Pattaya Newbie

The Newbie's Guide To Getting Involved With Bar Girls

As men, most of us have a self image as fun party guys so we tend not to dwell on thoughts of getting emotionally attached to bar girls. A quick browse through the internet will show that relationshils with Thai bar girls happens a lot whether we like to think about it or not and some of the consequences can be serious so it's a subject certainly worthy of some thought. If you make a mistake over the price of a bar girl you might instantly lose 1000 or 2000 Baht but if you pick the wrong bar girl to get emotionally involved with (and I would suggest that as a newbie you are not equipped to make that choice) the consequences can be and often are far more serious. Thai women have a femininity that is now quite rare in our own cultures and it can be very seductive to somebody who's grown used to modern female attitudes in the West. Don't think you're going to be immune to their charms, if there's a chink in your armour there's a bar girl who can find it. All of this piece is derived either from first hand observation or hard experience.

A couple of things before I get started. I'd like to make it clear that I love Thai women, I think that they're fantastic. I know many people who have long term successful relationships and marriages with them but they were nearly always people who'd had more than a few trips to Thailand under their belts before they decided to take the plunge with one Thai woman. This thread is about the potential pitfalls of a newbie visitor to Thailand getting involved with a bar girl and it's hard to do that without exploring negative issues but keep in mind that it isn't actually a balanced representation of my broader views on them.

I've always been a person who's looked beneath the surface to find out what makes things and people tick. It's been my experience that when I do this it helps me to understand and even predict likely outcomes should a similar situation occur in the future. If you're the kind of guy who thinks that nothing could be simpler than paying a bar girl for her services and then moving on to the next thing that catches your attention I envy your uncomplicated view of life and this thread certainly isn't for you. In this post rather than give you direct advice I'm going to try instead to make you aware of the hidden depths of situations and make you think of them in ways that might not have occurred to you before. If you can understand why we behave and respond in certain ways it can give you an ongoing insight into events as they actually happen and help you to keep things in a realistic perspective. I've presented it in the form of a hypothetical 'relationship' between you, a first time visitor to Thailand and a bar girl (Noi) highlighting common scenarios and their inherent implications that might not be obvious at the time.

THE FIRST NIGHT

A typical reaction of a first time visitor to a place like Thailand where beautiful women are available nearly everywhere you look is to think that they have landed in paradise, and if they can keep their feet on the ground and their wits about them they probably have, at least in the context of a complete holiday experience. When your thoughts are focused on beautiful women and beer it's easy to forget how the whole experience can effect your emotions, and Thailand can definitely affect your emotions, in fact I often think of the place as a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride, fun, never boring and full of ups and downs. On your first trip you probably won't even notice any downs, it takes a while before any of the gloss wears away.

On your first night you'll no doubt be amazed at how stunning the women are, you'll be even more amazed at how friendly they are and how naturally things seem to progress. If your previous concept of prostitution was driving a car slowly around a sleazy part of a large city or spending a quick 20 minutes in a room with a hooker then that reality will be shaken to the core. Keep in mind that When everybody else around you is doing something without any sign of guilt then that becomes the new normality, we tend to look at what other people are doing around us to gauge what is normal behaviour. This leads to a feeling of liberation because there isn't the sense of guilt or embarrassment that some might feel if they were with a prostitute back home.

After taking a girl out of the Bar or Go Go you might end up with a group of you visiting a Night Club or going out for a meal together. When you get back to the hotel you could find that she folds your clothes for you, shows you pictures of her family and friends on her mobile phone. When she starts calling you darling it's easy to forget that you are actually with a prostitute. The next morning you have sex, talk some more then head downstairs together to get some breakfast. Everybody else is with a Thai girl, what could be more natural? As you are in a new place you don't have much idea about what to do in the day time but after breakfast Noi says she'll show you some fun places and your mate's girl wants to come along too, perfect! In an alien environment it's natural to cling to those that are familiar with wherever you happen to be and tour guide is a second role to many of these girls.

