Stickman Readers' Submissions July 18th, 2005

The Perils Of Internet Dating

The Perils Of Internet Singles


I just don't like American women any more. All the women that I know here are either fat, controlling conservative bitches, or lesbians, and more and more all of the above at the same time. My friend likes to describe them as either bush lickers
or Bush likers.

The political situation in this country is getting more hopeless all the time. The religious and corporate interests have gotten control of the government here and they're dragging down what was a great country for their own twisted beliefs and gross
profits. The corporate greed will fail someday and the chaos in this country and the rest of the world will be a disaster like we have never seen, but the fundamentalist nuts think Armageddon is good so they can all go to heaven, and the rest
of us will all go to hell. I want to get out to a simpler place while I can. I thought hard about where to go. Europe is too caught up in their own ego. The Latin American countries are ok but they are not going to get it together any time soon
because they are just too busy trying to keep their head above water as the big brother up north sucks out their natural resources. The place I found to go that I can accept and afford is Asia. I know it has a long way to go politically, and economically,
but at least the women are feminine, and as far as women go, somewhat reasonable. Most women everywhere are bordering on a different species, so if I can be flexible and accepting of them, Asian women may be just what I'm looking for. I've
traveled throughout Asia for business and pleasure and I have a few observations about the women in the different countries.

He Clinic Bangkok

Japanese women

I've had Japanese girlfriends while I was working in Japan and it was fun while it lasted, but I didn't hang around there too long to find out how they were for the long haul. From talking to Japanese men, they all describe their women by holding
their index fingers against their foreheads like horns while shaking their heads and groaning. I never could tell if the women were devils because they get there naturally as they age, or because of the way their men treat them. They sure were
easy to meet and very horny when I was with them. Those early times in Japan started me with my obsession for Asian women.

Philippine women

CBD bangkok

I met a Philippine woman online back when the Yahoo personals were free. Let's call her Pearl. We corresponded for a while. I found out that Pearl was working in Hong Kong as a cook for a very rich Chinese family. I was able to extend a business
trip in Japan so I could visit her in HK for 5 days. It seemed pretty amazing that she and many thousands of her fellow Philippinas would send her kids to her parents or relatives so she would take a job in Hong Kong just so she could support
them and put them through school back in the Philippines. After 12 years earning $425 a month working for multimillionaires in HK she was ready to get out. Her friends showed her that internet dating was a reasonable way to meet someone that would
help her.

We hit it off really well during my visit, but she would never stay the night with me in my hotel. And I couldn't come to where she lived at her employer's apartment house up on the hill. With the little lovemaking we did, she seemed out of
practice, so I felt safe that she was telling the truth about herself. We continued to correspond and eventually got to the point of discussing bringing her to the US on a fiancée visa. We got just to the point of starting the application
process when she got kind of strange and vague about what she had been doing and then quit communicating with me. I couldn't contact her, so I assumed that she got cold feet and decided not to go through with it. I figured it was for the
better.

8 months later there was a strange garbled message on my answering machine from Pearl, but no contact information. A week later she called me up and said she was married and living in Arizona. Apparently at the same time I was courting her
in HK she was also wooing an old man in Arizona. We both discussed arranging the fiancée visa, but because he was a millionaire and 67 years old she decided to go for the big money because she thought he wouldn't live too much more.
Apparently he was healthier than she thought. When she called she was afraid that her old man husband was going to hurt her, or she would hurt him trying to defend herself so she wanted me to help her because I was the only other person she knew
to go to in the US. Being the good man I am I was ready to help a damsel in distress. I booked a flight for her the same day, and she arrived in my home that evening…

It was like an instant girlfriend. Pearl moved right in and did all the wifely duties I would expect from a long term spouse. It was great for a while. She was a meticulous housekeeper and the best cook I had ever known. The only problem was that she
was insanely jealous. I caught hell if I talked to the neighbor women, or even started friendly chat with the checkout girl in the grocery store. She went through all my belongings and if there was anything that hinted of another woman it disappeared.

