An Hawthonian Viewpoint

I feel reasonably qualified, having come to work in Thailand 6.5 months ago, to comment and give my opinions on how I feel about the bar scene and whether one gets pissed off with it or still regards it as "exciting".

I first arrived here and really hammered the scene. I was out every night for the first month. I was then out about 6 nights per week for the second month. It was great because it appealed to me for the same reasons it appeals to any red-blooded male, who not only loves the ladies, but likes cold beer too. I was literally "banging" like the shit house door when the plague was in town. For 2 months I was going to all the different places geared up for the farang. After 2 months i noticed i was NOT enjoying myself anymore and, like a cheap cupboard door, the whole plastic veneer of the bar scene was showing its signs of wear and tear. I wondered to myself what this could be accountable to and it did not take long to answer this question.

My answer was: – Too much of one thing is a bad thing, and I am spending too much money on this "thing" and I am drinking far too much alcohol. My work is suffering too, I concluded…..and it all changed for me from then on. My opinion has since become even more hardened.

I have been robbed of a mobile phone and 4000 baht. I am not sure if it was the hotel staff in Pattaya who took the goods OR a bar girl that took the goods. Truth is, on the night of the theft, I was too pissed to accurately recall the events which would have steered me to a conclusion on who was guilty. Drinking too much fucked me up that night.

The theft really did kick me in the teeth. My phone is for business and, as you know, my business is based in the UK and all calls come to me on my mobile and I receive about 10 calls a day from my clients in the UK. As you can imagine, I had to cancel the SIM card and as a result of the theft. That created many problems for my clients because they could not get hold of me for about a week. I lost clients for this reason. Which meant I lost about 4000 pounds in future revenue. This ruined my day!! And hardened my opinion of bar girls and Thai people as a whole because I could not pin down who was responsible for the theft. If I had been sober it would never have been stolen. Beer and bar girls lost me 4000 pounds in one night. It might sound dramatic but, that is, in reality, what happened when you "separate the meet from the fat".

So theft has tainted my opinion. Other factors have added to my present opinion and my feelings towards the bar scene too.

The whole bar scene is something I feel sad for, rather than "sad about". I feel sad for the new people that are entering it (both client and sex worker) because these girls are pretty low aren't they, after all. Yeah, they have a job to do and maybe they don't all particularly like their job, but still, they get ruined by the scene and, at the end of the road they are only good for sex and that's all. As the German saying goes" there is no point running if you are on the wrong road". Surely a fucked up client (coz he lost his money / assets / mind etc) and a fucked up sex worker (coz she lost her soul / health / personality etc…) cannot be regarded as "the right road".

I do appreciate that not all of the girls are doing it from their own free will too. I do feel very upset for these poor girls. I feel sad for us chaps too. I think we forget how some of us have fallen from grace too. I include myself in this, of course. I am as guilty as anyone!

Our fall from grace can be examined by asking 2 questions about ourselves: –

1. Ask yourself this : – "when I was a 10 year old kid, WHO did i think i would be fucking every night when I grew up?

As a Kid i would probably have answered something like "I am going to live in a castle and marry a princess and fuck her hard all and every night" (or words less explicit…..but to the same tune) We not have believed we would be fuckin little brown bar girls that's for sure.

Granted, these words are a little naive due to our tender age, but our ambition and desire at an early age is laden with confidence. I guess its all down to innocence, but still, we all wanted to marry a princess or the fittest girl in the school, didn't we! And we all believed our dream WOULD come true, didn't we. Well, I did !!

2. Ask yourself this and the picture gets even clearer: – "As a 21 year old guy, if someone had predicted that later on life I would be "reaming" hookers and spending wads of cash on bar fines, hooker's fees and drinking far too much, would I have believed them?"

As a 21 year old I would again have answered "no way man, I don't need a hooker now and I wont be needing one in the future. Hookers are for "peeping toms" and old perverts that wear grandma's knickers on their heads and can't get a shag anywhere else. Naa, not me mate, I would prefer a wank, than fuck a hooker"

That displays how our standards drop faster than a hookers knickers when we get older. Coz we are all presently, or historically categorised as a "john". The point i am making is that when you get to Bangkok and live here, as opposed to holidaying here, ones standards drop faster than a hookers concrete knickers. Personally I have even noticed my driving standards dropping too. Shit some things I do on the roads of Bangkok or Pattaya I never did in the UK.

