Stomach Bugs, Mixed Signals, and the One That Got Away

It was a little after midnight on an unusually chilly winter’s night in Pattaya when I found myself standing on the beachwalk across from Mike Shopping Mall. I was there waiting for a freelancer friend of mine as we had made plans to get together that night and hang out. In typical Thai fashion however she was already 15-minutes late and I was beginning to get a little impatient so I decided to give her a call. Now, as I’m sure you all know, talking to someone on the phone whose English abilities are less than perfect can present some challenges, particularly when that person has had a few drinks. Consequently I could hardly understand a word she was saying and at first I thought that maybe she had forgotten about our plans (she has always been kind of a flake). But she assured me that she had not forgotten and that she would be there soon. In truth I would not have minded the wait so much if I had been a little closer to Walking Street because then at least I could do some people watching. But absolutely nobody wanders this far north on Beach Road this late at night so all I could do is stand there cold, bored, and alone in the dark and really wishing that I had brought a jacket with me.

Eventually another 10 minutes passed by with no sign of my friend and now I’m really getting irritated so I call her again. This time she tells me she is actually walking up the street as we speak. But then a few minutes later she calls back to tell me she can’t make it after all. I knew of course that she had just got caught up with a customer who perhaps wanted to take her for the night, and I was completely fine with that. After all, I totally understand that this is her livelihood and I wouldn’t expect her to turn down a paying customer just because we had made plans. What ticks me off though is that she just didn’t cancel the first time I called her rather than dragging it out and making me stand around in the cold thinking that she was still coming. I made a mental note to myself at that point to only meet this particular acquaintance in the afternoons from then on out as she has always had a good track record of showing up on time during the day.

Now, normally at this point, and especially considering it was Saturday night, I would have made a mad dash home to quickly change into some nice clothes before heading back out to Lucifer. For some reason I was feeling very tired and worn out that night though and all I wanted to do was get back to my place and enjoy a nice relaxing evening at home. So, I jumped on my motorbike and headed back over the hill to Jomtien.

Once I got back to my room I just got right into bed and watched TV for an hour of so before finally turning in. And this should have been the end of the story right there. But then, not long after I had drifted off into a blissful sound sleep, my phone began to ring. I really hate being awoken right after falling asleep, especially when I’m not feeling so good, so I was not too happy at all about being disturbed. As I reached for the phone I looked over at the clock and saw that it was about 2:50 AM and I was really wondering just who the hell could be calling me so late.

When I finally answered the phone a very excited and attractive-sounding female voice answered back. Unfortunately she was someplace very noisy and I could barely understand what she was trying to say – and of course I had absolutely no idea who she was. I ask her for her name twice but I couldn’t understand her reply either time. And since some girls will get pissed off when you don’t remember them I just had to pretend like I knew who she was from that point on even though I really didn’t have a clue. There were probably less than 15 Thai women who knew my Thai cell phone number at the time but for the life of me I just couldn’t figure out which one of them it might be that was calling me. In fact, I was beginning to think that it might even be a wrong number and that the girl on the other end had me confused with someone else.

In any case, eventually I was able to understand enough of what she was saying to figure out that she wanted me to meet her at Tony’s and I agreed. I really did not want to go back out again that night but I could hardly refuse. After all, even if she turned out to be a total stranger, she might be a really hot total stranger. So off I went into the night once more – this time with a jacket on.