Pearl couldn't get a real job because she didn't have a work permit, so I found her some work as a housekeeper, and she made pretty good money at it, but she always wired what she saved back to the Philippines every month to pay her daughter's
"rent". I helped her with an immigration lawyer and with travel expenses and legal fees so she could go back and forth to Arizona to get a divorce. Even though she stayed with a friend, she always managed to spend everything I "loaned"
to her on those trips. When the divorce finally came to court she ended up settling for $10,000 out of court, but promptly wired it all back to the Philippines and didn't offer to pay me back for any of the money I had loaned her. That raised
red flags, so I stopped giving her any more money, and let her pay for her share of things we did together. Within a month of me shutting off the money tap she turned into a raving bitch towards me and moved into the spare bedroom. She didn't
have any place to go, and the cooking and housework she did was still a good deal for me so I let her stay. She finally said she was going back to Arizona to be a nanny for her friend's kid. I had to be out of town for a while and when I
returned she was gone.

wonderland clinic

Two days after Pearl left she got a letter from the bank. I didn't know she had a bank account so I opened it to see what was up. It was just a letter confirming that she wanted her address changed to Spokane, Washington. Apparently she had been
communicating with another sucker up there when I was at work and decided to try her luck with him.
The bank letter had her new address so I sent her a very threatening letter saying that I would expose her scams to everyone she knew
and to immigration unless she paid back the money she borrowed right away. She called me back to negotiate, and we finally settled for about ½ of what she owed me. I figured that it was better than nothing so I took it. The last I heard,
Pearl had to go back to the Philippines because she couldn't justify staying in the US to immigration.

Thai Internet Personal ads

I always thought internet personal ads are a good way to meet potential girlfriends. It gives me a chance to communicate with women and learn about them without my hormones getting in the way and clouding my judgments. Because of the disastrous relationship
with the gold digging Philippine woman I decided to look to see if there were any Thai women with ads. I liked the Thai/Buddhist culture, I've traveled quite a bit in Asia and Thailand has always been my favorite. I have even spent about
a half year living with a teacher (American) in Vientiane, Laos, so I had an idea what to expect.. I'm considering taking an early retirement there, so I thought it would be nice to have a tii-rak waiting for me when I made the change.

The international singles site I chose has women from all over the world. The great majority of them are Philippinas, but I set my preferences for just Thai women. There seemed to be plenty but since I knew a little about the scams by Thai bargirls I
was selective in whom I chose to communicate with. I was looking for the elusive good girl. I communicated with a few women in Bangkok, some in Udon Thani, and one near Khon Kaen. Several were obviously bargirls looking for another sponsor. One
said I could send a postcard to her box number at an address on Sukumvit Soi 7 or 11. One said she worked for a computer maker. When I pushed her to tell me more about her job, she said she was "installing software in computers, you know
with a screwdriver and glue".

I narrowed down my selections to just 2 in Thailand, one in Bangkok and the one near Khon Kaen. I don't think big age differences have much of a chance at working out so both were over 40 and working at reasonable jobs. In September I began to plan
a trip to Thailand for January. While looking for information about Thailand I found this great Stickman website. I think it's now my favorite site on the internet. I have spent many late nights reading all the readers' submissions.
It's a great service for anyone interested in visiting Thailand, or that may have or expect a relationship with a Thai woman.

I ended up bringing my son with me to Asia so we could travel together in Vietnam. He's 25 years old and I figured it may be the last time I get the chance to be together that much. We got along great. It was a wonderful experience to be with him
on an adventure like that. I just had to be a good boy and couldn't act on my desires in BKK.

I told him about the women I'd been communicating with so when we arrived in Bangkok and I got together with the woman that lived there, he wouldn't be surprised. It didn't seem to be a match for me as soon as we met. (We'll call her
Lek). Lek spoke a lot less English than I had expected and she was quite different than her picture. I think the picture must have been taken 5 or 6 years earlier. Now I know that Thai women do get fat. The friend she brought along, (lets call
her Yai), was the one who caught my eye. She was younger, in better shape; she had a great personality and spoke great English. Apparently she had been the one translating my e-mails for Lek. I stayed a good boy and was polite and friendly to
Lek, and I pushed my son to be friendlier to Yai. But she was a couple years older than him so he didn't seem interested. They showed us around for a few days, and we spent a lot of money on them as entertainment, but they were good girls
and nothing ever clicked. After 3 days we left for Vietnam.

Vietnamese Girls

I had been communicating with a woman in Hanoi (lets call her Daisy) that I'd met online. Daisy made it clear from the start that she didn't expect to find a boyfriend online, and she was just practicing her English. She got really friendly
and open and chatted about a lot of subjects, but she never got beyond the friend stage. When we finally met she was just like I had expected. Friendly but a straight arrow and wouldn't leave the hotel lobby to come to our room unless someone
else was with us.

It seemed to me, and my son later confirmed that Vietnamese women are just too conservative to get beyond first base with them. My son had some good chances trying to practice his Vietnamese language skills with them, but they always brought along friends
as chaperones.

My Isaan internet Tii-Rak

I left my son in Vietnam and headed overland through Lao by bus to Savannaket. The differences between Vietnam and Lao were like night and day as soon as we crossed the border. I'd like to travel through there with more time to explore.

