Online Dating – Can It ‘Work’…? – Part 11

Part-1 outlined my basic reasons for investigating ThaiLoveLinks.

Part-2 detailed my first two meetings with tender Thai damsels.

Part-3 covers two further meetings with less tender lasses.

Part-4, in which I investigate a ‘company girl’, and take a break.

Part-5, where the ‘company girl’ gets another break.

Part-6, and I meet with two bored, and boring, ladies.

Part-7 wherein we limber up to meet three ladies in two days.

Part-8 where I fail to meet two out of three ladies, and check The Plaza.

Part-9 and I fail to meet the third lady.

Part-10 continues the search, closer to home.

‘Pan’ (not her real name) arrives on time from Korat, having forgotten to call on reaching Cha Am, and has to wait for me to pick her up. After two years of my quest, Pan is the first person to get an ‘on-site’ audition. My fingers are crossed.

We do a quick food shop, and reach home at one-thirty. I am drenched with perspiration, get a towel, and offer one to Pan… but there is no way she’s going to shower with me at the moment… When we are both done we sit (me in a towel, Thai style… and her in clean clothes…) and chat. She is still very pleasant and amenable – but sooo diffident…

We have a snack and continue to chat. I tell her I usually have a siesta around three o’clock… and she replies she likes to sleep as well… so, while she’s washing up, I lie down… but she doesn’t join me… I wake, still alone, to find her asleep on the sofa.

Then I go online while Pan reads her English books, having accepted I don’t have a TV service – only DVD movies which, sadly, doesn’t interest her. We watch some YouTube clips until nine o’clock, and discover Pan doesn’t eat in the evenings – at all. At nine-thirty, she’s ready for bed… and she lies down fully dressed… I read for a bit, write my diary, and turn in later.


__________________________________

Saturday

I wake just before seven as Pan goes to the bathroom, and again at seven-fifteen to find myself alone… and again, at eight-thirty… and I get up at nine o’clock to find Pan sitting forlornly on the sofa playing games on her phone… I ask if she prefers to be on her own… and to sleep alone… and shower alone… and just receive a guilty-looking smile… She seems to have done nothing for two hours, while waiting for me to get up… She is still wearing the same clothes she put on yesterday afternoon, and had on all night.

We have a silent breakfast together. Pan is by no means a stupid person, and is clearly thinking constantly, but she says nothing other than brief responses to what I say. I’m already thinking this might be a mistake. You can’t change someone's personality (and shouldn’t try), and I do need someone rather more alert.

At ten-fifteen Pan makes a start on the garden, and gets a phone-call, and chats for a while, before coming in to ask if her ‘sister’ can come to visit. I didn’t realise she was still in Cha Am. I don’t spend long ruminating on the answer… “No…!” I rudely reply… which she repeats to Big Sis… I could have done it more politely, and normally I would have done so, but I’ve always found a polite ‘No’ invariably generates an automatic: Why…? As I have absolutely no desire to see that woman again it makes sense to be firm up front… There is no further comment from Pan, and she returns to work.

I can hear her snipping away but cannot see her anywhere… until there is a rustle in the bushes (a bit like a ‘rumble in the jungle’…) and I realise she is inside the shrubberies, hacking away like a lunatic…

Pan eventually gets fed up with the heat, showers, and tosses all her clothes into the washing-machine. We look at stuff online until two-thirty, stop for lunch, each cooking different things, and getting in each other’s way… At three-fifteen I ask Pan if she intends to lie on the sofa again… but don’t push for a reply… Later, to my surprise, Pan joins me – sort of… lying beside me whilst ensuring a six-inch gap between us… [I’m not sure why I imagined the gap to be six inches…]

Later I read while Pan clears her cuttings to the bins. She wasn’t out there very long, this morning, but she certainly pruned a lot of rubbish…!

By seven-thirty I wonder just why Pan came here this weekend. She has always stated she wanted to ‘take care you’… She’s done a little bit of cleaning and washing up, that I can do myself, but has attacked the garden far more than I’ve ever done myself… for which I’m grateful… but there’s nothing happening between us. It’s like having a daily, who silently stays the night.

Bored by Pan’s bored behaviour, I give her a comedy DVD to watch, have supper alone, shower early, and go to bed… Pan joins me at nine-thirty, claiming to have enjoyed her evening, despite not hearing her laugh once… She showers and comes to bed fully dressed again – not just with shorts and T-shirt but bra and knickers as well… I know what she fears but I find it disconcerting… when I haven’t even put my hand on her arm…

She is soon snoring and I read until midnight…


__________________________________

Sunday

Pan is up at seven again, has a sweep round, and a mop round, and a sweep outside… while I nod off again. When I’m on my own I’m always up by seven-thirty but, when I have a visitor, it’s after nine… We have breakfast together… and I ask why she likes to be on her own… She says she doesn’t like to disturb me… But between seven and eight, or so, each morning I’m very happy to be disturbed – she can mop the bloody floors any time…!

When I wake the computer the monitor doesn’t respond and I discover it isn’t switched on… In other words, it has been turned off, which I never do… Has Pan tried to wake it…? Do I have to put a password on the wake-up system, in my own home…?

Then she announces she would like to get the eleven o’clock bus… apologises for not finishing the garden, but will do so ‘next time’… I tentatively mention the arrangement was supposed to take care of me… the house… and the garden… She has done well with the garden… and made a good start in the house… but… and Pan laughs nervously. We’re getting nowhere, and she knows it…

I drop her at the bus station and give her as much as she perhaps earns in a week on the pumps, at which she instantly blanches, and says: “No…” I save a lot of bother by saying it’s for the bus and she slowly, and very politely accepts…

So… she was here for not quite forty-eight hours during which we were polite to each other but… that was it. Sadly, despite being a nice person, she has no spark, no excitement… I cannot take a lady onboard who barely talks, barely eats, has little interest in movies, and cannot massage. I’m hoping for a little more than just a daily cleaning lady.