Luckily it’s not too hard to find parking near Walking Street after 3 AM and I found a spot just around the corner from Tony’s and set off to meet my mystery woman. As I rounded the corner, wondering just how in the hell I was supposed to find this girl in a crowded disco when I had no idea what she looked like, I spotted two girls coming out of Tony’s. One of them seemed to be pretty much falling down drunk and was laughing and carrying on while her sober looking friend tried to prop her up. Then as I got closer the drunken girl suddenly spotted me and started calling out my name excitedly. At first I still didn’t recognize her but as I got closer it finally hit me just who she was. Her name was Naomi and I had met her a few weeks earlier at the beauty supply store where she works in the Royal Garden Plaza mall. At the time she was standing around in front of her store in her little white uniform talking to one of her co-workers. There was something about her that just instantly piqued my interest, despite the fact that she did not have the kind of classically beautiful face that I usually go for. In fact, seeing her kind of reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw the American actress, Beau Garrett on the screen. She is also a woman who I do not consider to be that beautiful in the classical sense of the word yet her face just exudes this smoldering sexuality that says she could really wear you out in the sack. And Naomi was now having this same effect on me so naturally I had to go over and strike up a conversation with her.

As we started talking I noticed that she was very soft-spoken and seemed a bit shy and reluctant to engage at first but somehow I could still tell that she was interested in me. At one point she invited me to check out the photos of herself that she had been sharing with her co-worker and in one of these in particular she had a somewhat sexy look about her. As I was looking at it I noticed that she seemed rather enthralled with it herself. And the admiring way in which she looked at this photo, as well as her body language in general, told me quite a bit about her. I could tell that she was one of these good girl types who has a hidden wild side to them that they have always had to suppress but which they secretly and desperately want to let out.

Anyway, at one point in the conversation I asked for her phone number but she declined and took my number down instead. I of course knew exactly what this meant. When a girl is interested in you but she will not give you her phone number, nine out of ten times this means that she already has a boyfriend or husband but does not want you to know about it. Unfortunately this is actually a pretty common scenario in Pattaya or other Thai cities that are densely packed with western men. The problem is that all the really attractive girls who work in department stores, and the like, in these places are being asked out constantly by foreigners. And this means that the odds on any of them being single by the time you come across them are slim to none. And if you are one of those guys who is looking for a relationship with a bargirl you should know that this same rule also applies to them as well. The good ones (extremely attractive, good-hearted, and a lively personality) will just get snatched up long before you ever even come across them. Let’s face it, there is no way you can hit every single beer bar and go-go bar in town in a single night. And even if you could, the best girls would probably already be checked out for the night (or week) by the time you happened across their particular bar (the ones who only do short time are not going to be looking for a relationship). So by the time you actually see one of these girls she already has a steady boyfriend and is getting ready to quit the business.

The point is; girls not giving me their phone number despite being interested in me was becoming common place. In fact, just a few months prior to this I had a very similar encounter with a super cute hairdresser from Bangkok who was visiting a girlfriend of hers who lived in my building. After chatting her up in the elevator and hallway that first night I gave her my phone number but she also would not give me hers. Eventually she called about a week later – from someone else’s phone, of course – and we became intimate and began seeing each other – at least on the rare occasion she could sneak off to Pattaya. I eventually just got tired of her not leveling with me about her situation though.

So standing there with Naomi was definitely giving me a strong sense of Deja vu. Eventually we parted company and I went on my way wondering if she would ever actually work up the nerve to call me.

Flash forward two weeks, and here she was standing in front of me again – well, just barely standing. It was pretty obvious that that wild side I had mentioned earlier was now very much out and on the prowl. She was now very talkative and flirty and was acting like a kid on Christmas morning who was about to open her presents. Her friend, Mary, was an entirely different story however. She seemed to be a very straight-laced and conservative girl and, although not really shy at all, she was a person of very few words and seemed to be very serious-minded. In fact, stoic would probably be the best way to describe her personality. She also seemed to be a very responsible person and she struck me as one of those types who had to grow up very quickly and take on heavy responsibilities from an early age. As such, she is someone who would probably make an excellent employee and would also likely be a good and very loyal friend to have around in a pinch but I certainly can’t imagine her being much fun at all on a date. In fact I can’t really picture her ever laughing or smiling at anything, or showing any emotions at all for that matter. She was certainly not unattractive though and underneath her conservative clothing you could still tell that she had a very nice petite little figure. The two girls were actually almost complete opposites appearance wise. Mary was thin and petite (about 5’-2”) and had very white skin, whereas Naomi was taller and more curvaceous and had fairly dark skin. I tend to like my women with a little meat on their bones and curves in all the right places and Naomi certainly didn’t disappoint in this respect.

