Aurelien

what a load of bs lol

Aka not following through with plans previously verbally made ... Be it girlfriends / dates or friends... There seem to be this tendency of 'quieltly ghosting' rather than speaking simply and directly to the person.

This one is easy to answer. Thailand is cheap, thus attracts cheap chaps. Thailand gives people a feeling of permisiveness, that they probably don't get back home. Here, everybody think they are superman. Also, for the first time in their lives, guys have options with women. That quickly goes to your head. But overtime, you realize that you weren't the promised one and that you won't become the next king of Thailand. So people stay here; stuck in limbo : they can't really go back home, and don't really want to stay in Thailand, but that's the only place that tolerates them and where they can still get laid past the age of 50.

It's the same in any 'developing' country, or countries where there's a big gap between the poor and the rich, people just want to show off their money more. Where i come from, it's almost dirty to speak about money or to show how much money you have. Here, Thais can't refrain from showing their bills (the most expensive, the better) on their IG stories. In indsight, it's ridiculous, it screams 'I want to be accepted socially by displaying my apparent wealth to everybody'. It's just showing off, but no substance.

because there's nowhere else to complain, since people don't like when you complain, and Thailand with their defamation and such make it difficult to discuss any issues. Plus when you discuss negative aspects of Thailand on the internet like Reddit, people jump at your throat.

Finally someone who gets it

Do you consider it normal to give your wife a monthly 'allowance' ?

There needs to be a middle ground between 'changing everything' and 'not changing anything'. The problem is, if you're a foreigner in Thailand, for some reason other foreigners don't allow you to have a negative opinion about Thailand or Thais, you can't critique anything you have to say 'Thailand is wonderful, nothing is bad, people are amazing etc etc'. Which is true of course, but like any place in the world, Thailand has flaws that can't be ignored once you've been living here for a few years. There is a difference between behaving like mister know it all and suggesting things. Thais don't take advice from anyone and are 'always right'. But they could benefit, sometimes, to learn from the foreigners they so dearly love.

It happened more than once that i'm being quietly 'ignored' because i'm a farang.. The other day i was at the copy shop, i entered the shop, it was quiet 3pm in the afternoon, there was 5 or 6 employees, no one looked at me. I sat down, got up again, moved a bit like if i was looking for something but nothing. I had to come up to one guy hiding behind his computer and say a very loud 'Hello' for him to acknowledge me. I sat then and observed, as soon as Thai people entered the shop, employees rush to greet them and ask them what they need. It's the same in the restaurants. Or if I'm with my gf, waiter and waitresses will always deter to her to ask my order, which make things extra complicated, i can just point the menu... It seems they are scared to speak to a farang. Anybody else notices this ? Or at the supermarket, employees will go out of their ways to help other Thais but always avoid getting into contact with the foreigner..only if they have to. And FYI i'm not the scary type, i'm a normal guy mid thirties, dressed properly, not hanging around in flip flops and singlet...

- most of them don't have a driving license hence never learned to drive properly - lack of enforcement of road safety; police checkpoints are often there to bust drug dealers or farang without helmet (in the big cities), among other things - me me me culture : me-centric culture, lack of consideration for others. - over reliance on cars / motorcycles to go anywhere; conjointly, there are too many motorized vehicles on road built too long ago and not made for such high traffic (but really this is also a global problem) - social status : having a big car an driving fast means you're rich - non confrontational culture : you'll rarely hear anyone honk at each other; if someone drives like a lunatic, other people adapt and say nothing ....

There are a lot of different reasons, and some replies are spot on. Being a musician and musicologist, I can pinpoint all the different reasons here : - Rock generally failed to reinvet itself over the years. Not much purely new forms of rock n roll have been made since the late 90s. Metal music was interesting for a while, and is still is in some aspect, but ultimately all the bands try to sound the same rather than having their own sounds. Some notable recent exceptions are to be found it bands like Polyphia or 'solo' shredder artists from the IG / Tiktok era - When rock came out, it was all new, people were blown away and never heard or seen anything like it (Jagger, Iggy, Jim Morrison...). Now it's just the music your parents or grandparents were listening to. It became safe and too common place due to rock music being used in TV advertisement, 90s onwards. - The internet and democratization of the DAWS meant that music become accessible again and that you could become a 'musician' without knowing anything about music (a bit like how Punk was at the beginning). It's easier to write a beat with 3 loops on your computer and getting people hyped about that, than it is to try to master an instrument like the guitar for years, just to end up sounding like the tens of thousands of other guitar players out there - In the same line as what I was saying earlier, the 'new' factor wore off and the accessibility and affordability to instruments is now too common place; it used to be cool to play electric guitar. Nowadays it's still cool, but not as much as before. Everybody plays an instrument now - New musical styles rose, in particular rap and EDM which are the two musical styles most popular in the West for young people (with Kpop and so on). The demographics of young white dudes who might have been into Led Zeppelin back in the day are now listening to different micro-genres of rap and electronic music while idol groups or mega pop stars fulfill young teenager girls delusions about life and relationships (Taylor Swift, Kpop boys bands etc..) - Not to be underestimated : the worldwide rose of afro-american communities and the US influence of rappers like Drake, the Weeknd, Lil Uzi, Travis Scott.... put black people music under the spotlight again. For example, a vast majority of the most popular artists in France are black French rappers while in the past, it was Gainsbourg , Ferré etc.. My prediction is that it's going to get worse in the foreseeable future. All the last big rock figures like McCartney, Neil Young, Dylan, Stones Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart etc... are going to pass away in the next 10 years or so. We will be left with 90s stars all pushing 60 or close to 70. People are going to gradually forget about all those bands. If AI really becomes the behemoth people make it to be, we might get endless new music and new hologram tours of those retired bands

In Thailand, 20 +

I'm lucky enough to have a couple of great foreigner friends here who don't fall into the alcoholic / sexpat / weirdo categories... Mostly regular guys who just enjoy living in Thailand and are respectful of the country and others. But that being said, I do avoid befriending other foreigners or expats (whatever that means) for all the reasons already cited by other members here.

i'd say most men here probably date / hang out with / marry women far more pretty or beautiful than what they could have in their home country... or the other way around, pretty Thai women can be seen dating foreigners who back home wouldn't be able to have a girl that clean... why ? I'm not sure. But that is a fact. If you like SEA women style, that is

This is absolutely right. But the opposite is true as well, Thai clercks hardly say goodbye or have a nice day (unless it's a very small business) whereas in Europe, we would profusely wish each other a nice day and such..