Pattaya Newbie

Pattaya Blues and Getting Loved Up

After you return home from your first trip to Pattaya there is three likely places you will find yourself. It is quite likely that you will not view the nightlife at home in the same light after a trip to Pattaya. It will seem rather sedate and quite possible you will not have as much fun as you did before you discovered Pattaya. However, that issue is not what this page is about.

The first thing that most guys do after their first trip to Pattaya is start thinking of away to return as soon as possible. I know of people who have come on their first trip gone home and been back two weeks later. In my case I left Bangkok with no intensions of returning in the short term. It was my third trip to Thailand but on previous trips I had not indulged in the local delicacies, so to speak. The flight time home was seven hours. By the time my plane landed in my home city I had decided to go back as soon as possible. Two hours after reaching home I was looking at flights and two days later a flight was booked to return to Pattaya four weeks after.

You should expect to get what is known as the Pattaya Blues. Some guys get very depressed. Most people say that the best cure is to book the next trip. If you are in a financial and employment situation to return then all is good. However, I have come across people who were not and they have gone into debt to pay for their new found hobby. This is not a good way to go. Keep things real and do not jeopardise other aspects of your life for Pattaya. Sure the place is fun but ultimately it is quite a shallow place. Without money Pattaya is almost definitely a worse place to be than your home town.

One unlikely feeling after a trip to Pattaya is one of dislike. If this is you I suspect that you have a more balanced personality than most guys. For most guys chasing pretty girls around to spread the fruit of their loins is a dream come true. In fact I would say that this is instinctive. As stated before Pattaya is shallow and this will not appeal to everyone. If you are in this situation after your first trip I would love to hear your reasons for feeling this way, if you can.

If you have not got yourself involved with a Thai girl you can stop reading here if you like. The rest of this page is for guys who got ‘loved up’ on their first trip to Pattaya.

While a bad dose of the Pattaya Blues is not good I think there is a worst position to be in. In the Pattaya Newbie Tips page I state twice that you should not fall in love with one of the girls in Pattaya. If you have you could well be in for a difficult time, unless you are lucky enough to be in a position to spend a reasonable amount of time with her. The situation will no doubt be compounded by a bad case of Pattaya Blues.

So you have fallen for one of the girls in Pattaya! What do you do? I suggest the first thing you need to do is have a good honest look at yourself and your situation. Can you handle a long distance relationship? How often will you get to see your new love? Can you trust her?

Long distance relationships are notoriously difficult and many fail. Into this you also have to contend with language and cultural differences. After your first holiday you are unlikely to have more than an inkling of the cultural differences that exists between Westerners and the Thais that you are likely to meet. Are you prepared to work through these issues?

In my opinion the real crunch comes with the time you have available to spend with her. Unless you are prepared to get her visas you will have to travel to Thailand to see her. Don’t count on endless tourists visas even if they are available for a Thai to visit your country. Unless you can see her regularly and for a good percentage of every year you should really think seriously about a relationship with a Thai.

Trust is often the stumbling block between Thais and Westerners and that goes both ways. This usually comes from the mode in which you met. For most couples he was in a bar looking for fun and she was looking for a customer. Unfortunately most guys have either had experiences of bar girls telling many lies to extract money from a farang or heard the stories from others. She is likely to have been promised many things by farangs just for him to disappear. In my opinion this is not a great starting point for a relationship. It is going to take a lot of work to get the trust issue resolved and it will take a long time. Spending only two or three weeks with her once or twice a year is not going to be enough.

So the question is can you trust the girl that you have fallen for? Only you will be able to determine this. As mentioned above you will need to spend quite a lot of time to determine this. While there are good girls in Pattaya there are a lot of sharks. Many of those sharks are good liars. You will need to keep your mind turned on as well as your eyes and ears. Look and listen for any inconsistencies in her story. Look at how she relates to other people and how she reacts to various situations. You will need to trust your instincts on this and if you have any doubts it is probably best to follow them. This is a difficult ask if your heart is doing all the thinking.

Any girl in Pattaya will be a risk, as with any women in the World. You will need to decide the level of risk that you are willing to take. In my opinion where and how you meet your girl can determine the risk. For example if you met your girl on Soi 6 there will be a higher risk. I am not saying that you can’t meet a good girl there but just that it is less likely. Even if you met your girl in a disco there is still a level of risk. Many of the girls in the discos in Pattaya are either there after they have finished work in the bars or girls who have boyfriends already (ie sponsors). If it is the later it should be easy to work out as they will need to talk to him from time to time. If she already has a sponsor she is obviously doing the wrong thing already so it is best to move on. That said there are some normal girls in Pattaya discos looking to supplement their income and/or find a farang boyfriend. These girls probably carry the lowest level of risk. However, that doesn’t mean that you will not get burnt by one. There will always be some element of risk.

One risk factor is how long has the girl been working in bars. To determine this look at how she conducts herself. Also look for a lot of tattoos and a reasonable level of English. Many of the girls will tell you that they learned English in school. While some do (you will find some university girls in Pattaya) most only learn it verbally. If she can speak English better than reading and writing it she probably didn’t learn it at school. Like everything there will be exceptions.

When weighing up whether you can trust the girl or not don’t rely on only one indicator. Try to consider everything that you know about her. Don’t forget to factor in both cultural differences and difficulties in communication. Yes, this will not be easy.

You will need to consider the difference in age between you and the girl. I think the larger the difference the higher the risk. Do you think a girl who could be your daughter or even grand-daughter would really be into you? What do you have in common with her? I am not saying that it is impossible just that there is risk involved. You may be comfortable with having a girlfriend who is mainly, or at least partly, in it for the money. There is nothing wrong with that arrangement just don’t invest your heart into the relationship.

Another factor that will influence any relationship with a Thai girl (particularly if you met her in a bar) is the considerable cultural and education divide between the two of you. Even if you completed the minimum education is the west it is likely to be considerably more than a Thai girl has been given. This is further compounded by a relatively insular life that these girls have lived. Don’t expect one of them to be able to debate the merits of a global market! I will not even start with the cultural differences as they are huge. As a starting point I would suggest you read Thailand Fever.

If you do decide to have a relationship with a bar girl there will be issues arising from her work. I think the issues will differ somewhat but they will not doubt have had experienced things that will have ‘damaged’ them. You will need to be mindful of this. Also, the circumstances under which you met will bring its own issues. I think the biggest issue will be trust. Remember that you was out looking to buy services and she was there selling them.

A relationship with a Thai girl is possible despite the stories that you may hear. You will hear guys saying that all Thai girls are the same. However, to expect this to be true is ridiculous. They are all the same just as all the guys who go to Pattaya are the same! Some guys tell the girls all sorts of lies to either impress them or get free services by promising them an escape from the industry they have entered to make her and her family’s life a little better. I suspect that many bar girls state that all foreign mean are liars and cheats. If you decide to give it a go ignore the naysayers and judge your relationship and partner on what you experience, not on what others have experienced. Life is full of risk we just have to decide what level of risk you are prepared to take and limit it.

I wish you good luck with it.