Stickman Readers' Submissions January 27th, 2006

Raymond’s Relationship Rules

I am a devoted and regular reader of your wonderful website, which I believe is both highly educational, and provides a unique forum for males with a common interest in living in this sector of Asia, to express their varied and valuable views.

I believe however, that there is also a broader but not specifically recognized and expressed benefit of males sharing such information and attitudes.

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I am a 62 year old retired engineer, highly educated, thrice divorced from Western women, and I have been living in Pattaya for the past 18 months.

I believe I have come through the “love Thailand” and then “hate it” stages, and am now firmly in the ”tolerate it but don’t let the bastards get you down” stage.

In the past 5 years, I believe I have moved towards some small measure of personal maturity, of course it those with whom I interact who must be the judge of that.

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Looking back on this growth, I find that one of the most valuable contributors to this has

been frank open communication with males in general, and in particular with older multi-divorced males like me, including reading their contributions to sites such as yours.

I certainly didn’t have the maturity, confidence, opportunity, or perceived need to do this when I was younger, and now of course meeting some of the tens of thousands of “Walking Wounded” older males here in Pattaya
with whom I can talk frankly, has been a great experience.

The benefit of this has been that I now know that the massive problems I have had in my relationships with women, and the general problems I have had in coming to grips with my role as a male in general, are quite normal and indeed boringly
common to most other males i.e. prior to this period in my life I was floundering around mostly in isolation, feeling that surely that since I had failed in my marriages then I was therefore personally inadequate.

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After all, my wives certainly convinced me that it was 100% my failings that wrecked my marriages, and most definitely not their fault at all, and that most other males were immeasurably more competent than me in making their marriages work.

Most other males I talk to, say they went through the same thing within the isolation of their miserable crumbling marriages, and that to later find out that most of us are the same and therefore quite normal, and that most of us went through
the same problems, persecution, accusation and victimsation by Western women, was a revelation.

Having shared that, I now wish to offer my interpretation of the workings of the male mind with reference to relationships with the opposite sex, and I would love to hear back from any readers committed enough to read them, as to whether
they share my views.

I understand that this material is not the standard type of contribution detailing Westerner’s experiences in Thailand.

I do believe however, that it is a step above that, being a summary of the male attitudes formed through bitter experience, and a summary of the inherent nature of most males, which underpins the content of most of the articles submitted
to your site.

Might I say that I would reject outright any possible criticism from readers that I have turned into a bitter twisted emotionally depleted old man – in fact without exception the dozens of older males I have shared some or all of my “Raymond’s
Rules” with, have expressed complete agreement and praise for the absolute clarity and unquestionable truth of their content.

Raymond’s Relationship Rules:

1. Love and hate are the same thing to a woman, just 2 sides of one coin – to them they are both purely raw emotion.

Thus we men have to be very careful, because the more a woman loves you, the more she will instantly turn upon you like a mad tiger the instant you press the wrong button. Divorce lawyers absolutely know this rule to be true, that’s
how they make their money!

2. The first time a man has sex with a woman, is in fact the beginning of the end of the relationship, or at the very least, the beginning of the eventual end of good sex within the relationship. The end may be one day away, or be postponed
by the sex getting better with practice for a limited time, or survive on habit and boredom for 30 years, but the end is inevitable.

This is because to a man, conquering a woman is like conquering Mount Anapurna – you want to ‘mount’ it so as to get to the top. When you do, you look around and say – ‘Wow – look at Mount Everest over there –
I simply have to climb that!!’, so you dismount that mountain and go and conquer another more challenging one!

3. A man can never ever really ‘love’ a woman – he can lust after her, be totally infatuated with her, respect her, honor her, obey her, adore her, trust her etc. etc., but he cannot ‘love’ her.

A man CAN definitely love his dog, his best mate, his children, his mother, his father, his sports car, his football team and a pint of Guinness, but he cannot ‘love’ a woman!!!.

4. Raymond’s famous "S" rule – (Used for trying to get women to understand how a males mind REALLY works!! – you only ever reveal this to a woman you don’t want to seduce !) :

The “S” rule is based on the fact that a man is constantly driven by desire, almost always just one at a time, and at that time he will seek satisfaction of only that one desire.

What women must understand, (but don’t really want to know, because it’s far too shocking for them to accept), is that the level of importance of any one of those desires is exactly the same to a man i.e. a woman should never
ever think that when a man is ‘making love’ to her, that this has any more importance than the satisfaction of other desires which he has at other times.

Thus Raymond’s “S” rule gives examples of desires which have exactly the same importance to a man :

"Shit / Shave / Shower / Steak / Scotch and Sex"

5. For 35 years of my life, I was convinced that I had failed the institution of marriage – However I can see clearly now, that marriage and society failed me.

Marriage is designed primarily to benefit, protect, feed and house women, to ensnare and entomb a perceived suitable father for their children, and as a platform on which a stable society is (supposedly) based.

The institution of marriage is however intrinsically flawed, as it totally ignores the actual functioning of the testosterone soaked male brain, which is genetically programmed to always act in accordance with rules (2), (3), & (4) above.

6. We all spend our whole lives wanting to know what other people think of us but when, lo and behold they actually tell us, very rarely are we capable of calmly accepting and logically acting upon those opinions offered, because they are
perceived as criticism i.e. We all love to hear the expressions of love, praise, acceptance, competence etc., but rarely can we handle any opinion which may actually be a very valid critique of us and our personality or interaction with our environment.

