Online Dating – Can It ‘Work’…? – Part 6

Part-1 outlined my basic reasons for investigating ThaiLoveLinks.

Part-2 detailed my first two meetings with tender Thai damsels.

Part-3 covers two further meetings with less tender lasses.

Part-4, in which I investigate a ‘company girl’, and take a break.

Part-5, where the ‘company girl’ gets another break.

After the extreme disappointment of Daa, who had initially seemed to be one of the nicest Thai ladies I’d ever met, and on the second meeting appeared to have blown it, a couple of months passes as I continue the search, and ward off approaches from clearly unsuitable ladies – many under 25 apparently dreaming of a sugar daddy, who wouldn’t know a garden hoe from a Nike shoe, or over 55 who look as if they have their own maid and will not be dreaming of cleaning up after me… I weed these people out by trying to imagine them on their knees with (or without?) a scrubbing brush…

Meanwhile, after a recommendation on this site, I continue to investigate the possibilities of ThaiFriendly, which I don’t find as easy to navigate but I slowly find a larger percentage of these ladies appear at first sight to be more what I’m looking for than on ThaiLoveLinks…

Come October I have met a rather ‘odd’ lady, ‘Khay’ (not the real name), in Bangkok, who claims to be a nurse and a farmer… but turns out to be a counter-clerk in a pharmacy… How can a pharmacist misspell themselves to be a farmer…? <Probably she meant she comes from a farming background but has trained to be a pharmacist – Stick> She is easy to understand on the phone and we agree to meet. It’s more rapid than previously but I’ve decided I can learn more from face to face meetings than long drawn out messaging, and might save a lot of time…

I arrive early, at ten to eleven (instead of noon), and give Khay a call, to let her know I’m here, to see how keen she is… I have a coffee, walk around… and have another coffee… She arrives at twelve-forty so, with seventy minutes notice, she’s still able to be forty minutes late, and she only lives up the road…! I have heard of this problem before but, perhaps amazingly, never experienced it… At twelve-thirty I was ready to leave but hadn’t finished my second coffee.

Khay is a jolly, self-assured soul… and looks 10 – 15 years older than her photos… Her parents are dead, she has never married or had children, and only has two older sisters and a couple of nieces & nephews… She is very independent and self-sufficient and seems to have little idea how to have a ‘relationship’ as opposed to a passing friendship… although she seems to desire the former… as long as it doesn’t interfere with her present life too much… Things don’t look good.

I tell her about myself but she has little to say about herself… which seems to be mainly because there is little to say… She has every Sunday off which she invariably spends alone, from choice (or indolence?), watching TV, snoozing, and eating in a local cafe. She owns a microwave but her only cooking seems to be heating things up… She claims to like her own space, and is happy to be alone most of the time… so I ask why she has come here today… She says I invited her and so she ‘has’ to come… I ask why she’s on ThaiFriendly and she says she would like to make friends… but she doesn’t seem to have any idea why, nor how to go about it…

Khay politely apologises when her phone rings, and briefly speaks to a friend, in Thai… A little later, when we are discussing lunch (she has declined all offers up till now…) she suddenly looks up and says she has seen a friend of hers… Could it be the one she’s just spoken to… and suddenly the whole dynamic changes, although not as badly as might have been possible… This ‘friend’ naturally joins us, is a similar age, a bit smarter, and with a complete upper denture that she doesn’t mind displaying when she smiles and laughs – but otherwise seems pleasant. She speaks very quietly and I have to keep asking her to repeat herself, which seems to shyly make her quieter, while Khay keeps asking if I’m getting too old to hear…

Khay also makes several comments about her friend not having a husband/boyfriend, to which I do not rise… If she is trying to off-load me to her friend I don’t think I’m interested… This lady lives about seventy kilometres north of Bangkok… and she doesn’t seem to know what she wants either… I suspect many of these ‘internet’ ladies are simply bored with their lives and looking for a change – and believe the answer is a farang friend…

The two of them traipse off to get lunch for the three of us… I had previously started getting money out for the two of us so I offer this to Khay but she declines… Pardon...! Did I actually write that…? Did I use the words: offer; money; and decline; in the same sentence…? It’s never been heard of…! When they return there is no request for money. We chat pleasantly, like old friends… Old friends who are never to become ‘better’ friends… as Khay continues to let on that her friend might be interested… and then asks where I’m going next… She, at least, seems to have had enough… They both stand as I enquire about paying for the food and she says she’s already paid… I ask how much and she smiles and says: “1,000 ฿…!” I laugh along with her (in case she’s serious…) and follow them outside…

They are expecting to escort me to the minibus so I say I’m off to Pantip and Khay asks if I have another prospect to meet. I tell her I have, and thank her/them for meeting me and bid them good day… It wasn’t a bad day but… it was certainly an odd one… I can see no means by which I could develop any sort of relationship with Khay, primarily because I don’t see any sign of her wanting to do so – it’s almost as if our meeting was set up as a blind date by mutual friends…

Nearly a month later I have a surprise message from Khay, asking why I’ve gone quiet… I send a polite reply saying I’ve been busy, but that I also thought she was more concerned for me to take on her friend… I don’t hear from her again.