As we left the club and walked down the street towards my motorbike I was not sure exactly what I was supposed to do with my new companions this early in the morning. So when we got to where my bike was parked I asked Naomi what she wanted to do and she suggested that we go back to my place. At this point I kind of half expected her friend to either part company with us right then and there or ask me to drop her off at her house, but that did not happen. Instead she just climbed on the bike behind Naomi without ever saying a word and so I just I headed off towards home.

Almost as soon as we had set off Naomi slipped her hands under my jacket and started rubbing my chest and saying “I’m gonna make you feel sooooo good tonight”. And she kept saying this almost all the way home. “Great” I thought to myself. “And just how exactly do you intend to do this with your straight-laced little friend tagging along”. Talk about mixed signals! It was pretty obvious what was going on here. All that alcohol had let out that naughty and care free side but her prim and proper half still had just enough influence remaining to make sure that her friend stayed with us so that nothing could happen. It was becoming pretty clear that all this night was going to lead to for me was a cold shower and little or no sleep and I was really beginning to wish that I had never even answered the phone.

When we finally got up to my room I naturally figured that we would just sit around and talk for a while but instead Naomi almost immediately jumped into the shower. She was only in there for a about 2-minutes and when she came back out of the bathroom, to my surprise, she was wearing nothing but a bath towel. She was still smiling and excited and in a very playful mood as she ran over and leaped onto the bed like a little kid. She then patted on the mattress next to her suggesting that I should come and get into bed as well, so I did. Then a stone-faced Mary got into bed on the other side of Naomi fully dressed in her street clothes and both girls laid back and closed their eyes as I turned out the lights.

“So just what the hell am I supposed to do now” I thought to myself? This woman’s body just made me almost insane with sexual desire. In fact, she turned me on more than just about anyone else in recent memory and she was laying just inches away from me and was completely naked underneath that towel. And of course there was no question what she wanted me to do in her drunken state. But what about Mary? I could wait for her to fall asleep of course. But as late as it was and seeing as how Naomi had been drinking that night I knew that she would probably be out like a light herself in less than a minute.

Whatever I planned on doing I would have to do it quickly. I knew of course that all I had to do was slide my hand under that towel and in between her legs and I could get her motor running enough to where she wouldn’t care if her friend was there or not (assuming she ever did care). And at the very least I could have gotten her to quietly and discretely return the favor, so to speak, so that I could at least finally get some much-needed sleep. The trouble is, even if she didn’t care about her friend’s presence, I kind of did. Not that I had not been in similar situations in the past. In fact, on two separate occasions I had had sex with a Japanese girlfriend of mine while her girlfriend was sleeping just a few feet away. And this was with all the lights on in both instances.  But this was just different somehow and I was not at all comfortable with the idea of having sex right next to straight-laced little Mary. Or at least not while there was any chance that she might still be awake.

The other problem was that I was feeling so utterly mentally and physically exhausted and had such a severe headache due to a medical condition I have that I knew that if something didn’t happen very soon that I would eventually be too sick to be capable of doing anything anyway.

So, there I was just laying in bed debating when to make my move when I suddenly became extremely irritated with the whole situation. If I had not been feeling so sick of course I would have just patiently waited 5 minutes or so to make sure that Mary was asleep and then tested the waters with Naomi. As it was however I was in desperate need of sleep as this was the only way to escape the pain and sickness I was feeling. But of course now sleep was impossible due to all the intense sexual frustration I was experiencing. I was suddenly just really ticked off at Naomi for putting me in this situation to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, I never have an expectation of sex with any girl I’m on a date with. But I also don’t expect them to torture me by jumping into my bed naked if they are either unwilling or unable to have sex with me. Anyway, that’s when I just said to myself “screw this!” and I got out of bed and moved to the couch to try to get some sleep (I can just hear the collective groans of disappointment from all the male reader out these right now).

