Student Study
First of all I’d like to give you, Stick, a lot of credit for this superb website. I have been an avid reader of Stickman’s page for more than two years now. I found out about the website, like probably most of you folks, by pure luck. In fall 2001 I was preparing for my first trip to Thailand, and did a lot of research on the country, its people and its culture, most of it on the internet. Stick’s site definitely caught my attention. Back then I spent a lot of time ploughing through all the information provided on the page, and it gave me a real good impression of what I had to expect of Thailand. I am not talking about the “naughty nightlife” stuff alone, although reading about it was of great interest for me, too. To this point I have read every single reader’s submission, and almost all of them were highly enjoyable to read, in one way or another.
I am approaching my mid-twenties, and have been to Thailand twice so far. To make one thing clear….I was never involved in any naughty nightlife activities during my two stays in Thailand, nor in any other places I visited in South East Asia. That is, if walking through Patpong, curiously watching the nightlife scene and glancing at the girls there is not considered “being involved” really… I guess not. Yes, I did go to Thailand by myself. I remember one guy in a reader’s submission posted some time ago arguing that, more or less, every male solo traveller going to Thailand basically is a sex tourist. His assumption has already been proved wrong, so I am not getting into this again.
Personally speaking, the thought about getting “involved” in the naughty nightlife has never crossed my mind, neither before not during my stay in Thailand. I guess it’s just not my “thing”. I am not pointing the finger at anyone who chooses to get involved and enjoy what this “element” of Thailand has to offer to its visitors. On the other hand, at some occasions I just couldn’t help wondering about the things going on there.
I am definitely not prudish or anything like this. I love women and I love sex just the way probably most men at my age do. I think the point is, that in general I am very picky when it comes to girls. I am easily turned off by a lot of things, most other guys would maybe not even notice. It could be looks, it could be some particular behavior, it could be attitude in general, or most importantly, it could be lack of education.
Even though I usually have no problems at all getting a date lined up, I often end up turning a girl down for one or the other reason. I guess this is also the reason why picking up a working girl in Thailand or anywhere else in the world would not appeal to me. I’d probably be immediately turned off by something, and actually, I am not unhappy about this fact in this matter. Actually, I kind of pity guys who lost any kind of control over their “instrument” and just can’t help themselves chasing down every girl they encounter.
I don’t really understand either how anyone actually can enjoy watching a girl opening beer bottles with their pussies, but I guess there must be plenty of folks willing to pay for it, so fine with me.
To come to the story I actually want to tell. When I finally left my European homeland for Thailand shortly after Xmas 2001 for my 4 week trip to Thailand and Cambodia, I was not expecting to make any kind of contact to the “nightlife scene”. Sure, my plans were to look at Patpong at least once, just out of curiosity. So I did, but as mentioned before, it never crossed my mind to get involved in any of it.
After about three weeks of my stay I returned to Bangkok from a short trip into Cambodia. I stayed at the same place I had stayed after my arrival in the city. A cool guesthouse not too close to the dreadful mayhem of “Chaos” San Road, which I soon learnt to despise. What a fucked up place that is for real. The guesthouse for obviously very popular with young travellers, and they had some kind of an “exchange program” going on with a local university. What it was basically, is that a few times a week students from a Bangkok university would come to the guesthouse in the evening to meet travellers and have conversation. Maybe even go out for dinner or something. The idea behind this was to give interested travellers the chance to get in touch with locals, and to give Thai students the opportunity to meet foreigners, in order to practice their language skills, or just out of curiosity. I thought it was a great idea from the very beginning.
On my second night staying at the place I happened to meet a group of three Thai students. We quickly had a great conversation going on, me telling them about my country and my job, and all the usual blah blah you get into when you introduce yourself to someone; them telling me about their studies, their lives, and a lot of other stuff. They all were 22, two of them being girls, one a guy. After an hour of gossip one of the girls, lets call her F., asked me in the name of the others if I’d enjoy having dinner with them at a local restaurant close by. I agreed enthusiastically, and off we were to have some great and damn spicy food in a restaurant close by. Boy, did I enjoy myself. This is what I love so much about travelling….getting in touch with people. Before meeting the three students I had considered it rather hard to get in touch with locals. Maybe I just didn’t have the right ideas either, anyway, now I had what I wanted. A great time with some truly nice, witty Thais. The girls being exceptionally pretty, too. One of the girls, the mentioned “F.”, seemed to be especially keen on me. First, I didn’t know how to interpret her behavior, since after all, I did not really know a whole lot about Thai attitude and behavior. Reading about it in a book is one thing, actually dealing with it completely different. After we had finished dinner the three of them walked me back to my guesthouse, me and F. talking most of the time.
