Online Dating – Can It ‘Work’…? – A Few Conclusions

During this series which, like Topsy, just grew and grew, I have made a few side comments, to return to if I had time… One of these deals with how farang ‘should’ treat their Thai partners. It has often been said on this site, which echoes my own experiences, that one must be more assertive up front. It often seems the guys who get badly ripped off are just nice, decent, gentle souls, who are regarded by Thai women as lambs for slaughter. Such women respect assertiveness and therefore completely disrespect such men – indeed may even come to despise them.

Unfortunately, almost by definition, it’s the meek, while waiting to inherit the Earth (or did He just mean the wormy soil that surrounds us…? i.e. the meek will become the down-trodden serfs…), who are perhaps least able to assert themselves, and the least likely to see a scheming witch heading in their direction. Such guys might also be least likely to realise what is happening, until the Farangland home has been sold, the new house built upcountry, along with a second one for the now-jealous parents, plus the pig-farm, which makes little or no profit (perhaps because the other villagers expect a free ‘contribution’ for every commemorative date on the calendar, because they know she’s not really running a business…), the tractor, the pickup, and two or three mopeds have been acquired, and ferreted away… and it’s all too late.

I don’t suggest this sort of situation always pertains when farang meet Thai but it seems to be common enough for all newcomers (and maybe old-hands as well) to be on their guard… and there is only one piece of advice I can offer… LIE…! Do not let any Thai Tottie know everything about you. Either keep much of your private details to yourself or, if you are directly asked (and you will be directly asked…!), LIE…! If your lady knows of your assets she will endeavour to move these from your pocket to hers.

I have found there is no, ‘we’ and ‘us’ in Thai/farang relationships – everything is either ‘hers’ or ‘yours’ and everything that is yours she will attempt to change to hers – even if she cleverly calls it, ‘ours’… Beware of phrases like: ‘You can bring your money to Thailand; we (she means, ‘me’, ‘I’…) can make a business; I will run; and can take care of you.’ If there is anything else (and they know we all have pensions) that will have to keep coming as well, to pay for the initial teething problems and shortfalls of the new business – because she probably won’t have a clue what she’s doing… and neither will she realise this. She might even be ripped off by her own neighbours, who are just after a cut of her good fortune. And she will feel obliged to let them have it, while perhaps complaining to you how she has to pay ‘extra government fees’…

With my ex-wife I foolishly told almost everything, designed to reassure her that, if she allied her life with mine, she would not suffer materially… but I had no idea she didn’t intend to suffer anyway. I’m a basically honest guy and, when my wife asked what I earned, I told her the truth. At that time, before I retired, if I was lucky I could earn in a day what she might have taken three or four months to earn… It wasn’t the norm and, in a bad month, my earnings might have been no higher than hers in a good month… but… Why did I tell her…!?

I wasn’t bragging (although she was when she told everybody else); I just wanted her, and her family to feel secure when she upped and came to The West… (Boy! did they feel secure…!?) but she spent the next few years trying to get all this money shipped East, along with my property sold, and my sister and daughter disinherited… and this was the most devious and nasty scheme I’ve ever encountered, and needs its own article.

So… ever since, and especially during the four years covered in this series of articles, I have been taught to lie and, in order to avoid my own ‘tangled webs’, I kept it really simple: first, I simply didn’t mention the apartment I own in London, and described the income from it as ‘pension’… which, as it will end with my death, indirectly might help ensure my greater longevity… LOL. Secondly, I doubled my dependents to two sisters, and two daughters, and stressed they were all without ‘proper’ male support… Easy to remember, easy to confirm when they ask (as they will, constantly), easy to emphasize if they challenge it.

If you later feel you can trust your Thai partner you can gradually let a few additional details drop – but NOT all in one go, and do not suddenly announce you have a property portfolio that will ensure your long-term comforts in this Kingdom, and that of your wife’s next seventeen generations… If you receive rental income from property (or elsewhere), you might inform your partner a relative has died and left it to you… and see how she reacts. If you suggest re-investing it in the West, and she has fifty-seven good reasons why it should be shipped East, tout de suite, you will see how it might be better to keep the rest ‘hidden’ for a while longer… If she’s able to agree it’s worth leaving at least some of it where it is you might be on to a winner…

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That’s all for now folks… Pip, Pip.

Hua Hin Harry

to be continued…