Progressive Thailand Expat Learns the Hard Way He’s Not Special

I’d never understood the mentality of guys who go to Thailand, meet a girl in a bar, and then expect her to quit working because they’ve fallen in love with her, stop herself from going back to those bars, remove herself entirely from that scene, and accept a small amount of money from the guy while they go home and try to sort out their lives. I never understood why guys think that that’s going to be a reality.

Although I’d not been to Thailand when I was developing these opinions based on videos I’d watched, blogs I’d read, and forums I’d participated in, I was thinking that meeting a girl in Thailand would be something that I might be interested in doing at home.

Although I’d been in many relationships, more than I could count, nothing ever felt right. Everything always seemed to be the wrong way at home, and I was getting pretty fed up of that.

I spent a lot of time researching Thailand throughout the COVID years, and I was ready to go myself in 2022.

I didn’t feel financially sound enough to be able to live there. But I could go for a couple of weeks, maybe a month at the most, and sink my teeth into what Thailand was all about, see what it was like, and maybe find myself in a position where I could be fortunate enough to meet someone real.

At the same time, I understood that me meeting someone wouldn’t mean that she’d have to change her life for me because I didn’t have enough money for her to change her life for me. I think going in with that understanding, at least at the time, made me believe I was doing the right thing.

Equality and Relationships at Home

I was always very progressive when it came to relationships and how they were meant to work. I hated the patriarchy that I’d seen growing up, how my dad always was. I wouldn’t say he belittled mom, but probably would go as far as saying that he believed he was the one who was better because he was the financial breadwinner and it was her job to make sure she did as he pleased. It wasn’t an abusive relationship or anything like that, but I never understood the mentality between them. It always felt like he was believing he was above her somehow, and it came across like that when I was a child growing up together with my sister.

He treated both of us very differently. I was the child he seemed to concentrate on the most and put more money behind. If I wanted to do hobbies and if I wanted to find interest in something in particular, he pushed me towards that. My sister, he never really gave much of anything to her. Didn’t push her towards anything she was interested in.

And it showed me, growing up, how not to be, but also how the Western world seemed to be built purely for the benefit of men. That’s how I always looked at things and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

I believe in equality and even today I don’t believe there’s such a thing as equality.

I think I was going to Thailand understanding that people had the girls in Thailand wrong. The girls in my mind were meant to get theirs, not the other way round. While the guy is going in believing he’s falling in love and everything like that, the girl’s not toeing the line and doing exactly what the guy expects of her. She might be working in a bar and he’s giving her money. And I felt that was very good female empowerment for the girls in Thailand. And that’s why I wanted to go and look for myself with the understanding I would be seen differently than most of the guys because I was there to support and be a support act towards them.

That’s why I never really understood based on my research into Thailand why so many guys thought that they were going and they had to have control over the girls just because they had more money and were giving them a few hundred a month in order for them to stop working in the bar.

I think that was why I went to Thailand in the first place, believing that the dynamic was the right dynamic in some kind of weird way that perhaps doesn’t make sense to many people. I was sick to the back teeth of how things worked at home. Sick to the back teeth of the old anti-woman sentiment that many people seem to have. People will say it’s progressed and it’s got better, but it hasn’t, has it? It’s always the same. And I was so bored of that.

I was going to Thailand at the end of COVID to go and be respectful, to be a normal guy, understanding that girls need to do what’s best for them, and some guy three times her age isn’t going to be the sort of guy who she’s going to give up her life for. But I was happy to go and see what it was like.

I was really happy. I’d watched videos about it, and I was attracted to the bars because I felt the bars were the perfect form of female empowerment. I really felt that was the case. I was attracted to them, to see what that was like, and to be able to go and look at it from a very different perspective than all the other guys that were going.

My First Night in Patpong

When I actually arrived in Bangkok for my very first time, it was what I felt was an electrifying point of my life because all of a sudden, I believed I was in a country where equality really did matter.

You would see what they call ladyboys, and I don’t really like this term, but they do use this in Thailand, so I will use it too. You would see ladyboys walking around with their heads held high as a normal part of society. I really felt the fact that people were allowed to be themselves was something that you should treasure. I felt it was really progressive and a really forward-thinking country, and I loved it because of that.

I was excited to go and see the bars for myself. That was where I was headed the first night. I’d done the research, and perhaps I’d researched something that was out of date because I found myself in Patpong for the first night. I was staying around the Silom area, a great little hotel, but I headed out to Patpong. It felt quite dead really. There seemed to be lots of construction around the area. Perhaps they were removing certain things that were there in the past and new and modern things were coming into place.

Perhaps that was a sign of the time and the sign of a progressive nature. The girls had actually fought and they were already of such an equal standing that this was something that they didn’t even need to do anymore.

There were a number of bars around there still. I remember going into one bar in particular and just being shocked at the number of guys that were in there and the way that they were behaving and treating the girls like they were nothing more than objects.

I still had the belief inside me that these girls are empowered. They’re not being taken advantage of. Yes, they’re making money and they’re empowered, able to get more money than they would doing another job. If that’s what they want to do, that’s empowerment.

It really was striking what they had to go through and accept though in order to do that. That’s something that you don’t understand when you’re thinking about it and when you’re listening to guys talking about their experiences and what you’re understanding about the bar side of things when you go inside.

Of course, you can’t watch videos from inside those places because number one, you wouldn’t be allowed to take a camera in and you wouldn’t be allowed to put it on the internet. You don’t see the inner workings. You only have ideas about it.

It was a lot more extreme than I thought it was going to be. The girls had to go through so much more and I felt sick to my stomach.

What I Saw Inside the Bangkok Bars

I remember the first time I walked into a bar and I was sitting down having a drink and it was quite empty. I was keeping myself to myself. I didn’t say I wanted a girl to sit next to me. I was just taking it in and understanding the atmosphere firsthand.

