Gecko123

You've basically implied that many of the people who have reacted unfavorably to your posts have PM'd you to confess that they are bitter and lonely or going through a tough time. Send us a screen shot of your inbox with the senders names blocked out to back up this claim, or retract this highly dubious claim. You don't seem to be aware that you have a reputation for posting maliciously dispiriting posts directed at Thailand's expat retirees. A good example is your most recent post which seemingly aimed to put readers on a guilt trip about having started a new life in Thailand and neglecting familial responsibilities back home. Given your posting history, I am frankly skeptical that many would see you as an inviting shoulder to cry on, but even if it were true, it's still pretty passive-aggressive to publicly claim that people are privately confessing to you they're bitter and lonely and apologizing to you for having made nasty comments on threads you've started, and for you to be making veiled threats to reveal who these people are. The vast majority of your "Debbie downer" posts fall wide of the mark for me, and only rarely hit a nerve, and as such, I can find the entertainment value in your posts, but I don't think you becoming an ASEANNOW crisis hot line counselor is in the cards.

He was probably thinking, "Am I giving off some kind of vibe? Why do these homosexual serial killer types keep making passes at me?"

You follow a total stranger into the men's room and while they are urinating and without knowing their marital and family history, ask where his ex-wife and kids are? That is next level creepy, dude. I think I would call the cops if that ever happened to me.

I don't believe half your married Thai friends have Mia nois. I don't believe half of the unmarried friends with girlfriends have side squeezes. And if by some freak chance they do, those are some low class guys you're hanging around with. Not yuppies, not upscale; low class karaoke bar afficionadoes, aka, alkies. I don't believe they're your wing men giving you pointers on how to pick up Thai women, and I certainly don't believe you're giving them assists in scoring with Thai women. I also highly doubt that the women you're hooking up with aren't in the bar girl/hooker class despite all your efforts to make people think you are operating in a rarified social milieu above Nana Plaza. LOL. You're the one posturing as Mr. Social fabric, lamenting the corrosive effect foreign men have on Thai society. I guess there's a big exemption for you as a Western man sexually exploiting Thai women because your so-called buddies are doing the same thing, and you haven't been "brainwashed by feminism." Well, if you're such a proud Neanderthal why are you coming on the forum lamenting physical violence against women? Following your reasoning, if your Thai buddies occasionally slap their wives and mistresses around when they get out of line, that makes it OK, right? By the way, please don't lecture me about Thai male attitudes, sir. I know more about the Thai male psyche, how to converse and have amicable interaction with them then I suspect you ever will, and just for the record, I don't need to get <deleted>faced in order to make it happen. I strongly suspect I could run circles around you in Thai and I have a wide range of Thai male acquaintances spanning a wide range of ages and occupations, so lose your condescending attitude sir, and PS stop referring to yourself as POTY. You didn't win anything, and I doubt you ever will.

Damage to social fabric and violence against women can take many forms, including sexual exploitation.

The OP tries to ingratiate himself with his Thai drinking buddies by agreeing with ugly and false generalizations about the expat community based on a recent but atypical flurry of negative news stories. Then he comes on AN to make the same ugly and false generalizations. It's called being maliciously dispiriting, and I'll leave it others to speculate about the psychological motivations behind this behavior. If there's an underlying risk factor for why guys "act out" when the pressure gets to be too much, it's probably due to social isolation and a lack of a social network to function as a safety valve for these pressures. A lot of that alienation and keeping your distance mentality starts on social media, like ASEANOW. Posters posturing as though they are psychological confections with impeccable social skills while talking to everyone else as if they're a ticking time bomb mental/social misfit is not helping to improve things. It actually is making things worse. If you want to make the world a better place, start with the man in the mirror. For example, if you find exploitation and violence against women so deplorable, how do you justify bragging about using your Thai language skills and finances to entice vulnerable factory girls into one-night stands, and providing the financial lure underpinning the sex industry? Do you really imagine your Thai male friends think such behavior is any more acceptable?

If it turns out to be a talking horse, any plans to raise a consensual sex defense might have to be scrapped.

Just one last suggestion. Take a look at your sleep quality and sleep hygiene. Keep a sleep diary for a month and see if any patterns emerge. Poor sleep quality => low energy level => low activity level => poor sleep quality. If you're physically inactive you're likely to have developed some joint pains which can disturb sleep every time you change sleeping position. Doing strengthening and stretching exercises that target specific joint pains can improve sleep quality => encourage more physical activity => improved cholesterol numbers.

Come on guy, 74's too young for the rocking chair. But I agree the climate makes exercise a challenge. Any swimming pools around where you live? I exercise early morning (walking and mountain bike riding), driving to a long stretch of back road with almost no dogs or traffic. I always carry a small flashlight. Wish you the best of luck achieving your fitness and health goals.

Well I'd say his comments pretty effectively wiped that smug smirk off of Mr Bobblehead's face. Judge for yourself.

