The Problem With Thai Women Part 2

– Continued from part one –

As I approached the end of my 5-month stay in Pattaya I couldn't help but notice an uneasy feeling about me. It was a kind of empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and I just couldn’t quite put my finger it. It just seemed
like every day was a carbon copy of the last and I felt like something was missing. I knew it certainly wasn’t the bar scene though. I hadn’t been to a bar or dance club more than once or twice in the nearly two months since
I had met my girlfriend yet I still didn’t miss it at all. In fact, truth be told, I was completely and utterly burnt out on the Pattaya nightlife scene. So, what was it? I never feel like this back home, despite the fact that I live
in small costal college town in which there is often nothing to do other than go to the beach during the day or go out to clubs at night on the weekends. I also knew it was definitely not homesickness. After all, the only time I ever felt
homesick was the first time I lived in a foreign country at age 25. After that I found I could move just about anywhere in the world and instantly adjust and settle in. So again, what was it? The only thing I could think of at the time was
that is was due to not working for so long. I’ve just always been one of those people who needs to have a job to do or something to accomplish, and I tend to go a little stir crazy when I’m out of work for too long.

On the other hand, even before I ever had a long stay in Thailand I had always suspected that I would not be happy living there – unlike Japan, which I still consider to be like a second home. Also, I’ve always felt that if I were
ever to retire in Thailand I would have a seriously hard time deciding which city to live in. Obviously the best and the brightest women are in Bangkok, but what the hell would I do all day without a job? Just sit by the pool and wait for
my girlfriend to get off work? Chiang Mai has much cooler, dryer weather and is close to some nice mountain hiking areas, but it's also way too far from the ocean for my tastes. Pattaya has the advantage of having a beach – such as it
is – and yet still being close enough to Bangkok to date Bangkok women. Phuket of course has the best beaches and plenty of nice coral reefs within swimming distance of the shore (I can literally spend every day free diving and never tire
of it) but it can also be an expensive place to live, and it's far from Bangkok and Bangkok women. Quite a dilemma, isn’t it?

When I was in Japan, however, living in Tokyo was a no-brainer and there was no other place I would rather be. So why is it that no place in Thailand feels completely right? Why does it always seem like there is something missing? The
only conclusion I can come to is that it’s the people. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Thai people, but let's face it, they just operate on a completely different wavelength to what we do. For example, even if every Thai
person spoke perfect English (or I spoke Thai), I would still not be able to connect with the vast majority of them on the same level that I can with people back home in my own country. And you don’t even have to interact with people
to be aware of this fact. This is because every large group of people gives off a sort of collective vibe which can be sensed and felt. Go to a big city like Los Angeles, or New York, or Tokyo for example and you can feel this vibrant energy
which seems to just radiate from the steel and concrete around you. When I went to Bangkok for the first time however I never really felt this same energy. Sure, there was that “kid in a candy store” excitement which we all feel
the first few times we come to Bangkok, but that was about it. The city just doesn’t seem to generate a vibe that I feel in sync with – if that makes any sense. Doubtless this is due to the fact that the vast majority of Thais just
exist in an entirely different psychological strata than we do. This incidentally is also the root cause of why very few Thai / western relationship are successful in the long run. Some might be tempted to chalk this up to cultural differences
but it's actually the psychological quirks that one develops from being raised in a certain cultural environment which cause the problems, not the culture itself. And how tightly a culture clings to cultural norms is usually a very good
indication of their psychological makeup (or to what degree that society has matured). This is evidenced by the fact that as a society matures over time the importance of culture and customs always diminish. The most free and open societies
on earth either have no culture at all, or they just don’t take it that seriously. In fact I’ve often said that culture and customs are much like training wheels on a bike – they can be useful early on in the development of a
society but eventually, if not cast off, they just hold that society back. Just look at how women are treated in the Middle East today. 50 years from now though they’ll probably have as much or more freedom as Muslim women now do in
places like Indonesia. They might even have the same level of equality and freedom that American women have today. All societies grow and mature, and become more open and free over time. Some just take longer than others to get there.

Back to our story though… I eventually had to go to Bangkok to catch my flight back to California and I decided to go a few days ahead of time so I wouldn't be rushed. I also wanted to catch up with some old friends. In fact, as
soon as I arrived in Bangkok I decided to call a particular friend of mine and she agreed to meet me for dinner at a place not far from my hotel. The restaurant was about a 5- or 10-minute walk from my hotel and as I headed out I realized
that I was in a really foul mood. I just felt burnt out to the point of disgust and everyone and everything around me just irritated me. The entire city just seemed like a favorite song that I had played over and over again until I was so
burnt out on it that I now just wanted to smash the stereo to bits whenever I heard it.