A couple of guys walked in a bit drunk. I don’t know where they were from, but they came and sat down, two of these guys. And before long, they had girls sat next to them, which I understood that was part of it. But the way they treated those girls, and I’m looking at them, and I suppose I was really angry, and I probably looked very angry on my face. The way that they’re treating the girls, it felt awful like they were objects.

Female empowerment. They’re able to do as they please and they’re benefiting from this. So, in a sense, that’s okay. But I really remember wanting to go up to those guys and say, “Behave yourself and show a little respect.” I wasn’t about to do that. When you see what progresses even further from there, I wasn’t yet of the understanding that the girls were being taken advantage of. I was just pretty sick and I left that place and went into somewhere else, hoping it was going to be a bit more respectful towards the girls.

I found myself sitting down in quite a reasonably busy place and girls were just being treated badly. I really felt like I wanted to just shout at the top of my lungs at all the guys in there to pull themselves together and show some respect, show a bit of compassion. That would be fighting a losing battle. And I just felt this awful feeling come over me like perhaps I had it all wrong. I knew that things that I was seeing were how they were, but I thought it was more in the girl’s favor before I went. This just seemed to be totally in the guy’s favor. And I felt like I’d had one nightmare, left one nightmare of a place and landed in another.

I kept progressing and went somewhere else. This was more tame. It wasn’t one of the girls on stage environments, and it was a bit more relaxed. The guys didn’t seem to be behaving like pigs.

Well, I’m sitting there, still not ready to speak to anyone more than I’ll have this to drink, please, and that’s it. I’m sitting there for an hour or so with a few drinks in me, and a guy comes in. He’s talking to a girl playing pool. Before you know it, he’s putting his hands in places that, in my opinion, he had no right to be putting them. I just couldn’t work out this sheer lack of respect that these people seem to have towards the girls. It felt awful.

Then you’re thinking, these are the sorts of people who come to Thailand and believe that they meet a girl like this. They behave in a way like this and all of a sudden this girl is going to fall in love with him even though they’re behaving like this.

I think in one way it solidified my understanding that you go to Thailand as a guy. Not me, but other people go to Thailand, they believe that they can behave any way they want with the girl. Then they fall in love with her even though they behaved in a shocking way, believing that perhaps they were falling in love with how she looked, not necessarily with her as a person. Maybe that’s where I started to develop these different feelings.

I finished up my first night in a way feeling quite sick. I really did. I just couldn’t believe that guys from places like where I was from behaved like such animals.

I wasn’t about to give up on Thailand. I wanted to go and experience it more. And I wanted to find myself in a situation where the girl was in control and the girl was winning. I suppose I just didn’t understand.

Meeting a Woman on Sukhumvit Soi 7/1

The next few nights I’m going out and witnessing similar things. I made my way from Patpong though up to Sukhumvit. That was a lot more lively and a lot more going on there. But you also see more of exactly the same kind of thing.

After a few nights, I was pretty jaded with the guys and how they were behaving. I felt alienated from my peers. I was progressive or I am progressive. I was very forward-thinking. What I expected to see was female empowerment on show, but it was the exact opposite.

I hadn’t spoken to a girl for the first few days I was there, apart from casual, nothing more than that. But I remember I was in one bar on Sukhumvit Soi 7/1. I’d gone in there just to get away from the craziness of Nana Plaza where I’d been just before and I was judging people in there. All the guys, how dare you behave like this. Be respectful. I really did want to go and talk to these guys and say, “How dare you?” And I felt that was out of place. But I walked into this bar on Soi 7/1 with a bit of a sigh, thinking this isn’t for me. I’m not seeing the girls get anything more than being treated like objects, and it didn’t appeal to me.

But I walked into this place, sat down, ordered a beer, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, I don’t know how I can put this politely because I can’t, but there was a girl, really, really beautiful, and this guy who was really, really ugly. It was a bit hidden, but not hidden enough. Let’s just say something took place that shouldn’t have taken place at a place like that. She had a bit of a tear in her eye. At least that’s how I saw it.

Eventually, he pays the bill and leaves, and the girl comes over and sits at the bar, and she looks depressed and upset. I felt so downtrodden to have had to witness that. This wasn’t female empowerment like I expected. The way she sat down and seemed to sigh and just downed this very large shot of whiskey, and then another one was poured, and she downed that, too. Then she had to actually take some money out of her bag and pay for that whiskey herself. Surely this isn’t right.

And I did. I went up to her and I said, “Hi.” She was the first girl I actually wanted to speak to. I didn’t want to interview her, but I wanted to get to the bottom of why she was living like this and what was going on. I said, “Hi, how are you?” And she quickly smiled as if nothing had happened and went back to normal. She said, “I’m fine. What’s your name?” I told her my name and I asked her, too. I found out she was 26. She was 25 years younger than me. I was 51. I quickly asked her if she wanted a drink. I knew she would make some money out of that. And before long, I’m speaking to her in depth and having a conversation with her. I didn’t mention what I’d seen and made sure she was okay because I didn’t want to embarrass her.

I find I’m speaking to her and it was like she’d completely blanked out what had happened before. She had forgotten about that and she was talking to me and I was wanting to see where it would go. I didn’t want to push anything or want anything. As much as she was really attractive, I wasn’t there to take advantage. I wasn’t there to do anything like that. I was just there to be kind and respectful and knowing I was the sort of person who treats her right. I was going to follow her lead and whatever happened would happen because of her and her alone.

We’re talking, and I had more and more drinks. At one point, she actually took my hand and put it around her waist and I felt really uncomfortable. I just felt that’s not my place to do that. She’s her own individual and she deserves respect. I quickly moved my hand away and she said it’s not a problem. I like you, she said. I was really shocked when she said that. Why do you like me? I asked. She just said you’re not like all the other guys. You’re more respectful. She didn’t say it exactly that way, but I think that’s what she was implying. She took my arm again and this time she wrapped it around her and pulled herself closer to me and I just said, “It’s okay. I just want a drink.”