Savannakett was a nice city. It seemed to be a lot nicer than Vientiane. I was kind of in a hurry to get to Thailand or I would have liked to hang out there a little longer. I just spent one night and then it was off to Mukdahan in Thailand.

The Thai woman I had met online (Let's call her Cake) met me at the ferry terminal. She was with her younger sister (we'll call her Porn). Cake was not as good looking as I had expected from the pictures she sent, but she was more than acceptable
and a really friendly. She just didn't speak very much English, and my Thai is almost non existent. Cake was driving a nice new Toyota 4WD pickup with all the accessories you could get. I asked about it and they explained that it was her
sister Porn's truck. Porn spoke pretty good English, so she did most of the translating for her sister. Porn told me she was married to a German man. She had lived in Germany but didn't like it, so she was now living back in Thailand
with their daughter and her husband was still back in Germany. It was a long drive back to Cake's hometown near Khon Kaen so I learned a lot about the two of them. Porn was younger than her sister Cake, but was much better off because her
husband sent her quite a lot of money every month. She said he was a banker, but "really too old" when I pressed her what she meant by too old, it turned out he was 5 years younger than me. I jokingly told her my age and ask if I was
too old. She got all embarrassed but quickly came back and explained what she meant was that he looked older because he had a lot of stress at work and he drank and smoked too much so he wouldn't live much longer. At that point she got a
big shit eatin' shine in her eyes said in a low voice "he won't live long, and when he dies… I'll be rrrich" (I'd read Stickman before this trip so I was on guard for what to watch for. That statement rang a bell).
Since that was Cake's sister I just noted it in memory and kept my interest in Cake because she just seemed different.

We got to Cake's town late in the afternoon so she took me to a hotel where I could stay. She hoped I would understand that she had a small apartment above her shop and there wasn't enough room for us all. It was OK. I didn't expect to
hop in the sack with her so soon anyway. I checked in and we went to her shop where I met her 16 year old daughter (we'll call her Ruby) and her cute cousin (I'll call her Yes). As it turned out, all of the communication I'd had
with Cake over the preceding several months was translated by daughter Ruby because Cake couldn't speak much English and couldn't even read enough of the English alphabet to even begin to type her own name on a computer. It's kind
of strange to know everything I wrote was filtered through a 16 year old kid… The cousin Yes was as dumb as a water buffalo, but amazingly beautiful. She worked for Cake in her beauty shop. I got the feeling that Cake was teaching Yes a trade
to get her off the family farm and try to keep her out of Bangkok.

The first few days were spent just getting acquainted. She showed me what there was to see in her town. I found it quite boring. The only thing going for it was a big new university right by Cake's shop. Most of the customers in her salon were university
students getting their hair done so they would look good at school. When I was at her shop Cake thought I was bored, but I liked hanging out there watching those girls get spiffed up.

I brought a few gifts I'd made back home. I brought nice stone in a silver necklace for the daughter Ruby, and an even better stone in a gold necklace for Cake. It was worth quite a lot back in the US. Somehow Cake just looked at them and kept asking
if it was really gold. I tried to explain it was the stone and not the gold that was the valuable part of the necklace, and the gold in Thailand looked different than the gold in the US because in the US they put some other metals in the gold
to make it harder, but it just didn't seem to click with her. Cake took me all over the area around her town, but when we had to go someplace in town somehow we always ended up walking past gold shops. When we finally went into one she said
"you buy me necklace OK". I had to say no not then because I didn't know how much money I had to last me for the rest of my trip. After a few days we got pretty close and did our do together in my hotel, but she never spent the
night because she had to be good around her daughter. That was OK, I have kids too and I always try to put on a good show around them too.

A few strange things happened I couldn't really understand. One of them was that sister Porn showed up every few days. I really didn't know why, it was at least a 3 hour drive each way to her home in Chaiyaphum, but she seemed to be there to
be sure her sister had what she needed to deal with me. The other is that out of the blue she told me that she had to go to Bangkok one day to co-sign on a friend's home loan. She just left me at the hotel and I wandered around town all day.
Maybe Thai people are friendlier with their money, but I don't think I could get any of my friends here in the US to co-sign a home loan for me. When she picked me up the next day she was just vague about what happened in Bangkok, or she
couldn't understand my English. There was definitely something going on I wasn't supposed to know about.

Finally we went on a big trip to her family home near Chaiyaphum. The old mama paraded me around the village like her daughter had had a new billion baht baby. I felt that I was on display. The sister Porn lived with MaMa. Porn was downstairs
and MaMa was upstairs. Porn had the pickup they met me at the border in, and another new Toyota minivan. I kept wondering where did they get the money for them (was that Stickman alarm bells I heard). Porn's living area under MaMa was really
nice with air con, tile floors, new furniture, a new computer with a web cam (what the hell did she need that for), and a good stereo. She was the only one in the family that drank alcohol so she made me a drink and talked about her plans to build
a "2,000,000 Baht" house of her own the next year (with her husband's money). She talked a little about when she lived in Bangkok, but she didn't say what she did there. With the farang husband and her taste for alcohol, I
put two and two together and didn't question her about it. Living near Chaiyaphum I wanted to ask if her German husband had any German friends with one leg, but I thought it would be rude.

