Well, just about going to sleep when I caught a message in my inbox from a cool friend, it's about dating Indonesian women. I 've been sometimes searching such information in the virtual world, even want to know some statistics, however, it's not that easy. Though, we can always talking about it in the perspective of assumptions and experiences.
My two cents about marrying Indonesian women are tough and demanding project. The most prominent issues are Indonesia's cultural diversity and religions. Hence, someone really can't generalize whether central javanese women will have similar character with sundanese (west javanese) or bataknese, or balinese.
However, what really interesting about western men dating or marrying Indonesian women, for example is a comment about that the girls want their money, than the girls accuse the western men wanting them only for 'fun'. Perhaps they are. As Barbara Pease wrote " men use women as sex indicator, women use men as success indicator'. So both are even.
But, let's take a look closely. The first question to ask is what kind of western men happen to live in Indonesia and what kind of Indonesian girls happen to marry western men?. Yup! there are many assumptions about it. So far, I found no statistical data classifying who and what they do in Indonesia, however Indonesian government regulation somewhat quite strict to limiting the role of westerners participating in the Indonesian labour market. I mean, some of them definitely high quality experts on their field while some, just so - so and the rest even worse.
Go to Bali, and try to differentiate between 'Bule' ( Expat-red) in Kuta and Seminyak, for example ( people told me so).
The questions above will lead us to some interesting realities about the westerners life in Indonesia. That is, the first thing ever that many westerners fail to achieve is cultural integration which here can be read as : " Do not visit night clubs to get Indonesian girls" ( the decent ones). Night clubs, where people can drug, drink, and dance are not belong to the Indonesian character. It means, Indonesian girls are expected very much not to get use to it.
Then, when the expats hanging around in such places, we can assume that they catch some girls which are not representing the very character of Indonesian women.
Please note that night clubs are most likely just in big cities, the character of the people somewhat more sophisticated, while the very Indonesian character I'm talking about is the locals live in villages which represents the majority of Indonesians.
Though, there are differences between girls who use to hang out in night clubs and homy girls which are very family oriented ( following the restrictions given by their parents). But to find such girls, the expats must need a good environment which is not a night club, per say.
It can be working environment, schools or universities, cultural center, or a connection from friends.
While some places could fit a 'grey' area type such as bars, even caffes and gyms, especially in big cities ( Jakarta and Surabaya).
One important cultural understanding about dating indonesian women is, even if a man has managed to date many times a girl, it doesn't mean that the girl feels obligated to exchange it with sex. A thumb rule in Indonesian patriarchal culture is, in a social occasion, man and the oldest or the richest will pay for whatever the people in the occasion eat or drink. It's a convention that if someone doest it, he will gain more respect not because of his wallet, but his cultural understanding. This applies to dating circumstance with Indonesian woman.
Most Indonesian women don't follow feminism ideology, most house holds still following the 'specialization' theory ( women are  the masters of the house holds and the men are the bread winners). But in doing so, the women freedom over educational opportunities or other social and economical roles are not intendedly limited by the culture. The choices are in the women's hands.
Buy what about love? Love in the first sight? sure there are. Mine is one of them.