When I said that, she was fine and we started drinking more and I found myself really attracted to her. But I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen. I couldn’t unsee the displeasure on her face when she’d come and sat down quite next to me, not noticing me to start with, but now she was like a different person. I was starting to think perhaps she’s actually seen something in me here that she hasn’t seen in other guys because I’m behaving properly because I’m appropriate. I wasn’t falling for her, of course not yet. But perhaps she was falling for me. Maybe, but maybe not. Perhaps there was more mutual respect here than there was between her and anybody else. And that was something that made me feel quite proud of myself, that I’d been able to do something that other people simply weren’t able to do.

I was getting quite drunk and I didn’t want to use that as an excuse to do something wrong. And I found myself saying to her, “I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” She said, “You want me to go with you?” And I said, “I’d love to, but I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s right at all.” I remember taking out 5,000 baht from my wallet and handing that to her and saying, “I hope you’re okay and I’ll see you tomorrow.” The look on her face showed she was delighted and I felt like I’d behaved how you were meant to behave. I went back to my hotel in Silom and I just felt proud. I felt dignified thinking back to that other guy who I’d seen. Just feeling like what a pig. What an absolute pig he was. How dare he behave like that.

A Movie at Emporium and Dinner Together

I woke up the following morning just feeling like I was really understanding how Thailand worked now and understanding how you were meant to behave in a bar. You were meant to be respectful. You were meant to not push and not do anything you shouldn’t. I was excited to go back to her bar that day to see her and have a chat. And I got there quite early. I thought 7:00 p.m. or something along those lines, but unfortunately she wasn’t there. I asked the person behind the bar, telling her the name, “Where is she?” I knew what her name was, like I said. But she said, “Oh, she’s coming soon. She’ll be here soon.” She told me she started working earlier than that, though. I remember, but she wasn’t there yet.

But eventually, she comes back and she’s hand in hand with yet another pig. This absolute pig. He must have been 40 stone. Well, maybe not, but he was gigantic, hand in hand with this pig. She’s there, slender and beautiful and petite. They go inside the bar together. She notices me and she looks really shy and looks so upset. When she turns to that guy, she’s got a brave smile on. And I felt proud of her for being able to blank out what was actually going on.

They played some pool together and eventually he leaves. Then she comes over to me straight away and hugs me and says, “Thank you for coming back. You should have come earlier.” I felt so bad for her. Really bad. I couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind. She said, “Can we leave the bar, please? I want to go somewhere else.” And I obliged and we left.

We actually went to the Emporium shopping center in Phrom Phong. It wasn’t that late yet, so we thought we’d go and watch a movie. Let’s take ourselves away from this. We watch a movie, are eating popcorn, and having a drink together, and she’s holding my hand, and she’s resting her head on my shoulder, and it feels like she’s safe with me and content with me. I was respectable and a decent guy. I felt great. It made me feel amazing.

The movie finishes and it’s quite late and we’re not ready to go our separate ways yet. Let’s go and have a bite to eat. We found a late night spot for some sushi and we’re having a couple of drinks and eating sushi and just joking and laughing with each other. And she kept saying how much she liked me and how much she felt so lucky to have met me and how nobody ever has been like me before. And again, I understood what she was saying. I just felt proud that I’d done the right thing.

I don’t understand how guys would go to a bar and meet a girl and believe they’d fallen in love. I don’t understand that. But I believe now that the guys that did this were not falling in love with the girl. They were falling in love with what they perceived was total control of the girl. Like that guy who I saw her with earlier on that day who came back to the bar with her. He might have had feelings for another girl that he might meet at some point, but not love.

He wasn’t treating her right, but I was treating her right. Therefore, it was different. It was real. It was exciting and great. And it was just like this understanding that I’ve been the sort of guy that girls want. And I felt so proud of myself.

After we finished up with the sushi, it was midnight and this time I took out 10,000 baht from my wallet. I handed it over to her and said, “I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” But she grabbed my arm and said that she wanted to go with me now. And I told her I’d love to, but I want to get to know you first. I want to respect you and that’s not who I am. I just told her I wasn’t that sort of person.

But she insisted. She said, “It’s fine. I like you. You’re not like the other guys. I really feel like I know you and I want to know you even more.”

But I did insist I’ll come back the following day and let’s take it from there. I wasn’t about to rush because it felt wrong. It really did. And she said, “Okay, she starts at 5:00. Come at 5:00.”

Her Life in Bangkok and Her Marriage in Germany

I went back the next day at 5:00 and she was there and she was so delighted to see me. She threw herself on me and we left immediately. That was when things moved to the next level.

The next day, the way she was with me when we went for breakfast, it was like she was a sort of girl who desperately wanted to meet someone who was loving and respectful. All the ideas I had about Thailand as a place to go, where women could be respected, where they could get what they wanted, and where there was empowerment. Girls that worked in the bars were being empowered. It didn’t feel like that anymore. It felt like the girls that wanted to be empowered couldn’t be empowered because of the sort of pigs who went into those places and it didn’t let them be the people they wanted to be.

But I felt like I was allowing her to empower herself and I really believed that. And because of that, I believe she was falling for me.

We were having breakfast and I started talking more. How long have you been working in Bangkok? She’d been working there for 5 years, ever since she had a child with the guy from her village who left and was nowhere to be seen. She needed to support her child and she’d been working there for 5 years. I felt so proud of her that she’d been putting up with that for so long. It was as if she was numb to what was going on.

But she also said that she met a guy who had taken her out of Thailand for nearly a year. First time I’m hearing this. He was from Germany. Took her to Germany for a year. That shocked me. I didn’t see that worldliness in her when I met her. But understanding that she’d been to Europe before, that made me feel like she understood the world better. Perhaps that’s what she was seeing in me and why she was seeing something in me because I was from the West and, in a way, forward-thinking like she was.

She was saying that, apparently, as soon as she got to Germany, this guy was awful, just believing that she was there purely for his entertainment and for his fun and enjoyment. She just said that although they got married eventually, she had to leave him. The guy was upset. He was not what she expected. He didn’t want a wife, though. It seemed he wanted someone to be at his every beck and call.

