Faces of Bangkok – Meet my Dates

My flight touches down at Suvannaphum about an hour delayed on a late Thursday afternoon.

After a short while I find myself in a taxi heading to my usual hotel on Sukumvit, already making arrangements for the evening on my phone. My good Bangkok based friend is not in town until Sunday night. That gives me complete freedom with my itinerary during the first three days.

Six weeks prior my arrival I had registered on Thailovelinks after reading an article on how successful some guys have supposedly been with pulling women from there. As the naturally inquisitive person that I am I was consequently interested what reaction I would get if I created my own profile. After all, this was a game I hadn’t played yet.

I got a 3-month membership for a total of around 70 US$, even though one month would have definitely been enough with hindsight. In any case, it was meant to be an experiment of sorts, and with regard to that I considered it a well worthwhile investment.

The experience proved to be interesting and definitely worthwhile even though I found that most girls on the website were neither very pretty nor particularly interesting. Generally I got lots and lots of attention, which after what I had heard was not surprising really. I got plenty of messages from girls in the provinces that I outright discarded without any exceptions as I was only to spend time in the capital on this short trip.

Meet Pong

Top on my list of contacts is Pong, a secretary who works in an office near Silom. At 30 years of age she’s a bit my senior. She proved to be quite coltish with me on chat on several occasions, flattering me continuously, telling me how incredibly lovely I am and what not! Quite the charmer she is…

Pong u look lovely so much

Akulka thank you

Pong please send your more pic, i love to see so much

Akulka well…

Pong you know about yourself…handsome guy… never see before

Akulka hahaha, I don't think so, but thanks!

Pong you come to be my b/f ok?

Akulka ummm…

Pong please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Intellectually stimulating our conversations were certainly not, but still fun enough to while away a few minutes during lunch break. The photos she sent were pretty too, so I thought why not give things a shot with her.

—

Pong sounds confident on the phone and her English is reasonably good too. We agree to meet at 7pm at Siam Discovery and have dinner together. I quickly dip into the pool to cool off, then change into nice clothes, and catch the Skytrain to Siam. I get there by 7:10pm. Pong arrives a few minutes later. She’s dressed to kill and doesn’t look bad, but not as pretty as in the photos she sent either. Seeing her standing right in front of me now I quickly conclude she’s actually not really my type.

We walk over to a cute boutique restaurant she likes near Siam Square. It’s called Mae Baan. We get a private table and Pong orders Green Curry, Egg Pie, and Sweet Sour Fish. Conversation is slow. By the time we finish our dinner I don’t really know what to talk to her about anymore. Smalltalk has been made, all sorts of pleasantries have been exchanged, but our conversation hasn’t really had any noteworthy substance. Worst of all, she really doesn’t get my humor, and I haven’t even played the irony card.

It’s only 8:30pm, and since she’s otherwise been very nice and considerate I would feel bad walking away already, so I eventually give in to her proposal to go watch a movie together. The choice is limited. We end up seeing “Get Smart”, a not very well done secret agent parody. She finds it hilarious. I almost fall asleep watching.

After the movie I feel it’s my luck that she suggests to split for the night and head back to our respective rooms. She jumps into a taxi back to her place, and I rush back to my hotel to change and head out again. The night is still young and I have in mind to make up for this friendly but rather slow start of the evening still.

Sitting in the taxi I receive a message from Pong: “I have something want to say with u I like u so much, u very lovely and very nice, sorry im just meet u first day but fall in love u already and u? how do u feel?”

Meet Jeb:

I reach Santika around Ekkamai 6 shortly before midnight. It’s busy for a Thursday night but not incredibly so. There are still quite a lot of tables that are not occupied. I get a coke and wander around a bit. There is a live band playing but I don’t like their music even half as much as the one I saw perform here a couple of months earlier.

After about twenty minutes standing around and watching the scene a Thai guy approaches and invites me to his table. He’s there with four other male Thai friends, I estimate their ages at around 22 or 23, but it’s hard to tell. Most of them are well on their way to getting totally plastered on Whiskey Sodas already. There are also four girls. At first I think they are the guys’ girlfriends, but I soon realize that’s obviously not so. One of the guys leans over and tells me that one of them supposedly has taken a shine to me. Her name is Fon, and I find her quite cute actually. Not too tall, nice body, long straight hair. Smells like vanilla too. She dances enthusiastically near the table and keeps glancing at me. I’m told she doesn’t speak any English but it’s too noisy to really have a conversation anyway.