You might feel as if you've known her for a long time due to the fact that your relationship was financially accelerated, you bypassed the date and flowers stage. Now what could be wrong with this situation? Not much really, but think when was the last time something like that happened? Probably with a girl friend, that really hot one that you always wanted and eventually got although it took time and didn't last that long. As we go through life we tend to develop programmed responses to people's actions towards us based upon the situation. For example, if a scruffy looking guy approaches you in the street and tries to start a conversation you'll most likely blow him off because experience has taught you that he'll eventually end up asking you for some cash. This short cut instant reaction saves you time and hassle. The thing is though that pleasant as it is, the situation you are now involved in with Noi is most likely eliciting another programmed response from you, along the lines of, she sleeps with me, goes out to dinner with me, folds my clothes for me, cuts my nails therefore....... she's my girlfriend! Can you see the psychological process? She acts like a girlfriend which makes you act like a boyfriend as a kind of reflex response. We slip naturally into the role that best compliments her behaviour towards us. Of course this all happens on a subconscious level so the tendency is to not even be aware of what is happening and just go along with it, why should you be concerned anyway? it feels so right.

That day Noi shows you around, visiting the beach, maybe hiring a scooter and being shown the nearby sights. About 5 in the evening she mentions that she has to go back to her room to change and get ready for work, your mind is suddenly confronted with the thought of your 'girlfriend' being taken away from you, her dancing semi naked in the bar and maybe even being bar fined by another man, possessive/territorial instincts take over and you contemplate the loss of 'your girl', unless......you pay her bar fine for another night, dilemma resolved. You know when you're onto a good thing so why make it all end when for a few hundred more Baht the fun can continue? Later on, acknowledging the reality of the situation you shyly give her the money you agreed to the night before and just as shyly she takes it from you, glad we got that out of the way, somehow it just didn't feel right, a bit of ugly reality spoiling the special vibe you already feel developing between the two of you. This is an early warning sign that you might be getting attached to her. If you accepted the situation as a mutually beneficial arrangement then giving her the money would carry no more weight to it than paying for anything else right?

The next day you go out together on the scooters you hired and your mate and his lady come along too. Thai bar girls love this kind of arrangement as it means that they have the company of another Thai girl. On the way back the girls get you to pull into a temple just on the edge of town. The girls chat with a monk, a real Buddhist monk, the sound of one hand clapping and all that stuff and when they've finished you ask her what they were talking about? She tells that she asked the monk to bless the two of you. All these exotic experiences and emotions coming at you from all directions, it's hard not be affected by it all. I'm sure that by now you are aware of what I'm trying to communicate to you, how easily it is to just go along for the ride, being swept along on the river of emotions in a direction basically dictated by her (Because you, as a newbie defer to her knowledge of an environment alien to yourself). Nothing could be more natural, that's because it's actually an experience that you wanted and let her create for you. You must be aware that Thai bar girls are amazingly adaptable, they can weigh up your personality and work out what you like and want and become it, it's good business for them to be that way, they are selling you the complete experience. They most likely do not even think of it as any kind of act, they're enjoying the emotions of the ride as well and it's just as 'real' for them too, and they're also getting paid for it of course. The only problem is that your sensitive, sensuous soul-mate might well be somebody else's wild party chick next week (because that's what he wants). That's a reality that some prefer to push to one side because what you're experiencing is actually your own fantasy being projected back to you.

After four or five days together you get back to the hotel after a great night and in the heat of the moment Noi tells you how much she likes you and there's no need to wear a condom, she had her blood checked last week and anyway she wears a condom with all her other customers. You are aware of the risks but Noi is such a great girl and it just feels right so you go along with her idea. Of course it feels fantastic but you decide in your mind that it's just this one time.....Once again I'm sure you know where this is heading, how hard will it be to start wearing condoms again once you have stopped using them even once? "If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor".

