Simply put, the last 24 hours of my life have had me going out of my mind.

When I came to Taiwan I’d heard a few stories about Taiwanese girls and their sometimes crazyness. Stories about extreme jealousy, being bombarded with phone calls and SMS messages and wanting marriage commitment after a few months were all in the back of my mind upon arriving.

Thus far my journey into Taiwan’s dating scene has been hit and miss. I’ve been yelled at, watched girls fight over me, been dropped like a hot potato for no apparent reason, had some girls try the subtle ‘buy me this!’ hints dropped at every opportunity they get and so on and so forth.

Mind you I’ve also had some wonderful times too, but thus far the negatives far outweight the positives. Well, almost. I guess the positive of feeling connected with someone overrides the negatives while it lasts.

Anyway, I digress. When I arrived in Taiwan I believed I was more then prepared to face the challenge of the local dating scene. Conscious of the cultural differences and aware that I’d be fighting stereotypes at every turn I thought I had a good shot.

Nothing though, not anything I’d read or heard about prepared me for the crazy ex-boyfriends though. I guess I’ve just been lucky thus far in that regard as it’s never come up. Until now.

Here’s how it went down.

My current girlfriend, who I’ve been seeing for nearly two months now, has started to get pretty serious. I definitely care for her and we’ve moved well beyond the casual dating stage.

Like any other weekend we were at dinner on Saturday night with her cousins and sister. Enjoying the food and chatting away I was initially oblivious at first but later recalled seeing a guy walk in, tap my girlfriend on the shoulder and walk out. His movements were abrupt so I hadn’t noticed it at first but later recalled seeing it out of the corner of my eye.

After a few seconds of what seemed like confusion. My girlfriend got up and went outside.

I got up to go and see what the fuss was about but her cousins and sister told me not to worry.

‘This guy is a joke, don’t worry will be over soon.’

Not knowing who he was or what he wanted I decided not to kick up a fuss and just let whatever was going on play out.  In hindsight, that was the biggest mistake I’ve made yet in dating girls here.

After about five minutes of him standing there with his hands on his hips and my girlfriend looking increasingly uncomfortable, they finally came inside. At this point the guy didn’t say anything to me but was clearly giving me the deathstare.

Again, a few seconds of awkwardness (I remained seated as her cousins and sister told me not to worry), my girlfriend grabbed her bag and left with him. Not a word to me.

‘Alright, I’ve been patient – can someone tell me what the hell just happened?’

‘It’s ok. That guy is a joke, he’s jealous of you. Don’t worry, they’re just over there talking. We’ll go to the night market and she’ll join us later.’

This made me extremely uncomfortable.

‘Who is that guy and how did he know we were here?’

I’d recalled my girlfriend telling me about one of her sister’s crazy exes. He’d routinely stalk her house till all hours of the morning and track her down if she went out. Any guy that dated her he’d try to fight.

Y’know, to show her he still cared or something, regardless of the fact she wanted nothing to do with him.

He’d also held her hostage a few times threatening to beat her up if she left… and he’d broken her phone in a fit of rage recently. My girlfriend’s sister was prone to disappearing once every few weeks when this guy would abduct her.

When I asked why they didn’t do anything about it, I was told that the police don’t like to get involved in this sort of stuff as they see it as not important.

Turns out this ex knew the guy who’d interrupted our dinner and my girlfriend’s cousins decided the sister’s ex must have followed us here and called the other guy up, just to shit stir.

Anyway, I sat there anxiously and we continued dinner. I wanted to go outside but decided this was something my girlfriend would probably be best to handle. She’s a strong girl so I figured it’d be ok.

This was the second biggest mistake I made that evening.

When the time came to leave for the nightmarket and still I hadn’t seen any sign of her I pleaded with her sister and cousins.

‘Look I’ll stay here so there’s no fights but please go and get her. This is ridiculous and I’m hugely uncomfortable not knowing what exactly is going on.’

Finally agreeing, they went out to get her and returned about ten minutes later…

…my girlfriend wasn’t with them.

‘Um…she’s gone. We don’t know where they went.’

Now I was ready to panic.

‘but it’s ok, I think she is safe. Let me call her.’