But at least it wasn’t an unpleasant experience…

In the evening Pan calls to say she got home safely…


__________________________________

I don’t hear from Pan for a week, which is a tad unexpected so I send an SMS – a, ‘You’re a nice lady, but not for me – good luck...’ sort of thing, though I am more generous than this. The next day, from a third number, she sends an: ‘I still like you...’ message.

Incidentally… Pan half-finished my bottle of mouthwash in the two days she was here (She certainly needed it… but it didn’t do her any good…!) – whereas it takes me just thirty-five days to finish off the other half… These girls can be ridiculously extravagant… with toothpaste, shampoo, shower gel etc…!

For a month or so I continue to receive brief, ‘Hello’, messages from Pan, but feel any response from me will only offer her false encouragement.


__________________________________

Throughout these early months of 2013 I receive about ten times as much interest as I ever did with ThaiLoveLinks… but, although I follow up even unlikely candidates, trying not to pre-judge, very little comes of it. Many ladies just answer with a string of ‘Hellos’, regardless of what I write, and many are more honest and ask if I know a shop where she can buy an iPhone…

Another curtly asks: “You ever have wife thai lady”… so I say, yes, and ask if she’s ever had a farang husband – and also enquire why she’s asking… but I don’t get a reply. I appreciate the ladies who dismiss me quickly – it saves me having to dismiss them later.

I also receive three messages (on the trot) from a nice-looking lass, who works in QC in a ‘company’:

“Yes


Made with a coated single electronic Knicks Pathumthani.


Chad and I do not listen to music.


email my xxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com(Facebook)


call 085 xxx xxxx”

“You speak like Thailand.”

“I prefer relaxing beach.


I like to clean the house


i like you”

. . . so that’s clear then…! I reply that quality-control in a factory pays more than a housemaid… Hohoho… and she sends: “Me like shopping malls, want to sleep in hotel, have children two who need to spend a lot of money” Looks like another one to head off at the pass

A new lady sends a nice ‘Hello’ but her profile says she wants children… so I ask if this is so… and she replies: “my name is Xxxxx… I am fine thanks… I am at work in bkk office… and you… Now I am cannot to have kid or husband… because I have Aids from husband Thai… and I go to die soon…

What on earth can I do with this…??

Incidentally… because I’ve become somewhat reluctant to go traipsing up to Bangkok if ladies aren’t going to turn up, I have been trying to encourage ladies to visit Hua Hin, at my expense. Many of them accept the offer but… they are either reluctant to name a day (for different reasons), or change their minds at the last minute – with no reason… Two of them were even in danger of their visits over-lapping, but they both chickened out.

Having sent a long-ish message to a new prospect she replies: “Hi.” I write back: "’Hi'…!? – Is that all…?” Another lass says: “Nice to miss you” I politely and diplomatically (I like to think…) mention to her (in English and Thai) the difference between ‘miss’ and ‘meet’… and receive a curt: “I know miss and meet.” She must therefore know how banal was her message and I don’t offer any further advice… Five weeks later she reappears with: “Hello can you speak Thai??” I reply, in English: “Yes”…! and that’s the end of that.

Some farang on ThaiFriendly leave comments that are available for everyone to see… After receiving an unintelligible answer from his lady-love a guy has replied: “I was also asking what is was… just so you know, if a farang ask a general question…. they want a specific answer beyond the simple, but only one…. in this case I thought it would be obvious… but I was wrong.. so I am sorry, I really am, I should have been specific….. 🙁

To this the lady wonderfully replies: “What.”

Another lady of 28, with a preference for 61+ says she was doing nicely with a farang of 65 when he suddenly decided she was too young, and pulled out. She asks me why he did it… How the hell should I know…!? I ask her a few things and she quickly responds” “Why u ask that”… I tell her I asked five questions – which one did she mean. She just repeats she doesn’t understand why I asked ‘that’… I ask: “Why I asked… What?” and that sadly seems to shut her up…

During the night she returns my message, with a list of my five questions and adds: “why u ask this????????????” I reply that I’m sorry she doesn’t like conversation… Perhaps it’s not surprising the other guy wanted to dump her… and was being unnecessarily polite.

I’m also beginning to wonder how long I want to go on with this nonsense… and come up with a new ‘plan’… If I fail to feel any rapport by the second message I’ll give them up and, if I feel good after three messages, I will move for a quick meeting… If they don’t accept, I won’t waste time and effort continuing to exchange silly mail… There are too many of them who are overly zealous in writing, but that’s all they do… while others are overly concerned about being able to chat if we do meet… This problem is a given… What do they expect…? None of them speaks good English, and none of us speaks good Thai… (and many of us don’t speak good English either…!) so we have to just take a chance. Anybody who is just unable to communicate at all is wasting their time on the site…!

Meanwhile I agree to meet three different women in Hua Hin on the same day, at different times… as a challenge. None of them turn up.

I am reminded of a joke from this site a while back…

Some people say there is NO difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between these two words.

When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE. When you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED. And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!!

I very quickly dismiss a very pretty young lass who has posted 169 photos of herself on her profile…! Maybe I should dismiss myself for bothering to count them.

Another lady with whom I have exchanged numerous fun messages, now feel sure has just been playing games for a month or two, and is moved to a back-burner for a while, and I receive:

Hello, how are you


From this time onwards. I do not want to answer any of you anymore. I Know that. You have no true identity.


Thanks for talking makes me feel warm and happy.


Please maintain health

I don’t know if this is a dismissal or not…

__________________________________

That’s all for now folks… Pip, Pip.

Hua Hin Harry

to be continued…