The Right Balance

There’s so much material out there now online on how to get heaps of women. While some of it is universal, I think it would be advantageous to have something wrapped up in a bow, something tailored more specifically to Thai women. This report is my attempt to do so.

I would like to make it clear that although this obviously comes from my perspective and experiences, I must also credit material from David DeAngelo, who is a dating guru and hails from the US. Some of his stuff turned out to be VITAL, and especially applicable to Thai women on a number of levels. I have benefited from his teachings and some of the phrases used in this submission stem from his seminars.

This report is also more relevant to the younger, single guys out there who are residing in Thailand, those in their 20’s and 30’s. I think the dating/relationship game changes somewhat, though not too significantly, once past 45 years of age. For you younger chaps, let’s get one thing clear. I want you to remove your reliance on the so-called advice from the older Western guys who have lived in Thailand for an extended period. This was my rookie mistake. Some of these older blokes tend to be rather emotionally warped, they gossip, and have a distorted sense of reality. It’s funny, you know, the older guys I knew, aged 45-65, were pretty much the opposite to the people they advertised themselves to be. Examples? One guy who said he was awesome at everything, especially attracting women, but was actually sexually impotent. Another famous whoremonger was an expert liar who buggered ladyboys by night while being on a Thai-Western student exchange committee at his workplace dealing with young people. My advice is to blow these guys off and stick to your guns. Learn through your own experiences. Western guys living in Thailand tend to be running from something. Always remember that. You may find an older guy here who is actually wise, caring, and doesn’t seek to exclusively serve his own agendas, but that is rare. If you find one, and he stands the test of time, cherish him. OK, let’s move on.

I would like to use a numbering system to highlight my experiences. People tend to get pissed off at others who come up with a list of “do” and “do not do’s” and, in doing so, signal their distaste for those who appear to have a knowledgeable checklist of what to avoid in dating situations. I personally couldn’t give a shit. I just want to list those things I feel are critical in a relationship with a Thai woman, whether it be in Thailand or if it starts in Thailand and ends up in your Western country.

1. Confidence

This is obvious, or should be. But it’s on a scale from not enough to too much. You need to be very careful with this one, since it IS the most important

The most important thing to remember is DO NOT BE A WUSS. This word “WUSS” is a combination of two words: “weakling” and “pussy”. Being needy, insecure and clingy puts you at a HUGE disadvantage. I doesn’t matter if you are 15 and looking for your first girlfriend, or 55 and recently been through a horrible divorce. NEVER act like a wuss. You probably know the kind of guy I’m talking about. He’s totally whipped, unsure around women, or ready to grab on and hold on to anyone around him. But let’s not criticise the guy too much – there are reasons for it.

You see, many guys these days are a product of divorced parents, and have been reared by a single mother. While it’s heart-warming that she raised them on her own, these guys ultimately miss out on some vital cues on “being a man”. For example, if you asked your mother what she thinks would make a girl happy, she would say “buy her flowers every day, call her all the time, treat her like a princess all the time, and be gentle with her when she gets upset”. Whilst this sounds all well and good to Mom, it’s HORRIBLE when it comes to keeping a woman attracted to you, and it allows a woman to treat you any way she wishes. So these guys grow up thinking that this is what you need to make a woman love you. However, behaviour like this sends women to the next guy who doesn’t act like such a wuss.

The most important piece of advice I have ever received was “be comfortable and confident within yourself. Only then will you attract a good mate. Otherwise, all you’ll attract is garbage”. It’s oh so true. If you have issues, deal with them. If you are insecure, find out the source of the problem. Work on yourself FIRST. It all starts with you, man!

There are avenues out there to bolster your confidence. If you need to lose weight, start a program and lose those pounds. If you have a crooked tooth, for god’s sake spend the money and get it straightened! These things make you feel better and enhance your performance when you are out there playing the dating field.

Another note on confidence. While being a wuss is disadvantageous, so too is being over-confident. You have probably run into this guy as well. He thinks he knows it all. He argues until he ‘wins’ the conversation. He’s a mysogynist. Let me tell you, this is totally unattractive to women. This guy has a very, very low self-esteem. That’s why over-confidence puts you on the other end of the slippery slope in the graph I’ve shown. I knew a guy in Thailand, whom I personally met, who would engage in such “I’m a REAL man” talk. He turned out to be 62, very physically unattractive, and only ‘scored’ women via transaction-based arrangements. Some “man” he turned out to be.

Bottom line: be confident within yourself, have a life, know who you are and where you’re going, and you’ll be infinitely more attractive to women.

1. Tease Her

I can’t believe I hadn’t realised this for so long. You need to pay out on her! I’m not talking about offending her. I’m talking about teasing her like she’s your brat sister. If she has a big handbag, give her hell for it and ask her if she’s got a machete in there or something. If she thinks she’s an expert on make-up, tease her for wearing funny colored lipstick. You’ll get it as you go along. This whole thing serves multiple purposes. It identifies whether or not she actually has a sense of humour, but more importantly it’s a way to trigger her attraction towards you – and yes, this stems from confidence! While other guys are telling her how beautiful she is, and calling her 50 times a day (i.e. a WUSS), you’re giving her hell about her hairstyle! This really messes with the mind of a beautiful woman, and it sets you well apart from the rest. All of a sudden she’s thinking “for some reason I feel I need to sleep with him….”

