How Wrong I Was!
Dear Stick,
After reading your column for quite some time I thought I should now contribute my story, although it is on the same theme as many others, I honestly thought I could change my ex bar girlfriend, how wrong I was.
To give you a bit of my history on my life in Thailand so that your readers do not think I am a wide eyed newbie, my first visit was in 1992, for 3 weeks, then that was followed later by a 3 month stint, then it became 50 / 50, 6 months Thailand; 6 months Farangland until finally settling here some 8 years ago. Not bragging, in the early days here I went with probably hundreds of girls, yes many gogo, bargirls, freelancers, good girls from Robinson's, Emporium, beauty salons, banks – you name it, I had been with it. Then I started getting bored with it all, the relentless pursuit of the flesh. I tried to settle with one girl, but after 6 months I had had enough of her laziness, jealousy and to be quite honest, she was thick. <Don't want to be nasty or callous here but that is a problem locally – Stick> You could not talk to her unless it was about Thai comedies or what was happening in the local bar scene and she had no idea what was going on except what was happening to her friends and what was on TV so this had to end.
Now comes my big mistake. I had met this girl, let's call her Emm, when she had just started in the bar scene. I went with her a number of times and she was attractive, fun to be with, she really enjoyed herself. I felt very easy in her company. The problem though was that I had to be out of the country for some time. On my return I never really looked for her as my job now was to change, being now based here I was in and out of the country frequently for between 2 – 4 weeks usually at a time.
Then one time I asked where Emm was and was told she now had a farang looking after her and she had gone back home. I thought good for her and good luck to him, the lucky sod.
About 3 years later I happened to be back at home and had gone out to see some friends, when I passed a certain bar. I saw there was a fairly large group of girls in and as I passed someone shouted my name. I looked and it was Emm. She told me she was down for her friend's wedding, in fact it had already happened the day before and she had stayed on a couple of more days to celebrate another friend's birthday. She asked me to go along but I had already made arrangements, so I said if she wanted I would take her out the next night. We met the next night and she went on to tell me about she had now split from her farang boyfriend and that she was going home the next day and unfortunately she was going to have to come back to work in the bar again. I asked her if she could arrange with her mother to look after her daughter for a further week and to stay with me to see how we get on together. She managed to stay and to be honest it was a great week. I was going off to work on the Sunday and I told her I would be away for a month and for her to go home but come back down on my return.
I kept in touch with her quite often over this month away, most days by telephone and she was telling me she was really looking forward to me coming back and her coming down. The time passed and she was waiting for me when I returned. The arrangement we had was if either of us felt it wasn't working then we would call it a day. Things actually went great, far better than I could have imagined, the onset being that after a while I told her that I thought it was time she had her daughter with us as we were a definite couple. She was overjoyed at me wanting her daughter to come and live with us.
Time elapsed and to my mind we were both very happy. Her daughter was doing well in school and she had transformed my home. I was amazed that she had such great ideas and all of them transpired to make us all very comfortable.
At that time she did not work. She looked after the house and us as a family and I was happy with this. I gave her a monthly allowance which was for her and she could do what she wanted with it, well every month she sent her mother 4,000 baht out of her money as she really cared for her. And she was always buying something for the house. She was really good but I always gave her back what she spent on the house.
Over time she passed her driving test, went to school to improve her English and also computer school. A lot of her friends were quite envious of her as she had a nice home, drove our new car and she also had a new motorbike. Things were going well and we had discussed a number of times about getting married which is what we both wanted (or so I thought).
Then I had a scare. I very nearly lost my life to a serious illness. It took me a long time to get better and fit again but it worried me what would have happened to my new family if I had died so I asked her what she would have done or would do and she said she would have to go home but she didn't want to think about what she would have to do. So I volunteered to build her a home back in her village if she wanted it. She was ecstatic and she went home, bought the land a couple of doors down from her mother's and supervised the building of it whilst I had now got back to work. I was never under any pressure from her to buy and I went into this with my eyes wide open. If anything happened I was prepared to write off the cost of this project as it was my idea. The cost of everything was 1,400,000 baht, not a huge sum but not something I could do frequently. She was now the very proud owner of a nice piece of land and a new house.
