Nadja, John & Me
****************************************************Original transcript
Bangkokchat of today, 25 September 2005:
Statler> hi wanna chat?
_Cute_GirL_22> hi
Statler> how are u doing?
_Cute_GirL_22> r u ric?
_Cute_GirL_22> rich?
Well, you know me already. I am the grumpy guy who wrote Regards from the Balcony on 18 August 2005 after I got slapped in the face by a Thai kite high on yaba. The one who also declared: Don't hang your heart on something volatile
and easy come, easy go like a Thai girl. Maybe, if this is the kick you need to make your own life more exciting, you have my blessing (if my blessing would be worth something), but don't complain later. Yeah, I am that guy. Stickman gave
me a green star for that submission (I don't expect one for this whining emotional strip down), he said I described life in Bangkok quite plausibly. I think it was more just a shot in the dark. Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of
corn. Something like that. And we Westerners are all a bit blind here, I guess. The longer we stay, the less we see the wood from the trees.
At this point you may wanna read my Regards from the Balcony again, or if you haven't read it, you maybe would like to read it now. It will waste your time only 10 more minutes and I presume you have nothing better to do anyway, otherwise you would
not be in Thailand. But when you go there and read it, you will most likely get the impression that I would consider myself as some kind of Sukhumvit Machiavelli who thinks he sees through everything what is going on in Bangkok. Well nothing is
further from the truth than that assumption. I peel and peel and the onion is still there to peel. If I would be so smart as I appear to myself in that submission, I would probably be in the newspaper as the guy who now dates Gaga Young and not
bother you with the following, typical Stickman story (that is how John really called it. So I made one out of it for him. You will meet John further down this page):
Last year, I was hooked on internet dating. Not Thailandfriends, but the real bad shit, Bangkokchat. Let us not debate about the quality of that particular site. At one point I thought it was not a bad investment to waste some time there, because I met
some interesting people for Thailand standards (and not just girls for quick sex), but now it seems to be more like an online whore house, as I checked today. Or is this Internet site just a microcosm of what is out there for Western guys like
us? If it really is, then good night to us all.
Anyway, on that terrible Bangkokchat, that is how I met Nadja, a 19 year old Cashinsmart University student. I was chatting with her for 10 minutes at 11. At one pm we had our date at the Discovery center, and 30 minutes later after 5 minutes darkness
in the cinema I had her stripped naked on my bed. At that time she was just another girl on my list. I am not a fan of teenage girls, but I had several 18 or 19 year old girls. It seems to be the norm in this country that they date 30 plus Western
guys like me. It is a bit sick, I know it, but if they want it, I don't say no to them, unless they look really young. I once met a girl and she looked like 13. She claimed to be 20, maybe it was true, but I felt like a child molester and
of course I did not have sex with her. To be honest I was even embarrassed to walk down the street with her. Why are these girls on the internet? It's a mix of reasons I guess. They have no hobbies, they are alone at home, it is the excitement
of meeting a foreigner. But why don't they date with foreign guys their age? Probably because there are not that many around. And if they are in Thailand, they usually don't have much money to take these girls to the nice restaurants
and cinemas, because that is what they except when they meet a foreigner. They don't want to end up in a shabby room at Khao San or eat from the street. They have a shabby room already they call home and they also know how 20 bath food tastes
like. Of course some are out to milk the guys financially, but let's play it fair and focus on the ones who just want to have a good time: A little romance, a little luxury life, a little excitement.