They got divorced and she came back to Thailand and went back to work in the bar and resigned herself to the fact that that’s what she does. But she was always hoping to meet a guy ever since that happened. Every single day she went to work, she said she was hoping to meet someone. And she finally feels like she’s met someone in me.

This is the thing that she said to me that really stood out. Every single day she arrived to work, she hoped to meet someone who would go in that she could fall in love with. She said that all the time since she’d been back from Germany and now she’s met me.

It really felt like it was fate, like she’d wanted to be with someone all this time and now she’d found me. I felt like I was blessed. I felt like I was really in two minds about what I thought was going to happen when I went to Thailand and what’s actually happening.

I made lots of false assumptions, a lot of correct assumptions, too. The assumption I had that I wouldn’t be a guy that would believe I would fall in love with a girl was actually wrong because I’m falling in love with her because I believe that she thinks I’m different to everybody else because I was different as far as I was concerned.

Planning Two Weeks in Buriram and Phuket

Although I’m finding out these things about her and I’ve only got a little bit of time in the country left, I’m already starting to think that I want to spend the rest of my life with her.

I even said to her when we were going back up to the hotel room, “How about we go away together? Is there anywhere in particular that you’d like to go? Anywhere you want in Thailand, I’m up for it.”

She said she’d really like to go up and visit her daughter. She doesn’t get to see her often, but I can’t really go to the village because the family would have a problem. Everything that they said about tradition and culture and customs. I fully understood that and respected it. I wouldn’t want her family to have a problem.

I found out she was from Buriram. I said to her, “Well, why don’t we go to Buriram? I’ll stay in the hotel and you can go and visit your family and come back and see me.” And she said she’d love to. Then she said, “If you really want to do that for me, then we’ll go somewhere else, too. I’ll go somewhere else with you.”

We were talking about 2 weeks here. “Where do you want to go?” She kept saying, “Choose somewhere.” I didn’t really mind, though. I didn’t know where to go, and I told her. And she said, “What about Phuket?”

So basically for my remaining time in Thailand, I’m going to spend the rest of the time with her, get to know her a lot more, a lot better, understanding what she wanted and if I was going to be part of that, and then let’s see where to go.

It felt great, though. I think I felt at the time that this was really something that could be real, like she was clinging on to the fact that I gave her this huge sense of respect and this huge sense of admiration and just this dignified respect. That’s the only way I could even say it.

I’d agreed basically to go to Buriram for a week and then go to Phuket for a week and she’d stay with me in the hotel and she’d go and see her family during the day.

I had to pay the bar for 2 weeks because she wasn’t able to work. I felt that was only a small price to pay.

I also made sure that I gave her some money to start with and if she needed anything when we were out and about for her family too, I gave her 30,000 baht and I think the bar wanted 10,000. I just felt like it was a fair amount. Get her out of that world for a bit. Let her live a little and not have to confine herself to her place where people treated her so badly. She seemed to really appreciate it. She really, really did.

Visiting Her Daughter in Buriram

We got the bus to Buriram, checked into a little hotel, and the following day, she went off to visit the family, saying she’d be back later. She got some little gifts for her daughter, and we went to choose those together.

She was so happy, and she seemed so content. I bought that stuff. Didn’t think I’d given her that money to buy it. That money was for stuff when she needed it, when she was not with me.

She went off to the village, and I had a bit of a chance to walk around Buriram and take that in. I found it was a great little town, very different to Bangkok. I found a few bars where I could have a drink and found a restaurant that served decent food.

She called me up a few hours later saying she’s so happy to have met her daughter again. She hadn’t been for about a year and so happy to see her. She even said she told her family that she might have met someone, but nothing serious yet. And I felt like I was really, really happy when she said that. How great is that? She might have even told her family about me.

She came back that evening and continued going to visit her family and I’m just learning more about the city.

I went for a look around the big stadium they’ve got there, the big football stadium. Being a huge football fan, that was interesting. It didn’t feel like it was part of Thailand.

And I suppose you’re thinking, all the money that goes into a place like this, this stadium, and the racetrack right next to it, all the money that goes into that, and there are girls struggling, going to work and having to meet pigs from my country and other countries such as mine, meeting absolutely awful human beings and putting up with that. It felt so unfair.

Then I’m thinking, well, she doesn’t have to do that anymore, at least for the time being, because she’s with me. It made me feel very proud.

Our Holiday in Phuket

By the time we were leaving, we had a night in Bangkok, then a flight to Phuket. We’d been online the following day before going there.

I wanted her to choose a resort and I said to her, “Choose anywhere you want.” She says, “This place looks great and it was only 700 baht a night. It was really cheap.”

I was saying, “You can choose anywhere. Let’s stay somewhere really nice.” And she was looking at me and I felt the way she looked at me, it was like, “No, we can’t spend so much. It’s too much.” It’s like she didn’t believe she was worth that much.

I said, “What would you rather have? I’m happy to spend 5,000 a night for a really nice place. Would you prefer that or we’ll stay in a cheap place and I’ll give you the money instead?” Because that’s how much I had to spend.

She told me it was up to me, but I kept saying, “No, it’s up to you.” I wanted her to be happy. That was the most important thing. I kept telling her how much I respected her and how much I really wanted her to know that. And she said, “We can stay in a cheap place and you don’t need to give me money because you’ve already given me a lot.” The way she said that, I just felt what an incredible girl she is, knowing I’m going to give her the money anyway.

I did choose to stay in somewhere a bit more elaborate. I’m feeling though like I’m connecting in a way that she’d probably never been able to connect with anyone before because of how disrespectful they all were. And I just felt content. I really was content with life.

I had a wonderful time with her in Phuket to the point where I decided I wanted her forever. I wanted to be with her. And she seemed to want that, too.

We just connected. Coming up to the end of my time there, she’s saying she’s going to have to go and work back in the bar. I told her I fully understood that. I’m happy to send money to you, but if you still need to work there, I’m not going to stop you. Just tell me everything that happens. If you want to be with me, and if you want me to send money, I’m going to do that anyway, and I’ll try to work out how we can be together.

