-The US is hardly the worse place to live. To make a living it is a great place to live. That is why so many foreigners are moving to the USA. Also freedoms and low level of racism is better here than in most countries.
It depends on who and what you are and your subjective experience. I do not think America is the worst; it is just that I am happier combining the best of the USA with a few other countries.
It is also not the worse place for dating either, much to most of your amazements. Eleven years ago, I lived and worked in Italy and found it worse. Italy is a closed culture, not open like the US. All of the products are made in Italy. 90% of the cars they drive there are Italian. On and on. Nothing is easy to take care of in Italy. Stores & banks close for ½ day, crazy schedules where restaurants are closed for the whole months. Gas pumps locked on the weekends. America is geared for ease of life.
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The Italian girls have no interest in dating a guy from another country. Even the guys that I hung out w/ who were professional, drove Alpha Rameos, couldn’t get girls to want to be their girl friends. I finally saw this and went back to the USA. When I got back, I wanted to get down and kiss the ground. This also took away my interest wanting to live overseas again for many years. All because I had ended up in the wrong country.
Well, it is all relative. If they had sent you to Ayatollah's Iran or Saudi Arabia, you would probably think that Italy was great and easy to date in. You would be kissing the Italian soil.
.At the time I almost went to Mexico City so I may had been a rock star there. So the place is everything
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Absolutely, and I would even go as far as saying that "places" are everything.
-I have friends that have lived in Western Europe and it has not been a paradise either. Maybe better than the US but not enough to keep them over there.
http://www.aca.ch/amabroad.pdf
Over a million live in Europe still.
-Winston states frequently that Western Europeans are so worldly. I disagree based on my living there and my friends living there. The Italian professional guys I worked with, many had never been the 2 ½ hours to France. My friend who lived in Switzerland found that most people were the same there too. He couldn’t get locals to want to travel anywhere with him, so he saw most of Europe alone. The average Brit takes their vacation to the beach and hardly ever does educational travel.
They seem worldlier to him than Americans based on his experience. And if that is his experience ( which is mine, too) then more power to him.
-Yes, I don’t feel that there are many interesting conversations with the Average American, but probably not with the average anyone from any culture.
Try Argentina and Quebec. Canada. Great conversations. Although not in English.
-The average W. European is like the average American, clueless about anything except what is right in front of them.
Hmm, this needs to be statistically supported as a statement.
All in all, socially speaking America was hell for me socially coming from a former Soviet republic. I was a popular guy there but my treatment by women in the US was similar to your treatment by Italian women. Virtually no one wanted to date me.
I am sure it would have been worse in Italy and maybe worse in Saudi Arabia for me and then, even worse on the Devil's Island off the coast of Guiana, but I am choosing the countries that fit my individual needs and where woman respond positively to me and where the culture fits me the most.Where I can have the optimum experience; not just ' not the worst one' . If there are guys who are doing very well in the USA, then, I am happy for them.
As far as racism goes, again, it is all relative. There is no lynching on the streets in the USA ( anymore) but the firm social exclusion and non mingling among ethnic groups is still obvious. Again, it all depends where you come from and what your point of reference is. I am sure for a Bosnian refugee, America would be better after the siege of Sarajevo, and for a Rwandan Tutsi it would be paradise, relatively- no one wants to chop them up with a machete, but for, say, people from Brazil who are used to mixing with other more or less freely, it often sucks ( socially, not professionally).
I have also experienced significant and frequent work related discrimination in the USA, and it was quite bad. I even moved out of the country. Now, I am working in the Gulf, and the work discrimination is largely gone. So, America is good to you? Congratulations! It was not so good to me as only one country to be in. I do enjoy being a US citizen living in other countries, though, as I am given a higher social status and my social life is infinitely better.
As far as Italy goes, it is heaven for American women, though and is dating paradise for them.
Generally, I never advocate moving from country A to country B as a panacea for all ills as neither is perfect. What I advocate is combining several countries to have a complete life. I am now combing the US, the Arabian Gulf and SE Asia and the formula has worked for me very well. If you can find a better formula that works for you, more power to you.