The sex is usually not great with these normal/abnormal Thai teenage girls, they don't have the experience and they don't generally sleep with guys for the sex itself. As I said already just now (and I can not repeat it often enough), they sleep
around to get attention, or they sleep around to get some clothes or cosmetics (if they find idiotic men who give them money). Or they simply sleep with you because they want to sleep in a nice place for the night. Maybe they do it because they
don't know what else to do with their time (my favorite thought). Like in England people drink because they have no hobbies. Maybe it's the raunchy thought of doing something naughty, but I doubt it. Maybe some sleep around until they
hit the jackpot, a young handsome foreign guy who cares for them financially and emotionally. Well we all know that these guys they are looking for don't come to Bangkok. Honestly, if you are a good looking 25 year old European guy with some
brains and a good job and a life, why should you come to Thailand, even just for a holiday and get yourself a Thai girl who has to live off 5-10 thousand baht a month? If you are a 25 year old European guy you would prefer a girl who shares your
cost of living and a girl who can be an equal partner. Myself, I was about 30 when I came here for the first time and I thought: Now I can't get lower than this after I had sandwich sex with the Thai cleaning girl and the Chinese-Burmese
receptionist of my Khao San guesthouse after a rough night of drinking.
This was the song I listened to the next morning (before I checked myself in the temple for rehab):
Brute by KMFDM
Between The Liquor, The Bed And The Noise In My Head
Between Your Mind And My Crime
And Me In The Grime
Between The Gun, The Lead And The Lies That I Said
Through Your Sweet Breath Comes The Dawn Of My Death
Touch Me- Hate
Me
Give Yourself To Me And Break Me
Cut These Eyes
And I Will See
Kiss These Lying Lips For Me
Stroke This Skin
And Will Kneel
Brutalize Me
I Will Heal
Between The Bullet And My Lip
And The Lies You Let Slip
Between The Dirt Of This Soul
And Your Heart That's A Hole
Between The Place Where You Hit
And This Face Where You Spit
Through Your Sweet Breath Comes The Dawn Of My Death
I was totally disgusted by Bangkok (not just the sex trade, the whole city just looked and smelled like the inside of an Italian garbage can) and went up north to do some meditation in a monastery. It was not such a great time there either and I don't
know what I was looking for in that temple, but when I came out of it after 2 months, I knew that I would not find it there. Maybe I am getting over the top with reciting this Afghani Sufi (yeah remember not all Moslems are suicide bombers) born
in 1207 who wrote:
I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.
I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.
I questioned the scholars and philosophers, but He was beyond their understanding.
I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him He was nowhere else to be found.
Okay, okay, I won't bother you again with reciting anything. So back to this girl, Nadja, the good Cashinsmart student. We met each other for some sex, but I soon found out that she did not like it much, so we went mostly for dinners and she slept
over. The sex with her was so plain, that I actually asked her if she enjoys sex or not. She says she would enjoy it and she said she was interested in it, but I doubted that. Slowly but surely she became my asexual girlfriend, she stayed almost
all nights and I would still have sex with her once a week, to keep up the image that we were in a real relationship like a man and a woman. It was a farce, but many things are a just a façade in this country and sometimes we just have to
play along. I got my sexual kicks out of dating other girls, I don't deny it. I told her that she could sleep around and try out new guys if she had to, but she said she would not do that. I did not believe her of course. A girl who was that
fast in going to bed with a stranger would not stop because she had a boyfriend. I was not fooling myself. Whatever reason she had to go to bed with strangers, she would still go on with it.
I still wonder today why she went for having anonymous sex with men, like the day we met she knew the score already. She was not even asking for my picture before we met. She must have done it several times before, no matter what she did or did not when
I was with her. Was it curiosity? Was it the hope to find a guy who will do a miracle on her, so she can get pleasure from sex from that moment onwards? Or was it simply because she could not stay alone at home and needed someone who pays attention
to her? Was she neglected as a child? Was it a neurotic sexual disorder? Her behavior was strange and did not make sense to me, but I sensed one thing: That she would go around and have sex with other men, for any reason whatsoever. Most people
repeat their previous actions. Some would now probably say, hey guy wake up, don't think so far she just sleeps around for money. Unfortunately I would have to answer today: I would consider it possible.
I did not see anything bad in her sleeping around (except of the money making option of course, a thing I back then did not think of because I was under the impression that she was from a decent family and had enough cash to spend), the only thing was
that I told her to use condoms, like I did. But of course, she said, she loved me and she would not sleep around. To find out what the matter was, why she was not enjoying sex I perused for a while, but she was blocking and would not tell me anything.