I was only 51 years old, and not feeling like I was anywhere close to being able to stop working. But one thing she talked about was how cheap it was to live somewhere like Buriram. And I’d actually witnessed that firsthand when she went off to the family. I was going out and having something to eat and a meal for 50 baht, a plate of fried rice. It was affordable. And I was understanding that Thailand was cheap. That was, I suppose, why I felt even worse for her because it is so cheap and she still needs to do this.

I was thinking if I really got a firm budget in place, Thailand could be a place where I would be able to live and I could live with her. I’m thinking all kinds of things, marriage and being with her. And it was an incredible time to think about. Knowing that she had things to do when I wasn’t there and whatever she did, as long as she doesn’t hide it from me, I’m not going to complain. I’m not that sort of person. I do really believe in female empowerment and her being able to do what’s best for her.

Renting Out My House to Return to Thailand

Leaving was difficult. I hadn’t come to any conclusion yet, but I think as soon as I left and went up that dreaded escalator, she’d gone to the airport to see me off.

As soon as I went up that dreaded escalator and lost sight of her, the only thing I could think of was, “How do I get back? I’m just going to have to do it regardless. That’s it.”

I’d spent so much time watching videos and researching lots of things about how people moved to Thailand and the things that they did and knew how cheap it was to live in Buriram. That’s where she seemed to be the happiest. That’s where she seemed to want to be able to be. I could rent a small place and just live life and I could make it work with what I had.

To start with, I thought if I sold my house, I could probably bring in maybe £1,000 a month if I invested that, which to me seemed like it was not a lot of money. But you don’t see sense anymore when you’re in that position. You see a beautiful girl who’s gone back to work in the bar because you’re not able to be with her. You feel bad that she’s going to have to go through all of that awful stuff because of that. You feel like whatever you can do to be with her is the only thing that matters.

By the time I’m back home, I’m speaking to her regularly and she’s in the bar when I’m speaking to her. I know exactly what’s going on and she’s not hiding anything, but she’s always really upset anytime anything happens. She’s also so apologetic and I just had to tell her not to worry about it.

I was giving her money, too, but I wasn’t able to step in and give her enough. She needed her independence and she needed to be in control of her own life.

I did tell her I’m going to come back as soon as I can and we can start living together and she just said that’s what she wanted more than anything and she really can’t wait.

I put a few things in place and I decided I was going to rent out my house to start with. That should bring in about £1,000 a month and I could take bits of my savings and sell little bits of things and I should be okay in Thailand for the time being.

I wasn’t thinking about living there permanently. That’s something that’s important. I was thinking about being in a position where I could spend enough time with her to get to a level of understanding about where we were going to live and what we were going to do. That was the thing. Let’s get sorted out first and then make a big decision later.

Surprising Her at the Bangkok Bar

I got back to Thailand about 6 weeks or so after I had arrived home. I told her I was coming back, but I didn’t tell her exactly when. I went to surprise her in the bar.

Typically though, she wasn’t there when I went and all the staff who worked there knew who I was and they said she’s just left and she’ll probably come back soon. I kept a lookout for her. I took a seat at a table looking down the street and you could sort of see just a bit of Sukhumvit Road from where I was sat.

I kept looking out for her drinking a lot and eventually I see her and she looks so downbeat. She looks so down in the dumps and upset. Perhaps I was just seeing it how I expected it or wanted it to be, even though I didn’t really want it to be like that.

She got a bit closer. She looks up and she looks dead in my eye, but it was like she didn’t recognize me. She walks a bit further, looks up again and puts her head down again, then lifts it up quickly, and her eyes are wider. Then she runs over and sees me, and she said, “I can’t believe you’re here.”

It was exactly like I thought it was going to be. She said, “Why didn’t you come before? It would have been earlier. It would have been better.” I just didn’t mind though. “I just arrived,” I said. But I was there now. And quickly, she said, “Can we leave? Can we leave?” Like really quickly. I paid for the bar and off we went. And we’re just with each other again.

My plan was to spend about a year in Thailand before coming to any firm decision if we’re going to live there or if we’re going to do something else. But I was already committed to her. I was already of the understanding that I was going to be with her and that was it. I think she felt the same way about me, too. I mean, she always said she did. And she said she just can’t wait to be able to spend more time with me.

The way she acted when she saw me, it was like I just felt so amazing to have been in this position.

When I was back home, though, I was thinking how wrong I was about Thailand. I just didn’t see this female empowerment that I’d hoped for and envisaged. But I did see this girl who was special in every way. I saw something that nobody else, I think, saw in Thailand. And I think that’s why I was able to find something that was real.

This was a proper relationship. It was a real thing. It was genuine. It was proper love between two people who loved and respected each other. And I just felt like I’d won in life to be able to find this.

A Month on Koh Chang and Plans to Marry

We talked about the plan at length, what we were going to do when I arrived. As much as Bangkok was a great city, we both felt like Bangkok had served its purpose for both of us. We’d been there, done that, and met each other, and we don’t want to be in Bangkok. And Buriram was a place where we could potentially be in the future if we commit to Thailand.

We decided to leave Bangkok and actually go and spend a month at the beach. We kept looking online together at places to go and Koh Chang seemed to be a great island. We could go there and spend a month and just be in each other’s company. Rent a cheap room for a month and decide what to do from there and make a plan.

I think it was only a few weeks into that time in Koh Chang when I decided I wanted to marry her, wanted her more than I wanted anything. And she looked at me like I was the guy she’d always wanted to meet. I felt amazing because of that. I wanted to marry her. She said she’d love to get married. And it was then we were going to go to Buriram and tell the family that we were engaged.

She told me about how things worked in the village and how to be respectful, how to say hello, how to do the wai, bow your head, how to behave at a place like that.

And I felt so proud that she was allowing me entry into her world. She was allowing me to go up and see the people that she’d known all her life and the people who had brought her up. She was introducing me to that. Of course, I just believed that it was a sense of respect that she had for me to allow that to happen.