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As the Great Bard might have opined, encountering the Land of Smiles:

To be (controlled), or not to be…

That is the situation we all face here…

Whether ’tis nobler to succumb

to the slings and arrows of outrageous deceit

Or, having resisted,

twist them to something more agreeable to ourselves…

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The following month I am back at MBK waiting to meet Khat, of no known employment. Again, we have a very brief courtship before agreeing to meet.

I send an SMS to Khat from the bus to let her know I’m on my way, and reach Victory Monument at eleven-forty. I phone Khat who, like Khay, last month, seems surprised, but will see me soon… I find Caffe Nero and sit and wait… At noon I send another SMS with the exact location, and wait… and wait. At one o’clock I pay, and go shopping – no point wasting the trip. It took me three and a half hours to get here from Hua Hin, and she can’t get here in one and a half hours…! You can cross from one side of Bangkok to the other, and back again, in one and a half hours…! Well, you can by Skytrain.

At ten past one I get a call from an unknown number. It sounds like Khat (another one with two phones who doesn’t know if she’s coming or going…!) but I don’t make it easy for her and, as she keeps asking where I am, I keep asking who this is… For two pins I would just give it a miss but I tell her where I was (as she gives the impression she’s reached MBK…) and will return there now… although I doubt I could walk any slower… To say my heart isn’t in this one is a major understatement.

We meet without further incident but disappointingly Khat doesn’t offer any explanation, or even an apology… and I have no intention of re-entering the cafe for her benefit. I do however politely ask if she’d like anything and when she says she’s fine I tell her that’s just as well because I had previously ordered her a coffee but, as she was late, I drank both… at which I get a brief apology, but not exactly contrition, as she seems to apologise as if she’s been told to do so by her mother… and not because she thinks she might actually have done anything wrong…

So we stroll idly around MBK until I get a call from my ‘Esso’ friend in Bangkok… and I don’t try to pretend my phone isn’t ringing… although I do speak to her in English – and later tell Khat it was a German friend, who is hoping to see me this evening… Miss Esso, actually wanted me to know she can’t see me tonight because ‘my man’ arrives tomorrow and she’s coming to Bangkok to see him… I hadn’t been expecting to see her but it’s nice to know, as he’ll be around for a few months, and it’s best I don’t call her…

We continue to stroll about the ‘market’ areas, and Tokyu, where Khat does a disappearing act (like my ex- often did and then complained because I wasn’t staying with her…), but I don’t go chasing after wayward women who are just testing me, and I ignore her while I check the stocks of trousers, and come up with five different brands but none of them are nicely made. Khat suddenly reappears – she used to work here and went to find a friend who might have got me a discount – without success…

It can be quite tiring wandering around this huge mall and Khat eventually decides she needs to sit down, by telling me she ‘knows’ I am tired, and need to sit down.. which I instantly deny… She just suggests she needs a Coke… and leads me to a bloody McDonalds… where I tell her I’m not thirsty and she goes off to get her Coke, for which (as with Khay) she declines money, and returns with a bottle of water for me, and a large portion of ‘fries’… I just watch all the students being crammed… How on earth is this place considered conducive to education…!?

We sit and chat but, unlike with the other ladies I’ve met, I keep quiet and don’t offer too much information. She also finally ‘explains’ that she works for a telephone company and normally has today off but, as I wasn’t expected until midday, and as her office is ‘just up the road’, she elected to do a few hours O/T while she waited… “You mean, while I waited…!” I retort. And she has taken an hour and a half to get here from, ‘just up the road’…!

Khat asks why I’ve come to Bangkok today, and seems genuinely surprised when I say: “To see you…” She also asks when I’ll be going back and, whereas she perhaps thought (hoped…?) I would say, tomorrow, she seems surprised again when I (half jokingly) retort: “Three-thirty…!” – and she doesn’t seem at all disappointed…

Indeed… at three-fifteen she tells me it’s time to go… i.e., for me to go… and she escorts me to the Sky-Train… The minibus has to pass through a torrential downpour and so, much later, back home, Khat phones, at nine o’clock and, without asking if I got home safely, or was the storm a problem, just asks why I didn’t phone her as soon as I reached home.. which, without seeming to hear my rather curt response, she immediately repeats… and then asks if I’ve eaten. I say I’m cooking and she asks if I’ll cook for her when she comes to Hua Hin… and, when I seem to hesitate, because I like people to wait for an invitation, she says that if I don’t want to, she’ll cook for me… I tell her I only cook Western food at home, and eat out when I want to eat Thai, and don’t have Thai ingredients at home. She says we can buy some…! I’m afraid that, although she seems to be a nice person, she is too pushy and full of herself – by far…! – and too much like Nii, who also got very short shrift for her impatience and self-righteousness…

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As a side comment:

Why do so many of the ladies who send a message ask my name…? It’s the first thing they should see (after the photo) on my profile. I am very honest on my profile, my age included, but many ladies who stipulate a maximum age of 50 or so, write to me. When I politely point out their ‘error’ and ask if they are sure, why do they say: ‘Wow, I not belief you so old. Photo you look 50.’ ? But my age is there, for all to see. It seems as if some of these women just flick through page after page, quickly scanning the photo and, if that appeals, they send a greeting…

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That’s all for now folks… Pip, Pip.

Hua Hin Harry

to be continued…