She ignored the problem (if it was really a problem), as is the habit in this country. Also I did not want to be her therapist, especially when she was not willing to talk anyway, I thought for myself, well the girl is young, her sexuality is
undeveloped and that is it. Period. No need to push her into something, it will come from itself.
The first difference we had when she went to Germany after we dated for 4 months. She said she would visit her family there, but then told me she was going to meet up with her ex-boyfriend, who would be flying over from England. Of course she said that
nothing would happen, I did not believe her, but as it was a silent agreement between us that she could meet whoever she wanted, as long as she did not fall in love with a guy or start a second relationship with someone. I thought to myself that
nobody would fly over from England to Germany to have a coffee and a chat with a Thai girl. Anyway, I did not hear from her much when she was in Germany and I thought, well she got together again with her ex in some way or the other, so I also
allowed myself to have an affair with a very nice girl called Chad and we were getting along just fine. I did not miss my girlfriend who was dating some English guy in Germany.
But then, Nadja came back and I picked her up at the airport as I had promised when she left, but of course things had changed. She was not talking much to me. Well, I thought, fair enough and I did not contact her again after that. I went out with Chad,
who was a couple of years older than her. Chad did not have a problem with her sexuality. She was not as smart as Nadja and did not study in a reputable University but she did not pretend like Nadja that she came from a good family. I knew Chad
was from a poorer background, but I never gave her money. That I think, is a bad habit. If the girls want money, I tell them: Sil vous plait, arrangez vous. (Meaning get a part time job not meaning sleep with other guys for money) I have no clue
where Chad got the money from and I never asked. Even if you give the girls money, it would not change anything. So don't give money. It is better for your wallet and for the time you break up with your girl. You would want the money back
and she would not be able to give it back. So you feel sorry twice, for being a fool to date with the girl, and being a bigger fool to have invested money to her.
Nadja told me that her relatives were in the gems business and emphasized that she came from a good middle class Thai Chinese family. I even went to see her apartment, it was very nice indeed. But the location I thought was a bit strange, because it was
right behind the Nana Plaza.
So one day after I have not talked for about a week to Nadja after she came back, she called me out of the blue and wanted to meet up. Well, to show her the status quo right away, I invited her to see a movie, together with Chad. Of course it was 2 explosives
mixing together and the whole thing blow up in my face. In the beginning, the 2 girls pretended to like each other, but then we went out and they both started drinking heavily. Chad could handle the liquor very well, but Nadja could not and I
had to take care of her the whole night. I watched her throw up in the men's toilet over an hour in the nightclub and all the way home. She was even puking out of the taxi window. Looking back, she did a great show. It was the puppy effect
which got me. I dropped Chad the next day and was back with Nadja.
When I said I dropped Chad, I meant I never contacted her again. I told her that I was still in love with Nadja and asked for her pardon, but of course she was raving mad about it, so I had to cut the contact. (Well of course now we are friends again,
after I told her a couple of weeks ago what an idiot I was to leave her for the Cashinsmart student).
The year went on and Nadja and me became extremely close. Why? When foreigners talk why they are with this and that Thai girl, it always sounds like: Well I taught my dog better tricks than your dog can do. So I am not getting into that. For me, to be
perfectly honest, I saw her as a pet. A very cute, lovely and useless pet. What else could she be? Remember: Sex was not the reason we were together. She was not participating in my social life. Whenever I asked her to meet new people she did
not want to meet them. She was not an equal partner in our relationship. She did not want to be my partner. She wanted me to take care of her like I would do a pet. So she became my pet. She lived in my place, I fed her and she had an all inclusive
holiday in my place. Only I did not give her money. She never asked for it, because she told me her father gave her enough money to live on. I could even see she had sufficient money to buy herself expensive perfumes and cosmetics, also new clothes
and whatever. I actually got a bit upset and told her to contribute to our expenses. But of course she claimed that she was only a student and had no money to spare. Well, I got myself several discount cards for some international hotel groups
and when we eat together at these places which had various restaurants, I got 50% off if I was eating with her. I did not mind much about paying everything. But I would not go further than that. I did not buy her clothes or go shopping with her.
