Kyoto Kyle

Oh look, @Harrisfan ran away. How saddening. I thought we're getting on really bigly. Oh, well, bye for now.

Please share a map pin. Well noted. Not like yours of course.

Well, I do. Don't you?

I already confessed it's 0. Can you help me improve?

Thank you. I hope that's a good thing?

I'm shy to admit that I haven't been with any. Would you care to be my first?

So the idea is come to Thailand for the foreign food rather than the Thai food?

Why do that when you can ask AI, right?

Oh, another Trump topic. I'm so excited.

Did AI tell you that too?

Why not invite him for a beer and a curry as well? He would likely be very keen. Then you would have another new friend.

That sounds exciting. Will you live-stream your meetup for us on this site?

Based on the fact that any time of day that I log in to this site you are online and posting constantly, it appears that this forum is not only your real life, but perhaps your only life.

You are not racist simply for feeling more comfortable around people who look like you. Comfort and familiarity are normal human instincts. It becomes a problem only if you believe others are inferior or you treat them poorly because of how they look. You are also not automatically sexist for being attracted to a certain kind of femininity. Attraction is personal. Many of the women I often find attractive might not appeal to someone else, and that is fine. It becomes an issue only if you believe women should behave a certain way or deserve less respect if they do not fit your preference. Smoking and drinking do not make someone a social outcast. They are health related choices. What matters most is whether your use of substances harms yourself or the people around you. If you feel out of sync with the world, focus on treating people as individuals. Stay curious and open. That alone can help you feel more grounded and at ease in the world.

I travel quite often for pleasure. No issues there. How about yourself?

I think that very much depends on the individual. I'm not sure how much the amount of excitement people have in life is tied to a number. Some people's lives might be more exciting after 60 if they were working an unfulfilling job up until that point and then suddenly now have more time and resources to do things they enjoy. Thus, I think it's very hard to generalize.

People talk a lot about how great Thailand is to live in. And they are not wrong, despite some of the points I raised in my other post about the risks and challenges of physically aging in a foreign country. But let’s face it, life is easier here in ways that are hard to explain to someone who has never done it. Daily friction is low. Great and easy food is everywhere. Costs are very manageable. You can live quietly. Nobody bothers you. People usually respect privacy. You can structure your days how you want. For many people it feels like Thailand allows them to escape a more restrictive system elsewhere that has higher costs, more bureaucracy and was slowly squeezing the joy out of life. The good parts about Thailand are obvious though. Everyone knows this. That is why people come. What feels less talked about sometimes is what happens after ten years in country. Or fifteen. Or even twenty and beyond. Not when things go wrong. Just when things stop developing in ways that make the place still feel new and as fulfilling. When your life here works. You are settled. Your health is stable. You know the routines. You have your visa and finances sorted. Your favorite places. Friends. Your habits. A good lifestyle overall and yet something subtle shifts. Not dissatisfaction exactly. More like neutrality or indifference. I am curious how people experience things when that phase eventually hits. Do you still feel like you are choosing Thailand every day or does it simply feel like the place you ended up because it stopped demanding much from you. Complacency. There is a kind of comfort here that can slowly replace intention. Life becomes smooth enough that you stop questioning it. You are free. Left alone. Unbothered. For some people that was always the main goal and they never tire of it. For others it creates a strange dilemma. Everything is fine, yet the excitement and enthusiasm is gone. And once that happens, what is the right response. Of course not everyone arrived here the same way though. Some people came very deliberately and still feel aligned with that choice. Others came for work and stayed because life became very convenient. Some ended up here through relationships, family obligations, or financial constraints. And some remain because it is simply the least path of resistance, even though they would not choose Thailand again if they were doing things all over again from scratch. Those differences matter. Neutrality feels very different if you once chased the dream versus if you simply adapted to where life placed you. Some people swear by inserting some distance. They leave for weeks or months every year as part of a routine. Not because they dislike Thailand, but because staying too long makes anywhere feel flat. Travel resets the contrast and the small pleasures return. Others say that is just managing decline. That once you need to escape regularly to enjoy a place again, it might already be time to move on. Not out of anger or disappointment, but out of honesty. Then there is the question of how deeply you tie yourself to the place. Many long term residents seem happiest when they keep a certain emotional distance from local life. They live here but do not fully attach. They enjoy what works and accept that the larger issues are not theirs to solve. Law, politics, systems, the economy, border disputes, etc. Staying slightly outside the frame often keeps the weight of life lighter. But that raises another question. If you remain an outsider forever, are you still living somewhere or simply passing time in a comfortable location like a permanent tourist rather than an integrated resident. So I am genuinely interested how other people see this after many years. Do you still feel engaged with life here or are you simply well adapted to it. When a place stops exciting you but continues to work, is that success or stagnation. At what point does staying here reflect contentment and at what point does it reflect inertia. And how does one even tell the difference.

