Rule #5: GIVE HER THE INTERVIEW
If you see a girl who looks promising, in other words, she is good looking without being a stunner, a lively dancer who interacts well with others, and has a flaw, perhaps a flat chest or stretch marks – something that will take the arrogance out of her and, hopefully, give her a better attitude (See Rule #4: STUDY THE FORM), invite her down to find out more about her.
The idea is that you buy a girl a lady drink in return for her time and she gets around half the cost of the drink. In fact, in many bars, you will often see the waitress give the girl a ticket with which she can claim her share later.
Until recently, lady drinks were quite affordable, and it would not break the bank if you bought your girl a few drinks, bought one for her friend, and perhaps for the waitress if she was helpful – for example, by helping you to choose a girl, or asking a girl to sit with you. However, lady drink prices have gone up to such an extent that some girls make a living out of lady drinks only – which completely changes the business model (see Stick’s Weekly of January 28th, Lady Drinks).
From what I have seen in the years since Covid, there is a corresponding change in the way punters operate. It seems that more and more guys these days just want to chat to a girl, and perhaps have a bit of hands-on fun, but have no intention of barfining – at least not from gogo bars. They enjoy the show, enjoy a chat, enjoy a girl dry humping in their lap, then go home, or pick up a freelancer or a night-clubber and save a few thousand baht. If that is your plan, you don’t need to worry about this rule, just enjoy her company and a free-wheeling conversation.
That said, there are still plenty of gogo girls who are up for it, and still plenty of punters looking for their “Juliet for a night”. If you are one of those you need to remember that this is not just a cosy chat, it is an INTERVIEW – an interview for that very important job of being your bed-mate and making all your fantasies (or some of them) come true.
First of all, you will need to get lots of basic information: name, rank and serial number (in other words, name, marital status, age, etc.), but, for Heaven’s sake, don’t do it mechanically! Keep it light and chatty, as far as language problems allow. She will probably ask you a few similar questions in simple English
- What is your name?
- Where are you from?
- How long you stay?
- Where you stay?
- Are you married?
Here is an actual example of a bargirl INTERVIEW taken from my diary account of the third day of my first trip in May 2005:
In Baccara, I saw the most beautiful Thai bargirl I have ever seen and she fitted all my developing tastes. She had a beautiful, oval face with large frank eyes and a warm smile. Her hairdo is difficult to describe but was elaborately plaited (there is a sketch of it in the diary). She had small, but well-shaped breasts, a waist to die for, a hard flat stomach and beautifully-shaped legs. I noticed that she seemed to be spitting something into her hand and putting it into an ashtray in front of me.
I signalled her to come and talk to me which she did as soon as she left the stage. I stroked her arms and back and we had the usual bargirl/farang conversation. This is so scripted, I could almost do it in Thai, and I’ve only been here three days!
“Sawat dee, ka. My name May.”
“Hello, May.”
‘What your name?”
“Byron.”
“Where you from?”
“England”
“I love England,” (or America, or Germany, or Timbuctoo, or wherever you say you are from).
“What do you love about it?”
“The Statue of Liberty.”
“That’s in… never mind…”
“You holiday how long?”
“Two weeks.”
“First time Bangkok?”
“No.” (A fib – I don’t want to be taken for a newbie, but I think they know anyway).
“You buy lady drink?”
“OK.”
I asked her what she was chewing and she puts a handful of small nuts in my hand. Then she said she had to go dance upstairs. I was a bit disappointed that she was one of the few girls to wear knickers – but then, she was so beautiful, she probably didn’t have to try too hard to get customers. She smiled down at me a few times and I grinned foolishly back.
I tried one of the nuts and found that, under the hard shell, was a green kernel. It was tasteless, so I didn’t quite get the point of eating them. When she came back she showed me how to bite off the shell and spit it out. I couldn’t do it, so she did one for me – took it out of her sweet mouth and put it in mine – sexy! Funny, it’s the little things like that that are the biggest turn on!
Then she got down to business – did I want to barfine her?