Unfortunately, sleep would prove to be elusive that night.

I had been laying on the couch in misery and desperately trying to get to sleep for about an hour when I suddenly realized that I was feeling much worse than usual. That was the first time I realized that something else might be going on here other than my usual condition. Then, some time later my stomach felt very upset and when I went to the toilet I discovered that I had a very severe case of diarrhea – just the thing you want to have when you have two cute girls spending the night in your tiny one room apartment. I also noticed that I had chills and was sweating heavily. And, as if this were not bad enough, on the next trip to the bathroom I discovered that I had severe nausea as well and for a moment I was sure it was going to start coming out of both ends at once. Unfortunately however, although I desperately needed to vomit in order to feel a little better, I found that I could not. This by the way, is due to having been very sick as a small child and vomiting when I desperately needed to take a breath. I almost aspirated my own vomit and after that I was terrified of vomiting. So now as an adult, even though no longer afraid, my body automatically tries to fight that urge to purge. And in fact, I had only thrown up once in the 30 years prior to this. Needless to say not being able to throw up was making me even more miserable than I normally would be in this situation.

After spending most of the next few hours with my arms wrapped around the toilet eventually it was sunrise and I could see that Naomi was awake and she seemed to be aware by now that I was really sick. At that point I got back into the bed with her because I needed the blankets and a warm body to keep me warm. Also, I was so deathly ill at this point that sexual frustration was no longer an issue.

Finally on my last trip to the bathroom I spent about 15 minute just sitting on the bathroom floor in misery trying to vomit before eventually deciding to try to get back into bed again. By this time I was too weak to even stand though and I came crawling out of the bathroom on all fours dragging the trash can behind me, just in case. Well, I only made it about halfway across the room before I finally started puking my guts out right there in front of my horrified guests, who were now both wide awake and out of bed. At first I was mortified, thinking that they would never be able to get the image out of their heads when seeing me in the future. I was so miserable though that this thought passed almost as fast as it came and after that I didn’t really care anymore.

After several more bouts of extreme vomiting the girls decided that I needed to get to the hospital. Now, I normally never go to the doctor for things like this because I know there is not really a whole lot they can do about it, but the girls were insistent and I was too sick and weak to argue the point. So they propped me up, one on each side, and helped me out into the hallway and down stairs to the front of the building. Then Mary went off to find someone to drive us to the hospital. Within 5-minutes she returned with a car and driver and I wasn’t really sure if it was some kind of car service or if she had just got some random stranger to help. I do know that it was a very nice car though and I was reluctant to get in it because I didn’t want to make a mess all over this guys nice clean interior. Eventually I decided I would just have to chance it though and off we went.

Unfortunately we had barely gotten into Pattaya before I could feel it coming up again and had to tell the driver to pull over. I got out so quickly that the car was still moving and the back tire ran over the end of one of my sandals, which I then had to yank free before I could get to the curb and start heaving my guts out once more. I was down on my hands and knees in a disgusting, filthy, Pattaya gutter but I was so miserably sick that I didn’t even care about all the filth. Luckily the hospital was just a few minutes away from there so there were no more incidents in route.

Once in the hospital there was just a lot of dry heaving while waiting to see the doctor and by the time we did I was so dehydrated that my tongue felt like a giant dried up kitchen sponge. The doctor said it was food poisoning and then they wheeled me upstairs to a room so they could put in a IV and start a saline drip to re-hydrate me. First however they wanted me to change into a hospital gown and the nurses told me I needed to give them my watch, wallet and other valuables so they could put them away for safe keeping. At this point Mary suggested that she should probably hang onto my things and I quickly agreed. This might seem unwise to some considering that I had only known her for a few hours but I have always had excellent instincts about people and I had no doubt that I could trust her completely. And either way I definitely knew that I did not want my things being put into some drawer somewhere in the hospital that god knows how many people might have access to. After all, in addition to the cash I had all my credit cards and my ATM card in that wallet. My watch wasn’t exactly cheap either and it would have been impossible to replace.