Reducing alcohol consumption and increasing physical exercise can definitely help reduce high triglyceride levels. High BMI is associated with increased levels of LDL and cholesterol and decreased levels of HDL. My advice to OP would be to shoot for one hour daily aerobic exercise, and staying active as much as possible during the day, cut out drinking (if any), cut out sugary and baked goods, try to reduce total caloric intake, and move towards plant based diet. These are my recent numbers, following above program: FBS 85 Total Choles 198 Triglyceride 73 HDL - Chol 42 LDL Chol 115 Weight 227

Simon: My number one concern would be what would happen if the person you enter into a contract with dies or the title on the land changes hands. The character and trustworthiness of the new owner(s) may not be on the same level as your friend's. You would be creating a moral hazard by building on land in someone else's name. Regardless of how airtight a contract you draw up, if someone down the road decides to violate the terms of the agreement, you could be looking at a protracted legal dispute and a situation where you're constantly having to look over your shoulder.

Pretty sure I saw a jolt of fear in Mike Johnson's eyes when Biden delivered the line about how the Supreme Court was about to find out in November just how much of a political voice women had.

Chiang Mai zoo. Fenced in monkey cage. Reached out to commune with the monkeys. One of them managed to grab me by the wrist and started pulling my hand towards its mouth. That monkey's grip and arm strength was superhuman. Scary looking incisors. Not ashamed to admit I screamed like a little girl. So relieved when it let go of me.

A video from a source that is not credible, has been removed.

No...its not the start of a pogram. I think it's being driven by millennials, digital nomads, early retirees, and Ukraine war refugees and draft dodgers who think Thailand's labor laws don't apply to them.

Were Thailand ever to implement more stringent mental health, criminal background, or social reputation screenings of expats in an effort to prevent future incidents such as this, it would make for a more arduous and expensive visa renewal process for all of us. So it's in our collective self-interest to try to work towards reducing the odds of situations like this occurring. There is a deeply entrenched loner culture in Thailand's expat community, and it's almost in vogue for expats to socially shun other expats, all of which contribute to the likelihood of guys like this going off the deep end. If Thailand's expat community made more of an effort to be more socially supportive of one another that would probably help reduce the likelihood of events like this occurring. There are also too many foreigners over here who think that civility, personability, friendliness, kindness, charitability, etc., is the other guy's responsibility, and who make little effort to socially engage with Thais or to learn the language. Sadly, such attitudes are all too often encouraged and reinforced on social media platforms such as this one. My point is that what people post on ASEANNOW is not separate and detached from the real world. It's all intertwined.

I thought "David"s visa revocation was appealable to a court. Now that the Interior Minister has weighed in, does that make that appeal process moot?

positive msg much appreciated

Really displeased with this guy for the damage he's done to the retiree expat community's reputation. Those who have apparently come to believe that Thai warmth and hospitality can be taken for granted, and that Thailand is a safe haven for those lacking civility and nursing anti-social grievances need to be disabused of this notion forthwith.

Unshaven, ruddy faced as if he had been drinking the night before. The guy's in desperate need of PR/social media damage control expert. If he had just taken the time to say a few words of apology in Thai, even if he totally butchered the language, it would have done so much to humanize him and defuse his demonization on social media. His wife who appears to be doing all the interaction with the Thai media does not strike me as a very effective spokesperson either.

Case is touching a lot of hot buttons: expats who don't respect Thais, public access to beaches, respect for women, resentments over foreign ownership of land squeezing out locals. During the hearing his exchanges with his wife are in English and at one point he says "I cannot speak Thai." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a11iQgvYrVI My point is if you can't speak the local language, you need to watch your P's & Q's more than he did in the video clip he made of the incident. It's not easy to make yourself persona non grata in Thailand, but it appears he's managed to do just that.

A lot of people probably think the public apology is old fashioned but when you think about it it actually reflects a lot of insight into human nature. When someone "apologizes" for something in private they often turn around and tell their family and friends "I didn't really apologize" or "I just apologized because he/she was making such a stink about it," etc. With a public apology, the victim can rightfully claim that the offender really did apologize and did so in public which reduces the chances the offender will back track on the apology down the road or that the feud will flare up again. I think that shows that Thais are pretty insightful and take a pragmatic approach to dealing with human nature.

The public apology tradition goes way back. The apology is coerced, no doubt about it, and there's a power element to making somebody apologize in public. It seems to be a way to re-establish one's dignity and social status and the pecking order before the incident. It's also considered part of the punishment, and a deterrent against a repeat offense. There are obviously situations where an egregious crime has been committed and the perpetrator is sincerely remorseful and publicly apologizes to the victim, but I've seen these public apologies be demanded for far lesser personal offenses like slander or infidelity, or false accusations which can sometimes turn into Kabuki theatre. Most of these soap-opera grade dramas seem to be between women, sometimes between families. I think it would be fairly rare for a woman to demand a public apology from a man unless the offense was pretty serious. I would say throwing a beer glass at someone rises to that level. But to say someone was doing it for publicity or notoriety, in my opinion, would be a misreading of the motivations behind the victim demanding a public apology. It's being done to re-establish one's social status and provides a mechanism for moving past the incident.

Throwing a glass at someone is both a civil and criminal offense. Potential jail time almost a certainty, and she could have gotten more out of him if she had gone to court. Between potential civil and criminal penalties, including having your visa revoked and hiring an attorney, the guy got off practically scot free having to pay only 18K.