“Long time?” I asked.
“No, only short time.”
I was a bit put off. Her business-like attitude, asking me to barfine her, and only willing to go short time were all signs of a bad attitude – she was obviously the kind of girl who could get as many customers as she liked and didn’t have to try hard. Very pretty – but not what I wanted – so I said, “No thanks.”
She immediately went away to prey on some other poor sucker.
I had not yet developed any rules for the INTERVIEW, so she drove it. She knew what she wanted (a quickie), and steered the interview towards it. Like May, any bargirl you interview is trying to find out what she needs to know, just as you are, and you can work around her questions with your questions. After the introductory platitudes, you need to move on to the serious stuff: how long she will stay and what the barfine and her fee will cost. In Angeles at the moment, the (all-inclusive) barfine is 3,000 to 5,000 PhP. A tip of 500 to 1,000 PHP is expected in the morning. In Thailand, expect to pay something around 1,000 ThB for the barfine, 3,000 for short time, and at least 5,000 for long time – serious money! So you might want to go into details of what, exactly, you will get (especially if you have special tastes), but that feels coarse to me, and I am content to leave it up to the girl whether, for example, she gives a blowjob or not.
There was an amusing incident in May 2005. It was my first week in the bars and I was trying to act like an Old Asia Hand. I had picked up a few phrases of bar argot from the online forums, such as “boom-boom” (f**k), “butterfly” (philanderer), “ting-tong” (crazy), “smoke” (blowjob), etc., along with a few phrases of Thai, and I tried to use them to impress a prospective barfine in Long Gun:
ME: Sawat dee, crap.
DOI: Sawat dee, ka.
ME: My name’s Byron. What’s yours?
DOI:“Doi.”
ME: “Where are you from?”
DOI:“Chiang Mai.”
ME: “How old are you?”
DOI:“22.”
There was much more in the same vein until, later, I got onto barfine talk:
ME: “We make boom-boom?”
DOI:“You pay barfine?”
ME: “How much?”
DOI:“500 baht.”
ME: “Do you smoke?” (I was using “smoke” in the argot sense of “blowjob”).
DOI:“No.”
I was disappointed to hear that, but she had big tits so I decided to go ahead anyway. Later she gave me a boob job and then, to my surprise and delight, a blowjob. I found out next day that she took my “smoke” question literally and was a non-smoker. Now I don’t waste time with argot and focus on speaking better Thai.
What I am looking for in the interview can be summed up in two words: CHEMISTRY and CONNECTION. When I am chatting to a bargirl, this mental checklist is at the back of my mind:
- Contact! – she must initiate body contact, and I will ramp it up with more intimate contact. She must accept a bit of hands on – but how much will depend on the culture of the bar. Some bars are raunchier than others.
- Chemistry – she must give me what we call in Yorkshire, the “orn”, and I must sense that she is “up for it”. More about Chemistry later.
- Connection – you find each other interesting to talk to. But don’t confuse it with chemistry, which is purely physical. I have often had a rattling good conversation with a bargirl and made that mistake, only to find out too late that we had no chemistry. More about Connection later.
- The Kiss Test – (see Rule #4).
That’s what I’m looking for. Your checklist might be different – and of course, there are times when you just go with the flow. Sometimes it feels right (or wrong) straight away, and you act on a hunch.
Despite my checklist I have, all too often, just gone with the flow, and not established what I need to know, with the result that I find out too late there is no chemistry, she is a starfish, she leaves early, there is misunderstanding about her fee, she won’t let me take a photograph of her, etc. So, GIVE HER THE INTERVIEW – keep it light and friendly – make her laugh if you can (remember, Thais love sanuk), but don’t forget to find out what you need to know.
***
The book version of these rules is shaping up well and has the provisional title of 48 Rules for Gogo Bars (inspired by The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene). Watch this space! In the meantime, if you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy some of my other books about Thailand and the Philippines. Take a look here or here.
The author of this article can be contacted at : rumblejungle2019@gmail.com