I would go close to the flames and feel the heat, but I would not jump into the fire and let myself be burned at the stake.
We were together for a year when she wanted to go to Ireland. Her sister was living there. Her sister married an English guy who was living in Ireland. Well it seemed so perfect. Almost too perfect. The guy paid the dowry, the guy bought an apartment
in Bangkok, the guy had a good job. Yes, it was that nice apartment behind Nana which she first claimed was her family's. Well from a certain angle it was, it depends how you much you bend the reality.
I always like to recite the following story: Michael, my English friend was about to get married to a Thai girl who also claimed that she came from a good family. He heard that the family possessed a large townhouse in central Bangkok, but the house was
empty without anybody living in it. Well, he thought that he could move into this house with his girlfriend. No, no the family told him, the house had a room with a crack in the wall and they were about to fix it. This did not matter to him and
he insisted of seeing the house. Then the family told him, it was a bigger crack and that one could see though the crack. At this moment, he was really wanting to see the house and he forced his girlfriend to take him there. But there was no house
to visit, just some crashed down ruins.
Meanwhile they family of my girlfriend had moved to a real shit place near the State Tower in Silom where she lived together with her brother and father in one room. The paint slowly came off. She was not from a middle class family anymore, she came now
from a middle lower class family and her father lost everything in the 97 crisis. Well, I heard many stories that people lost everything in 97. Everybody seemed to be rich like Forbes billionaires before, but I did not take it seriously what she
said. The fact that her brother was a drug addict bothered me more, and underlined the principle not to give her money. It would disappear in a second.
So she wanted to go to visit her sister in Ireland. I helped her with the UK and Irish visa to a certain extend. But I was always trying to let her do things by herself. I never wanted the father role in our relationship, I wanted her to become an independent
person, from the pet that she was. She got the Irish visa finally, also the UK visa (which would be a story in itself) and off she went. She claimed that her brother in law paid for it with miles. I thought that was a bit unusual, especially because
she was flying business class. But she made it sound like business class is just good enough for her. I thought, she is a bit off reality, but I did not think too much about it. I knew that she was going to see her sister, because I filled out
the forms with her.
As it turned out, I was in the same time on a job in Europe and I invited her to come over to where I was. She flew from the UK to Switzerland and then flew back with me to Bangkok. She was a bit unhappy, because she could not get a business seat, because
the allocated business seats for her ticket were already taken. Also she was quite pissed off at me because I would not take her stuff through the X-Ray machine. I tried to explain her that she needed to be responsible for her stuff but she claimed
that it was a sign I did not love her. I did not pay much attention to this nonsense. But she was making a big fuss about it every time we had a disagreement. From that moment onwards, things went wrong in our relationship. <I think things were bad way before this point! – Stick>
I noticed when I was with her in Europe two things: First, she could not even get a bus ticket by herself. Second, she was totally unimpressed with the five star hotels I stayed in. At that time, I had in Zurich a Mercedes 500 Limo and a dedicated driver
and really stayed in Junior suites in the best hotels (like the Victoria Jungfrau) of Switzerland. Of course, it was all company paid, but I thought, hell, why does this girl take it for grated? To be honest, it does not mean shit to me, I am
a bicycle guy who likes to take the train, but she sat in that limousine like she had done nothing else in her life. What a contrast to her shabby apartment with the spiders' webs in Silom. I was amazed and disgusted at the same time. And
I mentioned already how she found it normal to fly business class all over the world. Can somebody explain me that schizophrenia? But then we also adapt quite quickly to the sexual holocaust here. Well, I don't really wanna defend her actually.
Well, she said two weeks after the European trip, that she needed time for herself and she wanted to go to a monastery. I did not give it a second thought.
A few days after she came back I went through her phone. I don't remember why I did it. It was instinct perhaps. I saw an SMS from a guy, but she wrote the name in Thai. I could see that it was not from a normal friend. I asked her what it was about.
