Shopping For A Mate and Conquering Fear
That’s pretty much what I did in 1984/5.

In those days money was not much of a problem. My family had money and all I had to do was ask. I had an Amex charge card, Diner’s Club, Carte Blanche, etc. The bills went to Mama’s house.

Need cash in another country? Easy. Just go to the nearest Amex office, present card, sign your name, stuff rolls of pesos, marks, yen, euros, pounds, whatever the local currency happened to be, in your bag.

I was still physically male in those days. Feeling, knowing, how different I was, I just didn’t feel right about marrying your standard debutante.

With my drinking and secret crossdressing, I knew that there was no chance it could work out in anything other than disaster.

There was, of course, more chance of some kind of compromise than I thought, but I couldn’t see it.

With no internet, I joined a pen pal club and struck up a correspondence with a beautiful young Philipina.

We wrote letters,(“snail-mail"), for about a year. Then, being twenty seven years old, despairing of ever being able to transition, and feeling the pressure to do what I was expected to do, I bought tickets to travel to the Philipine island of Cebu.