Does your Thai Bar Girl Love YOU, or your MONEY?

Pattaya Girls and Thai Love Discussed

Well it’s been almost two years now since I’ve heard from her, so if you were looking for a quick answer to your question, make of that what you will.

I have four tattoos, one for each of three lost loves, and one to help me forget them all. But did my Thai ‘girlfriend’ deserve her share of my flesh real-estate?

A week or so ago a casual acquaintance messaged me asking my advice, a good friend of hers had returned home from his holiday to Thailand, and had brought with him his own Thai girlfriend, and soon to be Thai wife. She was concerned for his well-being, having heard only the rumours of these Thai women’s love of money, and feared that her friend would be hurt by this ‘gold-digger’.

I told her that Thai girls were like any other person, and wanted to find love just like the rest of us, and that as long as her friend was happy, she shouldn’t worry. But behind my advice to her lay a slightly tainted belief in my own words, because all communication with my own Thai girlfriend had ended about a month after I lost my job, and was unable to continue sending her money for a short while.

My Thai Girlfriend

Thai Bar Girls and Sick Cows

‘No Money, No Honey!’, is a very well known saying within Thailand, you can find t-shirts printed with this slogan on every corner, and with good reason. Because despite the almost girlfriend-like experience so different from that associated with prostitution in western countries, and despite the often genuine affection shown by Thai bar girls to tourists, and real relationships formed, money is never far removed from the equation.

If you’ve had a Thai girlfriend or have a Thai wife then it’s more than possible that you’ve heard the story of the ‘sick cow’, this is the one in which your Thai girlfriend (looking sad and teary eyed) explains that one of her cows has become ill and will soon die unless ‘hint hint’ money can ‘somehow’ be obtained with which to have it treated. And with hind-sight you wonder why you cared, thousands of cows must get sick and die each day, and never before have you ever considered it necessary to intervene, but this is different. She’s beautiful and sad about her cow, and your hero-complex takes over, and for the price of a decent meal back home you could rid her of this heart ache, and you feel like a God, a merciful cow saving God…

Thai Bar Girls - Hero Complex

Shortly after returning home, if you hadn’t already agreed to do so before you left Thailand, you’ll get the text. You’ll call her back and listen to her tell you how much ‘she misses you’, and perhaps she genuinely does, but the one thing you can be sure of is that pretty soon you’ll be sending her money, and you won’t know why, but you’ll do it unquestioningly. If anybody else you knew rang you up and asked you to deposit a large sum of money into their bank account each month in return for the odd phone call or text you’d tell them to ‘do one’, but in this instance, under these circumstances, you’ll be smiling as you fill out the money transfer forms. The ignorant believe that the men who fall in love with Thai bar girls are perverts, they’re wrong (or at least partially), because it’s all about the hero-complex, which Thai bar girls know how to play to a tee.

A Dozen Mobile Phones

She always answers when you call with a ‘hey baby, I miss you!’ and knows exactly who you are, after all it’s you who’s now paying to keep her out of the bars. But the truth is that she quite possibly has numerous ‘farangs’ or foreigners sending her money each month, and has a separate mobile phone for each. Why and how can she afford so many mobile phones? They’re an investment, and it’s you that's paying for them. Rather than risk causing offense and losing a valuable benefactor a Thai bar girl may invest in multiple mobile phones one for each foreign lover, because while the mobile phones may not be cheap, if the foreign benefactor can be kept believing that his Thai girlfriend is being faithful and waiting for his return the phone will pay for itself many times over, as long as those monthly cash deposits continue to be sent.

Does your Thai Bar Girl Love You?

Possibly, but it’s not a love totally separated from the size of your bank balance, there’s a saying that goes ‘money is only important if you don’t have any’ and the Thai girls who work the bars of Bangkok and Pattaya are tired of having no money. But more than that they’re tired of working the fields, 18 hours a day picking corn under the blistering sun, then feeding the animals, cooking the family meal, catching a few hours sleep, then starting again, for the whole of their lives.

So whilst there is no denying that prostitution will always primarily be about money, it is also about glamor. Every bar in Thailand has girls who despite being sent large sums of money by foreign lovers continue to work them. And this is not usually due to greed, Thai bar girls form tight networks of close friends, they can drink, buy nice clothes, and get taken out to restaurants, cinemas, and clubs, etc. virtually every night. And despite what you might think of the girls for doing what they do, or the tourists who pay for them, you’d have to agree that such things might seem exciting to a girl who would otherwise go her whole life stuck within her small village, day after day, picking corn, and watching enviously the young people and the exciting lives they lead on pirate copies of foreign movies.

Whilst women in the West often now earn more and fight harder than their male counterparts, Thai women are still looking for a good provider, so as long as you remain able to continue to provide for her, she’ll continue to love you (in her own way).

Thai Girlfriends

Now perhaps you feel I’ve been a little too hard on Thai bar girls above, and are about to rush in (below) in their defense. Perhaps you think that in some way I’m bitter at being used, and then dropped when the money ran out, you’d be wrong. Because what she never knew is that I was never looking for a Thai wife (beautiful and sweet as she could be), but instead had been trying to buy myself good karma. She’d come to me and confessed her fears that she might well be dead (one way or another) within the next few years if she continued to work the bars, and whether foolishly or benevolently I’d been unable to turn a blind eye to that.

For four years I sent her money every month, and shortly after the money dried up all communication ceased, so you’d be forgiven for believing that I now harbor a strong distrust for Thai women, and you’d be partially right, but you only grab a hot pan from the oven without gloves once, and some lessons are invaluable. And if you asked me if I disliked Thai bar girls I’d tell you ‘no’, ‘not at all’, in fact they’ve been some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and contain a strength of spirit that seems lacking in girls I know locally, who seem jaded in the same way that I am.

"A whole hemisphere lies dying from event starvation, it must be a subconscious demographic drive that sends these men to us; each one of these beauties hanging on their arms is a time bomb of demonic complications and explosive events. Hey, let’s hear it for the Thai girl, selflessly taking her message of love, life and lust to the world’" - Bangkok 8 – John Burdett