The Mia Noi Conundrum

I cheat on my wife. Yeah, it doesn't sound real nice but that's what it is. Its not that overall I'm a bad guy; I don't steal, scam, screw kids or preach religion and I do make sure I'm an excellent father. I do love my wife very much and do my best to be the caring and good husband that she deserves. The problem is that I cant fathom being with just one woman for life.

I didn't want to come to Asia, in fact I did it as a favour to my wife which of course is quite ironic. My wife is Lao and we were married 7 years ago in Oregon when I met her while buying a suit. I had promised her I would take her home within 5 years to see her family that she hadn't seen in 10 years. When I won a trip to Thailand for business I realized this would be the time I could fulfil my promise and get it over with.

We decided that she would go to Laos immediately and I would stay in Bangkok for my meetings for a week and then go to Vientiane. I invited an old friend to go with me and he couldn't pass up free food and a 4 star Westin hotel. As I watched my wife's plane leave we were already getting excited about what to do next. We started by walking down Sukhumvit just seeing the sights and living the glory of a Bangkok rookie and that's where we met Daeng.

Daeng is a tout and he turned out to be the best friend money could ever buy. He of course proved his worth from start to finish by telling us all the horror stories of the mafia and freelancers. He also told us how dangerous the bars were and that probably the only places that we would be safe were the places where he could take us and thereby earn himself the biggest commission. I'm ok with Daeng, after all everybody has to make a living but we tired of him quickly.

After a couple days of hitting the "untraditional" massage parlours I decided I just wanted a normal massage and went to a place on Sukhumvit. I had heard that these girls weren't hookers and all I wanted was a massage anyway. That's where I met the woman that has captured my imagination ever since. We hadn't been in our room together for even an hour and the session turned into something beyond the traditional massage. It wasn't sex immediately as the rooms were too transparent but we were definitely close and when I met her again after work back at my hotel we had a night together that I still reflect on from time to time. I then spent the remainder of my week with her.

I had in only a few short days become addicted to Thailand and in love with a woman I hardly knew. I never lied to "Oy" and told her right off that I was married. We seemed however to be, if not in love anyway, extremely infatuated. I quickly arranged for another trip 3 months later and we would talk on the phone at least every week and sometimes more. My next trip was for 2 weeks and we were inseparable. In fact my friend who had also come back was slightly annoyed as he wanted to chase skirts a little and I wasn't interested. I only had eyes for Oy. I used the excuse that because I was married I felt there was less risk of a disease by staying with one woman but the plain truth was that I was falling in love.

When I left I became very depressed and was obsessed with how to get back to Thailand and back to Oy. It was very difficult for me to get back both with coming up with excuses for my wife and work so I wasn't able to plan another trip until the next spring 8 months later. In the meantime we had weekly phone calls and there was plenty of "kit tung, kit tung" etc..

Now I may be dumb but try not to be entirely stupid and I figured I wasn't the only person she would see. I would always call her at night in Bangkok and I never missed her. As she always answered the phone I thought maybe everything was going according to plan. I guess I was hoping it was just the usual hand jobs but deep down I knew more was going on. I rationalized it by saying everybody needs to make a living and I'm not supporting her so it was ok with me as long as it was me she was in love with.

With my next trip coming in February 2006 I was extremely excited however fate was cruel and my mother suffered from a condition that kept her in intensive care for 3 months and although she is only 64 we thought on several occasions that she was going to die. My trip was at first postponed and then she got sick again and I was forced to cancel altogether. I needed to help take care of her. I was responsible and even though my heart ached terribly at not seeing Oy I had someone who needed me more.

Obviously there was an extreme amount of stress in my life. I was so busy everyday making life and death decisions that I was often unable to talk to Oy with very sporadic exceptions. After about 3 months of this I wrote an email to Oy telling her that she deserved better than me, I wasn't able to come visit and she was better off without me in her life. Two months slowly, painfully ticked by and although I didn't stop thinking about Oy we didn't speak at all. Finally when my mother was better I sent her an email just to see if she was ok and she responded quickly asking me to call her again. So I did and…after talking a couple times she admitted to having met someone. I was heartbroken, I felt like I had been punched in the gut but this pain would not go away. She told me she wasn't sure if it was going anywhere but even though she loved me I don't live in Bangkok and he does. I told her it would be ok as long as he was a good person and would be a good partner for her but inside I was reeling.

My next trip was late in the summer and although we still talked on the phone I noticed she wouldn't always pick up. In other words I knew I was in trouble. A Thai girl that doesn't answer her phone is a Thai girl that is with a man <All readers take note of this sentence, so true! – Stick>. My wife was with me on this last trip but Oy said she wanted to see me so I came up with an excuse and got away for an afternoon. We met on Sukhumvit and it was just like old times again and soon we had rented a hotel and were seemingly awash in love again.

After we made love she told me she had agreed to move in with her new boyfriend. I tried to play it off and joked that I was now her "pua noi" and things went well enough but I noticed that she would only see me during the day and was unwilling to take a risk to be with me. Fair enough I figured as I hadn't always been reliable in seeing her, had told her to move on and she has… supposedly anyway. Now she says on my upcoming trip she wants to see me everyday before she goes home to her German boyfriend.

Now I have several dilemmas; for one thing these meetings feel like short times and I don't care for short times or I wouldn't have ever had a relationship in the first place. Another dilemma is this new boyfriend; How would I feel if somebody was banging loads into my girlfriend every day before I kissed her to welcome her home? I do know she also has another boyfriend from Florida who speaks Thai so if it isn't me she'll be into somebody anyhow, but still… Lastly, I'm in serious love with her and it is very uncomfortable when she's in and out in 2 hours and I cant live the fantasy that she's not a plain hooker. She is also very hot and cold so I'm also getting annoyed as well as a Thailand education in "3rd world love" and what it really means. The funny (stupid) thing is that if she played her cards right I probably would be dumb enough to support her for life. Well maybe not now but I would have earlier.

Anyway, for any of you readers that are still with me my question is this; Can a farang with enough money get away with having a mia noi? What is a guy to do that feels the need to roam but is put off by short term trysts? I'm hoping some of you out there know people like me that feel this same way and I'm hoping your willing to give me any input you might have on any ideas or anyone that has made this work. If I found the right woman I wouldn't mind if they got old and grey right along with me. Am I crazy???

Is it feasible? I have changed names obviously to protect the guilty.

Signed,

Patsy (yes I can be contacted.)

Stickman's thoughts:

Plenty of farangs in Bangkok have mia nois. It is far from a Thai only thing. Some of these mia nois of farangs are supported very well. I recently found out that a guy I know kept one and boy oh boy, is he generous with her!