My father has Alzheimer's disease and my mother is suffering from a series of small strokes that have left her with the mind of a three-year-old.

In other words, their diseases have taken from me the parents I knew and loved, while leaving behind their failing bodies.

Watching them slip away drained me physically and emotionally, so to get some relief from this hell I joined Yahoo Personals.

I figured that an occasional date with some flirting and some sex might help me forget my lonely, daily grind at least for a few hours, and Yahoo Personals has always welcomed gay customers. So I paid my money and took my chances by posting a profile and photo.

That was three months ago. Last week I cancelled the service and pulled down my profile, even though I could've kept it up for free. I had also joined Match.com and quit that, too, after just one month.

Despite the horror stories we hear about the jerks people meet while dating online, I met a nice bunch of guys. All were intelligent, many were attractive and some were good (gay) marriage material. So why did I bow out?

Nearly all of them were Americans, and we couldn't bridge the cultural gap. While I was born and raised in the States, come from solid European stock, culturally I'm no longer an American. Obviously I'm not Asian either, despite having lived on this side of the Pacific Rim for several years.

What am I then, or what have I become? I call myself an "internationalist".

Since you're reading this newspaper, chances are you also belong to this new nationality I've coined. Perhaps you are Thai and live in a foreign country, or you're a foreigner living here. Maybe you've returned to your home country after many years of living elsewhere, and you notice, as I have, that you can't really go home again.

You know the feeling: You're neither here nor there. When you're home, you feel you fit better in your foreign country; when you're overseas, you feel out of place and very much like a citizen of the home country you left behind. Your family tells you that you're too Thai or British or whatever foreign country you've been living in, and your foreign friends make you feel as though you're wearing your home country's flag tattooed on your forehead.

When I began dating, I was taken aback at the aggressiveness of these guys - they were so not Thai. One man told me he expected to have sex by the second date. Others didn't want to wait that long, and I had to pry one guy's hands off of my shirt.

I was also asked a lot of direct questions that made me feel put on the spot. Why aren't you working full-time? How much money do you make? What are your future plans? Where will you be living? All fair questions, but only minutes after we'd met?

I felt intimidated, and I often found myself looking at the ground. In Thailand, of course, I very much feel like an aggressive New Yorker, but when I'm back home, I feel more Thai than anything else.

The discomfort worked both ways. None of these guys, who were born and raised in and around New York, wanted to know anything about my life overseas. Either they were in awe of expatriate living, or they were mystified and uncomfortable with the idea. One guy got defensive: "I haven't lived in all the places you have." As if I cared.

I couldn't connect with these Americans. Other than family and a few friends from my youth who will always love me no matter what, I've realised that my relationships now consist of fellow internationalists. They hold various passports, display different skin tones, and speak numerous languages in even more numerous accents.

Oddly, though, our differences and our unspoken acceptance of those differences are what bind us. Our fascination with understanding and bridging gaps in language and culture draws us together. We love the richness in our relationships that comes from our collective status of being outsiders in our homelands.

When I first ventured overseas nearly 20 years ago, I never imagined myself in this position. Now I can't imagine going back to the way things were. As an internationalist, I've come to accept that I'm a lot like the people who are different from me, and quite different from the people who are like me.

By Pale Rider

Comments on this column can be sent to relations@nationgroup.com.