Cake and I stayed at the house close to her mother's that Cake said she owned herself. Cake explained that when she was married if she had any extra money she would buy gold jewelry and stash it away (I heard more of those Stickman bells). She divorced
her husband because she said "he didn't trust her" (more bells). When she got divorced she said she got the car and the daughter, but she also kept "her gold". When she sold all of them it was enough to buy the land and
the house we were staying in. I think she said it cost something like 17 necklaces and 30 bracelets.

I logged away what I had seen and just played the blind boyfriend. I spent almost 2 weeks with Cake and we hit it off pretty good. I thought I had found what I was looking for, but Cake was withholding any commitment until she heard from the other guy
(let's call him Bobby). She had been communicating with Bobby at the same time as me. I knew that other men are one of the perils of internet dating. They have the option of having another guy waiting in the wings in case one doesn't
work out. Cake was always straight with me and told me there was "one other guy". He said he would come to visit, but she wasn't sure if he would come to Thailand since I had been there. Oh well, I was there first and I was convinced
I had proven myself to her with my great charm and generosity so I didn't think too much about him.

I ended up trying to give her some money before I left, but she said she would rather have gold because it was safer. I used what I would have given her to buy her that gold necklace she wanted. Actually she didn't get another necklace, she just
traded in the one she had for one that weighed twice as much.

At the airport in Khon Kaen her mother and two sisters showed up to see me off. I thought it was strange because it was over a 2 hour drive from their house to Khon Kaen. I thought they must have liked me or something. They brought a few gifts and food.
We ended up sitting in the back of the pickup and having lunch in the parking lot. In the airport lobby they all sat there looking like they were waiting for me to do something. I wondered if I should have given a speech or something. It was very
strange.

When I got back home to the US we exchanged mails, internet chat, and lots of phone calls. I thought I had found my dream woman, but she was always non committal about things because she wanted to meet the other guy, Bobby. Finally she told me he would
be there in mid April. She kept telling me to not worry because she really liked me but she needed to be nice to him because they had communicated so long. Being a reasonable understanding man I accepted that she needed to meet him. I thought
I was all locked in with her and he wouldn't be any problem.

The day he arrived she called me to say she still loved me. All she said about him was that he was a tall man….The next day she called again, and said he was nice and she was showing him around to the same places as me…..I was getting worried. It
was harder than I thought it would be to know Bobby was there. After a few days Cake would call me and tell me to not worry, but that he was nice like me and he told her he loved her just like I had, she didn't know who she wanted.

That went on for a week. It was hard to be so far away. When he finally left Thailand, all Cake could say was that she couldn't decide, she loved us both and she didn't know what to do because she had 2 boyfriends. I truly think she was confused.
I'm reasonable and I know she was doing what she said to meet us both, but the uncertainty after was killing me. I knew I couldn't stay that way, but I didn't know what to do. I guess Bobby had the same uncertainty, because a few
days after he got home she called to say he wired her $7,000 so she could get things to take care of herself…..

I couldn't believe someone would send so much money after meeting a woman for a week. It blew me out of the water. I couldn't top it, and I really didn't want to. I told her he was trying to buy her, but she just said "it's because
he was nice". I tried to explain that $7,000 was a lot in any country and he was buying her affection. I told her I didn't think she should take it, but her answer to me was "How much will you give me each month?" At that point
I told her I couldn't and wouldn't try to compete with him. Things unraveled pretty quickly after that. I kept communicating, she was still warm and friendly to me, and wanted to see me again but it was always in my mind that her sugar
daddy was there too. I know the guy she will choose if it comes to a showdown.

I still don't know if Cake was being honest with me and truly wanted to find a man, or if she was being groomed by her successful younger sister in how to convince foreigners to send money. My gut feeling is that she really wanted to find someone
she could love and be happy with, I'd like to believe her when she said she wanted me, but because of family pressure she would settle for the easy money.

The warning I have for all you guys that have internet sweethearts is to be prepared that if she is playing her cards right, she has other guys out there, and you may be the odd man out, you can always try to buy your way in like Bobby, but you will probably
be just be pissin' it into the wind.

Stickman's thoughts:

He upped the ante really early in the piece and as soon as she asked how much you should send, it was time to cut ties with her.


nana plaza