educated farang, uneducated poor TG

[Encore]

>( What do peope) "like you, living in LOS and having a (secondary?) relation with a girl whom you meeet a few times a weeks and spend a few hours or even a night with," ( know about Thai girls) <

 

Oops! Your interpretation of my words, not mine.

 

>Pinned like a butterfly!...no doubt about it there was a sweetness to anonymity......... <

 

Yes, stick your head over the parapet...

Honestly, I would have made the same comment to any local BKK expat who was know to have a Gf he sees on a regular basis but doesn't live with.

 

>You are right though to describe me as a part time thai girl lover who may only be in it for the short haul.... <

 

I never suggested you were in it for the short haul.

 

 

> However the kinds of incompatability you speak about ( a woman..."without wider interest in anything but her talks with her girlfirneds about hairstyles, Thai soaps, and the latest baby of her cousin,") is IMHO to a greater or lesser extent entirely possible with a PhD candidate.... <

 

Entirely possible, yes. I've known some very boring PhD 's.

 

However, at least you will have an opportunity to find that out fairly rapidly. And in terms of probability, I think your chances of boredom are a bit less with an educated woman who speaks the same language as you do then with an average TBG.

 

Romp, you came across as very well educated. You have one of the most elegant and precise styles of writing on this board. Obviously verbal/written communication is important in your life. It is my guess that if you were to ever move in fulltime with IP, the lack of verbal communication, coupled by the relative limit of her interests in the outside world that you know (MY assumption, based upon the age difference and education diffrence), you would get very frustrated after the first few months honeymoon has worn off.

 

Now I may be doing IP an injustice, she may just be this rare pearl with huge untapped potential, ready to blossom and develop into a fully compatible partner to you. and if so, I aplologise to her. But IMHO the chances on average aren't that good.

 

>educated women who bored the pants off me after a few months say about feminism or their jostling manipulations of office politics. <

Tell me about them! I've had my share of those.<

 

At the risk of offending some egalitarian members of this board, I think education levels, intellectual interests and (dirty word) class are a factor in this.

An easy going relaxed 'working class' (excuse again the generalisation) brit, whose main interests in life are soccer, TV and a pint or two in the pub on saturday, may be quite happy long term with a thai wife GF, providing he learns good thai or she learns good english, and they both are tolerant about each other's cultural differences.

 

> The challenge is to be creative and nurture the other<

 

Indeed. It is a challenge. One that I think I failed. You may succeed. Good luck!

[Zaad]

probably not, but I think she is the only one you have been serious with

Correct, she's indeed one of the few I've been serious involved with and that has everything to do with my personality.

I'm either in a serious relationship or in none at all and this obviously depends on a lot of factors.

 

You are indeed, from the little i know, doing great.

Thanks P127. Ups and downs as usual, but not complaining.

 

I actually think people do not always mate by hazard

Thanks for putting it so bluntly

[MaiLuk]

Two types of people: those with intellectual interests and those without. A definite tension will arise when they are paired up. If they are struggling together against the world, such as the usual young couple (maybe with children) with ambition and limited funds, their incompatability may go unnoticed or at least be dismissed as hardly important.

 

Once the battle with the world is over, they find themselves with serious differences and it ends.

[Guest lazyphil]

My mrs ended her education at 16 and so did I. Good match imo.

[pattaya127]

well put. Though the experience may not be the same for everyone, I find that in the beginning, you keep your heart in check, brain rules, then a year later, if you are one to easily make a Gf of a girl, you get attached, and you committ.

 

The brain is still loud actually, but it also works at rationalizing all the mishaps, she is a "part of your life", and 2 years later you start wanting to get what i call "returns to your investements", both emotion and money. I find this very common with farang/thais, the fact you went so far already, and she is no monster after all, blahblah.... That's a hard one to beat when you're a fool for love (guilty, where do i sign? ). Plus you know the family, stayed in the village, want to help the kid to school, etc....

 

when this happens, you can easily add another 2 years to it. What happened this year is that I am unable to do the big jump, for all kind of reasons, very rational and common sensical: i will not marry her, I will not make a visa and i won't build a freaking house in the village. And i will not take any crap anymore, not even one second. Just too old and not moneyed enough for even a 90% risk of success. I think she thought she had me in her palm, but nobody owns me, not a fat chance.

 

I had plenty of time for myself the last 2 years, and in the land of the free, freedom delivers a wallop. last year i met a very pretty and smart girl, but i was still not able to cut free emotionally. I regret it, that was stupid of me not to follow up with this new woman. This year, I just enjoyed traveling alone, met women anyway, but took a break from all that touchy-feely stuff. At 49, I admit this was the first year i did not act like a 17 Yo. About time, not that the 48 first years (or 31?) were that sad, au contraire!

[thalenoi]

The best educated people are not necessarly the cleverest...

 

I spent most of my life with highly educated people and the vast majority were trully boring shelfish workalcoholics or street idiots.

 

My farang wife's father was a simple postman and he had more common sense and life experience than most university educated people. I enjoyed listening to him, a true human being, I miss him...

 

I have the same experience with my uneducated bg.

I am amazed with her knowledge and wisdom.

 

Whilst I learned how to calculate how may minutes it would take for a bath tub to fill considering the dimensions of the tub and the water debit of the tap she learned how to survive in this world. Her knowledge is far more valuable than mine.