Then, as I was walking down this small back street, I noticed this good looking young American guy (or Canadian) walking towards me who seemed to be in a sort of euphoric daze. The guy just had this look on his face like he had just seen
heaven itself. As he approached me he stopped for a second, and without even really looking over at me he said “It's incredible” and then he continued on his blissful way. I remember at the time really envying this guy his
sense of wonderment. After all, I used to know exactly how he felt. I can remember being giddy with excitement every time I arrived in Thailand. I remember checking in to my hotel in Bangkok and then rushing up to the room to take a shower
and get changed as fast as humanly possible so I could get back out on the street and go on the prowl. So just where had all that giddy excitement gone? And why was I now so miserable and disgusted with the whole scene?

Eventually, as I pondered my terminal lack of enthusiasm, I arrived at the restaurant to meet my friend. She was actually a bar girl friend of mine who I had known for many years and she was also the first bar girl who had ever fallen
for me. When I entered the restaurant she actually spotted me before I spotted her. She really looked great and in fact I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Instead of her usual blue jeans she was wearing a very elegant but form-fitting
dress and her hair and make-up were flawless. She just looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her look.

As we talked she told me that she was seeing some guy and that she had quit the business quite some time ago and now had a legitimate job which she really liked. I was happy for her of course and I knew that if anyone could stay on the
straight and narrow it would be her. I also felt kind of bad though because I could tell by the way she was acting that it was kind of painful for her to see me again. Truthfully, I also felt a twinge of regret for having let her go in the
first place. After all, she was a really great girl who would have done anything for me. She also had a great body and the sex had been fantastic. So what was the problem? Why had I so easily dismissed her as a possible serious long term girlfriend?

And of course she wasn’t the only one. There was another bar girl I knew in Pattaya who was a really great person and was crazy about me as well (no, not Lisa). She also had one of the best bodies I’ve ever seen in my life.
Unfortunately she also smoked cigarettes which has always been kind of a deal breaker for me. Then there was the super sweet Patpong go-go girl who I’d been good friends with for many years. She was just one of those people who would
do anything to help out a friend. In fact, I remember one New Year's in Pattaya I called her and asked her to visit me and she didn't hesitate, even though she knew I only had a thousand baht to my name at the time because my pay
had been held up, and therefore could not give her any money. Not only did she come down to see me, she insisted on paying for our meals and drinks. I kept telling her that I could pay her back in a few days but she just kept insisting that
it was no big deal and not to worry about it. She even gave me no less that 3 blow jobs that night – something she is more skilled at than any girl I've ever met. And unlike the other two girls she never acted like she was in love with
me, she just acted like a really good friend, which just makes her selfless act even more amazing. She is probably the nicest, most cheerful, and most genuine person I’ve ever met in Thailand – or anywhere else for that matter. By the
way, on a side note, this same girl once told me she had a customer steal 3,000 baht from her wallet while she was in the restroom, and when she later discovered the theft she cried her eyes out. It was likely that same guy who wrote in 6
or 7 years ago bragging about how he always does this very same thing (or someone trying to emulate him). I swear to God, if I ever get my hands on this sleazebag I’m going to snap every one of his greasy, thieving little fingers, and
then I’m REALLY going to go to work on him.

So, why were none of these girls good enough? Why is it that I always go for the girls who are either unavailable, unobtainable, or who will just end up putting me through an emotional meat grinder?

Speaking of which, I’m sure some of you may remember that 10 years ago I fell hard for a bar girl and that I even considered getting her a fiancé visa. Not that I wanted to get married at the time, I just felt this was the
only way I could get her to the USA long enough to find out if she could adjust and if we would really be compatible in the long run. Unfortunately though, although she loved being with me, she never really felt as strongly about me as I did
about her. In fact I would say she was right at about 50 percent on that practical vs. love scale which I talked about earlier. And as if this weren’t bad enough, there was also another guy in the picture who she had more of a history
with and who I strongly suspect she cared about more than me. I’m sure she also felt he was more financially viable since he paid her to quit the bar before I could. Obviously I lost out on that one and she ended up marrying him and
breaking my heart. She never asked me for anything of course, but the trouble with bar girls who don’t ask for money is that if you are not smart enough to help them out financially of your own accord they will eventually have to find
someone else who will, even if they are fairly fond of you.

And sometimes this can even be the case with normal, proper Thai women as well. I once met this really sweet Thai girl online many years ago who was quite possibly the most beautiful Thai girl I’ve ever dated. Her family was from
Bangkok and she had a good education and had never been anywhere near a beer bar. In fact she was still a virgin. However, I would eventually learn that, although she was not born into poverty, her family was having financial problems and
were about to loose their business (or already had). I also eventually got her to admit that there was another guy vying for her affections who was going to be in Thailand about the same time as me. Long story short, although I got there first,
and I was the one to take her virginity, he was the one she ended up married to. I later learned that on his visit he had given her family about 20,000 Baht to help them out – an amount that I’m sure anyone who had met her would consider
to be a very reasonable price to pay in order to end up with her. In retrospect, I imagine that the only reason she was looking to marry a foreigner in the first place was to help out her family. Either way, she was the type who would make
an excellent wife so I’m sure her husband has no regrets.

