Prubangboy

Doggedly not deciding is really just stealth-deciding.

My friend in Laos who wrote a big Laos Culture book got a secret vasectomy so as not to be bothered. 
 

That's stealth-deciding I can get behind.

The common denominator among the late age Dads in Roi Et is that they were really unhappy, relationship-wise, pre-Thailand and finally feel emotionally supported and useful.

Could they have gotten that kind of joy elsewhere? Who can know?

I was fine back home. I've had a lot of great love from women and can prob always be with someone high quality if I want to be. Here or there.

That's not me being more evolved or desirable than Roi Et-Dad, that's just the dumb luck of the draw of who you meet and how you  play it.

Where does the urge to merge come from? Hopefully, not a place of scarcity.

I am agog at the number of late age dads here who are happy. Partic when they came here for a good time instead.

Read their stories; are you like those guys? Me: no double-way.

As my friend dying in a dead bedroom marriage in Japan said:

"You go to bed with Suzie Wong and you wake up with Yoko Ono".

-Don't be that guy.

If she's 35 (and Thai?) the train is leaving the station for her. You'll be fired soon enough, so front load the anal now.

Other than my wife and my Sulawesi-bound friend, the world pretty much forgets I exist whenever I leave the room.

Any real judgment of me is reflexive and very short lived. People just want me to be cheery and brief. Thailand is a very good teacher of this.

Happiness never sticks around. Someone here made the point that most people have a set happiness point, like their metabolism. Any gym goer will tell you that trying to nudge your metabolism is hard work. And that when you stop, your wonky metabolism resets quickly. 

There's another good book called How To Be 10% Happier. 1 sentence summary: Just be less enamored to happiness and more accepting of the current moment.

Just now, bignok said:

I think about past gfs. What if we had a kid. You never wonder?

Had I knocked a woman up, I would have hopped a freight train like a hobo.

I've helped raise a couple, and my wife has an adult daughter -but no (thank god).

7 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Scuba diving in Sulawesi meant to be some of the best in the world

True, I'm almost tempted.

Sulawesi is also a cheap/unspoiled place for rain forest lodges and wildlife viewing of not seen elsewhere animals. There's a town with funny roofed houses where their way of life is based around elaborate funeral planning. 

Every attraction is a day's drive in between or a very fickle flight. There's enough to fill 12 days without even going to the Togean Islands. All of the islands def take some time to get to (no flights). Most people do long stays on a single island or two.

The far flung Indo islands are still very untouristed. 95% of Indo-bound tourists just go to Bali. Maybe Medan for the orangutans and Lake Toba for hippies after Medan. The rest of Indo sees few whities, partic the non-beach parts.

Not that cheap. Call it $60 for a passable room and the same again for someone to drive me around. But Borneo would cost double and Papua is too dangerous.

I'm going to Sulawesi in April. My friend describes it as Muslim Laos. 'Wouldn't mind a cruise of the little islands like Ambon either.

Youtube shows Sulawesi as some really ugly towns with low class soup restaurants. It's like less developed Sumatra, a place you drive thru spectacular scenery to samey dumps.

As far as Asian Muslims go, Indo's are my fave. If they're eating pork at every meal, they're def Allah-lite. My friend had 2 Muslim Tinder scores in Jakarta.

4 seconds of googling reveals that common law marriage is not legal in Thailand.

You feel powerless, hence this paralyzing depression. You truly are largely powerless in this situation. Much empathy to you.

9 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

 

IQ of 89 is not suitable for most things in today's world, like office work, or being a manager of a store.

 

 

I'm looking out from my 9th floor condo in Chiang Mai, and I keep failing to spot the office tower that these new brainiacs would work in.

On 11/29/2023 at 8:10 AM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

 

Put it together and both places have stuff to offer but life in Thailand can seem more fun if only for 6 months a year. 

I moved here from The Blue Ridge Mountains, USA. I had every good thing of that life: a nice house, the four seasons, living in a deep forest, organic gardening, family.

I now live in very touristic Nimman, Chiang Mai with one suitcase of possessions. I'm 1,000% happier. I just had to much of a mono-good thing in the states. I love this life where I can have every last thing when I want it, and have people cleaning, laundering, driving me for peanuts.

To be in a place where most people you meet are either blissed out on vacation or restarting their life gives me a huge lift -partic. after being stuck in a town that was literally dying. 20% of my county RIP from Covid. Crazy ranting at me for wearing a mask in Walmart.

They're now all in a grave; I feel like I was dug up from one.

I liked, but didn't love Hua Hin.

Cha Am would be my next kill a week at a low key beach-place. 3K would be the top end there.

As long as I'm here, Motown Christmas Album and the James Brown Christmas record def get a yearly spin.

Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson are good too. For deep trad, there's the Christmas godfather, Andy Williams.

Chris Rea -unknown in the states at likewise unknown Nick Drake-levels. If people heard him, they'd love him.

A Drink With Shane McGowan pops up in used bookstores in Thailand. Super-fun read.

I prefer his drunken interviews to his records, but it's all good. Saw him, the band was terrible, but he held the audience in the palm of his hand Ala Rod The Mod.

-Def a loss, poss at the Tom Waits/Nick Cave-level.

Been 6 times, including twice for meditation. Prob the best vipassana teachers in the world. U Pandita literally wrote the book. Hard to spend $5 a day on that plan.

Go to the market first and get a plastic chair with a back on it and a pillow; the local meditators will all be sitting on bare concrete with perfect posture. For 10 hours a day.

Net impression: very depressing, very compelling. Would love to see the Himalayan section, even tho it's a very gov-vetted tourist theme park. The beachy southern part is very unspoiled.

Food: Lovely -once you're in Thailand again. Except for the airport, I never had a passable local meal in Myanmar.

In Chiang Mai, there are at least five 4* Myanmar restaurants within a 5 minute cab ride or even walking. Rangoon Food House is lovely and near the airport. Burmese Swan just south of the Old City is the best.

Always a lot of pride taken in Myanmar places here with nice decor, lots of plants, English-speaking staff.

I do the gym in the AM, research of various stuff in the afternoon at the co-work space across the street (bond funds lately, Thai language private classes next). Then I read a bit of SEA cultural stuff, and order dinner in around six, 5 nights out of 7. 

A bit of Netflix (Squid Game meets minimum standards) after sushi/Pad Thai/Indian, then bed around ten. In between those bits, it's wife-time, meditation, maybe peak in here and Hotmail. I like Daily Beast, Slate, and NYMag for a news-graze.

Porn? I used to like Literotica, but it went all Femme Dom. I tried to imagine that it was a guy rodgering a girl instead, but it was too much work. And they kept dressing the guy up as a woman, which I just couldn't think myself around. Reading Gay porn works better for sex-reversing.

But at that point, I may as well just think something up myself. Or review my greatest sex hits, many of them even occurring within the last quarter of a century.

I went out with a woman who asked me what I thought about Astrology - she later revealed she did so to determine my open-mindedness and propensity to judgmentally lecture (In woke-speak: Mansplain).

Had I tish-toshed her belief in scorpions in metaphysical heaven somehow predicting my every move, I'd have been toast.

But I love me a nutter. I asked her about the kind of Astrology she liked, how it was diff from the other kinds, and then we talked a bit about astrology in art. As my Dad taught me, people are a show without a ticket price. Milk them for whatever entertainment you can.

People who want you to jump through hoops from the get-go do not get any less contentious as time drags on.

OTOH, nutters are hotter in bed (in the short run). So unlike perpetually furrowed browed-Ron, I'm more along the line of take that nuts-ball and run with it. If a woman is nuts AND into me, she's just gone up a letter grade.