Nong Farang

I'm a first time submitter so please bear with me. This is a happy story with a bit of a twist at the end I could use some help with. I originally went to Thailand on a US grant to work at one of the new community colleges, managing
a library (read: teaching English) they had set up in the countryside (a town of about 30,000).

After about 1 month on site I fell for 2 of the local girls, one a student in a nearby college, and the other I worked with. Both were extremely shy and spoke little English but seemed to enjoy hanging out. It took awhile to get the girl
I worked with to go out with me, and whenever she did both of her sisters seemed more interested in me than her. At this point I had never been to Stickman's website, and was oblivious to places like Pattaya, Phuket, and Patpong. I thought
the girls at the Karaoke bars ACTUALLY just served drinks.

Anyways, eventually the college girl got jealous, and did the "I'll ignore you for a week before I come back" routine that is apparently so common. She then went to Bangkok for 2 weeks to purchase cosmetics and happened to
be there the same day my flight left for the US. She wasn't able to meet with me the first 2 days I was there but we finally met up on the third. I thought that things were done because we hadn't talked for the past 2 weeks, but when
we met up on Khao San Road she was much friendlier and open than she had ever been before. For the first time she kissed me in public, and she actually gave me a hickey in one of the restaurants. We still hadn't slept together at that point
and apparently "One night in Bangkok" wouldn't be that night either. Needless to say that this girl blew my puny farang mind. I figured that things were over between us, it had been a nice stay in Thailand. That changed when she
called me at my house in California 3 days after I returned home. From there we talked on the phone about twice a week and communicated through email or chat almost everyday. I'm going to grad school so I told her I couldn't go back
to Thailand until June. She said that she would wait for me. Crazy I thought.

So June '06 comes around and I go back and we have a fabulous 2 months together. She met me in BKK, and that night said she wanted to marry me, which apparently was one of her many tests to "see my habit". Since that day she
hasn't mentioned marriage again. Apparently the ignoring me for a week the previous time was a test as well, and the time she brought 3 of her sexiest friends with her when we went out was another test to "see my habit". So I went
back to work in the college and I stay in her family's house with her mom and sister and her sister's two kids. I asked her about sleeping in the same bed together, and she said it was ok because she had told her mom that I was her boyfriend.
That struck me as very weird, but she shrugged it off like it was normal. Her mom is an administrator and rents out about 5 houses in the town and is well off (her father died about 4 years ago). My girl ran a salon but stopped when I came to
visit.

Two days before I had to fly back to the US, I noticed she was wearing all of her gold jewelry. I thought that this was weird because she barely ever wore her jewelry and she had told me repeatedly that she didn't like it and loaned
most of it to her sister. Anyways, we stopped at one of those famous gold shops and I waited in the car for about 30 minutes. Later that night she gave me a Buddha inside a gold case, with a gold necklace, worth about 20,000 baht. This blew my
mind. After reading Stick the previous year trying to get a grasp on Thai girls and their thinking, this girl was turning everything upside down.

Everything seems perfect, but I have always had that weird gut feeling about her. (Not a lady-boy I saw baby pics ha ha) I can't get myself to completely trust her because of her love for the disco and her constant traveling to Bangkok,
Chiang Mai, and other places to purchase cosmetics, see the big boss, and party with friends. Her English has improved quite a bit, but farang still baffle her, at least that's what she tells me. We're hoping to get her a visa to come
visit the US but she's dragging her feet and is worried about being rejected. Hopefully I can add another happy story to this one in the future, but until then I would love to hear thoughts or insights to this unique Thai attitude, in particular
the sleeping with the daughter in the family's house, and the purchase of the gold necklace for the farang. From what I've read this is not normal, however, no Thai people I talk to seem to think it is that weird.

Stickman's thoughts:

That you spent the night with her in the same bed in the family house most likely means that her family really does think that the two of you were going to get married.

It is hard to comment much more without further details.