So take a lesson from me, guys. If you should ever fall for a bar girl – or any poor Thai girl for that matter – and you are relatively certain that she cares for you as well (assuming you know how to be certain), be sure to send her
some money each month whether she asks you to or not. And you don’t have to be rich to do this. Even the equivalent of what you pay back home for your cable or satellite TV service will go a long way in Thailand. I realize this might
sound like odd advice coming from someone who has never sent a dime to anyone in Thailand but I’m afraid it's just the nature of the beast.

Getting back to my Bangkok funk though, I actually started to feel much better later on that night, and at around 1:45 AM I decided to go out for a stroll and eventually I ended up outside the Nana Hotel just as the usual crowd was starting
to gather. It was one of those rare perfect Bangkok nights – low humidity and not to hot or too cold – and I decided to take a seat along the side of the hotel and just soak everything in. I felt strangely at peace that night and for some
reason the bar girl scene wasn’t bothering me as it had been recently. I was no longer bothered by the scene yet I also had no desire to talk to any of the girls and there was just something very freeing about that. I could just sit
back and enjoy the night air and the energy of the crowd as an outside observer and yet not be part of it.

I remember at some point this young 8 or 9 year old kid came by selling flowers. She approached me several times but each time I told her that I just didn’t have anyone to give a rose to at the time. Then later she came back without
the roses and we just hung out for a while talking, joking, and playing kids games. I’ve always been very good with kids and I like playing with them because it always brings out the kid in me. Anyway during this time this white middle-aged
accountant type guy came out of the Nana hotel and approached me to talk. He started awkwardly asking me about the girls and I could tell he was a first timer who was trying to work up the nerve to approach one of them. Either he was just
terrible shy and awkward with women, or he was wrestling some moral dilemma (a wife, religion, etc.) or possibly both. I tried to tell him the score as best I could and encouraged him to approach some girls but I couldn’t really give
him my full attention as I was in the middle of this kids game. Then the next time I looked up he was headed back into the hotel. I felt kind of bad that I hadn’t dropped what I was doing and helped the guy out by introducing him to
some girls, but I was just having too much fun with the kid. Anyway I hope he eventually figured things out and overcame his fears. After all, I can’t imagine anything more sad and pathetic than coming all the way to Thailand to have
sex and then not being able to go through with it.

Eventually my pint-sized friend had to leave and I remember thinking afterwards how ironic it was that possibly the most honest, genuine, and fun human interaction I had ever had in Bangkok was with an 8 year old child. I knew at that
moment that I would never again go back to seeing bar girls as long as I lived – and I never have since.

In truth, I was always a rather unlikely sex-tourist to begin with. In fact, the first time I visited Thailand in 1990 I knew nothing about the place except that it had warm tropical beaches and therefore would be a good place to escape
the cold Tokyo winters for a few weeks. You see, Tokyo is an incredibly cold and boring place for expats around New Years. This is because New Years in Japan is kind of like Thanksgiving Day in the USA, only it last for a whole week. In other
words, pretty much everything is closed and all your Japanese friends have gone back home to be with their families, so all you can do is sit around your apartment alone for a week watching TV. And you can forget about going to a club to party
all night on New Year's Eve because they are all closed. So escaping to sunny warm Thailand for a few weeks seemed like the perfect way to avoid the cold and boredom of Tokyo during New Year's.

Anyway, when I first arrived in Bangkok I knew nothing about Thai bar girls , or that they even existed. It wasn’t until I went out to a dance club with my American friend and his Thai / American wife that I was informed by her
that 95% of the girls in the club were for hire. Now, considering the absurd amount of tail I was getting for free back in Japan you wouldn’t think that this would be the point in my life that I would choose to solicit a prostitute
for the first time. But there was just something about Thai women that drove me wild with sexual desire, and at the time it seemed like nice Thai girls were way to conservative to be having sex with a guy on a first, second, or even third
date. Also I have to admit there was just something very exciting about the prospect of being able to just pick out the girl you want at a bar or dance club, like selecting the best cut of meat at the butcher shop, and then getting her to
instantly agree to have sex with you for less money than you would pay to go on a date with a nice girl back home.

I guess it didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off though and eventually I began to really miss the chase – the challenge of getting a girl to like you enough to want to sleep with you. I also tired pretty quickly off all
the BS I had to wade through night after night to find the occasional honest and worthwhile bar girl. Lets face it, trying to find a good bar girl is like trying to find a few gold coins in a swimming pool filled with horse manure. Lets face
it, having to listen to the same bullshit, day in and day out, just gets old pretty fast.

So, I was done with bar girls, but I would still continue to date nice and proper Thai girls on subsequent trip to Thailand. I also began to realize however that, more and more, I was starting to notice attractive western women as well
while there. There are just so many western tourist during the busy season that there are always bound to be a few stunners in the bunch. In fact the last time I was in Thailand I met these two stunning South African beauties sunning by the
pool in their bikinis at my hotel – one blonde and one brunette. And when I say these girls were stunning I’m talking Charlize Theron stunning (another South African beauty). Unfortunately they were also only about 18 years old and
were traveling with their mom.