Of course I had bigger problems to worry about at this point than my wallet. I remember at one point I even grabbed hold of Mary’s hand and held it for a while as Naomi had already left for work. In retrospect this seems a bit strange considering the fact that she was a virtual stranger and that she was not exactly the warmest person in the world. At the time however I really felt like I was dying and I just needed to feel some human contact.

Not long after that of course Mary had to get to work as well so I found myself alone in my hospital room. Well, not exactly alone. There was some old German guy on the other side of the curtain ranting in German and Thai like a crazy person while his Thai wife and daughter tried to calm him down. I don’t speak German or Thai but the guy sounded either delirious or very drunk so even if I had I doubt I would have understood a word of what he was saying.  Eventually things quieted down though and after another 3 or 4 hours I actually started feeling a lot better.

At one point the doctor came by and that’s when I learned that they had planned on me staying the night and I politely told him that that wasn’t going to happen. I hate hospitals and the only way I could ever spend the night in one would be if I were unconscious and near death’s door.

Despite feeling much better I was still so weak that I could barely walk but I got dressed nevertheless and went downstairs to the payment window. The bill turned out to be about 4000 Baht which seemed pretty steep to me, but then I remembered the girls saying in the car that this was the more expensive of the two nearby hospital and I said I didn’t care. Also I later figured that they may have charged me for an overnight stay even though I ended up leaving early.

Anyway when she handed me the bill I was not sure how I was going to pay because I did not have my wallet. But when I told her that I would have to come back later and pay she told me not to worry because my friend had already paid the bill – meaning Mary. This really took me by surprise. After all, that’s about two-thirds of an entire month’s salary for this girl, and she has to work 50 or 60 hours a week in a sporting goods store to get that. Naturally she had my wallet for collateral but I’m not really sure I would be comfortable paying a near total stranger’s hospital bill that was equivalent to what I make in a month, not even if I did have the person’s wallet. In truth I would have been fine with her taking the 2000 Baht in cash out of my wallet to pay part of the bill but somehow I knew that she would never do that. In fact, I’m sure she would never have even considered opening my wallet to see what was inside. Although, if Naomi had been the one holding onto the wallet she might have at least been tempted to check it for evidence that I had a girlfriend (photos, etc.).

In truth I can’t even remember how I got home that day without any money. I was definitely too weak to walk even a fraction of that distance so I must have got a taxi and had him wait in the car while I ran upstairs to my apartment to get some cash. In any case, I remember it really felt great to be back home and I just collapsed on the bed.

Then about an hour or so later I got a call from Naomi saying that she was off work and could come by my place and drop off my things. Ten minutes later she showed up at my front door and I remember being very pleased to see her face again after my ordeal. As she entered she handed me my wallet and watch and I in turn went over to the room safe and took out the money I owed Marry. At this point I thought she would stay for a while and we could have a nice talk, but after just a minute or two she said she had to go and needless to say I was more than a little disappointed. I imagine that now that she was sober she was worried that something might happen if she stayed but honestly I was WAY too weak to even think about sex and I just wanted to have a relaxing afternoon lazing around with her and talking.

Four or five days later when I was finally starting to get most of my strength back I had still not heard from Naomi so I decided to call the number that she last called me from, even though I knew it was likely not her phone. Sure enough it was Mary’s phone but that was almost better I thought because I figured I could try and squeeze her for information about what was going on with Naomi. She wasn’t giving it up though and since she was at work she asked me to meet her for lunch in the mall and I agreed. I was not really worried about meeting her because neither one of us was romantically interested in the other and either way Mary would never in a million years screw over a friend by trying to steal her guy. It’s just not in her nature.

Once we met up in the mall we decided to eat at the food court on the top floor and although we had a nice conversation over lunch she was still very tight-lipped when it came to Naomi. There was just no way she was going to spill the beans concerning what was going on with her friend.