I knew she did it before with the guy she met from Germany, but I always thought that she was younger then and she believed he was something he wasn’t. But she believed I was something that I was. And that was what gave me this sense of happiness. I was something that she never had seen before. And she even said it, “I’ve never met a guy like you before.” And she told me all the time, every single day, everybody just wants the same thing. That’s the thing. We want everything that goes along with being happy, and I felt so great that I’d allowed her to be happy and she’d done the same for me.

I went back up to Buriram for my second time and I was really nervous to go and visit her family. I’d never been nervous like this in my life before and I can even remember I was shaking a bit and my teeth were even chattering with nervousness. She kept laughing at me saying, “Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be fine.”

For the most part, it was. Everything was arranged. The finances were arranged and everything was set up for a couple of months’ time.

They seemed to be indifferent to me to start with. She seemed to be quite happy though that we were there. She was always smiling at me and speaking to the family. I believed at the time she was just saying how amazing I was and how lucky that she was to have met me. And I kept telling her, tell them how lucky I am to meet you and how fantastic you are.

I believed she was saying that, although I didn’t understand. The finances were arranged and maybe I was a bit naive because what was talked about was how much the wedding would cost. About 100,000 baht, but didn’t seem too bad. Nothing else was discussed, although I believe between her and the family it probably was. Perhaps she knew she would be able to get it out of me anyway.

A Million Baht Sin Sod and the Village Wedding

It was about a week before the wedding was due to take place. We were spending time in Buriram City. I guess I loved it there. The hotel was so cheap, we didn’t even need to rent somewhere else.

She said she had something to tell me. She said, “You know about the Thai tradition.” She’d spoken about it before and I’ve heard it before, too. I hate the way guys don’t want to pay sin sod.

I felt in Thailand you’ve got to respect them and respect their way of doing things. She said, “You know about that? My family will need that too.” I said, “Of course. I already know. I’ve got enough money to pay and I’m so happy to.” I told her I had 100,000 baht ready, so don’t worry about it.

She said, “No, because you’re a little bit older than me and because my family wants to make sure it doesn’t happen like last time with the guy from Germany. They need a million baht because of what happened with my last husband. I feel so bad that my family do like this, but I don’t have a choice.”

I was really shocked the way she said it. It was like she was so apologetic and she didn’t want me to have to pay this money. It looked like it was awful for her to have to tell me and ask me.

But the way she said it to me, it made perfect sense. Of course, they don’t want me to be like that guy from Germany and how he disrespected her and her family and everything went wrong because of that. They didn’t want that to happen again. And it just needed me to pay a million baht. I thought that was me showing my respect and showing how serious I was.

It was a fortune, though. I did have that amount of money in cash, but not much more than that. It would not leave much buffer apart from the house rental income coming in. But I told myself, you’re there to show respect. You’re there to be the guy that you’re meant to be, not the guy who’s a disrespectful one. If that’s what is going to make her family happy, therefore making her happy, making her understand how much I love her and the family, I was proud to do so. I felt proud and that feeling of pride was important to me.

It would take a bit of working out to be able to get that amount of money together in a week and bring it to Thailand, but I’ll do it. I said, “Fine, if that’s what you want,” and she was so happy, like I’d never seen her before, so content about what I’d agreed to.

We got married, at least in the village. I paid the money, that was a lot, and the family were very happy, and from then on, they treated me with so much respect.

They treated me like I was part of the family. I stayed there for 2 weeks in the family’s house, and they treated me with the most respect ever. They were always offering food to me. They were always offering drink. And it wasn’t like I was paying for that. It was like they were paying for that. I was getting what they had just like they had what I had. And because there was a disparity between my wealth and their wealth, they weren’t able to provide as much. But I was now part of the family and I felt like part of the family and I felt treated like part of the family.

Supporting Her Daughter After the Wedding

We hadn’t got married properly yet. That was to come later. One thing my wife said was that she was so happy, but she was a little bit upset because her family hasn’t given her any of that money and she wants to be able to still send money for her daughter every month and she was expecting her family to give her some of that money so she could use it to send to her daughter for a year without having to get any more money from me. That’s what she said initially.

The problem was I didn’t have the cash to give her more and she knew I didn’t because I told her everything about my finances and what I had and she knew I didn’t have any cash left to give her and she was upset by that.

I told her not to worry, we’ll sort something out. I can help when I get my next rental income which was coming in a couple of weeks’ time and you’re not due to give them any more money yet anyway, so don’t worry about it.

She seemed to be really panicking and scared and worried. Really scared in fact. But even still, it wasn’t the end of the world.

After those two weeks, we had two more weeks to get the money, and then we could send them 10,000 baht, so don’t panic. We’ll find a cheap place to live, we can save a bit and everything will be fine. And she was so thankful for that.

We went down to Koh Chang again. It seemed to be our place. Perhaps it was a honeymoon type of thing, too.

While we were there, the family was absolutely over the moon. They bought a brand new pickup truck. I felt proud they were able to do that and drive around and it was great. She seemed so happy for them, too.

But she was still a bit upset that the family hadn’t given her any of that money. And it’s not like when she was with her family that she looked angry or displeased or like she was asking for anything. It didn’t look like that. But when she was with me, that’s what she was saying. And I just kept telling her not to worry.

Rental Income and More Family Requests

Typically though, when my rent payment was due, I had a note from the council that there was a bit of mold in the loft and I had an order to fix it. I think that was £500, which meant that all of a sudden I didn’t have the money I expected to have. Not a huge concern. And I could use my credit card for the time being and that’s what I did and I gave the money to her as promised.

I was very open with her about what was going on. I told her the situation with the house and that was typical but I didn’t want my tenants to live in bad conditions because that would make me feel awful too. But I was able to use a credit card.

Another month goes by, the rent comes in as normal and I paid a bit off the credit card and was still sending money to her family for her daughter.

It was quite a push though at £1,000 a month taking 10,000 baht for her family. It was a push and we were both thinking about what to do.

