In Romania EVERYONE is secretly drunk

About Romania, it is a Latin country in Eastern Europe, but they don’t have the Latin friendliness and zest for life. Neither do they seem to have the Eastern European work ethic or conservative values.

For several generations, Romania was under the thumb of this nutty dictator who wanted to turn it into an Eastern European version of North Korea. It took him 20 years but he managed to build the world’s heaviest building and the second largest building in the world. A few quirky insights and observations of mine that digital nomads and pickup artists will want to consider before booking a trip to Bucharest…

Bucharest is the little Paris of the East

The downtown area is kind of a cool juxtaposition of foreboding communist-era monolithic buildings and classical Western European architecture.

Romanian Women

For some reason, I thought this country would have really good-looking women. Not so much. If you go to a swanky nightclub or walk through the fashion district downtown you’ll see some cuties but the average Romanian woman is, well very average in all dimensions.

Gaming Romanian girls feels more like gaming German or English girls (ugh… sorry I just threw up in my mouth a little bit) than gaming Latinas; they seem to have a witty sense of humor and speak English well so you can be a little more verbally dexterous with them, you cocky/funny bastard!

It’s one place where I feel like you don’t get any extra points for being a foreigner, the Romanians are so inundated by Western culture that I suspect meeting a Western man for them has all the novelty of downloading the latest episode of Game of Thrones. English is more pervasive and common than in my native Denver, Colorado. 

Roosh V writes about Romania in his memoir, Poosy Paradise

I had been experimenting with a new opener: “You don’t look like you speak English.” I did this in Ukraine and it worked well because most girls don’t in fact speak English, but in Romania, where most people do, it comes across as an insult. It’s like going up to them and saying, “You don’t look educated so maybe you’re poor and stupid.” The first girl I used it on accused me of using a line. I wanted to reply, “But it worked on your mom,” yet I refrained. (pp. 17-18)

Romania feels like yet another country trying to be like a little America with Starbucks, malls, Wal-Mart-like big box stores brimming with junk food, billboard advertisements on every intersection, and American pop music playing in every cafe, restaurant, and store.

In high school, I went to one of those cool/hip liberal Church youth ministry groups. I remember at the end of the service after the worship service they would play some cool pop songs (or even hip hop) and some of the suburban, upper-class, and very sober Christian girls would dance — shake their asses a little bit. The sad truth is that those Christian girls danced better than the average Romanian girl at a club. I’ve been to a couple of clubs here now and the women are abysmal dancers.

The Nightlife

As much as I dislike the city, Bucharest has one strong thing going for it from a PUA’s perspective; a centralized nightlife zone with probably 20–30 bars within a few minutes walk of each other. The Old Town is illuminated on almost every street with neon signs advertising sexy massage parlous, giving it kind of a sleazy, sexy tourist vibe. If I go back to Bucharest, I’ll rent a flat near Old Town.

An odd thing about this country is that young, straight, and otherwise normal Romanian men rock the fuck out to the lamest American pop music. You’ll see a group of local guys between gulps of beer doing their fist-pumping bro dance together to the latest Rihanna club banger.

Cost of Living

The cost of living in Bucharest is a little more expensive for Eastern Europe, I’d say pretty on par with Berlin, it didn’t feel like a good value. I can count on two hands the number of times I felt ripped off.

The country has this idiosyncratic economy where everyone is trying to scam everyone all the time but it’s surprisingly difficult to trade your money fairly for services you need rendered. You have to call and email multiple times just to get people to accept your money. After about two months here I’m starting to think that everyone in the country is secretly day-drunk; everyone you meet performs their jobs like you would expect if they were drunk but pretending to do their jobs so they didn’t get fired.

For the first time in my life, I got credit card scammed in Bucharest. I foolishly paid with a card at a little hole-in-the-wall store and later that day someone in Thailand spoofed my card and took all my money out of my PayPal account. Fortunately, PayPal restored my funds eventually and an accommodating hostel manager let me stay for 10 days without paying while a new card was shipped to me.

I also had my virginal experience with European VAT taxes in Romania. My mom lovingly shipped me a giant package of electronics, supplements, and misc items from America and honestly declared the value of everything. I paid a king's ransom in VAT taxes to the bored DHL deliveryman and had to eat potatoes for the next few weeks.

The Weather

Eastern Europe for half the year is life in greyscale; the sky is grey, the buildings are grey and it feels like you’ve barely finished lunch when it begins to get dark. I haven’t seen much snow, but plenty of cold, wet drizzle-lishious days though. I know it’s a super wimpy excuse but this crappy weather does kill the motivation to go out and game, in the future I’ll plan my travel to avoid these climates. I froze my ass off recording this video blog outdoors...

The Events

The social scene for expats is pretty weak compared to Berlin, Kyiv, or Sofia. On Couchsurfing, you’ll find a couple of events a week with little-to-no attendance. There’s one language exchange group worth joining if you are going to be in town for long, but it’s not quite like some towns where it’s super easy to get plugged into a social circle via public events.

