Stickman Readers' Submissions September 26th, 2008

Blog-Illusion, Fantasy, Fleeting Images

I turned 25 on the 2nd of May this year and spent the first day of a 3 month holiday in Thailand in Bangkok. That night, I met a girl.

He Clinic Bangkok


It just so happened that the first gogo I walked into in Nana that night and the first Thai girl I ever bar fined would spend the majority of my holiday with me. I didn't go to Thailand looking for love (I know, I know) but at the end of my three month stay I did have fairly strong feelings for this girl, almost ending in a trip to her village to meet her family with one week left. I did not go, thinking if I was not 100% about this girl I did not want to take the next step. I would like to add I paid her 20,000 baht a month for her company, because she told me she had to give her mum money, and expecting nothing for free was happy to do so.


When I left she told me she was going to go back and work in the bar, because I told her I would not send her any money because I know what Thai girls are like that work in bars and gogos (having read many of your reader submissions and many discussion boards).

So I left to Australia knowing she would be back in the bar the next night. She told me so and I accepted it. Said we can be friends, and I would still like to stay in touch when I get home.

CBD bangkok


Anyway, not long after I returned home, about 2 weeks later, she told me she was pregnant, and did not know if she was going to keep the baby or not. I had a feeling this was coming, but she sounded very genuine and I believed her. I said that if she kept it I would be there for her, both emotionally and financially. She went home to her village (I confirmed this) as it was election time. Soon after she had decided not to keep it, and it seemed very sudden to me. I said it was totally up to her, and it would not change anything between us if she kept it or not. My feelings now were that I loved her.


She told me she was going to stay in her village now, and did not want to go back and work in the bar anymore. I was happy. She didn't ask for any money off me, but I felt like I had to send her just a little bit, to help her stay in her village, so at the end of the first month we were not together I sent her 8,500 baht.


I called her many times in those 3 weeks. I was and still am convinced she was in her village. Now for some reason I have started to doubt her. She emailed me photos on the 4th of September. I checked in the properties and they say they were taken on the 2nd of September. She claimed they were taken the same day she emailed me. The pictures were taken in the morning, according to the time and date in properties. She confirmed this.


Ok no big deal, the date could be wrong in the camera, but I know on the 2nd of September she picked up my Western Union money transfer in her local city, Chiayaphum, at 3:27 PM local time. I remember that day when I tried to call her that I could not reach her for about 1 – 2 hours. She called me back and said her mobile battery had died on the way home. I would like to add she waited 7 days to pick the money up, but claimed she had been in her local city a few times before this. And she did not email me once until the 4th of September. She had been in her village about 3 weeks.

wonderland clinic


I am 100% that she was in her village until the 2nd of September, but after that I am not sure now.


My theory is that she took some photos the day she left her village, took them in the morning and then later that day she went to her local city and picked up the money I sent her. She than got on a bus an went to Bangkok.


Since the 2nd the majority of SMS messages have been sent at times that would fit in with her old sleeping pattern, and now sometimes when I SMS her in the morning she does not reply until later, a more reasonable time to get up if you were working all night.


We had a bit of a falling out the other day because I tried to call her all day and she did not pick up. She called me on a different Thai number that night, and said her cousin had died in Korat and her and her mother left their house the night before, and she forgot her phone, leaving it at her house.


Again I am inclined to believe her from her reaction, and her story seems solid.


I demanded to see her email when I was in Thailand and she gave me the password. She was getting money out of one guy, just bits here and there, but in the time she was with me she had not emailed him much, and I believe one of her friends was in on it with her, possibly emailing him on her behalf.


I think she knew I still had her password, kind of hinted at it, but she had not changed it until today. I would check it regularly and there were no more emails from this other man. But the fact she has changed it all of a sudden has me thinking something is up again.


I know when I send her Western Union again at the end of this month I can check to see if it was picked up in Chiayaphum or Bangkok, but I guess if she is switched on she could bus it there and pick it up.


What should I do Stickman? Does it look like I am being played?

Stickman's thoughts:

You're 25 years old and I guess this woman is younger than you. That means she is rather young and may well enjoy the bar scene, perhaps not the work per se, but the excitement of the environment, making new friends and earning enough money to do, quite frankly, whatever the hell she wants. It isn't easy for a young woman to turn her back on that. From this story it is impossible to say for sure what she is up to. She might be in the village or she might be in the bar. Who knows? I would say though that the mobile phone being turned off or unreachable for periods of time is a MASSIVE red flag. Thai women seldom turn their phone off…

Update:

Ok, well my gut feeling was she was playing me, but without the 100% proof I had to wait. After emailing stickman and spending 10 minutes running a Google search on password hacking I found a web site that looked legit. It took them one week to get back to me, and I felt instantly sick when I logged into her email account with her cracked password.

Yes she was back in the bar, and was in communication with a Korean man she had spent 3 days with. It turns out I was right on the money, she left her village on the 2nd of September after spending a whole 2 weeks in her village. It was 5am Thai time when I called her.

I know that unless you back a Thai girl into a corner she will lie to your face convincingly. So I approached it in a way she could not deny anything and she spilled the beans. I told her it was over, finished we were done.

Well that lasted a whole day, the calls and sms messages did not stop, and I spoke to her again that same night. She told me she was back in her village, and I was able to confirm this. She begged me for one more chance, told me she wants a future with me, and so on. I told her that night that I am not sure If I can get over all the lies she had told me in the previous 3 weeks, and that I had to think If I wanted to give her a second chance, and in fact have a future with her.

The following night we had a long conversation, and she told me some interesting things. She said that working in the bar scene is like someone addicted to Yabbah, it is extremely hard to stop. She told me I had to control her or she would go back. It is interesting that she had told the Korean man in her emails that she did indeed plan to leave the gogo at the end of the month and return home, but she also contradicted herself by saying if I did not find out she would have stayed working the bar. She may have also been returning because I demanded she put a home phone on at her house. She went on to tell me how much she had made in those 3 weeks, 55,000 baht and how it is hard to walk away from "easy money" She told me that she knows that even though she can make a lot of money in the bar it is "never enough" and she wants a good future.

I emailed the two men she had been in contact with via email, one I already knew about because she had given me her password in Thailand. I explained my situation and told them not to send her anymore money. One replied and thanked me, the other, the Korean who only spent 3 days with her this month called her and said he loved her and wanted her to choose him. I asked if she was angry about what I did and she laughed and said no. I asked if she wanted her old email, she said no, so I locked her out of it and created her a new one.

She did say to my "Tilak why you not let me make money from the Korean man" Obviously I know it is wrong to cheat people out of money and play with their feelings, but had to explain it to her anyway. I also told her that if we are to have a future together she has to forget about her past, and she can not do this if she remains in communication with past customers.

I truly believe she wants to try and get out of the bar scene, and does love me, and yes I have given her one more chance. I know myself that next time I get a gut feeling that something is wrong than something is indeed wrong and told her I will sever communications with no explanation. I told her I want her to come to Australia in January next year, and if she likes it, and thinks she can live here with me I will marry her. In doing this I have given myself three months to find out if she can stay in her village and stay away from the bar.

nana plaza