Yet with the guys constantly demanding my attention she loses interest quickly and soon pretty much ignores me. Consequently I end up talking to the Thai guys mostly who strangely enough seem enthused by my company and offer me one drink after the other.

I notice another girl who keeps staring at me. Tall, shoulder long curly hair, red dress, and a couple of stilettos supporting her killer body. She dances apparently without company just a few meters away. I don’t spot a boyfriend in her vicinity either. Suddenly one of the guys I am hanging with starts hitting on her, but she keeps looking at me. I observe, wondering where this will go.

A few minutes later she walks up to me…

“My name Jeb! Sorry I dance with him but I like you!”

She stays close and more and more dances with me than the other guy who then backs out rather quickly.

At 2am Santika closes. Jeb announces she will leave now. I ask if she feels like heading somewhere else with me. After mulling this over for a few seconds she steps closer and whispers into my ear…

“Where you stay?”

Meet Gob:

The following day I phone Gob, another contact from TLL.com, and arrange a meeting at The Mall Bangkapi at 2:30pm. Even before seeing her I can already tell that this is probably going to be a waste of time. I chatted to her two or three times before coming to Bangkok, and perhaps foolishly gave the promise to at least see her for coffee if I found the time.

Gob’s 28, majored in English and is therefore reasonably fluent, and now works as ground staff at one of Bangkok Airways' information counters at the airport. She always seemed nice enough, but at the same time not incredibly interesting a character. Worst of all, she started speculating about more or less entering into a relationship with me almost right from the outset. I told her immediately that this was not what I was looking for. Gob simply spoke of being friends then and went on reminding me numerous times how much she would like to meet up with me.

I reach The Mall Bangkapi perfectly on time at 2:30pm. Gob looks a lot different than on her photo. More chubby! Her face is quite cute and friendly though.

I take her to MK as I am starving. Talk over lunch is rather slow and unfortunately not too interesting for me. A bit about work, a bit about family, a bit about our respective backgrounds! The usual fare really.

I receive a text from Cat, an old friend, informing me that she is at the mall too. Gob says she wants to stay at the mall and spend some more time, so if I want to meet with Cat I’ve got to get out of the place with a good excuse and see her elsewhere. I end up telling Gob that I’m invited over to a friend’s place for dinner and have to leave. She looks at me disappointed with her large puppy eyes, but then offers to walk me down to the taxi stands.

I tell her that I have to use to the toilet first and she shouldn’t wait for me. I thank her many times for the nice meeting and wish her all the best before making a quick run for it. Calling Cat I tell her that I am free now but we need to get out of the mall and go elsewhere if we want to spend time together. She finds that hilarious.

Meet Cat

We agree to meet in front of McDonald’s on the ground level. From there we walk to the other side of the street and sit at Swenson’s for ice-cream. Cat looks cute as always. It’s been a year now since we’ve had a little amorous adventure together. I had met her on a Thai message board, consequently caught up with her in Bangkok, and we eventually ended up dating for a while. I pulled out when I noticed how she was getting too serious about us, and today I’m glad to call her a good friend I can share almost anything with. She has a good laugh about my experiences during the last few days and in particular about her role in saving me from my rather lame date this afternoon. I feel rather guilty. Even more so after receiving the first in a string of messages from Gob shortly after…

“Dear Akulka, thank u so much! It has been such a nice day for me seeing u already! I hope we meet again tomorrow?”

Meet Dee:

Last on my list of TLS.com contacts is Dee. She was quite exceptional in the way she approached me. She first dropped me an email just a few days before I arrived to Bangkok, basically introducing herself, and asking me to get in touch if I felt like it. Her English was really good, and her style very unique, so I politely wrote her back. The information on her profile was quite limited actually. It said Dee was 71 years old, and there was no photo either. She later explained she did that because she wanted to find out if people would see through this and be curious about her. Not many were.