Eventually she had to get back to work and as we were leaving I tried to pay her bill since I know she does not make that much money but she made in abundantly clear that she would be paying for her own lunch. Then as we were riding down the escalator I made one last-ditch attempt to find out what was up with Naomi and at that point Mary proceeded to tell me about her own ex-boyfriend and how they broke up. I had a feeling that this story was her attempt to give me a hint as to what was going on with Naomi without actually saying anything but for the life of me I just could not see how her story applied to me and Naomi. In fact, at the time I just remember being surprised that Mary had even had a boyfriend at all. I mean, she’s cute and all, and she’s a good person, but how could anyone be happy with a girlfriend who quite literally only has one single facial expression 24-hours a day and who never shows any emotion whatsoever. It would be like dating Mr. Spock. And what would the sex be like? Would she just stare up at the ceiling until you were finished? I personally like women who are vibrant and expressive and outgoing so I just can’t imagine being in a relationship with someone like Marry.

Anyway, as we parted company I told her to PLEASE have Naomi give me a call, although I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

A few more days went by without a call from Naomi and by this time I was feeling good enough to check out Walking Street for the first time since getting sick. I remember it felt really good to be out again in the heart of the action and it wasn’t long before I spotted new sign holder girl standing out in front of one of the smaller go-go bars down a side street (I was so familiar with everyone on Walking Street back then that I could always spot someone new). You could tell she was not only new to this club but to the whole Pattaya scene in general. She had a cute innocent face and was wearing a short denim skirt, which showed off her long slender but shapely legs and her perfectly rounded bubble butt. So of course I has to strike up a conversation with her and that first night I talked to her for about ten minutes and then I came back the next night to talk more to her. Long story short, we began dating exclusively soon after and more or less lived together for the next two months until I had to return to California.

Anyway, one morning about a week or two into this new relationship we were in a hair salon visiting one of her friends who was a hairdresser there when who should walk by the window but Naomi. When she first saw me and noticed I was with another girl a look of hurt and shock came over her face followed by a look of total disgust as she walked off. At first I was filled with a horrible sense of guilt, but then I thought to myself “what the hell do I have to feel guilty about?” After all, did she really expect me to just sit around my apartment week after week hoping that she would get drunk enough to call me again. And if she did call how long would it be before she admitted to having a boyfriend (or whatever) and made a choice between him or me? How dare she be pissed off at me?” I thought. She is the one who has been keeping all the secrets after all, not me.

The next time I saw her was two or three weeks later when I decided to go into Lucifer to kill time while waiting for my girlfriend to get off work down the street. She was standing at a table with Mary and three other girls who looked as though they had never seen the inside of a dance club in their lives – real mousey conservative looking types. I wanted to talk to Naomi of course and set things straight but from the way she was trying to burn holes into me with her eyes it was pretty clear that she was still very hurt and angry and wanted nothing to do with me. So instead I talked to Mary for a few moments and then left. I couldn’t believe how much this woman still seemed to hate me simply for deciding to find a girlfriend after getting tired of waiting for her to call me. And she didn’t even necessarily have to tell me what was going on right away (about the boyfriend, etc.). She could have just said she needed time to work some things out and to be patient with her, and guess what, I probably would have given her the time she needed. But she didn’t do that, did she? I just can’t understand this kind of behavior.

But of course this kind of behavior is not only limited to Thai women. In fact just a few years earlier I had a similar situation with an Asian American girl. Well she was actually born in the Philippines but as she had lived in California since she was 7 years old I thought of her pretty much like any other Asian American girl. I first met her at a nightclub in Santa Monica where her and her friends were having a girl’s night out. I was sitting at the bar when I first noticed her in the crowd on the other side of the room and she just stood out from the rest of the crowd so I instantly knew I wanted to get to know her. I actually did not peg her at all as being a Filipina though, even though I usually have no problem spotting them. In fact, I thought she might be of Chinese decent. She was fairly tall and light-skinned and had very long straight hair and a great body and looked to be in her early to mid twenties. I could also tell that she would likely be fairly approachable. So when her friends left her alone for a minute I went over to her table and struck up a conversation. We hit it off right away and spent the next hour or so talking and dancing until her friends decided it was time to go home. After walking her out to their car I naturally asked her for her phone number but she declined and instead had me give her my number (here we go again).