You can also find some gorgeous Russian women in Pattaya around New Years and if you are lucky you can even find a stunner who is not traveling with a boyfriend. And lets not forget the American girls, the English girls, and on and on
down the list.

I also began to notice on subsequent trips to Thailand just how much missed talking to western women, and even western men. In fact I began to get the urge to start frequenting bars again, not to meet Thai girls, but simply to find some
westerners to talk to. After all I had met some really cool guys in beer bars in the past – guys from England, Australia, and even America. I just really craved having the kinds of conversations that I simply could not have with Thai people.
I think the first time this really hit home with me was on that long Pattaya stay. I remember one day I was walking behind this really hot Black British chick and her friend, and their conversation was just so intelligent and witty and fun
that it really made me realize how much I missed talking to western women. I’m just one of those people who thrives on communication and I can’t get the level of communication I need with Thai women, not even those who speak
very good English.

Like I said I’m a communication junkie, and even to this day, almost every time I go to the supermarket I’ll start up conversations with attractive young women I see there. Of course most times I have no intention of asking
them out, I just love exercising my ice breaking skills. You see I just have this uncanny ability to instantly put people at ease and get them engaged in the conversation and having fun with it, and I can usually get them smiling or laughing
within a few seconds. And I always seem to know the right thing to say in a particular environment or situation to get a conversation going and to keep it going. I’ve never really understood people like my younger sister who absolutely
dread first dates and first conversations and just want to get them out of the way. I LOVE first dates myself, or first time social encounters of any kind. I guess I'm just kind of like a professional ice breaker and we all enjoy doing
things we are very good at. Of course, I also do this with Thai women but its just not as fun as it is with western women. The conversation’s just aren’t as lively or as witty and spontaneous.

I also have to admit that I’m a big flirt. In fact, I remember in my youth I once a had a job in the pharmaceutical industry which had be traveling to different hospitals everyday and I loved that job because basically all I did
was flirt with cute nurses all day long. And they all loved it when I came around because I brightened up their rather dreary days (dealing with sick and dying people all day is not exactly fun).

Speaking of flirting, I just read a submission the other day in which this guy claimed that Thai women “love” flirting. My first thought after reading this was that the guy really needs to lay off the crack cocaine. After
all, based on my own observations and experiences I’d say that Thai women are some of the least capable flirts on the planet. Sure, I’ve had a lot of Thai women smile at me in a way that gives away their interest, but this cant
really be called flirting. And having a girl who is interested in you simply come up and talk to you on the street or in a dance club is also not flirting either. Even what the bar girls do is so phony, crude, over the top, and in your face,
that I don’t think of this as true flirtation. True flirtation involves subtle innuendo and very playful back and forth exchanges, both in body language and speech. Or, the dictionary definition if you prefer, is “playful romantic
involvement: a short playful interaction based on lighthearted feeling, especially one that suggest sexual interest”. The only time I think I’ve ever seen Thai women properly flirt is when they were characters in some Thai TV
drama or comedy. Personally I just don’t think that most Thai women posses the psychological make-up to know how to flirt. Of course I have often had maids and other hotel staff, or even department store girls, strike up some very fun
and playful conversations with me, which I suppose some might construe as flirtations, but I never really thought of them as such. Then again, perhaps I’m just too much of a purist when it come to the subtle art of flirtation.

Well I guess this is as good a time as any to segue into discussing the characteristics of Thai women that most likely led me to become burnt out on dating them. And this is after all what this piece is supposed to be about. I realize
that to talk about the characteristics of particular group is very unusual for me because, as I’ve always said in the past; I’m not looking to date a group, I’m looking to date an individual. I just always look at everyone
on a case by case basis, and lets face it, even in the most conformist of cultures there are always a few non-conformist. In other words, you could find a girl in Thailand who acts more like an American girl than most American girls do. Of
course, given enough time and effort I’m sure you could also find a few flakes of gold even in the most played out of gold mines or streams. But here’s the thing; why would you toil away doing back breaking work everyday for
months or years on end just to find the same amount of gold that it would take you few days to find somewhere else? And by that same token, why would you go looking for a partner in a country that is least likely to contain any suitable matches
for you?

So, just for jollies, here is a list of just a few of the many characteristics which I believe, generally speaking, make Thai girls unsuitable mates for westerner men – or at least for this westerner man. As I said before though, we all
tend to attract, and be attracted to, very specific types (well actually to the specific types of “baggage” they are hauling around) so the people we date rarely represent of a normal cross section of society. This means I have
no way to be sure if these are all actually common Thai characteristics or not. Still, here is what I’ve found based on my own personally experiences:

1) Childishness:

One of the main problems with Thai women is that they often behave more like children than adults. “But wait“ you say. “What about those Japanese women that you love so much? Don’t they act like children as
well?” Well, not exactly. In fact, if I had to describe the difference between the two I would say that Japanese women possess all the endearing, positive aspects of children, while Thai women possess all the annoying negative aspects
of children. In other words, Japanese women are child-like and Thai women are child-ish. Also, with Japanese women these childlike qualities are for the most part just surface mannerism, and underneath it all they are often just as mature
as western women. With Thai women on the other hand this childishness runs right to their very core. In other words, it's not just for show but is actually who they are.