She claimed it was an Irish guy named John she was just seeing for coffee. Well, I don't believe in fairy tales. I put some pressure on her and she confessed that she had sex with him one time with condom (of course). She told me that she
had been seeing him for 5 months, but only lately they became more than friends. I knew it was a lie and I wanted to speak to the guy. I was jealous. I loved the girl, and we had a wonderful year together, she saw it the same way. I could see
no reason why she wanted that other guy, especially after she told me he was around 50, chubby and not particularly the 007 type of guy. She also claimed, that she did not love him. I kind of believed that. It was probably the last thing she told
me that I believed.
Because I wanted to speak to the guy and I had an idea where he lived, she got scared and came back to me, but I knew, that she did that only for that reason. I did not win her back. Then my emotions carried me away from logical thinking. I asked her
what was the real reason for her to see that guy and she told me: He gave her money (translated from Tinglish: he care for me na ja). Period. So I gave in, I started to give her 3000 baht a week, against my basic fundamental conviction. The experiment
turned out as I expected: After the second week she asked for more. She claimed she had to pay for her health insurance. Actually she wanted the money while I was in the taxi to the airport, I needed to get away for a business trip for 3 weeks,
so I gave her 9 in advance, plus the 4 she was asking on top of that. All in all I have given her 19 baht, and that just in the last month we were together. I had never given her money before. I thought to myself when I gave her all that money
in taxi, that well, let's see how she will handle herself. If she asks me for additional more money again, I will dump her.
But she dumped me. I even called her from Europe twice a day (well okay I used Skype, that cut the costs a bit) but all the conversations and chats did not help. She pretended everything was fine and neat, until the last day of August, only a few days
before I was coming back to Bangkok. She did not pick up my phone call. After I had called her about 10 times, she finally picked up and said, that she could not trust me anymore. I was stunned, because I was holding myself back from dating girls
totally. It turned out that she picked on one of my friends, a foreign girl and claimed, that I was seeing her, which was complete nonsense. This foreign girl was just a friend I had talked to about our relationship, but Nadja picked on her and
said, that I should be better off with her, because she was financially independent, sophisticated and spoke perfect English. She claimed that she (Nadja) was no good match for me since she came from a (now) poor family etc. bla bla. That was
typical Freudian projection and I could see through it like glass. (Projection is the opposite defense mechanism to identification. We project our own unpleasant feelings on to someone else and blame them for having thoughts that we really have.)
I told her that I loved her unconditionally, but I was talking to a wall. She made her mind up (and here the people are on autopilot once they really have made their minds up) and turned the table against me. I knew it was a lot of bullshit and that she
had decided to go with the other guy.
When I was back in Bangkok, I called him up. Of course she told me he had left the country, but I was no fool. I knew that he was away but he must have come back. John picked up the phone and I introduced myself. Well, we set up a meeting. Initially,
I just wanted my money back, from him or her, because it was obvious that she tricked me into giving it. The whole time she knew that she wanted to be with this guy, but just used my idiotic weakness (childishly wanting to fight for her) to get
a few bucks of me. But as our conversation developed, there was more to the story than I suspected. She had never told him that she had a boyfriend. Then he dropped the bomb: He was the one paid who for her ticket to Ireland. But clever as she
was, she only stayed a minimum time with him in Ireland and then really visited her sister. For the trip to visit me in Switzerland he also paid and now his jaw dropped. She told him she visited a female friend there. We have to keep in mind that
we are not talking of a bargirl here. This is a student. Well but the next surprise was just around the corner: When she told me that she was going for meditation in a Buddhist monastery, she went with him on holidays to Malaysia. From that moment
onwards, I knew that this girl would stop at nothing and I was in shock that I had lived with such a piece of scum for over a year. It is one thing to lie, but to involve religion in your lies, that is just too bad. Totally unacceptable.
