BangkokReady

A good point. I think that Bob and Spark should have really defined what they mean by friendship when they began disagreeing. (Although I think Bob pretty much did when explaining what he wanted.) One person might consider a friend to be someone they know well and trust, meet up with regularly and do something, such as dining, alone together; while another might consider a friend to be someone they know by name, say hello to whenever they see them, and occasionally pass the time of day.

I'm not sure that both of these statements can be correct.

I think its just called "The Interview". Someone like James Franco and Seth Green win a chance to interview Kim Jon Un and try to kill him, I think.

I would assume they mean that a Thai woman is tainted after laying with a foreigner.

It isn't a bitter tone. I don't see any of the above in the comment of the user you quoted. "I haven't made friends here in 30 years", "I tend to give Thai men a wide birth". Neither of these sentences have a sense of angriness or unhappiness. They don't actually show much emotion at all. And my English is very good. (I know I didn't use the exact quote, but I'm going from what you wrote above.)

It sounds like Bob is doing that. Do you not acknowledge that anyone could have an experience different to that of your perception of your own?

What tone do you detect? Do you actually know what bitterness is?

And then interpret the tone and emotion. Possibly incorrectly. And there is no other conclusion to this (if true), other than you must be better than the OP and they must be deficient in some way? Without really knowing anything about the OP?

The thing is, if you discount women who are in relationships with foreign men or looking for such, are the women that interested in befriending foreigners either? Possibly Thai people simply aren't that interested in foreigners.

They don't sound particularly bitter. Simply matter of fact. And you interpret things based on what you have in your mind.

Do "good" Thai girls actually make an effort to prove they aren't prostitutes or gold-diggers? I can imagine a guy being OK with a girl being cautious. We are generally more easy going in relationships and used to having to put up with tests of our character when it comes to women sizing us up. But a girl being OK with a guy wanting proof that she's a "good" girl? Ignoring the obvious double standards, I'm not sure I can see a girl putting up with that.

Thailand is corrupt from top to bottom. It's a way of life and is casually accepted/expected. If you replaced all the police, you would still have a corrupt police force, just like any other sector, no need to succumb to anything. Corruption is a Thailand problem, not something unique to any particular area.

What missing 8,000 Baht?

10/1, sounds standard. Less than 10/1, time to get out of there. All jolly good fun until someone gets hurt. Shame no one ever really addresses anything in Thailand.

Good news about the girl being safely back with her mother? Or was she only a minor concern?

I understand how opinions work, and I've explained how I reached mine. As I said, if I saw evidence to the contrary, I might change my opinion. What I am saying is that based on evidence I have a certain opinion. Unless I see other evidence, then I will maintain that opinion. No. When I say that I have a certain opinion based on evidence, I am simply doing that.

Yeah, there's so much evidence of at the very least an indifference or tolerance to it. It doesn't need to mean that everyone does it or everyone wants that for their children. More that Thai people don't really care much about what happens to anyone outside of their own family. I'm not sure why discussion of things that actually happen in Thailand trigger so many people into denial. I guess they're firmly attached to the dreamy version of Thailand, with real monks who follow the precepts to the letter and hiso girls who wait until marriage to have sex, that anything that conflicts with that image is immediately attacked.

I'm not sure that really makes sense. As far as I know opinions aren't right or wrong, that is facts. If I say "based on what I see from various sources, it seems that x y z..." it can't really be "wrong". Obviously if I saw an equal number of things that were contrary to what I had seen previously, I might change my opinion, but I doubt that will happen. None of this is scientific. It's a discussion on an online forum. Expecting to come here and find people solely quoting research data and not mostly anecdotal evidence would be bizarre.

I'm simply giving my opinion based on observations. No. I don't think you're that stupid. You're saying this as some sort of subtle accusation. There is no reason to assume this. There are a broad range of sources that foreigners can access to get an idea of what happens in Thailand. See the comment you're replying to. No need to type it out again. You can disagree if you wish. Who said anything about the whole of Thai society accepting it? Most Thais don't really care about what happens to people unrelated to them or anything that doesn't affect them. 1, This doesn't have anything to do with the US as it is a completely different culture. 2, I don't believe that it happens anywhere near the same level. 3, The reaction to it in the US is completely different to Thailand, showing the very different attitude towards it in the US. Mentioning the US only serves to highlight the fact that attitudes are very different in Thailand and doesn't help your argument at all.

Well, it is and it isn't. To us, from our perspective, thinking of our home countries, it's obviously something that is not only illegal, but also something that is universally condemned, probably the worst crime that a man can commit. But, in Thailand, although it is illegal, it is something that is often accepted, tolerated, turned a blind eye to, etc., generally were there is a relationship with the girl being underage and the man being in his twenties. It would also seem that underage prostitution is tolerated in some instances (although I don't know much more than what we see in the news about that). And, of course, wealthy men in Asia get away with a lot. See, I wasn't/haven't pointed the finger at anyone. That isn't the angle I was taking. A deviant in deviant land... Sometimes you have to simply try to shrug things off. We all see many things every day that we would no doubt like to fix. It would be hard to live in Thailand if you worried about every one of them. You certainly cannot change anything. You need to be able to accept some things as being "just the way things are in Thailand". It doesn't mean you approve of it. It doesn't mean you cannot make a tiny effort in select safe situations (I've certainly shown very discrete disapproval on a number of occasions about certain behaviours in Thailand). It doesn't mean that you don't sometimes hear things that break your heart. But there's only so much of your emotional reserves that you can dedicate to something that you have almost zero chance of fixing. You'd be going up against a society, and even people who are in the victim group are indoctrinated to believe it is how things should be. And, sorry, but typing "that's disgusting, he should have his penis cut off" on a forum just isn't the tonic for me that I guess it is for others. I'd rather show kindness to people have been treated unkindly in real life, than to rage against some formless phantom online.

Is that where the "liquid molly" car stickers come from?

In every example you have quoted, it's quite clear to me, if a 14 year old girl seeks out and initiates sex with a man, then those things have happened. She bares no legal responsibility, the man does, whomever initiates is irrelevant. The adult will always carry the legal responsibility. But that isn't what I was discussing. I was very specifically taking issue with the comment of "it's always the guy doing X, Y, Z", when obviously the girl, underage or not, is perfectly capable of doing those things also. That's it. I'm not assigning blame and there is no perpetrator that needs to be blamed, as I am simply discussing the possibility of something occurring.

I made those comments specifically in response to another comment where Bluespunk said something about it always being the case that the older man was the one who sought out the girl and initiated sex, so I questioned "what if the 14 year old girl who sought out the man and initiated sex, would it still be the case that the man sought out the girl and initiated sex?". I didn't mention criminality, responsibility or whether it changed who was "to blame". If You want to pretend that meant something different for your own bizarre reasons, I guess I can't do much to stop you. ????‍♂️

We? Why do you have a weird fixation on this being a discussion about "us Westerners". No one has said anything about any of "us" doing anything. We're discussing what Thai people do in Thailand. I guess I can see why you're so confused if your brain has centered Western people as the actors in this for some strange reason.

How so?