I actually ran into a prime example of this childish behavior on my very first visit to Thailand in 1990. It was about 1 AM and I was going out to have a drink with a Japanese acquaintance of mine who had recently started managing a Japanese
restaurant in Bangkok. I actually don’t drink that often but on this particular night I had such an extremely severe headache and I thought a good stiff drink might take the edge off. Anyway, after my friend got off work we headed down
the street to the nearest beer bar. Unfortunately I cant stand the taste of beer or whine though and back then it was a major production to get a cocktail at a beer bar if you didn’t speak Thai, and neither me nor my Japanese lady friend
did. Still I eventually got someone to bring me a menu of cocktails in English but to my surprise I didn’t recognize a single thing on the list so I had to just make a random selection. A few minutes later the girl shows up with some
blue syrupy looking concoction in a small martini glass. I immediately tried to send it back but nobody understood what I was saying, and to make matters worse the two girls behind the bar immediately started laughing and taunting me saying
that I was drinking a lady’s drink. I spent the next few frustrating minutes desperately trying to tell them that I just wanted them to put some vodka and orange juice together in a glass and bring it to me. I finally had to give up
though and I really wanted to just go to another bar where maybe I could get what I wanted but my friend convinced me to stay. Now you would think that this would have been the end of it but these two girls kept coming by every few minutes
and giving me a hard time about my “lady’s drink” – this despite the fact that I had already pushed it away from me and refused to drink it. They just kept harping on it and at one point – even though they were both very
attractive – I just wanted to grab them both by the hair and slam their heads into the countertop as hard as a could. And it actually took every ounce of self-control I could muster not to do so. After all, this is not how adults behave. This
is how elementary school children behave. Sure, as adults we have all had occasion to give our friends a hard time every now and again, but we also know when to give it a rest – or at least come up with new material. Children on the other
hand will just keep harping on the same thing and repeating the exact same jibe over, and over, and over, and over again until you’re thinking “all right already, dude, WE GET IT!”. I realize of course that these girls
may have just wanted to talk to me and didn’t know any more English than that – and of course if I hadn’t had such a violently severe headache their taunting would not have bothered me so much – but still, how childish can you
be?

2) Moodiness:

I realize of course that moodiness is just a by product of the Childishness, at least in Thai women, but I still think this one deserves special mention. The problem is that Thai women – even the most sweet and innocent looking ones –
tend to get moody and irritable when faced with even the slightest environmental stressors. I could probably spend all day describing how I’ve seen this type of behavior in various Thai women before but for expedience sake I’ll
just use my last girlfriend as an example. During the 6 months we lived together scarcely a day went by when her moodiness didn’t flare up and cause a fight. Let me give you just one of many examples I can think of to show you what
I mean.

This particular incident happened on our first trip to Pattaya together on an excursion to one of the nearby island. When we arrived on the island we rented a scooter for the day and set off to find a nice beach. Eventually, after trying
a few of the smaller ones, we ended up at the main beach, where we parked the scooter and went down to pick out a couple of beach chairs in a good spot. Right away I could see that she was in one of her moods and I knew it was the heat that
was making her so irritable – although she would never admit this. So I told her to get into the water to cool off and that this would make her feel much better. She then said she could not swim, so I told her that even if she can’t
she can still play in the shallow water and cool off. Of course she refused and just started making snide little comments and acting like a childish, moody little shit. I was very patient with her at first but she was just bound and determined
to ruin our day and eventually she said something that made me snap, and I screamed “FINE, WE’RE LEAVING!!!” and I gathered up my stuff and stomped off back to the motorbike in a huff. When I got there though I noticed
that she had not followed me. Naturally, even though she had not wanted to be there in the first place, she was now too stubborn to leave as well. So, after 5 minutes of waiting I had no choice but to head back to our spot on the beach. Things
were very tense at first but eventually she lightened up a bit and apologized, and when I went for a swim she followed me in. And just as I had expected, this put her in a much better mood. In fact I had trouble getting her back out of the
water after that. Suddenly she was like a playful, cheerful, little kid, laughing and playing in the water. Why couldn’t she be like this all the time? By the way after that day she always loved to go into the water as much as I did.