 

I follow her advice and don't have much wisdom to tell her.

 

I believe we both realise how different our worlds are and how we both can learn from each other. There is some mutual fascination for the knowledge we do not have but share.

[Zorro]

I think the communication issue would become a huge one if i was to marry a Thai lady.

The first issue of course is the verbal communication and no matter how well your gal speaks English she will be completely lost when it comes to idioms and the subtleties of the language. If your interaction is limited to short periods of time you can probably overcome this but for me it would get very boring very quickly to have to keep my English at a very basic level to be understood. Even if you learn Thai to high level you will probably be in a similar position.

Then we have the cultural issues which at first may not seem so daunting but with time all sorts of miscommunication and non understanding of issues can create a backlog of resentment between both parties. We really don't realise how set we are in our cultural patterms until we encounter other cultural norms that we may find difficult to accept.

There has been a vast amount of research into successful relationships ( marriages) and they tend to point to the parties having similar cultural and social backgrounds.

In the long term it is far more difficult to sustain a relationship where the parties come from divergent cultures and social backgrounds.

Maybe the best way to go if you have a thing for Thai women is to have a girlfriend or two who you see on a regular basis but do not live with and do not spend everyday with. That way you can successfully avoid some of the aforementioned pitfalls but still have the pleasure of the company of Thai women.

[soongmak]

P127,

 

Interesting thread and a lot of good contributions. We exchanged some pm's regarding Rt's in the past and we both know we are on opposite sides of the spectrum. You try to be more rational in your approach, I try to not let my rationale get in the way of my RT. Different ways for different folks IMO. The same divide I see in this thread as well.

 

I think love and Rt's are a fascinating subject and more even so the absence of love. Everybody wants it, but why do most people never seem to get it? I think the main reason is that we try to rationalize our RTs. We count our blessings and think of the things we have in common with our partner, the money she makes, her looks, and if we count ourselves lucky we think we have a pretty good deal. But that's not what "love"is about IMO. This is just a calculated relationship not unlike what our predecessors did when they forced their children into a marriage, for the good of the person and often the family. Off course these are very legitimate reasons to stay in a RT, but to me it resembles a kind of contract that nevertheless can be fulfilling for those who seek this kind of commitment.

 

The danger in a calculated RT is that if you in the end meet somebody who, how irrational that may be, fans the flames for you, that Rt may be jeopardized.

 

I chose my partner not based on what we have in common. I fell for her smile but I love her personality, sometimes cheerful but often dark, brooding, thoughtful and caring and ended up with a bond that is just there. We both feel that sense of belonging, and I really cannot pinpoint why. The truth is that I can put up with almost any shit she pulls on me, just because of this. The same goes for her. I don't know how long it will last, but after 4 years, I guess we're not talking puppy love anymore.

 

I believe every RT is very, very fragile, whether your RT is based on love or reason. Having an RT based on love, I know I couldn't settle for a rational bond anymore.

 

For me, those who base their RT based on education, common interests or looks are the ones who settle for less. Your mileage may vary though.

[BelgianBoy]

Zorro said:

I think the communication issue would become a huge one if i was to marry a Thai lady.

The first issue of course is the verbal communication and no matter how well your gal speaks English she will be completely lost when it comes to idioms and the subtleties of the language.

 

I fully agree that verbal communication is very important in any relation.

But I totally disagree that any Thai lady/girl/BG will not fully understand English or the local lingo of the country she lives in.

I speak, read and write fluently in 5 languages, speak and understand a bit of 4 others.

And my GF is fluent in English as well.

Differences with us, if any, are cultural.

 

BB

[pattaya127]

those who base their RT based on education

-------------------------------

I don't think the topic was based in such terms, like crossing good points and bad ones, then make a rational decision after counting all. If I break up with the GF, it all has to do with specific reasons that may not be the same for everyone. And i said at 49, i cannot take the risk of a failed marriage in California. I just dont' have the means, that's all, and then it's true that i realize i do not have to be stuck with someone uneducated, when the same problems keep coming back. Mailuk is right, sometimes, it's not your brain, it's your heart that sends the warning bleeps.

 

Also:

 

Personally, I think that in a RT involving thai and farang, maybe 2 foreigners altogether, one has to give in more to the cultural side of the others.

 

In the case of the thai coming to Farngland, there is no way that the RT will be a happy one if the girl does not make an effort to adopt western habits and make them her own. Not saying she forgets she's thai (like i don't forgte i am frecnh for living in the States), but i can see this in my farang/thai friends. Enormous changes, and positive ones.

 

If the guy comes to live in thailand, same thing. There is no way he can just keep to his sense of western proprieties, deal with the woman as if she was a western wife. here too, i'd say that the farang adopts a lot from the local way of doing and seeing things.

 

One or the other has to give in or adjust away from his/her own cultural way of doing things.

 

 

Definitely a topic open to wide opinions, not clear-cut statements. But let's think about this one. Of all the guys who go with uneducated, poor Tgs, prostitutes most likley (where else would the majority have met her), I doubt there are a lot who would have gone for a farang girl of the same background. And I asked: what makes it work and what is worth thinking about when realizing the huge cultural and educational gaps?