We’d rented a place at this point actually on Koh Chang because we loved it there. That was 10,000 a month, 10,000 for the family and we were able to live. It wasn’t too bad.

But again, probably a little bit more time goes by and we’re up visiting the family. They’re still very delighted. They had this new pickup, brand new TV, and quite a lot of other stuff. All the money, it seemed, they’d already spent, but they were being respectful towards me and very kind.

She was always saying to me that she can’t believe they spent all this money. She said that they have a problem now that they spent all this money. Apparently, the motorcycle that her real brother, 15 years old, had had been crashed by somebody else in the family, and they needed a new motorcycle.

She said, “I don’t know why they’re asking me, but they’re asking me for money.” I told them, “Well, we don’t have money because of what we’ve already given them.”

But it was like when she was with me, she was really upset and angry that her family were asking for money. When she’s with the family, she’s smiling as if everything’s normal and perhaps she’s acting, but I didn’t think that. Why would I?

I told her I didn’t have the money and I can’t keep using the credit card. And she said she knew.

Her Plan to Meet a Previous Customer

But she said though that she had something to tell me. She said that she hopes I’m not mad, but she’s been with someone who she met before who came to Thailand every year and he’s actually coming back soon, she said, and he usually gives her some money. Would it be okay if she went to see him? Then she’d be able to help fix the problem.

To be honest, I wasn’t hurt when she was wanting to do that. I was hurt that I wasn’t able to provide like I should have been able to. I said, “You can choose. I don’t mind. I can take money on the credit card again. I’ll think about selling my house and we can downsize and we’ll work it out. Don’t worry about it. I’ll do what I can. But if you want to do that, that’s up to you.”

I wanted to give her the choice because that’s who I was. I knew that it wouldn’t be about love or anything, so it didn’t matter. Then she said, “What do you think’s best?” And I kept saying, “It’s completely up to you. I don’t mind helping with my credit card. I don’t mind that, but this guy is coming in a month’s time or whenever he is, so you’re going to need to use the credit card anyway to start with.” She just said, “Maybe I’ll pay the credit card back for you, and then we can be okay. If my family doesn’t ask for money, we can be okay.”

Crazy to think about, but I just felt, you know, I wanted her, but I also wanted her to be able to empower herself, and I wanted to feel like she had control of her life, too.

I told her if that’s what she really wants to do, she can. I’m not going to tell you yes or no. It’s your choice. She thought about it for a bit and thought that yes, she would do that because it would be better for us. He’s only coming for 2 weeks, probably only see him for a week, and if I was okay, which I had to be, then that’s what she would do.

I wanted her to understand that I respected her and if that’s what she feels like she needs to do to be able to provide for our family and our life, if that’s what she wants to do, then okay.

I took out money on the credit card again to get this new motorcycle, and she made it clear to the family that that’s it and it can’t be anymore.

It was a struggle for the time that we were back on Koh Chang in the place we were renting. We couldn’t spend much money because I had to make sure that the credit card could be paid back because if it couldn’t it would be bad. We couldn’t keep using it.

But it came time when this guy had arrived in Thailand, and she was actually crying, saying that she was going to go soon. I felt dreadful, knowing that, okay, she’d seen him before, so he wasn’t like a new thing. But if that’s what she wants to do, I have to allow her to do that.

Selling My House and Moving to Buriram

As soon as she left this place, though, literally closed the door and was about to jump into the taxi, I just thought, no, this is crazy, absolutely ridiculous. I ran outside and said, “No, no, we’ll sort it out.” And she said, “I already tell him I go.”

But I said, “If you love me, you can call him and tell him that you’re not going because you have somebody else.” And she said, “Are you sure that’ll be okay?” I said, “Yes, I’m sure. We’ll sort it out. I’ll sell my house and we’ll move up to Buriram to make sure the family is fine, too.” With that, she pulled out her phone. First, she gave the taxi driver 200 baht, and off he went. She pulled out the phone, called this guy, and said she’s not going. And she came over and hugged me. And I felt relief in that moment.

But also I felt now I was fully responsible for both of our lives, and I needed to make sure that everything was going to be okay for both of us. I gave my tenants notice that very day. About 4 months later, the house was sold. I paid off the credit card and transferred the money to Thailand.

We decided to go and live in Buriram. We rented a small house to start with which was 5,000 baht a month and we started thinking about what to do. I didn’t have any income now and the money was trickling down.

I wasn’t the sort of person who would be able to do any online type of stuff. That just wasn’t who I was. We did decide, you know, when the time’s right, something will happen. We’ll come across something and everything will be fine.

Building a House and Opening Village Businesses

Only a month later, I’d already decided that we needed to build our own house in the village. She was visiting often, as was I, and we could get a house for only a million baht. It didn’t have to be huge. There was land in the family that we could use.

And we started building the house about 3 years ago now. We started building the house, and it was ready soon, and she was really happy. I felt so content with what we were doing and it felt great that both of us had come together in the way we had. At this point we still weren’t even married properly yet. But when the house was built, we had more family problems.

After living there for 6 months, I probably handed over £10,000 to the family and she was getting quite frantic making sure the family were okay. She wanted me to be okay too, and she made that clear. At least that’s what I felt at the time. But she said she’s got an idea. We could open a shop. We could make some money. She can work in the shop. She can make drinks. And we could buy a blender and she could do that. We can sell things. And we don’t need a lot of money to live on.

I spent about a million baht building a shop and buying everything for that. And she is making money now. The problem is it’s not enough for us to live on.

The family’s demands are incessant. And it was like they didn’t know that we didn’t have much available. She knew what we had, but she always seemed to put her family first every single time. That was the first time I realized that the family came first. Like really first, beyond sense first. Because although money is trickling out and I’m telling her it’s trickling out and she’s understanding that, it doesn’t matter if the family says they need something, the family gets it.