Not long after we were online at the same time, opened a chat window, talked briefly through TLL.com, and then exchanged our MSN details. Through MSN we ended up talking surprisingly long and repeatedly. I could tell early that this girl was rather unusual. Great English, interesting background, curious humor. Very direct, even provocatively so! She inquired why I was coming to Bangkok, but mostly she wanted to know what a guy like me was doing on a website like TLL.com anyways. I explained that it was meant to be an experiment, and left it at that. Returning the question to Dee she explained that she just joined out of boredom and also wanted to find out what it was all about. Fair enough.

At no time did Dee ask to meet me. She just suggested that if I wanted she could recommend a really good place for massage near Siam. I told her that if I found the time and if she was available I’d sure be interested in her taking me there. She is 29 and not 71 by the way. From all the information given and the talks we had I could tell with ease that this girl was very smart and not very traditionally Thai in her demeanor at all, at least not online. I didn’t have any expectations, but thought that it would certainly be interesting to meet her in real life.

—

“Wow, she’s pretty damn cute” is my first thought as I spot Dee in the crowd in front of Brown Sugar Jazz Cafe. We spend the next couple of hours talking. Dee’s got lots of energy. I struggle to keep up with her sometimes. At a certain point I actually feel she’s a bit difficult to deal with. Like on chat she’s very provocative, obviously trying to find out what my limits are. At times it’s quite a challenge to put up with that, but it’s also rather easy to see through her act. More often than not people who present themselves in such ways actually happen to be quite sensitive.

Shortly before midnight the band takes a break so we decide to move on. Next stop, Silom Soi 2, a club called Breaks, one of her favorite dance venues she says.

This is less to my liking. The crowd partly seems to be Patpong spillover, some rather nasty looking specimens, the kind of people I usually try to avoid. The place reeks of mainstream defiance, the sounds fresh and edgy. It’s very crowded so dancing is hardly possible without constantly bumping into someone.

“How do you like it here?” Dee asks.

“My kitchen back home is more Thai than this place!” I reply.

She frowns.

At 3am Break’s doors close. At this time we don’t really have too many options anymore. Dee brings up Spicy, an after hours night club that pays significant bribes to the authorities to be allowed to operate until the wee hours of the morning. Because it is open until dawn it is also a very popular venue with freelancers and bargirls who haven’t found a customer for the evening yet.

Dee says she has been twice in the past and wouldn’t mind taking me, as long as I promise to stay near her at all times, as everyone in the place will assume she’s a hooker for being with me. That’s a promise I can easily give, and in any case her description of the place has made me really curious to see it with my own eyes now.

—

I pay the 300 baht entrance fee for both of us and we walk in. The place is really bizarre. It is packed with wall to wall girls. It seems as if the girl – guy ratio is about 5 to 1 at this hour, and to me it feels as if they are all staring at me like vultures.

We order drinks at the bar and find a table with a good view. To the immediate right of us two seemingly unsuspecting guys are hitting on lady boys. To the left some old, obese, bald man with a huge moustache has just started French kissing a young Thai guy. There’s even a bunch of unsightly Farang girls dancing on a podium to the repetitive sounds of the noisy house music, and a couple of obviously very drunk Thai bargirls who have begun undressing each other. This place really is Sodom and Gomorrah, and at the same time people watching at its best. Dee is freezing because of the air con. I hug her from behind, rub her shoulders, and keep her in a tight embrace. It’s a nicely intimate feeling amidst all the pandemonium.

“You just love to please women, don’t you?” she suddenly asks.

I drop her off at her apartment building at 5:30am. As she hugs me for goodbye she whispers into my ear…

“Thanks for sticking around all day. Usually I scare people off much sooner!”

—

We spend the whole next week together, go to the movies, out to eat, dance, and generally have lots of fun. I don’t meet any of my other contacts from TLS.com anymore either. Dee and I are enjoying each other’s company so much that I’m just not interested in meeting anyone new. I tell her about the girls I had met from TLS.com before seeing her, and how they were so quick to like me and even profess their “love” to me already.

“Are you worried I might fall for you too?” she teases me with a twinkle in her eye.

“No, because with you I know that you take responsibility for anything that might happen”

And she has.

Stickman's thoughts:

TLL is home to a lot of desperate girls – but there are a few diamonds there too.

Thai women have much going for them and while I know you're not on the look out for a long termer in your short adventures in Thailand, finding one who will satisfy you intellectually as well as in other ways is not always easy…