BangkokReady

Sure, it's clear that women can find things other than looks to be a turn on. Money, power, physical prowess/aggression, these seem to transcend physical appearance. Women even pursue powerful men. Women are obviously very different to men when it comes to attraction. Women seem to change how attractive they find a guy when they find out other things about him that make him "high status". This is rarely the case with men. If we see a woman with a plain or even unattractive guy, but the man has money, a powerful job, is very confident/dominant/violent, people accept it. It seems like the effect of the difference in age is almost unique in this regard. I think the question remains that while a twenty year old might find a forty year old attractive (for various reasons), maybe thirty and fifty, but what about forty and sixty or fifty and seventy? Will this attraction suddenly fade in a way that it wouldn't if the ages were similar as the couple ages?

That was my first thought. Maybe thinking he's going to meet a hot girl just to get him to the location? Definitely sounds like there is more to it. Don't get involved with any girl unless you're 100% sure she's single. These girls are dangerous.

My take on it is that a big part of it is consumerism. Keeping people separated and each having a single house, single car, etc., means more money is being spent. Forcing people to buy insurance, pension, etc., means that money is in the hands of the banks rather than going straight to the parents. So consumer culture is all about hyper-individualisation where people only really think about themselves and what they independently have. One thing you notice in "the West" is that living with elderly parents, or still living with your parents in your twenties, is considered something you should be embarrassed and avoid. Older people are viewed as being kind of gross/uncool and should be locked away somewhere, while young people are out partying and worrying about what their friends will think about their new kitchen when they next come round for a dinner party. I'm not saying that no "Western" people care for their elderly, and I know it's probably a bigger issue in English speaking countries, but you just don't see the three generations out together in the same numbers back home as you do in Thailand. Thailand/Asia being poorer is a factor also, with no social safety net. Young people are likely to need a lot of support from their parents until they are well into adulthood, and this means that the family has a say in what they do. In "the West" young people depend on their parents slightly less, so have a little more freedom. I don't feel there is anything wrong with it, as long as taxes stay low, but I think that both genders of children should be made to contribute. There seems to be a thing in Thailand where sometimes only the girl has to help the family and even the male child can live off the female child.

It's a website and they want people to click, which I would have done if it mentioned Thais in the headline or not.

I'm sharing my opinion just like you are yours. Your opinion is no more valid that anyone else's.

Something up with these headlines. I can't quite seem to put my finger on it... ????

It's weird. I don't particularly like Songkran, but in terms of the activities going on, even now, there are way more Thais doing this than foreigners. If the foreigners are riff-raff, then surely the Thais are too? Or is there some way that if Thais do this it's OK, but if foreigners do it they're the lowest of the low? I suspect the latter is the case in these people's heads.

I don't consider myself to be above anyone, based on race or nationality. If there is an individual whose actions I want to discuss or condemn (or even celebrate), Thai or foreign, I will do so, as is the nature of most online forums. While I would agree for more serious matters, like underage sex, rape, murder, hard drug use, drinking and driving, etc., I think something like joining in with a gang of locals on a party street throwing some water around is fine. You are entitled to disagree with that, of course. Legally, they are as culpable as the locals. Morally, I don't see anything to really object to.

I don't understand why there are any homeless in Thailand if anyone who doesn't want to work and would rather indulge in drink or drugs all day can simply become a monk. Is there a waiting list? This would be true if he wasn't pretending to be a monk so that probably fairly poor people were unknowingly funding his habit...

The locals being involved is absolutely relevant. It completely nullifies your second sentence here. Just think about what you have written for a second. It doesn't matter if the locals started it but you're wondering why the foreigners broke the rules? Seriously? If the locals are involved, if the locals took part and maybe even started and encouraged it, then it isn't foreigners putting themselves above locals in their choosing not to follow the regulations. The way your comment reads is like the foreigners came along, saw all the locals peacefully following the regulations, wearing masks, social distancing, not drinking, and then just ripped off their masks and started a water fight completely separate to the locals in the vicinity. Do you actually believe that?

And that's at 44 years of age! If I shot and killed anyone, I don't think I could face my mother or any of my family ever again.

Or, perhaps... they are members of the public? They walk among us...

Just ordinary guys. Ordinary guys involved in a violent sport linked to illegal gambling, who carry guns, and solve their problems by murdering people. Just ordinary Thai guys... ????

Very likely that this was started with/by locals. They're just trying to blame foreigners.

Seems to be an effort to highlight the presence of foreigners here... Getting ready to blame foreigners for any Songkran related covid spikes?

Anyone up for crowd-funding some writing lessons for Mr Bridge?

The Thais have been in isolation?!! Where does this guy live?

Absolutely, and I know it can be pretty hard to know if a girl is lying about the situation and using the guy solely for their money and have no feelings of emotional or physical attraction to the older foreign man. However, that wasn't actually the original question. It seems like we got a little bogged down in terms of if a girl can find a man older than her attractive, rather than what happens as both age, which was the original question. I wouldn't have asked the question if I didn't think there was a likelihood of this thing happening. The premise would basically be a twenty something might find a forty something attractive, with their being a twenty year age-gap, and the question would be what would that be like over the years. I'm afraid I cannot remember if you answered this directly, so, what do you think? Not about the if, but the what? 20-40, 30-50, 40-60, 50-70? Assuming there is physical attraction to begin with, which is perfectly possible where the man is healthy and takes care of himself, can that maintain until the end? Will she leave when he gets to 60 or 70? Will she start cheating when he gets to 50?

I saw a little brown girl with a button nose today, smoking a cigarette outside the 7/11, who I think is way better looking than most of the girls I can see in the photos above. It is was it is. ????‍♂️

How did she feel when she went back to Thailand? Did she feel like she couldn't relate to her old friends? Was she happy? Was Thailand suddenly boring to her Did she feel out of place, uncomfortable, etc.?

Well, there is apparently some research that suggests that men and women "pair bond" differently and women are less able to go from man to man without some sort of detrimental effect. Then there's also the idea that maybe men have this method of reproduction where having sex with as many women as possible leads to a higher chance of reproductive success, while women can only have one baby at a time, so perhaps they don't have this feature. There is a claim that a woman might have sex with multiple men and the shape of the penis is actually a design to scoop out the semen of other men, but I'm not sure if I buy that. I think the most important thing is that a couple are compatible and share similar values. Also, I think that in Thailand the attitude to love, sex, relationships and bodies is vastly different, so I'm not sure what holds true for Western people, generally, would be the same in the East.

Not exactly, or rather it isn't really so important what each individual IO thinks. If their bosses instructed them to be more lenient, they would be. So there is some logic to the idea of Thailand being more lenient visa wise, to allow more tourists.

What's funny is the fact that not only is Thailand super corrupt and therefore people aren't really abusing anything, but in this example the IO accepted a bribe. I dare say people will try and twist it into making the IO some kind of victim, but we know how things are. I often wonder how these people can bear to live in Thailand if they have such a problem with corruption.

Many people enter on tourist visa who are not on holiday, with full knowledge of immigration.

Are you saying you lived in Thailand for 10 years but know not a word of Thai?