Is It Really True Love?

The first time I came to Thailand way back in 1963 I met a lot of Thais, mostly male Boy Scouts. I also met a few females. I was attending an international Boy Scout Jamboree and we stayed in tents in Lumpini Park.

That was the first time I had ever met Thais. It was a disconcerting experience. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but I got the feeling there was something not quite genuine about the males I met. They seemed obsequies, shifty; something like a cross between a tout and a con man. This hit me when I was in a huddle with a bunch of them trading badges. The Thais had some of the best badges, woggles (the thing that ties the scarf together) and patches I had ever seen: Beautiful colors, shapes, and themes. But almost every time I tried to do a deal, they always wanted more than they were prepared to give. Naturally, I quickly became wary of them.

The girls I met were all smiles and sweet faces, but again there was that gulf between us. Apart from the communication problem, we came from very different cultures.

Of course, I was a mere young teenager then, unschooled in the ways of the world. Call me very naïve, because that’s exactly what I was. That didn’t stop me having very strong feelings about people I met; a skill that has stayed with me all my life. I can usually tell almost immediately whether I will like someone or not.

Anyway, on my second trip to Thailand in 1967 with the RAAF I had plenty of opportunities to meet Thais from all walks of life. Of course, the first Thais I met were bar girls. One of them liked me so much that we became an item. It was a strange relationship. I sort of moved in with her.

I still had my berth in the barracks where I kept my gear. I worked 24 hours on, and 48 hours off. During my time off I would live with Joy. Good name. She was a real joy to be with. She banged like a shithouse door in a cyclone. We couldn’t get enough of each other!

She was a woman though, so she had to bring the L word into it, didn’t she? To prove she loved me she would buy me things. She even gave up eating an apple and talking to her friend in the next hooch during the act. That was when she started concentrating on what I was doing and the only noises then were groans of Joy!

She refused to charge me for her wonderful services. She made her money during the 24 hours I was working. The relationship worked for me,but I never had any illusions about us. She was a working girl. She was making my wildest teenage dreams come true. What was there not to love?

But was it True Love?

Hardly.

Considering she was a few years older than me, I couldn’t see the relationship going any further than her hooch whenever I could get there. Hell! We hardly ever went out together, unless it was to wander down the road to see this huge pig wallowing around in its cramped pen. It lived opposite the front gate of the US Air Force base. Considering the size of some of those Americans, I often wondered if the Thai owner had a wry sense of humor.

We went shopping at the local market a couple of times where she bought me the biggest shirts on sale. They were Thai size, so of course they were all too small. But I wore them whenever I went to visit to show my love for her.

I guess you could call that love. It depends how you define love. By wearing them I made her happy. If she was happy, so was I. It didn’t matter that I almost went blue in the face until 5 seconds after I arrived. That’s all the time I needed to kick the door shut and rip all my clothes off. Give me 5 seconds more and I had ripped hers off too. Sometimes, the second bang was the door closing.

I was sad to say goodbye to her when my tour of duty ended and I had to return to Australia. But being young and full of energy I soon got into the social scene there. Plenty of girls to date. None of them were as much fun as my little bundle of Joy. So what? Every girl brings something special to the table. I was having fun.

One Australian girl has always stuck in my mind. She was a stripper from King’s Cross. Somehow, we ended up living together way out at Penrith where I was stationed. I fell madly in love with her. I’m not sure if it was because she had given up her profession to go and live with me. Or perhaps it was my frustration that she wouldn’t let me grab her tits under any circumstances. She had one of the earliest breast implants in Australia. They went wrong. She had these two lumps about the size of tennis balls hanging off her skinny chest. They were as hard as tennis balls too. Of course I copped a feel a couple of times before she put them off limits.

“Don’t ever touch my tits again you pervert!”

I got the message.

“Now, get yer daks off and give me a good one.” I guess that’s why I loved her.

No matter what I did though, I could never get her to tell me she loved me. I would do anything for her, but she always remained what she had always been. A slut who enjoyed taking off her clothes in front of men for money.

And man, was she was tough!

As Confucious say, “No such thing as rape. Woman with pants off run faster than man with pants down.”

She told me how some bloke had raped her in a park in Melbourne one night. He’d stuck a huge knife to her throat and done the dirty deed. Afterwards, while he was still pulling up his trousers, she backed up ready to run away. But before she did she said, “No wonder you have to rape women at knife point. You are a lousy fuck!” Then she was gone.

You have to admire a woman like that, but I soon realized I didn’t love her. If she had shown me the slightest bit of encouragement perhaps things might have been different. I might have stayed in Australia instead of satisfying my wander lust and ending up back here in Thailand.

Then again, probably not. I have the power of being able to deceive myself for a little while as I let my feelings run riot. I call it falling in lust. But there is always that little bloke somewhere in my head that eventually opens my eyes and makes me see reality. I’m glad he’s always been there.

So, love is obviously not something you can will into being. Either it happens, or it doesn’t. If one partner loves and the other doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what the lover does for the loved one. It ain’t going to happen folks. If one partner is allowing emotions to rule the mind, and the other is in it for the money, guess who will lose every time?

That’s what we see so often here in Thailand too. Thai bar girls are past masters at masking their true feelings and emotions. They will do whatever it takes to extract the money from the men they are with. They will act out your fantasies and make you think you are getting true love. They soon find all the right buttons to push. They are consummate players. Too many men come here to become the instruments for these women to play their symphonies of deception on.

Ninety nine point nine percent of the time it’s all an act.

Love is the combination of a lot of things. I don’t have to enumerate them for you here. Every love is different. Very few people find true love immediately. And no one ever finds it immediately in a bar. Learn to tell the difference between love and lust.

As  Elbert G Hubbard said, “Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.”

The punishment for stupidity in Thailand is often far worse than anything you can imagine.

If you commit the sins of being stupid, blind, and ignorant of what you are walking into, then you deserve everything that will happen to you.

If you are new to Thailand you should be aware that what you see is not what you get. Keep that in mind and look below the surface. In Thailand, you will find that there is nothing below the surface. So enjoy your toy while you can. But don’t marry her. Don’t sent her money to keep her from playing with other boys. Have your fun, jump on the plane and go back home, and get back to your real life. This one here is no more real than the fantasies in your head.

© Marc Holt. All rights reserved by the author.