About a week later, she gave me a call and I have to say it was probably the best first phone call from a woman that I’ve ever had. We both had the same smart sense of humor and really seemed to get each other. It was also very clear that she was just as taken with me as I was with her. Unfortunately she had to go after 45 minutes of talking but I was left feeling really positive about the possibilities, despite the fact that I lived in Santa Barbara and she lived 90 minutes away in Los Angeles.

That optimism was short-lived however. You see, although I now had her phone number I soon discovered that I could never reach her by phone and always had to wait for her to call me. Sometimes she would sneak off to make a quick call to me from her work at the hospital, even though they are not supposed to use their phones at work. And she would also call me on her drive home from work, yet she would always say she had to go as she was driving up to her house – where she said she lived with her sister and her sister’s husband. Something was obviously fishy so the last time she did this I did everything I could to keep her from hanging up before going in the house but it didn’t work. And her phone was always shut off while she was home. Obviously she did not want whomever she was living with to know that she was talking to a guy.

The last time she called she was in the car with a group of other girls heading to the beach. It was fun talking to her, as usual, but in truth I was really starting to get fed up with always having to sit around waiting for her to call me. But the worst part was that by not even acknowledging the fact that something was going on, and expecting me to believe that everything was above board, she was basically insulting my intelligence. And I absolutely HATE having my intelligence insulted. Way before this point she should have had a talk with me (or e-mail) and said “I know things seem a bit fishy with me but there are just some things going on in my life right now that I’m not really ready to tell you about yet, but if you can just be patient with me for a little while longer……”. At least then, even though she is still not divulging her secret, she is at least not disrespecting me and insulting my intelligence by expecting me to believe that nothing is going on when it clearly is.

Later that night I had just had enough and I wrote her an e-mail basically saying that, although I liked her a lot I just wasn’t into all the secrecy and that I needed her to level with me about what was going on. At one point I even said that for all I knew, she was the one who was married and not her sister. This was not an accusation mind you, but rather was meant to illustrate just how thoroughly in the dark I was.

Her reply was not exactly what I expected. Rather the leveling with me she just replied with an extremely angry email. She seemed so angry and unhinged in fact that you would think I had raped her sister or something. But of course there was nothing even remotely wrong with what I had said to her. I tried to smooth things over with another e-mail but this just prompted another angry reply. Then about a year later I accidentally dialed her number since it was still in my phones call list. It took a few seconds but then we both figured out at about the same time who we were talking to. And the change in the tone of her voice when she knew it was me made it clear that she still hated my guts. I still tried to smooth things over but she just wasn’t having it so I just said goodbye and hung up.

Unbelievable! This women still hated my guts simply for asking her to let me know what was going on in her life that was causing her to be so secretive all the time. Of course I knew that it could only be one of two things. Either she had a husband or live in boyfriend, or she had a very strict and controlling family who did not want her dating a White guy. And if the latter it would not really surprise me at all. In fact, just a few year prior to this I had had an affair (not proud of that) with another Asian girl who had also come to the States from the Philippines at about 7 years old and she had married a Filipino guy just to make her parents happy. So even when Asian girls move here young enough to become completely Americanized they are still sometimes totally controlled by their parents, even well into adulthood.

Back to women hating me for no reason though, this clearly is not just a Thai thing. And it may not even be just a South-East Asian thing. It is most definitely exclusively a female thing though. After all, I can’t imagine a man ever behaving this way. Sure, a man might get a bit defensive or even angry when caught in a lie but he is not going to despise a woman for the rest of his life simply for politely asking him to come clean with her and lay his cards on the table. And he certainly would not try to burn holes into her with his eyes every time he saw her from that day forward.

