BangkokReady

The truth of what actually happened matters a great deal. To most people anyway.

What are you talking about? If you choose to live in Thailand you have automatically accepted that you will participate in Songkran? If you don't want to be soaked with water, don't come and live in Thailand? I disagree. Simply living in Thailand does not mean you have to be soaked with water.

One of the problems with driving at a speed and in a style where the vehicle is constantly only just within your control. Not unusual to see trucks burning away whenever they get the chance and maintaining a dangerously high speed most of the time. All it takes is a loss of traction or an unexpected change of lanes...

Perhaps it's easier to simply say it's religious, as less people are likely to argue. They probably just didn't want animals <deleted>ting and pissing everywhere and possibly attacking children. Seems fairly sensible.

What I mean is, Thai women can enjoy spending time with older men, but it doesn't mean they will find them sexually attractive. It also doesn't mean they won't either. One thing I have noticed is that you will see incredibly beautiful women with incredibly ugly men, even in the same age group. Literally, big fat body, fat ugly face, stunning girlfriend. There's obviously a difference between men and women when it comes to sexual attraction. I think the objection to age-gaps thing is generally a kind of rationalisation of an irrational disgust/deviance response. Obviously an older man is not going to be around for long to raise children and may not have the energy to be particularly active, or someone may just have been conditioned to think that it is wrong. so there's kind of a "I feel that this is not good" automatic response which people then rationalise and verbalise. Even though their reasons given are quite illogical, especially where both parties are adults. If both parties are happy with the gap, have accepted that the older partner will become elderly and die long before the younger partner does, and feel that they are better off with that person than without them, there is no real harm in it. Some people always feel the need to criticise and try to make out that the younger partner is being exploited or coerced. Which is, again, likely just a rationalisation of a feeling they get, not based on actual facts or logic. They just aren't happy with the situation, probably because it makes them feel bad in some way. But anyway, I'm sure the age-gap thing has been done to death here many times over. Older men will always find much younger women attractive, some younger women will always want to be with older men, and some people will always have an issue with that, probably due to their own shortcomings. ????‍♂️ Doesn't really amount to much in the grand scheme of things. I think it's sad if people miss out on happiness because a few people take issue with age-gap relationships.

Platonically speaking, that is in a non-sexual, non-romantic way, Thailand appears to have a culture where young people are not disgusted by older people generally. I can imagine a young Thai woman being happy to spend time with an older man who is kind, charming, funny, etc., and probably being slim, clean and nicely dressed helps. Sex might be a different issue though.

No. Not all foreigners have that choice.

Don't blame me. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There are Thai women who work in low-wage jobs and aren't prostitutes, so your logic of women being forced into prostitution due to low wages simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Plenty of people use "girl" to describe females up to the age of probably 30. Maybe older depending on the person. You must know this, so it appears you're just trolling.

What are you talking about? There are huge numbers of Thai women who choose to work jobs that pay low wages. Businesses advertising for workers is not evidence of women not being able to get by on low wages and being forced into prostitution. While women working in low wage jobs and not opting to be prostitutes is evidence that they can and do get by on these wages. Just go to a 7/11, café, supermarket, market, factory pick up point, literally anywhere, you will encounter hundreds or thousands of women working low-wage jobs and not being prostitutes. Even if every woman in Pattaya chooses to be a prostitute over a job in a factory, that isn't evidence that they have to do that. It only proves that they do that. Rubbish. Plenty of people work these low wage jobs and get by just fine. There are probably more women working these low-wage jobs than being prostitutes. There is a very different attitude towards prostitution in Thailand than in our home countries. Many women could even get better than average jobs but choose to become prostitutes. I'm not sure why you cannot understand this.

My point is that the fact that many women choose to work very low paying jobs and do not turn to prostitution refute this. Not innate, but there's certainly a cultural element in the higher rate of sex for money in Thailand.

Would my hypothetical "home country" have the cost of living that Thailand does? Plenty of people in Thailand manage to get by without being prostitutes.

Did I say that?

It does seem like a lot of the time here things that we would call abuse, trauma or neglect, people just call normal. It's actually kind of sad.

A lot of people are in denial over the state of employment in Thailand and pretend that any prostitute is only doing it because they have no other choice. This allows them to label the girl as an innocent victim and the John an evil predator, so they can excuse the behaviour of a Thai and demonise the behaviour of a foreigner. A double whammy.

So it should be ignored because he's left-wing?

I didn't see any of those, but it seems perfectly logical. What I'm talking about is something like "global warming slowed by X% during the pandemic, due to decreased emissions".

Does anyone know when the data is going to be released from the effect covid had on all this? The complete shut down for two years must have had some effect on emissions, which must have altered the warming in some way.

Toilet paper (for drying) is ALWAYS spotless afterwards - you're doing it wrong! Drying or wiping your anus as you would when using only toilet paper?

Why would you have more respect for an older person going out than one staying in? If both are doing what they want and are happy, why is one more worthy of respect? Should an older person who would rather be relaxing at home go out and party just to defy some sort of stereotype? You sound like you maybe have a few issues around your age and being seen as too old to party with the younger people. I suggest you try to worry less about what other people think of you and simply do whatever makes you happy. I thought one of the best things about getting older was the fact that you didn't have this anxiety around wanting other people to think you're cool and just being able to do what makes you happy. If you want to go out and party with younger people, go and do it. But I don't think any older person (or younger person for that matter) who would rather stay in than go out and party is deserving of any kind of criticism for doing what makes them happy.

Or fall in a puddle...

It's inconvenient, but it's kind of just a quirk of Thailand. I don't see any reason to get upset about it, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with people sharing their opinions on some of the more negative aspects of it. ????‍♂️

Absolutely, if you have that choice. Many foreigners and Thais living in Thailand do not.

Not all foreigners have a choice, nor do Thais who don't want to be soaked while they go about their daily business. Songkran happens all over Thailand. It is not isolated to Pattaya.

"The defiant will be punished for their actions!" Wow! You're so chilled out, positive and in harmony with nature!