Links
Our banners
Latest News
Newsletter archive
Interviews
Sileakhunt
Book Store

So you have come to Thailand, visited a bunch of bars, and found the girl of your dreams in one of them. She bangs like a dunny (dunny -- Australian slang for ‘toilet’) door in a hurricane, does everything you ever wished a girl would do for you, and you are “in love”.

Good for you.

Now let’s have a small dose of reality here before you go paying the Sin Sot (dowry), getting married and supporting her and her family for ever more (or until your money runs out…whichever comes first).

Now, close your eyes and repeat this Mantra out loud ten times, “I found my true love in a bar in Thailand. She is a bar girl because that is her job and how she makes money.”

Right. Have you got the picture? Because everything else you need to know follows on from that mantra.

Like any working girl in any job, she views her work dispassionately. It is something she does to make money. It makes no difference to her how many men she has to sleep with to make the money, just as a secretary doesn’t count the number of documents she types up in a day. Or just as the girl who serves up Big Macs doesn’t count how many she doles out in a day. Having sex with men is just a job for bar girls.

She may enjoy her work, although if you can speak Thai and you get to know some of the bar girls most will tell you that they hate the job but they do it because it’s the best way they know how to make good money. Many of them make more money than that demure secretary you see walking down the street.

Lots of bar girls even believe that they may meet a farung and really fall in love, although this is a very remote possibility if the girl has been on the game for more than a few months. As we say in LOS, “You can take the girl out of the bar, but you can’t take the bar out of the girl.” Just remember that “falling in love” to a Thai doesn’t mean the same as it does to us in the West. To us, falling in love is the whole romantic thing; candles, moonlight dancing and walks on the beach, meeting Mom and Pop, getting engaged, and so on.

So where does that leave you, the guy who has found his dream woman and fallen in love with a bar girl in true Western romantic fashion?

Before you answer that question, repeat the mantra above ten more times again.

She’s told you she loves you? She may well do…in her own bar girl fashion. To a Thai girl, especially a bar girl, falling in love means that she has found someone who will support her. This is true of every Thai girl, whether she works in a bar or not. Of course, if you manage to find a decent (not a bar) girl she may also genuinely love you. But it is probably going to be tempered by how well you can support her.

So your sweet little bar girl has told you that you are the only man for her now and that she no longer sleeps with other men who come into the bar….especially if you pay her a reasonable amount of money each month to keep her ‘faithful’.

HAW! HAW! HAW!

Time for another reality check: Repeat the mantra again.

To your beautiful, exotic new love you are a walking ATM. Which is why you often hear that word in conversations between two or more bar girls. They ain’t talking about the machine my friend!

If you are giving her money and you are not actually here in LOS, you might as well go out and buy a yacht instead. They say a yacht is a hole in the ocean you throw money into. A bar girl is merely a hole you throw money into.

Do I sound too cynical here? Perhaps, but remember that I have been here a long time; more than 25 years, so I think I can speak with some authority.

I am not trying to talk you out of falling in love with your beautiful bar girlfriend. In fact, if you are smart you can have your cake (or whatever part of her it is you like) and eat it too.

So how do you fall in love with a bargirl and ensure you don’t end up taking a high dive from the nearest high-rise condo and becoming a member of The Pattaya Flying Club?

Repeat the mantra again.

As long as you remember that she is working in a bar to make money, and that you are one of her revenue streams, you will be well on the way to staying sane. Don’t try to ‘save her from a life of degradation’. She doesn’t feel her lifestyle is degrading, just as that secretary in an office doesn’t feel her job is degrading. It’s a job for your sweet little bar girl. That’s it.

So pay her bar fine, take her back to your hotel, have all the fun you like, tell her how much you love her if you like. She may even tell you the same. Repeat the mantra.

Blot out the thought that when she says ‘Goodbye’ she will return to the bar, call you up to tell you how much she misses you, and then promptly proposition another punter to earn her ‘salary’. Just enjoy the moment. Show her a little consideration, lots of tender loving, give her an oil massage, have more fun than a human being is allowed. She is a human being and if you treat her right she will make you happy too. But don’t talk about her job. That will only bring you both down.

If you are tempted to take the relationship further and you actually want to marry her, ask yourself this; Would you marry this girl if you had met her in a strip club back in your hometown? Would you take her home to meet your family? Will you be able to marry her and not think about all the men who were there before you?

Don’t try to tell me that she is different. She isn’t. She’s just another bar girl…but one you happen to like a lot. Don’t let your infatuation put blinkers on your eyes.

Still interested in marrying her? Poor you.

When things go wrong, remember the advice in my previous submission. You pay a bar girl to make her go away. You can expect things to go wrong if you fail to pay her on time, or if you fail to give her enough money when she asks you for it, or if you complain about paying her each month after she moves in with you. All you have to do is pay her enough money to make the problem go away. How much you end up paying really depends on what sort of arrangement you can come to with her. But remember that bargaining the price is a Thai way of life. You should never pay the first price asked for. You’ll get no respect from her if you let her dictate the terms. Thais are brought up expecting to be told how to live their lives by those in a position of power and/or authority. As the one with the money you have the power and the authority. Make it clear you to her that you are the one in control and you will decide a price that both of you will be happy with. She will respect you even if you are breaking up. Walk away with your head held high and your self-esteem in place.

If you can’t be with her all the time, never, ever, agree to send her money while you are living out of the country so that she doesn’t have to work in the bar. Go and buy a yacht instead. It will be cheaper in the long run.

 

© Marc Holt. All rights reserved by the author.