Dating From Your Own Pool

[eek]

These threads always make me cringe...............

I probably have the whitest girlfriend around, she's albino. Oh and she is the daughter of the Chief of all the Police in Thailand, and her brother is the head of all the Immigration offices in Thailand, and she has 3 Degrees one from Harvard, one From Yale and one From Oxford University..what else, oh yeah, she supports me as I have no money but she don't care cos she loves me.

Beat that!

Im suprised you feel able to admit this. Maybe you should consider supporting yourself?

[ratchabuild]

What is your purpose for posting all this bullshit?

Iannarebirth, I often wonder why people post such stupidity myself, then I read some of my own posts and wonder why I also post such rubbish.

Just speculation and an educated guess. I think your helmet is too tight for your head.

[canadiangirl]

I know of three highly qualified expats in high profile career positions who have married Thai women from 'The Water Trade' only to find what Valjean says above is a huge issue. Moving into each other's life is not easy if you are not 'equipped' by education and upbringing to do so.

And its not just about career and social image - Marriage and relationships are also about having and raising children. Since we are in the main part talking about Foreign men marrying Thai women we might be mindful of something Ghandi said 'When you educate a woman you educate a family' - The corollary is also true –often tragically so.

You bring up a very important point. Social class isn't about who is a good person/bad person -- there are good and bad people at each level of society. It's also not about money, although money plays a part in it. Social class is about values and expectations around things like money, education and family.

An interesting way to view the classes is according to time. The timeline of the poorest class is now: because that's all they can afford. Life is more immediate to them, and people are more important than things, because, well, they don't have a lot of things. The middle-class is thinking in terms of one generation or two: putting the kids through school, saving for retirement, taking care of older parents, buying insurance. The timelines of the true upper class is long: much of their wealth and possessions are inherited from the past, and will be passed on to their children. Tradition is important, again a nod to long timelines: children will go to the same schools as their parents and grandparents, families will vacation in places they have owned for generations.

You can give someone money, or take away all their money, but values are much slower to change. There is class mobility, but IMHO, it's a lot less than people think, because all of these values and ideas manifest themselves in tiny cues and nods that those on the inside recognize or reject.

[GuestHouse]

Canadagirl, you are correct, social class is very much more about aspirations and values than it is wealth.

It is very common for a family to move out of poverty into wealth and back into poverty again (rags to riches to rags in three generations), the reason this happens is the failure transfer values - such as 'the work ethic'.

Many people in this thread get emotional about 'social class', perhaps because they have been on the receiving end of class predjudice, but to say that social class works only to exclude (while perhaps an individual's own experience) is an over simplification.

Social class distinctions exist, there is no denying that they do - Putting asside small numbers of people who have broken the class barriers they faced in life it remains that the vast majority of people will maitain the values and expectations of their social class - And importantly pass them to their children.

Add to that the knowledge that it is women who do almost all the raising of children and hence almost entirely mothers who pass values and expectations to children; then it becomes clear that the social class of a man's wife may not matter to the man himself - but it will have a huge impact on the life experiences and choices of any children they have.

[rychrde]

Canadagirl, you are correct, social class is very much more about aspirations and values than it is wealth.

Yep, that's what I said before. The wealth may buy you into institutions that hold those aspirations dear, or, if you are lucky, you can buy yourself into the self same places by being the kind of person they seek, whatever the background. this is important, world-class institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton etc, don't give a shit where you come from - they have lots of soft places for rich-kids - they want you to be good at what you do!

I and my friends come from a generation where we now realize how lucky we really were that we were able to get a world-class education in the UK without having to worry about the aftermath. Those days are sadly gone for current students.

Class is about attitude and power - either of the two can get you 'in'.

One of the things I don't quite understand about Thailand is how they let Taksin in power for so long without somehow bringing him into the 'establishment'. This is one thing the UK is very good at - the billionaire mavericks tend to be co-opted into the system without a great deal of public fuss.

rych

[siamamerican]

"Pool" is a good word to use since many of the Falang men in Thailand qualify as pond life. Many supposed "liberated" guys who date poor uneducated women and tell us how freethinking they are do it because they are themselves sad, poorly educated losers or on the rebound from some european woman and think they can intimidate a poorly educated Thai woman from a humble background. Or else they are control freaks or insecure and afraid of a real partnership. Of course its never described as intimidation....just keeping them on pocket money, hiding their assets, making no attempt to learn Thai or encouraging their partner to shoot higher than a cleaning job. How you can have a real relationship without communicating properly is beyond me. How you can have a real relationship when you have completely diferent perspectives, educations and outlooks is beyond me. I guess so many relationship work because

a Girl has no other choice

b Man keeps her on a tight financial reign.

d man has such low expectations as regular sex and food

d Friendship is for friends not partner

e Thai women have such low expectaions of falang men (justifiably)

If I had a baht for everytime a Falang guy has told me how to manage a thai woman, keep her poor and badly informed, still have lots of sex on the side "Thai women are used to men going to brothels its part of their culture" and how happy their wife is.....hahahahaha. I would be as rich as Thaksin.