…no answer.

‘Safe? If she’s safe then where is she?’

‘…I don’t know.’

‘Who was that guy?!’

‘just some guy… he’s jealous of you.’

‘so he’s taken her away?!’

‘Yes.’

‘Why doesn’t (name removed) just leave?!!’

‘If she does… he’ll beat her up. He probably take her phone too. She left with him so he wouldn’t fight you.’

‘And you think she is SAFE?!?!’

The complete blaiseness of the trio left me gobsmacked. Meanwhile I had uncomfortable knots in my stomach forming with horrible images of rape, assault and god knows what else forming in my mind.

I knew that if something like this happened back home the outcome probably wouldn’t be good for those involved. If my girlfriend was willing to leave with this guy after he supposedly threatened her he’d have a punch on, what else would he be able to convince her to do?

What followed has easily been the worst 24 hours of my time here in Taiwan.

I stayed with the cousins and sister for the rest of the night glancing at my watch and hoping that my girlfriend would call one of us at any moment to say she was ok and would be joining us – she did call once and spoke briefly to her sister but the call got cut off.

‘He take the phone,’ she explained showing me vivid hand action re-enactments.

I should point out at this point that the cousins and her sister had very little English ability so my information was scarce. I got the feeling much more was going on from the outbursts of rapid talking between them from time to time but nothing was explained to me.

Finally midnight rolled around and we decided to call it a night. By this point I was beyond panic and the deep onset of worry had well and truly encapsulated my thought train.

I’d thought about going to the police but knew all I had for them was ‘some guy ran off with my girlfriend and might be beating her to a bloody pulp or worse’.

I knew nothing more and figured there was little they could do.

With a crushingly overwhelming sense of hopelessness I parted from the trio and went home. Still, I hoped against hope that I’d get that phone call saying she was ok.

I tried to sleep at home with my phone next to me ear so I’d hear it… but it was hopeless. I was worried sick at this point.

At around 3am my phone started to ring and I was relieved to see it was her number.

‘Finally!’ I thought to myself.

I answered the phone and my what little hope I had left sunk from my throat to the pit of my stomach. It was a guy on the phone and I presumed the same guy from the restaurant.

‘Hey you. Fuck you. Yeah… fuck you!’

‘sorry what?’

‘I am (name removed)’s boyfriend. Fuck you. I want to kill you! Where are you?’

‘Where are you? Where is (name removed)?’

‘Where are you? Fuck you… I am (name removed)’s boyfriend.’

The conversation went around in circles in this manner. I sensed this guy didn’t know much English and was doing his best to sound agressive over the phone.

I eventually hung up but for about thirty minutes he kept calling back. I had to pick it up incase my girlfriend managed to get the phone (I never heard her in the background), but I put it on speakerphone and each time it was him calling.

The rest of the night was uneventful, save for my not sleeping at all well due to complete fullblown worry. There had been times I’d felt hopeless in Taiwan what with the language barrier and everything but it’d never been this bad.

When I woke up from a troubled sleep at around 8am, my girlfriends phone had been switched off, run out of battery or worse still, destroyed. It went straight to the ‘this number is unavailable’ message.

It’s been over 24 hours now since I last saw my girlfriend and I’m still a worrying wreck. What exactly has/is happened/happening I have no idea and it’s killing me.

I just hope she’s ok.

So that’s been the last 24 hours of my life. In a country where it’s seemingly normal for ex-boyfriends to hold their exes hostage, beat them and destroy their phones I feel slightly out of place. I don’t know what to think. I’m trying hard not to jump to any conclusions and the wave of emotions and thoughts I’ve had has been overwhelming.

I’ve been angry at myself for not stepping in, angry at her for leaving without saying anything or explaining, angry at her cousins and sister for not being able to fill me in properly… worried to death that he’s done something to her, that she’s hurt or worse, I don’t know. But most of all it’s not knowing. That’s a deep worrying sadness that’s underneath any other thoughts I’ve had.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck waiting for a phonecall, email or something to tell me she’s ok. For now that’s all I’m worried about. What exactly went down and who he is can come later.

Apologies if I don’t write over the next few days – I’m  not in the right headspace for it.



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