We'll skip forward. All too soon your holiday is coming to an end. You take Noi on a shopping trip on your last full day and buy her a small gold ring, She told you that she didn't want any money from you last night, it's the least you can do for her after she's helped make your holiday the best of your life. To us Westerners that can mean some kind of bond, our minds are caught up with the symbolism of rings for engagement and marriage but keep in mind that to Thais gold can just be a second currency, something to cash in when they need an influx of cash. She asks you if she can come to the airport with you to see you off? Why not? You can keep the good times going for another few hours that way. In the cab to the airport you give her your email address and mobile phone number and promise to get back as soon as you can. You notice that she's crying, obviously she really cares for you. I don't think that most men have ever considered that women can actually enjoy a good cry. How often have you seen women having a good cry together? They enjoy experiencing emotions to the full and crying is a way of indulging in an emotion. I'm not saying that they always enjoy a crying of course but it's worth keeping in mind that crying doesn't necessarily represent an emotional crisis for them. Maybe best not to read too much into those tears eh? You give her the last few thousand Baht in your wallet so that she can get a taxi back and take the night off of work.

BACK HOME...ACTUALLY THE BEGINNING

The end of your holiday actually represents the start of the most risky period when it comes to the dangers of letting a bar girl under your skin. I believe that obsessions, infatuations or even love are actually things created by ourselves when the other person isn't even there. Memories tend to be selective and replaying nothing but great memories of a person over and over in your mind can lead you to into dangerous territory often far removed from reality.

As the plane descends your thoughts switch to home, images of going back to the job on Monday that has been the furthest thing from your mind the past couple of weeks. You console yourself with thoughts of showing your holiday pictures to your work mates and telling them all about your adventures from the Far East and the great girl that you met. Once you get home you think about your life changing experience of a holiday. Was it real? It all seems a million miles away now. The next morning your phone beeps, it's a text message from Noi telling you that she misses you too much. It was real after all and you now have a girl waiting for you in an exotic country on the other side of the world. The thing is that it's so easy to attach the great experiences of Thailand and your holiday onto the contact you keep with this girl and it all gets rolled into one in your mind. When you text or phone her it's all real again, the contact that you maintain with her becomes your route back to Thailand the great times you had there.

When you next speak to her on the phone you ask her what she's doing? She might say that she's out with her friends because it's one of their birthdays, a much nicer thought to you than her working in a bar, anything but confront the controlling reality. The reality of course is that she's a bar girl. Don't get me wrong, she probably really does have feelings for you but she has a family back home in the village depending upon her to send money back regularly so she's going to go with other men. Thailand has no real State benefits system as we think of it in the West so parents are dependent upon their offspring when they get old for their income.

Another pitfall to be aware of is idealising these girls when you get home. It's a common viewpoint to see them as poor victims forced to sell themselves to escape poverty. That is true to a degree but where will that line of thought leave you? In a position where you feel that everything you do for her is some kind of merit gaining act of charity? The Knight in shining armour syndrome? Another thing to be aware of is the trap of making promises that you might one day have to deliver upon. The process starts very innocently, she starts putting kisses at the end of her texts or emails so you start adding them to the end of yours. Maybe she mutters "I love you" at the end of a phone call and you tell her that you love her too. The same pattern of her taking an action and you following with the response that seems the most natural that we discussed earlier. Remember that anything you write or say while you are apart will be something you will be expected to live up to if you meet her again. What happens if you meet her and she no longer lives up to the idealised and perfected memory of her you created in your mind since you last saw her? Keep it real, I honestly think that they prefer it that way as well.

Now, this is a big one! It's very easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that if you send her enough money each month she can stop working in the bar and wait for you to return to Thailand. In reality there are many reasons why this apparently logical arrangement is usually doomed to failure. If she gives in her job and goes back to the village life will seem boring to her, she's got used to the bright lights, the parties, the latest fashions. Even if she hates the idea of being a prostitute (and what woman will admit that she likes the idea of being as prostitute?) there are elements to the lifestyle that are addictive. She will most likely get bored at home, going to bed not long after the sun goes down, getting up when the sun rises and what's the point in spoiling her skin by toiling in the paddy fields for 150 Baht a day in the blistering sun when you send her money every month? If she's not seen to be working in the village she might be viewed as not doing her bit for the family. They need a new mechanical buffalo and they could get it sooner if she went back to Pattaya to earn some more cash. Anyway she's missing her friends, if she gets another phone and number you'll be none the wiser and what you don't know can't do you any harm, a philosophical way of rationalising away a lie. She can just switch to working in another bar and only take your calls when she's in the quiet of her room so you won't know where she really is. She might tell you that a bad phone signal in the village means that you can only call at certain times when she's in the nearest large town where the reception is better. You get the idea and they can be very very convincing.