Something I wonder about is this. And this is just a hypothetical, but if someone is a foreigner (not a Thai citizen) in Thailand has no medical insurance and the hospital is aware that the person is say a tourist or a retired pensioner on a small retirement income and has no real cash saved or assets in Thailand and suffers a heart attack, what actually happens? If it is a medical emergency, the person would likely be taken to an emergency room and their life would be saved. Most likely this would be at a government hospital and no questions would be asked at the time. But now assume that while doctors are saving the person’s life, they discover that the patient also needs emergency heart surgery within the next two or three days or the person could die. If the patient has no medical insurance and no ability to pay for the life saving surgery, what happens next in Thailand? Would the hospital still perform the surgery even if there is no prospect or guarantee that the bill will ever be ever be paid either in part or at all? Now assume the same exact scenario happens in the United States. Most likely the hospital would still perform the surgery rather than let the person die. Afterward, the patient would be hit with a massive bill and the hospital would try to collect later through legal means, possibly forcing the person to sell assets or face long term debt. I actually know someone this happened to in the United States. They had a heart attack and had no health insurance, but their life was saved in the hospital, and when they woke up they were presented with a bill of something like one million dollars. The person had no money and no assets to pay it. They walked out of the hospital and never paid anything. I am not sure if the hospital ever pursued it further, but I don't think the hospital ever collected anything from the person.

Politics does play a role, particularly because political decisions shape economic outcomes over time. While the effects may not always be immediate or obvious for foreign retirees, Thailand is falling behind other Southeast Asian countries and is projected to drop from the second largest economy in the region to the fifth within the next four to five years and will fall behind Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and possibly others. This trend is largely driven by prolonged political stagnation and government policies that are not focused on encouraging economic growth or expanding the middle class. Although foreign retirees may not feel a direct impact right away, long term economic under performance eventually places strain on infrastructure, public services, healthcare quality, and overall cost of living. Through this broader trickle down effect, political and economic stagnation can influence quality of life for foreign residents as well as locals. The 10 minute video below from Bloomberg, which includes commentary from local Thai journalists, addresses many of these issues and explains the fundamental structural problems, which sadly seem unlikely to change in any meaningful way in the near term, regardless of political changes that may begin to occur in the short term.

Thank you everyone for all of your good feedback. All interesting food for thought.

This is a genuine question and not an attack on anyone who already lives here or loves it. But is Thailand really a smart place to spend the last third of your life? Thailand gets talked about nonstop as a dream retirement destination. Cheap living. Easy food. Beaches. Warm weather. Services available for just about anything. Basically a soft landing for men with a bit of cash who are tired of the West and want an easier daily life. But the older I get the more I wonder if people are only looking at the upside and ignoring the stuff that actually matters once your body is no longer forgiving. When you are young or even middle aged you can shrug things off. Heat is annoying but manageable. Air pollution is just a bad month or three. Traffic is chaotic but you stay alert. Medical costs are hypothetical. That changes later on. A few things I keep coming back to. Thailand consistently ranks at or near the top globally for road deaths. As reflexes slow and eyesight fades, is this really the environment you want to be navigating daily? Air pollution is not just an inconvenience. For older lungs and hearts it can mean chronic breathing issues or worse. Burning season is not a meme when you are seventy. Heat tolerance drops as you age. Long humid days that feel merely uncomfortable at fifty can become exhausting and dangerous later on. Private hospitals are excellent but also brutally expensive if you do not have top tier international insurance. Public hospitals are another story and not always reassuring for complex age related care. Social safety nets are thin. If things go wrong financially or medically, you are largely on your own in a foreign system as a second class citizen. Long term care is rarely discussed. Assisted living, dementia care, and end of life support are not cheap or straightforward here. None of this means Thailand is bad. It clearly works very well for a lot of people right now. The question is whether it still works when you are no longer mobile, independent, or resilient. When the margin for error shrinks. Is Thailand really a place to grow old in or is it a place that works best only while you are still healthy enough to enjoy the advantages?

Agree. Thank you. That was exactly my point.

What many people fail to see is that even in business, sometimes giving the person you are working with a small gift, meaning a kind and thoughtful gesture, can go the extra mile and encourage them to do the same for you. It is not required or necessary, but it personalizes the situation and may lead the other person to remember you for your kindness and possibly treat you a bit better than other customers, especially in a business setting where there is very deep personal contact, literally.

I was asking for a friend. 😊

Here is a subject I have been considering. Suppose you regularly visit a girl whose company you pay for, just an hour here and there whenever you feel like it. And each time you see her you bring a small gift. Something inexpensive. Nothing excessive. Maybe a bit of food she likes, a nice beverage, or a small cosmetic item. These are minor things that cost very little and are hardly extravagant. More like a small extra tip in a way. But it is not the value of the item, it is the act of being thoughtful and bringing something at all. A lot of people will say this is a mistake. That women in this situation do not value generosity. That if you give them anything at all they just see you as a sucker or a pushover. And maybe that is true. But the only real risk is that she might start asking for more, assuming the well is deep. But that is easy to manage. You can say no or simply ignore the request. The risk stops there. But that is not really the question. Even if she does see you that way, no matter how big or how small the gift, does it actually matter? If bringing her something she enjoys puts a genuine smile on her face for a moment, is that not already the point. And if you get joy out of seeing her smile, is that not a win for both of you. How she might label you in her head during that small human exchange is probably irrelevant. We often judge these situations entirely from the outside. From pride. From ego. From fear of being played. But on a purely philosophical level the question is simple. If the cost is low, the intention is kind, and the outcome is a brief moment of happiness for both parties, then does being seen as a sucker actually matter?