Again time has elapsed and there weren't any major problems between us. A few tiffs but who doesn't, although through through this period we spoke about it we still hadn't got around to marrying, although once we did set a provisional date but later had to cancel as I was required to go back to Europe. I had never had any cause to doubt her or not to trust her. If she wanted to go out with her friends, fine. If we were out and she wanted to go dancing later, again no problem. She had freedom and I trusted her (fool).
The bomb shell had to drop and it did last week. We were out last Monday night with our daughter and my friend and his girl as it was my girl's birthday. We had a nice meal then went on to my friend's bar for a laugh and a game of pool. Later a number of her friends wanted to go dancing with her so I said I would take our daughter home and she could go off with her friends. I made my way home with our daughter. Her mother had given her her handbag and a gold chain as there had been some snatches going on. As we got home the daughter slipped on the entrance carpet dropping her mother's bag and the contents spilled. I told her not to mind and go and get ready for bed. I started to pick up the contents and found a piece of paper with a guy's email address on it and underneath an email account for her. Something she had not told me about and luckily she had even left her password. I booted up the computer and was getting very nervous about what, if anything I was going to find. And true enough there it was, nothing in the in box but 8 in the sent box. So I opened them and she was in touch with 2 guys, expressing her love for them both and looking forward to seeing them soon. I think the thing that pissed me off the most was that she had met them whilst I was away working and she was actually trying to arrange for one or both of them to come over as I am away for a month again next week. I printed them out to confront her with them the next day as I didn't want a shouting match in front of the daughter in the early hours of the morning.
The next day I had to leave the house early as I had a client to meet so I thought I would confront her in the evening. When I arrived home she asked me what I wanted to eat. I said nothing as I wanted to go for a walk, but before leaving I asked her if she knew this guy on the email address. You should have seen the expression on her face but yes she denied it, so I left her to think about it whilst I went for a walk. I wanted to hear what she would come up with. When I returned she said she remembered it was her friend who had used our computer. So I asked her about this other guy and again the expression on her face said it all again, claiming she didn't know who I was talking about. I then showed her the emails I had copied and she still denied it, saying it was her friends but I asked how can this be when it is your email account and the times on some of the emails was after midnight, but yes she still denied it. I obviously slept alone that night and the next morning I told her to go, but it took me all day to get her to go.
So there you have it guys, a girl who had everything going for her, new land and home in her village, a nice home and the use of the new car and motorbike here, never short of money her or her daughter, never restricted to what she could do, her daughter is in the best school and well looked after even if I say it myself I don't think there was much more she wanted, but was that enough obviously a very big no.
It's been said many, many times on Stick's site and I have read it many times myself. You can't take the girl out of the bar and have a happy ending. Please, please listen to everyone if you want to take the chance with a bar girl don't. IT is better to book a ticket home and get away from her. If you take her out you will be making the biggest mistake of your life.
Why did I do it? I was convinced she was different and she would make a great partner. Was I wrong? You bet I was! There is never enough for these girls. You cannot give them enough – they want everything and more. I am going to finish with the words you have all heard before. DON'T DO IT! They will always shit on you. Do I regret it? Boy, do I! Would I do it again? NEVER! Rake this advice from someone who had been around the block and had been with many girls. You will never win with a bar girl, they have to cheat.
Stickman's thoughts:
In this girl's case, it doesn't seem that she was after more money or material things. It sounds more as though she was bored while you were away. Long distance relationships are difficult at the best of times but with Thai women who tend to be very needy they are even more difficult. Remember, the average Thai women (particularly those from lower echelons of society) often see farangs as an entertainment centre, there to provide entertainment for them 24 / 7.