Maybe you decide to send her money but let her stay in Pattaya as long as she promises not to work in the bar? Seriously, how long will she last without the company of her friends? And where are her friends? They're working in the same bar where you met her. She might try hard to keep her promises and stay faithful to you but you can be pretty sure that one day when she visits her friends at the bar one of them will have paired up with a guy she really likes who just happens to have a friend who hasn't found a girl yet.

Apart from the incidental obstacles there is also the possibility of an out and out scam. You have only known her for a matter of days no matter how close you seemed to be. You know nothing about her culture and background and she could have a totally different idea of what is morally 'right' or 'wrong' Some Bar Girls have several sponsors, guys that send them money regularly and they're quite happy to string them all along at the same time. She might even already have a Thai husband who is in on the scam with her. As I pointed out earlier, Thailand is another country and another culture and it is often foolish to judge what happens there or set your expectations based upon Western ideals and attitudes. The thought that a pleasant lie is better than an unpleasant truth is common throughout the Far East. There a couple of Thai sayings that translate as "The truth is indestructible but people who speak it aren't" and "Only fools and children speak the truth" I'm not saying that they're all liars, just that the truth might not be as important to them as it is to you under certain circumstances.

Back to big one; IMO sending money to them rarely does any good, it won't stop them working unless it's a huge amount and you are just setting up expectations that you will then have to live up to for the duration of your 'relationship'. If they ask for money, and they all do eventually, don't turn it into a big issue, just say no, you can't do that, no apologies, no explanations and change the subject, if you don't turn it into a big deal then the chances are that she won't either. On the other hand if you give her the impression that you might waver on this she will probably turn on the pressure. My experience has been that they nearly always stay in touch anyway if they genuinely like you and if they don't maintain contact you can be sure of her objectives. I've even had it when a bar girl has asked me for money on the telephone and when I've said no she's boasted to her friends 'He said no!".

Back in time now. Remember those times that you didn't wear a condom? What if you get a call six weeks later telling you that she's pregnant? What will you do? Thais are very superstitious about aborting pregnancies which is technically illegal even if it is commonly available. You might tell her to have an abortion to which she might respond "Don't worry, I want to keep the baby, I can take care of it on my own, I'll just tell him his father is dead!" I've heard it said with my own ears. How will that make you feel? Of course you'll be well aware that she might not even be pregnant or even worse that she is pregnant but you're not the father. Some of those children have multiple fathers. What if it is really your child but you don't believe her? Wouldn't that thought haunt you? Some of your friends will give you the obvious good advice to have a DNA test done. Ask yourself, what will you do for the 8 months or so before the child is born and a DNA test a practical option? Will you assume responsibility and send her money until a DNA test can be done after the birth knowing that it all might be a deception? Or will you run the risk of turning your back on your own unborn child? Even after the birth would you trust the results of a DNA test conducted in Thailand where anything can be arranged for the right amount of cash? The truth of the situation is that it's better thought of and avoided before it occurs.

As I said at the beginning, Thai women can be fantastic long term partners but until you know enough about her, her culture, her family and country you are certainly not equipped to make sound decisions. It might make more sense to hold back, by all means maintain contact but keep it real. For instance don't promise to spend the whole of your next trip to Thailand just with her. Keep your options open, maybe tell her that it would be cool to meet up again for a few days but you can't promise any more than that. Not only will this approach give you the most options, it will also gain you the most respect. They hear sweet talking bullshit all the time and will value the truth more, even if it is more unpleasant on the surface. Although Sweet talk can get you short term gains, the truth, when tactfully expressed will gain you their respect.

Submitted by Dr.Winston O'Boogie. Originally posted on the Pattaya Addicts forum.