The Scene

The one thing that SUCKS about the country is being immersed in a perpetual cloud of second-hand smoke. Romanians’ favorite pastime is smoking cigarettes, it’s legal in the majority of cafes, restaurants, and bars. Speaking of the cafes, they are mostly old-timey haunts that make you feel like you are in a Humphrey Bogart movie, not very digital nomad friendly. I’ve discovered that only about half the power outlets in the country actually work, apparently, the rest are just decorational. Every morning after doing anything social I awoke to the reek of cigarette smoke on my clothing.

I got in a lively political debate about socialism with a French banker on holiday, then he left to go bang a whore.

The Wifi

Speed, accessibility, and reliability are pretty average for Europe.

Transportation

A positive, they have UBER; there it's an obscenely cheap, convenient, and comfortable transportation service. All the Uber drivers were friendly, informative young Romanian guys who I imagine moonlight as gigolos.

The Food

Romanian food is a little better than the dull fare that characterizes most Slavic countries. There’s one restaurant called Caru cu Bere in the old town that you should definitely try. In the glorious grocery stores of Romania, I did find fresh coconuts, My #1 diet lifehack.

Sunt regele nuci de cocos - I'm the king of coconuts

Here are the PUA spots in Bucharest

Old Town: Neon signs galore!

A classically European, cobblestoned city center, rich with nightlife, shopping, and neon sign-illuminated massage parlors. Bucharest has a lovely pedestrian district, usually, these kinds of zones are choked with annoying tourists and English lads but at least while I was there in early winter it seemed populated almost completely with Romanians. On the Northern and Southern borders of Old Town, there is a subway station and a mall, so there’s a lot of foot traffic and Daygame opportunities.

One night while I was out on the town in Old Town looking fly I was approached and propositioned for “sex or massage” by a girl and her friend who looked like they were about 17 — that’s flattering! So it’s that kind of neighborhood… Well, it’s that kind of country.
So far nothing magically has happened to me here but I think it has potential and will continue going out! 

Hangover Club: Non-Smoking in the City of Second Hand!

I went on a Saturday night. Planned to go out clubbing with my new Romanian roommate but he wimped out at the last moment so I went out alone. I selected Hangover Club because it’s one of the few places in downtown Bucharest with a no-smoking-inside policy. The proportion of guys to girls was not great, but not terrible, although it didn’t matter because NOBODY was doing any approaching. It was kind of like a middle school dance, I was there for an hour but I don’t think I saw a single guy and girl bump’n grinding on each other.

Latin Dance Romania: Bailando!

I went alone on a Saturday night. It was pretty busy actually, if you have salsa game this is the place to bring it! The girls were prettier than I’ve seen anywhere else so far in Bucharest. I almost felt like I was back on the dance floors of Medellin the major difference being that the dance floor here was not crammed with little chairs and tables. The Romanian girls I danced with were I think, less than blown away by my salsa dancing skills. Better book myself in for some private lessons!

The Salsa approach here seems pretty similar to what I experienced in South America...

1. Enter the bar and post up on the wall somewhere or corner of the bar
2. Look for girls standing or sitting alone
3. Look for girls standing next to their friends
4. If there are no girls available wait a few minutes until the song changes and you will find a few girls, newly single on the dance floor.
5. You’ll quickly find that you can’t make much conversation while salsa dancing. So it’s key to make an excuse to continue a conversation after you dance to the first song together. Make it an excuse to move her to the side of the dance floor.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, if you are going to approach her from anywhere other than the direct front, get her attention by tapping her lightly on the elbow.

Club A: Smoking area game!

• I went twice on a Friday and Saturday. It’s one of the smokiest clubs I’ve ever been in, I’m still getting accustomed to Romania’s smoking laws. They played pretty mainstream electronica but nothing that really made the girls dance.
• There’s almost no face control at the door, you can just stroll right in which is nice but both nights there were A LOT of dudes there!
• I noticed a few cuties in the spot but I think it’s more of the hipster, student club in Bucharest, so I didn’t see anything that made me stop in my tracks.
• A tasty non-alcoholic Stella is only 7 RON which seems like a good deal.

I think I would have liked this country more if I were drunk, but unfortunately, I was on a 90-day sobriety bender.

While I've been harsh to Bucharest here my time in Romania was not totally regrettable, I also visited Timișoara, Iași (pronounced, yash), and Cluj-Napoca - a charming and scenic mountain town where I filmed the intro to this video...

A Twist

And I have Bucharest to thank for something, as fate would have it there was a pretty and outgoing Brazilian girl staying at a hostel with me. Her boyfriend was Bulgarian, and she urged me to visit. I wasn't planning to, assuming it would be like Romania - poor, grey, cold, and unfriendly. But my wanderlust got the best of me, I thought why not, and booked a bus ride to Sofia. A city I would seduce (and be seduced by); I met my wife and now live there! There on the edge of Europe in Bulgaria, I'd learn profound life lessons like...

Only hookers walk and smoke

And some others - which are storied in my book for men, Don't Stick Your Dick in a Blender: How to meet a nice girl instead - from a tantric husband with a better sex life than you!

Don't Stick Your Dick in a Blender

 

5.0

Category: Book