my past as a 60 hour a week executive working from 9am to 8pm (sometimes until 10pm or 11pm!) five to six days per week in order to meet corporate objectives! Not to mention there was no guarantees my business would survive day to day. I know of very few careers where stability is guaranteed any more. (well, end those dates too since their mind was already made up that pilots are not good future husbands and a logical discussion was not being received well).
So here I sit. Thinking for once things would be easy since I have real plans now of being more flexible with my career where I would sacrifice my Pilot career for a relationship (meaning, I would take a second rate flying job in a location my girl wanted to live versus pursue the best long term career choice like I have before which moved me around the country a lot, ultimately now landing me here in Atlanta). It's also clear to me that I would have more time on my hands to invest in a relationship since the 60+ hour work weeks are ending (meaning I will have more than 4-5 days off per month for the first time in many years so my girlfriend would not have to pretend to enjoy meeting me at the office and going to business functions that become part of my past social life on a regular basis... thank god all that is done with!). The only negative is that money will be ten times less as a pilot, but money does not yield stability by default since if my last career was to falter, it's not easy to just run out and go make a couple hundred grand in a new place you are not proven yet. And I see flying as no less stable than my past business since the consulting world is also tied directly to economic cycles as I experienced when 9-11 wiped me out and I had to start over and only climbed the ladder so quickly through good decisions that were simply made on "gut feelings" (that means I got lucky where many of my competitors did not). After all, if companies in general are not growing, they have no reason for me as a consultant or as a pilot. So overall, I seen my new found flexibility in regard to relationships along with me being a pilot to result in a more positive thing when it come to relationships for the reasons I just mentioned.
Ah, hence the confusion. Put simply. In my past business life I had next to no time or flexibility to build a relationship, woman loved what I did and had interest in me for the long term. They even made some interesting sacrifices on their end to be with me while they tried to convince me to not ultimately move away to be a pilot (they simply did not believe I would actually leave them to pursue the career path that would lead my to be a pilot, even when I told them I would). And now I am faced with such a challenge in finding a good relationship with a woman due to the pilot career word yielding the "I would never seriously date a pilot" theme I've experienced in Atlanta. Yet, I am finally in a place in my life where I could have a great relationship based on my circumstances. :banghead:
Is it a bad image of pilots in the Atlanta area?
Is there just a general misconception among woman that pilots are ego driven manics in an unstable career field and they all live a life of a woman in every city since they are never home?
Is this a pretty normal thing in general to experience?
Or, is it at my age of 34, the last things a woman wants to hear is 'career change'?