In my opinion the bar scene is, in the beginning, like finding 1000 new loves all at the same time. Its pure ecstasy and its power is beyond doubt the strongest one can come up against. And as human nature and carnal desires "kick in", our birth into the Bangkok night scene can lead us astray and into believing it is the answer to our problems. But it is not true. Its not the answer to our problems.

Yes, I do believe that its like finding 1000 loves at the same time. Remember when you last found love? Its a great feeling isn't it!! When one finds a new girlfriend ( a normal one, not a BG) and realises that one is deeply in love, you feel great. Its like you are on "cloud 9" and blissfully happy. But eventually, as is normal, those feelings wear off, the sex dies down, the passion is reduced to a mere simmer and, in some cases, arguments and trivial things seem to be more "regular" and "heavy" than a menstruation cycle. That's the same with the bars. Its attraction dies down. We get bored of it.

We have all gotten bored with a girlfriend before and ended up finishing the relationship because we just get bored. Same goes for the bar scene. We get bored of it after we have abused and used it enough, but how long it takes to become bored of the bar scene can have a significant bearing on your finances and sanity. IF you leave it too late, you are in trouble.

Us guys are like kids with money. That's all we are. Hey, and isn't it great!! I agree…. But, the only addition when we arrive in Bangkok is that we change from just being "kids with money" to being "kids with money, who are old enough to have discovered cheap sex, on tap". We are putting one girl down, picking another one up, like a kid in a candy store and we basically have a free reign to live the life of "Fuck me O'Reilly". And for all its joys, IS IT REALLY what you want to be doing on a long term basis? Its OK if you are coming on holiday and fucking till you drop. That could prove to be a good stress release. But when you are living here it is different as Stickman pointed out in last week's column. Would you not prefer to have a normal girlfriend? One you can talk too? One that has intelligence…and more importantly….one that cares about you? One that would work extra hours to help solve a personal financial problem?

The bar scene, as we all know is "a powerful short cut to satisfaction". I believe that some of us fail to realise that it is fraught with "dangerous illusions and undertones that can fuck up your life…and the chances are, you may not even see it coming until its too late". If an orgasm is the most important thing in your life, don't come to Bangkok to live. You may as well sign your assets over to the hookers NOW and stay in Farangland. At least you may keep your sanity intact by staying away from here. If you are thinking of coming to Bangkok just for the sex, in my opinion you have already lost. Last week a friend asked me about helping him find a job here in Bangkok. I asked him why he wanted to work in Bangkok. He mentioned the women. I asked him to reconsider, even though he is a disciplined chap himself!!

My personal joy of the scene has really descended since I arrived here. These days i still go to Nana and the other venues, but I go once a week now and even then its no way guaranteed that I will take a girl home. A lot more often these days I will go home alone. At present, I am lucky enough to have a "normal" girlfriend. We are not living together though and, her being Thai, there is no sex till marriage……and I don't feel she is the girl I will marry. But its just nice to have a "normal" girl around for a change.

Only last Friday night i walked past soi 7. A girl stopped me and asked about my well-being. I honestly did not know this girl. But she knew me. She knew where I lived, right down to the room number. Apparently I took her home (and her friend too, at the same time) about 4 months ago and did the deed with them both. This is a reflection on how far off the rails I went. I could swear i'd never seen her before. On the other side of the coin too is the fact that I once bar fined a girl and we went home to my place. She ate my food, she smoked my cigarettes and she drank my beer too. About 3 days later, I saw the same girl and she did not remember me at all. Haa, what goes around comes around!! It just proves that it is a deeper facade than we may notice. If you are living here you will realise this sooner than if you simply come here for a couple of weeks per annum.

To conclude: – The bar scene for me is now boring. I don't ogle the girls half as much as I used to. In fact I've only ever seen one or two I would call truly stunning lately. I think this shows I have lost interest in the bar scene. The novelty has gone long ago.

Lets be honest, will we ever find the perfect fuck that we seek? And if we did, would we stay with her forever? I think the answers are "NO" to both questions.

The "perfect woman" only exists in our dreams, not in the bar scenes.

When one lives here, the bars can be exciting if taken in moderation. But other than that…… it is boring, "for sure".

I am positive that the tourists, although they may not know it or believe it, are doing the best thing by only coming here for a few weeks holiday per annum.

Stickman says:

This was another piece from a reader that was not offered as a reader's submission, but for which I requested to use in this section as it makes a very nice summary of the industry.