You know I’m really beginning to understand the frustration that Professor Higgins must have felt when he posed that famous question “why can’t a woman be more like a man”. That whole rant is actually pretty humorous, in case you haven’t seen My Fair Lady in a while and had forgotten. I think the best part comes towards the end of it though when he says:

Why is thinking something women never do?

And why is logic never even tried?

Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.

Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?

All I can say is, well put, professor.

As for Naomi, I never saw her again after that night, not even in passing. I sometimes still find myself thinking about her today though and wondering what would have happened if things had gone differently that first night. After all, I think it could have possibly turned into a fairly successful long-term relationship. That is assuming she could learn to be just as outgoing, playful, and talkative when sober as when drinking. But even if it had not led to anything serious I still intensely regret not having had sex with her. After all, every guy has at least one missed sexual encounter in his past that he regrets missing out on so much that it still drives him crazy to this day. I’ve had a few of these myself but Naomi is definitely number one on the list of near sexual encounters that got away.

A note to the readers:

First of all I feel I must apologize to everyone for suddenly disappearing four years ago after my last submission “The More Things Change The More They Stay Then Same”, and particularly to those people who wrote to me saying that they were eagerly awaiting part two (it’s still only half-finished). Unfortunately I just have trouble writing sometimes. In fact, today’s story is one I had started writing about 10 years ago, shortly after the events transpired, only to abandon it with it about 70% complete. And I just recently dug it up and completed it.

The problem is that when I was 12-years old I got bitten by a tick and unknowingly contracted Lyme Disease. And unfortunately back in 1972 even most doctors did not know what that strange target shaped rash was that showed up on my left side. By age 14 I began experiencing severe fatigue, headaches, and joint pain, among other things, but unfortunately it would take me another 35 years to find a doctor who cared enough to bother figuring out what was actually wrong with me. Long story short, it’s been in my body so long now that I will likely spend the rest of my life with constant severe headaches and fatigue as well and foggy thinking and an inability to concentrate. Needless to say this can make it difficult to write most of the time, or even to read for that matter. All my past submission were typically written during periods when my symptoms were less severe than usual and those periods seem to be rare these days.

Secondly, to those who don’t already know me I thought I should point out the fact that whenever I make generalization about gender, race, or nationality, etc., it’s always meant purely in fun and in reality I always see everyone as individuals. Of course, I would think that the “My Fair Lady” reference would have tipped most people off to the fact that I was just having fun with it. And just for the record, I was actually always in Eliza’s corner.

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is because I always hate it when other people make sweeping generalizations about large groups of people (race, sex, nationality, etc.). And in fact, whenever they do it irritates me to no end and I always feel the need to set them straight. And that is why in the past, in this and other forums, I have ended up defending Thai women, Thai prostitutes, the men who date Thai women or solicit Thai prostitutes, and western women, just to name a few. In fact, I think all but a few of my past submission on here were written in response to content that I took issue with. For example, my last submission prior to this one came about because some guy wrote that he thought Thailand would be some idyllic fairytale wonderland full of chocolate milk rivers and lollipop trees if only it were not for the influence of the big bad Americans. And this prompted an 8500 word rebuttal submission from me.

Of course my very first submission ever was prompted by the heartache of lost love rather than by irritation. We all know that you should not drive a car under the influence of alcohol but nobody ever tells you that you should also never write a story whilst under the influence of lost love. And this explains why reading over that story today actually makes me cringe a bit. But as cringe-worthy as it is I would never ask Stick to take it down. Fortunately I’m secure enough in who I am that I don’t mind having people see me at a point in my life when I was at my weakest and most vulnerable. Anyway, I have always thought that my submissions that were prompted my irritation were my best. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I always seem to do my best writing when someone has put a burr under my saddle.