Of course sometimes even when she was in a relatively good mood certain things could set her off without warning. A classic example of this occurred on our trip to Koh Samet. As many of you know when you get on the Island you first get
loaded into trucks with other tourists to be taken to your hotel and eventually you come to the park entrance, at which point you have to stop and pay an entrance fee. Naturally this fee is higher for non-Thais, like me, but I had no problem
with this. So what could possibly go wrong? Well, apparently the guy collecting the fees committed the unforgivable sin of asking my girlfriend if she was Thai. BIG Mistake! She totally went off on the poor guy and gave him a major verbal
thrashing. I don’t really speak Thai myself but I imagine the gist of it was something like “OF COURSE I’M THAI, YOU F#%KING MORON” followed by various other insults and explicative’s. I just couldn’t
understand why she was getting so upset over nothing. After all the guy had to ask the question because there are many non-Thai Asians who visit the Island and he’s not a mind reader. In fact, I think my girlfriend was the only Thai
in our group. Quite frankly I was kind of worried that they were going to kick us off the island, but luckily the guy stayed fairly calm in the face of this totally uncalled for verbal abuse. This was also the first time I was ever embarrassed
to be with my girlfriend and I couldn’t imagine what the other passengers in the truck must have been thinking. They probably all just thought she was bat shit crazy, which might also explain why everyone was strangely quiet for the
remainder of the ride.

Also I have to admit that as sweet and innocent as she looks I would never want to get on her bad side. In fact, I remember once she was telling me about how much she hated her ex-boyfriend for screwing her over and she said, with rather
frightening conviction I might add, that she really wanted to kill him (or have him killed). Then she said that the only reason she would probably never go through with it is because it would reflect badly on her family if she got caught.
Now of course we have all heard people talk like this before, and we all know they don’t really mean it, but there was just something about her tone that really made me think that she was deadly serious. And if you’ve ever read
about the alarming numbers of men getting their private parts cut off by Thai women you know they are not to be trifled with. Needless to say, had I ever cheated on her and she had found out, I would be sleeping with one eye open from that
day forward.

Still when she was behaving herself things were great. In fact, I often though that if I could somehow just take away the moodiness she would be the perfect Thai girlfriend. After all she was drop dead gorgeous, had an amazing body, spoke
great English, and was an excellent cook. She was also very playful and spontaneous in bed, and in fact, I sometimes felt she liked sex even more than I did.

In hindsight I guess I was asking for trouble when I convinced her to move to Phuket with me rather than me getting a place in Chiang Mai. After all her moodiness and irritability tend to increase exponentially whenever she leaves her
beloved Chiang Mai, and this is due in part to the fact that she cant easily get her favorite foods elsewhere. To hear her talk you would think that Chiang Mai is the only place in the Kingdom to get descent Thai food (It is pretty damn good).
In fact, I remember when we first arrived in Phuket she immediately started grilling the taxi driver as to where she could go to get certain kinds of food, and it didn’t sound to me like she was getting the answers she wanted, which
worried me a bit. Fortunately though, as I previously stated, she is an excellent cook, and once we got a house she started cooking us huge multi-course meals for both lunch and dinner everyday.

Near the end of my 6th month in Phuket though I started to come to the realization that the bad just outweighed the good in our relationship. This really hit me one day when I decided to go to Kata Beach without her. It was the first
time we had been apart in months and as I walked onto the beach I just felt totally relaxed and at peace for the first time in ages, like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. This is because I knew that I would actually be able
to enjoy the whole day there without the fear that my girlfriend was going to get into one of her pissy moods and start a fight. And as I laid there relaxing on the beach I realized for the first time just how much stress I had been under
all this time from being with her. Life is just too short to go through it being stressed out all the time.

By the way, I’m sure some people out there would try to attribute this behavior to her very young age (don’t worry, she was over 18), but I can pretty much guarantee you that this particular girl won’t behave much
differently at 25, or even 30.

Oddly enough, at least in my own experience, it seems that the nice proper Thai girls I’ve been with tend to be much moodier on average than the bar girls I’ve known. For example I never had a single argument or fight with
the that bar girl that I almost married ten years ago- although she did say that she often fought with the Farang boyfriend who came before me (apparently he was not so much in the past as I had originally been led to believe). Perhaps this
means she actually cared more about him. Who knows? On rare occasions she could seem very childlike though. Once when we were on the beach in Phuket for example, she decided to try and catch one of those speedy little sand crabs, and as she
romped around on the beach trying to chase one down I remember thinking how much she looked like a small child at play. She actually caught one eventually and brought it to me but when it pinched her on the finger she immediately tore both
its arms off. It actually shocked me at first seeing how she could do this with so little compunction, and then I thought how a small child might behave in the exact same way. So, she wasn’t being cruel, she was just being a child.