At the drop off F. asked me if I was interested in seeing them (her?) again the next day, and I agreed, since I had another two days based in Bangkok ahead of me before going north to Chiang Mai.
The next evening we met again. I was surprised when I spotted only F. waiting for me in front of the guesthouse. I won’t lie to you, sure I was somehow happy about having her to myself for the upcoming evening. Not as if I had any expectations. After all, I thought I had learnt about the “good Thai girls” sufficiently, and thought I knew that such a good girl would never ever hop into bed with a stranger on the second time of meeting him. Also, though I was flattered that she was obviously keen on me, it’s not really my style either. I know what most of you people are thinking. What a load of crap he is giving us. Well, I can understand you. Still, believe it or not, this is just not the kind of person I am.
Anyway, it all came soooo different.
We spent the evening in the area of Siam Square. She showed me around, we had some great food, a lot of laughs and basically a great time. I was utterly enjoying myself. Her English was very good being a student who at that time was about to finish her business degree at uni. I remember thinking that even if all the rest of my trip had been a disappointment, which it wasn’t by any means, spending this evening with such a great girl would have been worth the whole trip. At around 11pm we arrived back at my guesthouse. Again, she asked me what I was up to the following day. I had some plans set up, but quickly gave up on them as she offered to spend yet another day with me the next day. So we did. We met even earlier the day after, spending yet some more quality time in numerous places around Bangkok. I won’t go in much further detail on this. I just want to point out, that during all the time we had spent nothing really happened between the two of us, as far as sexual behavior would be concerned. Again, I didn’t expect her to show any, as I always had in mind that “good” Thai girls of her background would never go into any of this.
Anyway, just like the previous day, we arrived at my guesthouse at short after 10pm. She had a strange look on her face standing there in front of the place. First, I couldn’t figure it out. In a way she looked sad, in another way excited, yet in another way disappointed. Fact was, that I was due to leave for Chiang Mai the next day, meaning, this was our last meeting.
I had the feeling that she had enjoyed herself a lot too throughout the past two days, and felt sorry for it coming to an end.
Since none of us two were very tired yet I asked her if she still had some time at her hands. She said yes and I asked her if she’d be interested to take a look at some of the photos and postcards I usually carry when I go abroad, in case someone wants to see where I come from. She had asked several times to see them before, so she was more than happy to finally be able to see them. So we went up to my room to take a look. I was rather surprised about the fact that she actually agreed to go up there with me. I mean, after having read so much about Thai people and especially women, I thought this would be off limits. I even offered her to bring the photos down to show her, but she said he preferred to see them in my room, as there was more privacy.
What can I say, I didn’t mind. So it happened. I showed her the pics, and we talked some more, and then, for some peculiar reason, something happened I hadn’t expected to be possible.
We started kissing. Boy I was confused. I remember so many thoughts racing through my mind. Pleasure, excitement, surprise, confusion, pleasure. Well, I am a man, too.
I won’t go into detail, I think most of you guys have a great imagination.
She did stay some longer. Actually, until almost 6am, when she finally said she had to leave for good, to be on time for uni. We said good bye affectionately, exchanged email addresses and promises to see each other again some day. So she left me there, lying wide awake in the bed I just had shared with a gorgeous Thai girl for the night. To this point, I don’t quite understand what had happened. It was just such a big surprise. There was not really any “love feelings” involved. I felt very close to F., but love is different. I doubt she fell for me either. We just had a great time. The point is, I had never expected this to happen. Having read so many reports and opinions about reputable Thai girls, I just couldn’t figure out why this had happened to me. Was I being used? No, I definitely don’t think so. Was I the one in a million exception? No, I doubt I am that special. What was it then. To this point, I don’t quite get it. I just know that I experienced something I would never had dared to expect. But in the end, Thailand seems to hold some mystery for all of us I suppose….
During the past two years we exchanged email from time to time. When I returned to the LOS in early 2003, I thought about seeing her again. Contrary to the year before, I had a girlfriend waiting back home, though. Yes, I was tempted to see her again, yet at this young point in my life I am still idealistic, and faithful to my girlfriend. The situation cleared by itself, as F. was not in Thailand by the time I got there. She was staying in Southern California to complete her business studies. Some specific project she was working on. She told me about it, too, but I forgot about what it was about already. So I never saw her again. Maybe we will meet again in the future. I’d be happy too. I guess my love for international travel will bring me back to Thailand rather soon. So much about my story…
Stickman says:
Some "good Thai woman" find that their family and society is telling them one thing but their body is telling them another, and hence they do, from time to time, give in to their body's desires.