7. Every one of the four times I stood in front of a minister, and listened to and took the marriage vows, it was always so emotional, so meaningful, so wonderful, and so ‘forever’ . . . one can only marvel at the stupidity
and shallowness of human nature!

8. When a man is emotional, he generally means what he says, i.e. If he gets angry and tells another male that he never wants to have anything to do with him again, then that’s what he means. Women however, are the opposite –
when they are emotional, you have to read between the lines to gain any real understanding of what they actually mean i.e. If your wife or girlfriend yells at you “Get out of my face and out of my life, I never want to see you again”,
then she probably means “Get out of here and go down the pub with your mates, and when you come back I may have cooled down and have mad passionate sex with you”.

9. When you are courting a woman, her “no” nearly always means “yes” – it’s merely a matter of the mood wasn’t right, the time wasn’t right, your approach wasn’t right, or the
moon wasn’t in the right quarter, but the “no” still ALWAYS means “yes”!!!

10. All men are bastards, and all women are bitches – that’s the way nature made us and you forget that in relationships at your own peril

11. To hundreds of young men I have met in recent years: “Never, never, ever, ever get married, do you understand me – NEVER!! Yes you must have a child or two, but no problem, just get a woman pregnant and then support and
love the child(ren), but just recognize that marriage simply CANNOT work long term unless you are willing to sacrifice your individuality, your soul and ultimately good sex.”

12. There is no such thing as having made ‘mistakes’ in life, so stop beating yourself over the head about it – there are only decisions, (such as marriage!), which lead to painful results, but there are no such things
as ‘mistakes’. Life is designed as a learning experience – all that varies between individuals is whether we do actually learn anything.

13. It took me 40 years of adult life, 4 marriage ceremonies and 3 divorces, (yes I renewed the vows with one of them – wasn’t that sweet but futile!), and some very detailed self analysis, to finally figure out WHY we men ultimately
fail in our attempts at medium or long term relationships with one woman.

Like Einstein’s revelations, it's actually quite simply expressed.

It’s all to do with the one thing that’s even more certain in life than death and taxes – CHANGE !!!!

When we males are “in-love” with a woman, (never forget Raymond’s rule 3 above!), we are TOTALLY blinded and unaware that we are operating under several MASSIVE delusions:

– that NOTHING in the relationship is EVER going to change or,
– that the loving couple can cope with any such changes – an equally MASSIVE delusion!

i.e. The sex will always be as good as it is ‘now’, the woman will always look as attractive as we view her as being ‘now’, our (much over-emphasized) ‘common interests’ will ALWAYS remain mutual,
our life priorities will NEVER change, children and mortgage and job stresses will NEVER affect OUR relationship, OUR sets of parents can never possibly affect OUR relationship (unlike everyone else’s!), ad-infinitum.

The sad reality is that EVERY single one of these factors changes, some within weeks of marriage, let alone over 5 to 10 years, but we are so blind, so trusting, so unrealistic, so sincere, so ignorant, that we shed tears when we take the
marriage vows (in my case 4 times!)

When one considers the above and that the hunter / gatherer male brain has not changed one tiny iota in 100,000 years, (we play with laptops and mobile phones now instead of clubs to kill mastodons with!), then how can a male possibly believe
that he can have a successful ‘long-term’ relationship with a woman (unless of course we give up good sex).

14. Raymond’s “Wood-eye / Woodant –eye” Law

I will never forget the trouble I got into with my second wife about 25 years ago, when slightly drunk at a home dinner party, I dared to tell the truth about the way in which all “straight” males view women.

Every single time a woman between 16 and 76 comes within the vision scope of a male, he automatically asks and answers a question within a fraction of a second.

He has no choice about the asking or the choice of answer, it is inherent in the beast, and the answer is processed automatically according to his personal brain stored parameters, with no conscious effort.

That questions is : “Would I or wouldn’t I ?”, i.e. have sex with that female, if the opportunity was there at that moment.

It doesn’t matter if the same office girl walks past his door 50 times a day, every single time he sees her, the question will be asked and answered.

Women absolutely cannot stand to hear such truths expressed, and you reveal this to them at your own peril.

15. The next time a (probably Western) woman expresses her disgust and horror at learning that I live in the “disgustingly prostitution ridden” city of Pattaya, Thailand, where I “take advantage of young women young enough
to be my daughter”, I swear I will tell them the truth.

The truth is that when any male, at any time, anywhere in the world, decides to make an amorously based approach to a woman, it is because he has answered “yes” to the question in point 14 above – there is absolutely
no other basis for it at that first meeting stage. i.e. he would like to have sex with her if he gets the chance.

Now then let’s consider what the parties have to offer, or shall we say “trade” for their mutual benefit.

Ultimately it is that the man can offer security of income, housing, food, source of sperm, protection for the family etc. and what can the woman offer in return – primarily sex of course !!!

The male hopes for interesting, regular, very long term sex of course – the provision of house-keeping, cooking etc. by the woman is actually superfluous to his core motivation.

All we multi-divorced males know that this is one of the prime reasons why marriage is intrinsically flawed, because the “trade-off” re: what both parties expect becomes increasingly biased in the woman’s favour until the relationship implodes.


Now until the most unlikely event that some female can offer me sound reasons why marriage is not merely a sophisticated form of prostitution, then please do not be a hypocrite and criticize me for taking advantage of the salvation offered me in Pattaya, Thailand.


I rest my case and refer the reader to Albert Einstein’s quote below


Albert Einstein:


“The Universe and human stupidity are both endless, but I’m not so sure about the Universe”

Stickman's thoughts:

This is powerful stuff, though it is a little depressing!


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