Thinking back on it now, the fate of that poor little sand crab at the hands of my ex-girlfriend seems like a very apt analogy for what happens to men who get too involved with Thai bargirls. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

3) Communication level:

I’m sure most of us would agree that communication is probably the most important part of any relationship, and let's face it, there’s never a lot communicating going on between two people who don’t even speak
the same language. And believe me there is nothing more frustrating than having a misunderstanding and not having the language ability to talk your way out it. For example if I had learned to speak Thai perhaps I could have quickly resolved
those misunderstandings with those two bar girls from earlier in the story. I’m not really sure why I never had the same interest in the Thai language that I did with Japanese. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that its just
impossible to speak proper Thai and still sound like a man. In fact I recently watched this Thai drama that some girl sent me a link to and one of the main characters is a Farang guy. His Thai is great but when he talks he just sounds totally
fruity, and all I can think is, God, I never want to sound like that. Also I have to say there is just something about the guy (or perhaps his character) that rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, as I have no interest in learning Thai, dating Thai
girls who don’t speak much English is always going to present problems. And unfortunately, often times the best looking ones don’t speak any English at all.

Of course communication involves much more than just speaking, and in fact, two people who speak the same language can sometimes be exchanging a lot of words and yet not be communicating at all. I ran into a prime example of this just
a few months ago while on the phone with a Thai girl I know. She is a 29 years old University graduate, speaks perfect English, and makes a very good living by Thai standards. She is also very intelligent and in fact she often says she wants
to go back to school to get her Masters Degree. Now you might think I could communicate very well with such a person and that we would never have misunderstandings, but you would be wrong. We actually have misunderstanding all the time. Anyway
on this particular phone call the subject of Ladyboys came up and I asked her why Thais always seem to use the same word “Katoi” (or Ladyboy) for both Gay men and for Transsexual men (or transgender if you prefer)? After all,
this is like having only one word for both apples and apple pies. All apple pies contain apples of course, but obviously all apples are NOT apple pies. In any case, as I tried to explain the difference between a gay man and a transsexual gay
man to her the communication almost immediately broke down and eventually she just got frustrated and said that I was wrong. I found this to be a rather arrogant statement considering the fact that I’m the one who is the native English
speaker, but whatever. I guess my point is that even if you can speak Thai or your Thai girlfriend can speak English you are still never going to have the level of communication that you would with someone from your own country.

4) The Couch Potato Factor:

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about South-East Asian women, it's that the they LOVE to watch TV. I’ve had to sit through Korean soap operas with Filipinas, Mexican soap operas with Indonesian women, and even
worse things with Thai women. Let's face it, Thai TV isn’t exactly what you would call high-brow entertainment. For most guys this probably wouldn’t present much of a problem, but in my case it certainly does. This is because,
not only do I not watch TV during the daytime, but I can't even stand to have a TV turned on during the day. I watch TV at night of course but during the day I’d rather be outside enjoying the day, and if I’m home during
the day I would rather read or listen to music. I’ll even use the computer sometimes but NO TV! Now, when you combine this with the fact that I CAN’T STAND Thai television shows you can see where this might present a problem
when living with a Thai woman. In fact, my last Thai girlfriend had the TV on all day and all night when we were at home, which just drove me nuts.

There are actually many things that bug my about Thai TV programs but I think the most annoying by far are the cartoonish sound effects they use. These 5 or 6 overused silly sound effects by the way are the exact same ones that were used
in American children’s cartoons back in the 60’s, like the Flintstones. Now I guess I wouldn’t mind so much if they used these sounds in only silly slapstick programs but that’s not the case. They use them in EVERYTHING
– sit-coms, drams, – you name it. And often times they will put these sounds into a scene which is not even a remotely funny. It's just the STUPIDIST thing I have ever seen in my life. Eventually it got to the point where whenever I would
hear these sound effects coming from the TV in a scene where the had no business being used, I would actually start grinding my teeth I was so annoyed. The last time I felt like that prior to living in Thailand was when I was working for a
radio station in Hawaii. They would play that horrible Spice Girls song “Wanna Be” 10 times a day and every time it came on I just wanted to rip the studio speakers right off the wall.

Television programming by the way is an excellent barometer by which to measure the maturity level of a society, and Thai television doesn’t say much about the mentality of Thais in general. Of course even in the USA we have a
ton of programs that appeal to the lowest common denominator of society, but we also have a lot of intelligently written, high quality, award winning sitcoms and dramas to choose from. By the way, I actually loved Japanese television shows
when I was there and I still sometimes watch them today.

The bottom line is, if you can’t stand any of the television programming in a particular country then you are not likely to be in tune with the people of that country and therefore wont be able to form any meaningful relationships
with anyone there. And as I said before it has nothing to do with culture, it has to do with the psychological make-up of a people – or, to put it another way, the maturity level of their society. I’m sure that 50 years from now they
might actually make some great shows in Thailand.

5) Intelligence:

If you are dating women from Bangkok then IQs are probably never going to be an issue, but in some other parts of Thailand – places where most bargirls come from – average IQ scores can be pretty low, even down in to the 80’s.
And personally I can’t see any relationship being successful when there is more than about a 15 or 20 point disparity in IQ scores between partners. For example I just can’t see a man with an IQ of 110 being happy with a Thai
women who has an IQ of just 85 (if he is, he probably could have saved some time and money and just bought himself an inflatable girlfriend). And naturally, if your Thai girlfriend speaks little or no English it might be difficult for you
to accurately gauge her intelligence, or lack thereof.