Well we both walked out from that conversation a little drugged. He told her in a nice way that she can basically go to hell, I did the same, only I used the most barbaric language I knew. I thought she deserved it.
Later, John called me or I called him, when we had flashbacks about her. What really struck us both was that she felt no remorse about her actions. He told me that he had questioned her about the trip to Switzerland and he had involuntarily sponsored
her to visit me. She felt offended and just told him in a dogmatic tone that she now could say anything she wanted and it would not change the fact that he saw her as a liar. I think what John was worried about most was his health. She had confessed
to him that she slept with many other guys during the time he was with her, and he did not use condoms with her. Obviously she did not use condoms with anybody. So when you sleep the next time with such a woman, feel free to think about my little
story.
I managed to stay away from her, but he wanted to get involved in some kind of a rehabilitation project. Well, she kind of presented herself to him as a victim of bad men, she told him she was raped and drugged in the past and whatever not and I think
the good guy believes her. She also told him that she would start to work and he was willing to find a job for her. As if she would go to study at Cashinsmart to really get a job after that. She told me she never wanted to work in her life anyway
and now she has changed her mind in a couple of days? I don't think so. But what is the point of studying then? To use the good name of the University to catch the best manipulative foreign guy (Thai guys are usually not that green) she lay
her hands on. John also visited her one room prison cell where she lived with her father and her brother and he felt mercy for her. Thank God I am not that sentimental. This is how people live here and it's quite normal for them. They don't
give a shit if they have to sit on the floor at home, as long they can parade their fake Vuitton bags in the shopping malls.
Did I try to warn John that these were just new lies of a girl who is obviously a raving schizophrenic? Well, a bit. But not much. Why? Well, the best revenge to the guy who stole your girlfriend is to let him keep her.
DEVELOPING STORY:
Well, I was too fast, thinking it was the end of that story. Now, just a day after I sent in my submission I found out (don’t ask how) that also Nadja’s first trip to Europe last year was financed by a French guy called Manolo she met on the internet. I was shortening our relationship drama for the Stickman page and just said that she went last year to Germany for meeting up with her family (and as it turned out later, her English Ex-boyfriend as well). In fact she went to France first. I knew that part and did not pay attention to it in the first place because she told me that she went there to study French in some school and that she stayed with a family, the Cashinsmart University had selected for her. But yesterday I found out that she flew over to meet that French guy I mentioned and of course: Yes, he paid for her transportation. Maybe this is just the Thai way of traveling. There is some silly joke out there and I am not sure if I am reciting it correctly now, but it goes something like this:
"You know that you are a Thai girl when guys pay you for sex."
Well, we could extend that and say:
"You know that you are a Thai girl when your overseas airplane ticket is sponsored by some fool you met on the internet."
Because I have decided to end my submission in a humorous way, here I have another joke that I specially selected for John, which is busy rehabilitating Nadja. It is about a Thai girl that undergoes a lie detector test:
Farang: Did you really lose the gold bracelet I gave you?
Thai girl: Yes. I very sad [stylus twitches vigorously].
Farang: Is your mother really sick?
Thai girl: Yes. Medicine expensive mahk mahk [stylus beats against the end-stop].
Farang: Do other guys send you money?
Thai girl: No. Never [stylus rips through paper].
Farang: [Pauses to refill ink cartridge] Did you screw around while I was away?
Thai girl: No. I stay home [barely audible over polygraph’s frenzied clattering].
Farang: Do you have a secret Thai husband?
Thai girl: No. I no like Thai man [stylus flies out of the window].
Farang: The polygraph test indicates that all your answers are lies.
Thai girl: I promise I good lady now. I boom boom only you. I love you too much, teerak.
Farang: I love you too, honey. I’m sorry that I ever doubted you.
Thai girl: Give me 20,000 baht please.
Farang: Ok. Here you are.
Stickman's thoughts:
Freudian projection is a MAJOR issue with Thai women. This is a great story. In fact, I think I can safely say that the stories I enjoy most are those where guys meet Thai women online and it all goes horribly pear-shaped. Yep, they're my favourites.