If she can’t take a joke, forget about her.

2. Attraction Isn’t A Choice

This is one of the biggest messages I got from David DeAngelo’s seminars. Women don’t “choose” to be attracted to you. It’s all under the surface. So you think you’re a nice guy, and therefore you should attract lots of women? Wrong! Get this into your head fast: being nice gets you nowhere in the dating scene. Unless of course you are totally whipped by a woman. You know, the guy who races home whenever she calls, and does everything she asks, and replies with “Yes, Dear”. The additional problem there is that these women usually end up screwing the guy around for a while, sleeps with someone else, and eventually breaks up with him, ultimately leaving him in some financial distress. Don’t want this to happen to you? Then don’t be a wuss.

Here’s an example. You arrange to have a Sunday with the boys watching the Bears-Titans football game. You go to your friend’s place, have a couple of beers and it’s a few minutes until half time in a tight contest. Your lady calls saying “can you come to Siam Square now and help me choose the clothes I want to buy?” The wrong thing to do is leave immediately and go clothes-shopping with her. Instead, you do the right thing by saying “I’m watching football like I planned. I’ll call you later”. Powerful. It sends the right message. Obviously the result would be different if her mother got hit by a car or something, but for something unimportant like my example, you need to have your balls in your own pants.

The take-home message here is don’t be a pushover. Don’t call her 10, 20, 50 times a day. Don’t be so needy and clingy.

3. Give Her The Gift of Missing You

You gotta be chill. Allow her to come to you. If you are calling her all the time, what does she have to do? Nothing. And that results in her losing all interest in you.

Here’s an example. Have you ever had a woman that clung onto you, and never seemed to let go? At first, you were really attracted to her, and you had heaps of fun with her. But then she got “clingy”. She called you all the time, asking where you were and what you were doing. She wanted to meet up with you 7 nights a week. You would look at your phone and see 12 missed calls – all from her. And what happened eventually? You LOST INTEREST IN HER. It started to bug you, and then you began thinking of ways to break up with her. Eventually, you ditched her, using the best excuse you could think of that would minimise hurting her feelings. Well let me tell you something: WOMEN DO THE SAME THING. If they sense you are a needy wuss, they begin to lose interest, they stop taking your calls, and eventually they break up with you, using the phrases “I need to be alone right now” or “I need to work on myself right now” or the classic “It’s not you, it’s me”. Truth is, IT IS YOU. What she is really saying is “You turned into a wuss, and I am no longer attracted to you”.

If you have a girl you really like, give her some space. Give her a chance to miss you. If she wants to go away for a weekend with her girlfriends, and you are not invited, then so what? It’s not about you. Let it go, otherwise she’ll sense that you’ve lost control of the situation and she’ll feel smothered.

4. Bargirl Sniff? Eliminate

This is relevant to the guys who don’t want to have a serious relationship with a hooker.

It helps if you know the bargirl scene. But if you get any sniff that she’s on the game, or has been in the past, my advice is to cut that shit off immediately. I’m not a moraliser, I’m just thinking long-term. Bargirls become skilled at mind-games, outright lies, leeching, and juggling multiple men. We all know that very few guys make it work permanently with Thai whores, especially when they arrive on our foreign shores. You don’t need that shit in your life. Keep your antenna acutely aware of a woman that might be playing you.

5. Dating websites, MSN, Skype, Yahoo chat

There’s lots of ways to meet lots of women – yes, the internet. It’s one of the most popular ways of meeting a mate these days. But something should change when you get into a relationship with a woman. It’s time for both of you to take your profiles OFF the website.

I think it’s uncool and a very bad sign if your woman is still on Thailovelinks well after you’re established a girlfriend-boyfriend situation. Keep your eye on that if you’ve ever used a dating website.

6. Conflict Resolution

Here’s a biggie. Especially for Thais. What I am about to say will put you well ahead of the crowd.

Do NOT tolerate tantrums from a Thai woman, or any woman for that matter. You’ve no doubt seen the Thai TV dramas and read about how it’s inevitable how many young women emulate this behaviour. Not in my book, buddy! I once dated a Thai girl named Nina who felt I wasn’t paying enough attention to her during dinner, so she began crying and carrying on. I told her straight that I don’t put up with that shit. I took her to a taxi. Next day she wanted to see me and I said “no way”.

Here’s the deal. Conflict resolution is a standard part of any relationship, anywhere. But what you need to do, especially early on, is SET CLEAR BOUNDARIES. If something is unacceptable to you, then say it loudly and clearly to her, in a way that cannot be misunderstood. And she can also then tell you what she feels is unacceptable. Good, we’re making progress! Even if your Thai woman speaks good English, you need to use your mouth and sound out these things. Yes, really! If anything, they respect you for it. An obvious example is discussing that cheating and lying is totally not OK, and that you would break up with anyone that cheated on you or lied to you. This makes it clear from the get-go. Don’t wait around in fantasy-land, thinking that everything will be sweet. You need to talk about the important issues when you get into a relationship!