Of course even having a decent IQ doesn’t always mean you are smart. Take my eldest sister for example. She is one of those religious fanatic nut jobs who believes that the Earth is only 5000 years old, yet she actually has a fairly
high IQ. So, as you can see, intellect means nothing without the capacity for rational thought, and in truth the vast majority of human beings are fairly irrational creatures.

6) Adaptability:

This is an important one if you plan on marrying a Thai women and taking her back to your own country. You see, unlike many other Asian women, Thai women just don’t seem to have a burning desire to leave their own country behind
to live in another. In fact I think most Thai women, even the very poor ones, would much prefer to stay in Thailand with their foreign husbands. They just LOVE their country. This is probably why there are nearly ten foreign born Filipinas
in the United States for every single foreign born Thai woman here. And even if you can convince your Thai girlfriend or wife to move to your country she is less likely than other Asian women to adjust well to her new surroundings and to be
happy there. So unless you are planning on living in Thailand for the rest of your life you need to take this into consideration.

7) The silent treatment:

This is supposed to be a stereotypical “female thing” – or at least that’s what all the comedians say – but I never actually experienced the silent treatment from a girlfriend until I started dating Thai women. And
this is a big problem for me because I think ignoring someone is just about the most disrespectful thing you can possibly do to them, and for this reason it makes me furious. I don’t care if a girl screams at me, or call me names –
hell, she can even take a swing at me – but if she ignores me we’ve got a big problem. If she at least gives me some warning by saying “I don’t want to talk anymore so don’t say anything to me for a while”
then that’s fine. But if she just starts ignoring me out of the blue, I go through the roof. For example, I remember the first time a Thai girlfriend did this to me we were not even fighting. She just suddenly stopped talking and would
not respond to me at all. At first I was worried that something was wrong with her but after about a minute of her not answering me I blew up and told her to “get the fxxx out of my room” at which point she finally started talking.
I never did find out what was wrong though. I think one of the reasons this bothers me so much is because when I was younger and much less confident and would go out clubbing, I would often ask super attractive girls to dance, and about half
the time, instead of just politely saying “no, thank you” they would just totally ignore me, as if I didn't exist. I can understand ignoring a guy if he keeps pestering you, but to just ignore him right off the bat is just
the most sleazy, low-life, scum sucking, and disrespectful thing I can imagine any human being doing to another. By the way, I once told this story to my last girlfriend when we were having a fight and when I did she looked me straight in
the eye and said “I AM one of those girls!”. This caught me off guard at first, but then the more I thought about the more I could see it. I mean I can totally picture her doing that to some guy in a club. I realize of course
that most girls who to this to their boyfriends cant really help themselves, but unfortunately its just the one of the very few hot buttons that I still have.

8) Thai Names: (to those with no sense of humor: please don’t take this one too seriously)

This may seem like a trivial matter but Thai names just don’t sound right when uttered in an English speaking country. In truth, they don’t sound much like names at all, and the women’s names are about as unfeminine
as you can get. I remember I would often think about the fact that if I were to marry a Thai women and bring her back to the States we would probably have to change her name to something more western. In fact, some Thai names can even be downright
embarrassing. For example I actually know a Thai girl named Titiporn, which of course would conjure up “Titty Porn” in the minds of the average American. I can just hear the snickers now as I try to introduce this girl to friends
at a party here in the States. And if that one’s not bad enough I know another Thai girl who’s name sounds like “Poke-some-butt” (hard to miss the anal sex reference there). And what if I were to actually marry
one of these girls? I can just picture all my friends and family trying their hardest not to break out in uncontrollable laughter when the justice of the peace says “do you, Titty Porn, take this man…”. Lets face it, they would
all be rolling in the isles with laughter before I could even say “I do“. In fact, the only way it could be any worse is if I were a Chinese man named Mee Hung Lo.

There are always exceptions though and my last Thai girlfriend actually had a very beautiful sounding first name. In fact, it sounds like a name a fairytale princess might have and I have to admit I might even be tempted to give my own
daughter this name someday (sorry, no real names revealed here). I’m not sure if it is even a regular traditional Thai name but I know it’s the name on her birth certificate.

So, there you have it; some of my many reasons for getting burnt out on Thai women. Of course I can’t say for sure that I’ll never date another Thai women, but I can say that the next time I’m in Thailand I’ll
likely be chasing after just as many western women as Thai women. In fact, ideally I would be going there with an American girlfriend in tow. But unfortunately, at 54, my age is finally starting to show a bit and I’m not sure how much
longer I can get the kinds of girls here that I’m actually attracted to, particularly considering how insanely picky I am about a woman’s face and body. I guess only time will tell. In any case, I’ll never tire of the
beautiful idyllic beaches or the great food of Thailand and I’ll always have great memories of my time there.