Too true, it makes me cringe when I listen to Thai / Western couples who communicate on the lowest level of understanding because she can't speak more than basic English and he can't be bothered or is not capable of learning more than a few basic Thai words. Dating by class is not so much an issue but dating someone you can't communicate with, what's the point?

Agree that many Falang qualify as pond life, but many others are just having a good time.

When I lived in LOS, I dated girls often that were poorer and lacked a comparable education. Communication was a challenge, but almost without exception, I had no regrets. Eventually I met a woman that I fell in love and after dating for a couple years, married. She doesn't have a college education, definitely didn't have much money, and her skin is dark. She now has money, speaks fluent English, and her skin is even darker.

Am I a loser? I have a biased opinion, but I think not.

I dated women in America and most the relationships I enjoyed and they ended well. Dating in LOS was easier and not as consuming as America. I enjoyed the freedom! Yes, I did I take advantage of my status, but I also treated Thai women with respect.

The social class of the women I dated in LOS wasn't an issue, having a good time was. If I listen to a couple struggling to communicate, I try not to be too judgmental. If I knew they had been a couple for a while, I might think it was a little odd.

[November Rain]

ratchabuild,

it sounds like you spend to much time around lousy cheating farang. i will never ever cheat on my wife. I am guessing you work at one of the lower language schools in thailand. i work at one of the more professinal language schools and those guys dont go around to the bars and act the way you describe. keep better company mate. i am telling you because i am with a thai-chinese white skinned girl.

What do you do there? Are you the janitor? I'm sure they don't employ you to actually teach with your inability to use upper-case letters, or to punctuate appropriately, or even spell 'professional'.

I don't usually pick on language abilities in posts, but SS, you really were asking for it in this post. Deriding one guy for working at a "lower" school, when you demonstrate such poor abilities yourself... Classic!

Oh, BTW - congrats on that thai-chinese white skinned girl who loans you money & puts up with your - ahem - measurements! I'm sure everyone on here is very jealous!

What's in it for her? (I really don't think it's the "measurement" )

[kankaroo]

Dated a "Hi-So" bird from BKK once and was the worst thing ever. She thought she was better than me, only wore designer clothes, frowned upon my drinking, ignored me on purpose in company (hers) and generally treated me like a toy.

Why did I stay with her you might ask (for the whole 2 weeks) ? Well why do you think. She was mad for it and beautiful to boot. She also loved showing how superior she was and paid for almost everything

Now before people start screaming keenok and all sorts at me you have to see my side if it. She said the sex was better than she had ever had with a Thai dude and she was basically using me. Either for sex or as a trophy to be escorted around various expensive malls.

Best experience was when I stayed over at her parents house, did something naughty on their couch and left "evidence" there for them to find the next day LOL. Then I cleared out her fridge of all the booze and got in a taxi home (which I made her pay for)

Am I bad ?

[GuestHouse]

Kangaroo, that's a nice bit of one handed typing.

You obviously get a lot of practice.

[canadiangirl]

Oh, BTW - congrats on that thai-chinese white skinned girl who loans you money & puts up with your - ahem - measurements! I'm sure everyone on here is very jealous!

What's in it for her? (I really don't think it's the "measurement" )

Hey November Rain,

Rich girls go slumming too!

[Jersey_UK]

Timeline? I like that - will try and tuck it away for future reference.

Reminds me of the late (great) Alan Clarke's put down of Michael Heseltine "he bought his own furniture"

Edited August 13, 2007 by Jersey_UK

[canadiangirl]

Yep, that's what I said before. The wealth may buy you into institutions that hold those aspirations dear, or, if you are lucky, you can buy yourself into the self same places by being the kind of person they seek, whatever the background. this is important, world-class institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton etc, don't give a shit where you come from - they have lots of soft places for rich-kids - they want you to be good at what you do!

I and my friends come from a generation where we now realize how lucky we really were that we were able to get a world-class education in the UK without having to worry about the aftermath. Those days are sadly gone for current students.

Class is about attitude and power - either of the two can get you 'in'.

These are some very interesting comments, rychrde.

I don't know too much about the class system in Europe/UK, but here in NA, one of the main ways it is transmitted and maintained is through the education system. I agree that there are always scholarships to elite institutions like Princeton and Harvard, where a bright but poor student might rise above her origins (and I've know people for which this is true), but what these scholarships hide is the fact that it much harder for a poor student to get access to the kind of primary school/high school education that would make her a candidate for these scholarships. This system works best, IMHO, for immigrants who arrive very poor to NA, but come from cultures that value education, where parents are prepared to pour everything they have into a better future for their children.

I don't think this really changes the class system very much, though, just ensures that the best minds can be absorbed into the ruling class so business can go on as usual.

[canadiangirl]

Timeline? I like that - will try and tuck it away for future reference.

Reminds me of the late (great) Alan Clarke's put down of Michael Heseltine "he bought his own furniture"

Hahaha. Good one!

Miss Manners can be a rather entertaining commentator on class issues. On old money vs. new money: "America: where people who made their money yesterday look down on those who made it today."