Here is another thing I learned through Camuschula, a guy who used to post on Stickman in the old days. Thai women are not used to hearing the word “No”. As children, they were mollycoddled (pampered or overprotected). Even worse, Thai men take a lot of the blame. Mrs Stick discussed a while back that Thai men do everything they can to make sure that a Thai woman does not get upset. OK, do you see the advantage here? This is where you can excel. These Thai women are used to getting what they want, but instead you come along and you stand up for yourself, and don’t take any shit. Does this send the women running? No, they respect you for it, and show it in their own way. I knew a girl whose previous boyfriend would just buy her a gift whenever they had a fight, whether or not it was her fault. What standard does that set? A very bad one. When I dated her, she realised early on that I do NOT operate on that system, and I would not tolerate second-class behaviour. And you know what happened? She was totally attracted to me, and even said that this was a big reason why she was attracted to me.

When it comes to long-term relationships and marriage, here’s another important quote that really should be adhered to: “Let her win all the little battles, but when it’s big and important to you, dig your heels in and stick to your guns”. This is BIG. If something is totally not cool, if you cannot and SHOULD not accept it, then dig in. Don’t be a goddamn pushover! You MUST set clear boundaries and you MUST talk it out with her. I cannot believe some of the shit that some guys allow their women to do. To be fair, there are things that men do that women stand against, so why don’t you stand your ground?

Bottom line: You need your fair and somewhat equal power in a relationship, otherwise you’ll always be a doormat. And that’s not fun. Not only are you getting trampled on, but she begins to lose interest in you because you’ve turned into a wussy. Only bad things can come of that… fights, affairs, divorce, custody battles….

7. You’re Marrying Her Family

The importance of this cannot be overstated. You need to establish a long-term relationship with her sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, and pets. Man, one sniff of money-grubbing and you should be outta there! But the real Thai families, the respectful, traditional ones, are cool and they accept their daughter’s choice. As long as you present yourself well and show respect, they have nothing to worry about. My advice is to spend lots of time with the family, say every Sunday, over a period of a year, and you will discover what her family is like. If they are of good standing, they will grow to not only accept you but love you. Really. You just need to suss out the family if you want to get serious about a Thai woman. I would hate to be in a permanent relationship with a Thai woman who had a troublesome and/or mercenary family. It could be a lifetime of grief. If this is the case, my recommendation is to start seeing other women. There really are more fish in the sea.

8. Money Isn’t Everything

Many are duped that money is the common denominator in all relationships in Asia, if not everywhere. The truth is that HER ATTRACTION TO YOU far supercedes all that crap. In fact, a woman would far prefer spending a night with a fun, relaxed, humorous charming but poor guy than a rich, boring controlling one. But what about long term? You and her can work something out…

If you are 40 years older than her and she comes from Isaan, money is most likely to be atop the agenda. But for us 20 or 30-something guys, we probably don’t have our first million in the bank. My recommendation, especially early on in the dating history with a woman, is to make is clear (though not demonstratively so) that you don’t have much money. This weeds out the mercenaries. Even if they cling on to the hope that you have money potential, or the hope to eventually get residency or citizenship, you’ve at least shown that you are not Mr. Moneybags and you can’t be taken advantage of in that regard. In any event, the girls who are looking for money and/or passport are going to be much fewer in the non-prostitute scene, which is where you would be focusing on for something long term anyway.

9. Is She Adaptable?

Dude, you gotta find a woman that speaks English. They’re everywhere in Bangkok, so there’s no excuses. On the Spouse Visa, they ask what level of English she speaks and they have an interview with her later. Therefore, her grasp of the English language IS important and let’s not ignore it. What’s more, going out on a date with a Thai woman who can’t speak English is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Even if you get a roll in the sack, you have no hope long-term. You need to communicate verbally. This kind of communication may not be the most important when it comes to attraction (body language is by far more important), it will become crucial when you need to plan your life together. Get a woman that speaks decent English. It makes your life so much easier.

Does she seem the type to come to the US, or to England, Germany, New Zealand or Australia, and adapt? That’s a tough call. But as you get to know her, you should get a good feel about it. You need a woman who is totally cool, if not excited, about coming to your country. Has one of her family members lived in a Western country? That helps.

These have been what I feel are 10 crucial aspects to dating and relationships, especially in Thailand. I have a feeling that I will need to write an additional chapter. Until then, please take heed to the reality that ATTRACTION is the most important thing, and the quickest way to jeopardise this is by being a needy, clingy, doormat WUSS!

Stickman's thoughts:

I agree with some of what you say and disagree with other bits.

The bit about her needing to speak English I strongly disagree with and would rephrase that to say that it helps if you both speak both English and Thai but one of you must speak the other's language to a high standard.

I would also put on a proviso to date a number of different women from the various echelons of society and regions of the country. You might just find that, for example, southern women are your thing or women from a poorer background are to your liking. You need to date a few to really know for sure.