Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places
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I passed the advertisement a few times. It looked liked all the other ones tacked to the grocery store wall. Visa runs, tours and travel, marriage applications, match making for the handicapped.
Wait a minute. Match making for the handicapped? I called the number. The office was in Karon. I would be right over. This might work I reasoned. After all, if some girl was willing to go out with a handicapped person, why wouldn’t
she go out with me?
A beat up sixty-five year old expatriate. This was my chance to find true love.
The name of the service was Deafeagle and yes the white guy behind the desk was hearing impaired. He pointed me towards his Thai assistant- an attractive young lady.
I told her my reason for coming and she pulled out a neat looking photo album and slid it over to me. She explained that the cost for membership would be six thousand baht and that it was a life time membership. I could find dates here for
as long as I lived.
I opened it to see pictures of about forty girls with a little biography next to each one. Most of the girls stated that they would not mind going out with a deaf or disabled man.
The girls in the album were quite attractive. Golly, this looked good.
I had plenty of time–a life long membership I mused. Wonderful.
I imagined an endless procession of nubile young ladies.
I chose five beauties that I wanted to date.
The girl explained to me that they would meet me here at the office.
That would be six thousand baht please.
Wow, this seemed to be too good to be true.
‘Could you just please check to see if they all are available?’
‘Yes, that will be six thousand baht please.’
‘I’ll come back tomorrow and you let me know.’
‘Can you give me six thousand baht please?’
‘Tomorrow.’
I came back the next day. She could not get in touch with any of the ladies.
‘When’s the last time you spoke to any of them?’
‘Last year.’
‘Haven’t you had any customers since last year?’
‘We never had any customers for the match making service. You are the first one.
Tomorrow I will call more girls for you. Can you give me six thousand baht please?’
‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
The next day she had five photos picked out from the album and she placed them in front of me.
‘Six thousand baht please.’
I perused my future companions. There were some attractive ones there.
Their biographies said that they would accept a man up to the age of forty-five years old.
I mentioned this to the girl.
‘How old are you?’
‘Sixty-five. These girls won’t go out with me.’
There was one photo left. The poor old battle ax was twice my size. The girl slid the photo towards me.
‘I don’t want to go out with her.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s too old.’
‘You are old man. Why you no go out with old lady?’
‘I may be old but I’m not stupid.’
‘I find more ladies for you. Give me six thousand baht please.
You can use this service long time’
‘I can’t use it if you have no ladies for me.’
I gave up on this idea and drove towards my house, through Karon and Kata.
It was quiet. Songkhran was over and many girls had headed home.
The girly bars were for the most part uninhabited.
Patong was just too far away. It took forty minutes to drive there and forty minutes to get back. The next morning, if I took a girl home I would have to repeat the trip.
May be I could have a girl come to my house.
But how?
I asked Google. They seemed to have the answer for everything.
Up popped the names of a few dating services. Thailovelinks.com seemed like the best choice. For a mere twenty seven dollars a month I could contact hundreds of girls.
I paid by credit card and started sending e-mails. Romance, here I come.
Half of the women on there were almost as old as I was. That let them out.
A quarter of them were really beautiful but only wanted young guys.
I would find my beloved among the other twenty five percent. I was sure of it.
When I logged on to Hotmail in the mornings-there it was in bold print.
‘Someone is Interested in You at Thailovelinks.’
Great. I couldn’t wait for each morning to come so that I could read the new messages.
Many came from Khon Kaen and Udon Thani.
But could they really read and write English this well? I didn’t think so.
It was too far to go anyway. I directed my attention to the girls in Bangkok.
One girl looked terrific and I arranged to meet her since I travel to Bangkok once a month.
She came to my hotel on Sukhumvit.
She was at least ten years older than her photo and spoke very little English.
Another dead end.
I arranged to meet one more girl when I was there.
She was a raving beauty and worked in a Japanese club.
I met her in the lobby of my hotel. After I introduced myself, she put her arms around me and held me close.
Not bad, I thought. This is going to be marvelous.
She put her lips next to my ear and whispered to me.
‘Short time- three thousand baht.’
Gee, that was not exactly the kind of true love that I had envisioned.
One e-mail claimed to be from a Thai girl stranded in Nigeria. She was part of a dance troupe left behind. They had paid her three thousand dollars by check which unfortunately could only be cashed by her in Thailand.
If I would be kind enough to send her fifteen hundred dollars she would pay me back on her return and would show her love and gratitude to me up close and personal. She included her photo in the message. It was of a woman with heavy pendant
breasts precarious held by a small top. She wore shorts and her bare stomach bulged out over her pants. She must have weighed at least a hundred kilos and was as black as the ace of spades.
I would think that she needed to obtain a photo of a Thai if she wanted to pursue this line of work.
The only interesting thing that happened was when I corresponded with a Russian girl. Her photo was not posted on Lovelinks but she sent it to me when I wrote to her.
It looked like someone had cut a picture out of the Russian Penthouse.
Super good looking, beautiful long legs and large breasts bursting out of a skimpy top. She proclaimed her love for me and knew that she had found her soul mate.
By sheer good fortune she had a month off from her job and would be able to fly down to stay with me. The only problem was that the airfare cost eleven hundred dollars. She had saved two hundred and if I could just send her nine hundred everything
would be fine. I thought it over and suggested that she buy a bus ticket for as far as she could go for two hundred dollars and then hitch hike the rest of the way. All she had to do would be to stick out one of those long legs and she would be
here in no time.
I received a short curt reply, not at all like those flowery love notes that she had been sending.
May be I needed to stick closer to home.
Stick! Yes, that’s it.
I would call The Stickman for advice or heck, even Mrs. Stick-go right to the top. Why not?
My heart raced as I fired up the computer.
Soon I would have the solution to my dilemma.
No, wait. I couldn’t do that. They would think it was an e-mail from a crazy person.
Imagine a single man living in Thailand– couldn’t get a date.
Impossible. What kind of a nit-wit could this guy be?
I forged ahead and placed an advertisement in a weekly paper, The Phuket Gazette.
Older American man seeks live-in companion.
Two gay guys called me up.
‘I was really looking for a girl.’
‘I can take better care of you than any girl.’
The other one said, ‘Try me, you’ll like me.’
He sounded like an old television advertisement.
Next was a fifty-year old woman with more than a few miles on her.
Tattoos of dragons peeked out at me from underneath her blouse.
Then a reasonably attractive girl stopped bye. As I led her through the house she seemed to be taking mental inventory, computer, television, radio.
I showed her to the door and hid the silverware.
The next woman looked alright. As we talked, her list of requests mounted.
She would need to borrow my car on occasion. I would have to buy new sheets, towels, a clothes cabinet and matching dresser for her. She could only cook a few days a week.
She could sleep in the same bed with me but she had to keep her clothes on.
If I wanted to have sex it would be only twice a month and it could not take too long.
She needed twelve thousand a month as she had to send money home.
I would think it over I told her.
‘Don’t you like me?’ She said.
I patted my faithful German Shepherd on the head.
‘It’s you and me boy.’
Stickman's thoughts:
Still in Phuket, still no comments…