And the family was getting it and we weren’t making enough from the shop. I think it was bringing in 10,000 baht a month or so. And all of that was being spent for her to give to the family for her daughter because her daughter was still living with them, hadn’t moved in with us. She kept saying how much she’s trying and how it’s great if she can try, but she kept saying, “Maybe I need to go back to work in the bar.” She was very open about that because I was so open with her about things to start with. I just said, “No, you can’t do that. We’ve got to do this and we’ll try and find something else.” But she kept saying, “I don’t mind. I love you so much. I don’t mind. I really don’t mind,” she kept saying, but I kept saying, “No, we can’t.”

I bought a little bit of land next to the shop, and we bought this off the neighbor because we were going to open a noodle stall. It was a reasonably big village, and people like noodles, so we were going to open this.

Her aunt was going to do the cooking and I invested another million baht in that and now my money is really running low, and the money’s not coming in. It’s like whenever her family asks for something, she asked me and she’s so apologetic like it’s going to be the last time, but it never is.

Now I’m financially badly off. We’ve got the house and the shop and the noodle stall and we got this push tractor thing that we thought was a good idea, but not much money coming in apart from a small amount between 10,000 and 20,000, which she said was great for the village, but not great when half of that goes to the family for her daughter and the other half is used before we’d even done anything and the family wants more on top.

I’m starting to really panic and struggle and all my money is just going out and I just can’t work out how it’s happening because I’m in love with her and I believe we’re both the same. The mutual respect was there and she was always, because of how it was before, saying she doesn’t mind if she has to go back and work in the bar. That’s what she kept saying when it came to that point. It was about 2025.

Returning to Bangkok When the Money Ran Out

Right at the start of 2025, we had no money left whatsoever. All the money had gone. I just couldn’t understand how it had happened. I was really panicking now. I was drinking excessively, which I hadn’t done before, and upset and not knowing what to do, not knowing how things had got as bad as this.

We both concluded that perhaps the only thing is for her to go and work in the bar, as stupid as that is. That was what was going to have to happen. She can go and work in the bar, and I can stay here for the time being, and let’s try and work something out.

But I couldn’t just stay in the village by myself, I thought. So, we both went down to Bangkok together, thinking it is just work, isn’t it? It’s a normal thing. It’s not serious. It’s not love. It’s nothing. It’s nothing that can break us apart. We wanted to be together. I believe she wanted to be together. And she wanted that more than anything. And I was convinced that all she cared about was us being together, and that’s what I cared about, too.

When we got to Bangkok, we had a tiny bit of money to rent a tiny place in On Nut. And the first day she went back to the bar was awful. It really was. But she made a couple of thousand baht. Again, it felt awful. But even still, she was well within her rights to do that. I respected her. I respected her autonomy. And I respected who she was. And as long as she was okay with me, that was the main thing.

The problem was she wasn’t okay with me.

I wanted to stop her. I was meant to stop her, apparently, because a month later, she was a different person altogether. How you let me do this, how you let me do that, everything she was saying.

I just told her it was my respect for you that allowed it to happen. I didn’t want you to do this, but who am I to stop you?

I tried my best in the village with all the money, and now I didn’t have any. Again, I don’t know. Coming to terms with the fact that her family came first.

I allowed something to happen that I was starting to think was the worst thing ever, allowing her to go back to the bar and still being with me. But I didn’t think it mattered like that.

The Relationship Breaks Down

Another month of her still doing that, and she wasn’t coming back to the room regularly anymore. She’d go for a few days. I’d call her, she wouldn’t answer, and she’d come back and she was being very forward about what was going on, trying to hurt me. Now, that had never happened before, and I couldn’t work it out.

I think it dawned on me that her real plan all along was for me to just leave. She’d got what she could get out of me. Now, it was time for me to leave. When that dawned on me, that was actually the case. It was when she’d come back after being gone for 4 days, literally saying to me, “I just did this and that, and you never cared about me.”

I can’t believe you not care, though. That’s what she said to me. My family do everything for you. That was the thing. I looked at her. What do you mean? Your family did everything for me. I did everything for them. That’s why we’re here.

“No, my family do everything for you. They let you stay at their house. They let you…” “I gave everything for your family,” I said. I interrupted her. “Everything’s in the village.” But she looked at me like, “No, it doesn’t work like that.”

I think that was the moment I understood that basically I’d been used. Everything that I had was taken out of me and she was trying to make me feel as bad as possible so I would leave.

I said to her when I caught on to this, “Do you want me to stay with you anymore?” And she said, “Up to you. Do you want me to stay with you?” I kept saying, “Why you not take care of me properly?” Then she said, “Why you not take care of my family properly?”

Then she was saying things that she’d never said before. She always made it clear how she hated giving money to the family. Now it’s like it’s an expected thing and she wanted it. Up to you. I not stop working in the bar anymore. This is what I have to do. Maybe I will meet someone better than you. That’s what she said.

I knew there and then though that she stormed out saying she’ll come back later, but she didn’t. A few days go by, and I still can’t call her and I’m really a mess. She came back saying, “You know what? I don’t want to be with you anymore if you not stopped me working here.” And I don’t know, it was just an awful thing. Like, she’d just used me and played me so well. And I didn’t even see it coming until it was too late.

We hadn’t even got married yet, apart from in the village, but she said, “We’ll break it off.” I said, “Up to you.” Then she took her things and left and that was it.

Leaving Thailand Completely Broke

I lost all my money. I thought I was different. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t.

Then you’re looking at the guys who disrespect the girls thinking maybe that happened to them first and they know what’s going on, so why should they behave better? That’s when I realized that I was a fool and an idiot for doing what I did.

Leaving Thailand completely broke, embarrassingly, not having anything left, having to start again. But that’s how it was.

I’ve looked at the world very differently since then. I’ve looked at Thailand very differently, looked at women very differently, and everything very differently.

And it’s a humbling experience. If it can happen to me, it could happen to anyone. And it’s crazy how things work that way because I would never have guessed that would have happened, but it did. There’s no use denying it. And it’s ridiculous and stupid. I lost all my money believing I was different and I’d found love. But I hadn’t found love. I was just her next…