How to end up dead in Thailand:
- acting like Tony Montana IRL
- bragging about big money IRL
- marrying a hooker (20+ years younger) and investing 5+ figures here right after marrying her
- be a woman and acting like a man (hitchhiking alone, take taxis alone at night, wasted and alone in the street)

6 years in Phuket, Thailand, 5 years in same place.
Not a single problem and have a Thai friends who will always help / invite me to drinks and BBQ's / trips together, without expecting anything in return.
Too lazy to write about all the good experiences here with regular Thai people, who have been born and lived their whole lives in Phuket and who have come to Phuket from South or Isaan for work.

If you are like lol69 or have seen texts from guy who is living on 200$ a month in Thailand then maybe it is different story and you would not make too many friends, but that is not the fault of Thailand.

edit: probably they all are just playing long game and on Monday mornings scrolling through stars lobbies to see if there have been some bink and it is time to finally suicide me

There is truth to what ILIA says, but;

Expats seem to get upset when they get ignored at a meal, not invited to Thai drinks, or a dirty look by some 100/baht a day worker, but I feel there isn’t the malice often described. If I had a Thai friend over in Ireland, it’s likely he would feel alienated and left out of some conversations, hell if I had an American friend over he would likely struggle with the differences in craic/slang, and feel like he doesn’t belong, is that xenophobia?

Older guys(don’t know ILIA’s age) tend to get more upset by this than the younger guys, few go through productive measures to lessen the feeling like learning the language, instead over time they feel increasingly jaded, and likely compounds with a worsening attitude and therefore a worse reception, and spirals to the point were they feel they can’t get their morning latte in the same place out of fear of being caught up in some mafia plot.

In regards to the 100bht workers hating you, I used to work a minimum wage job and had a deep disdain for pretty much anyone who came into the store, combine the Thai heat and lack of education and I assume he pretty much just hates everyone.

PT’s rules for living in Thai(6 years):

1. If you get into fights or conflicts easily in the western world, don’t come.
2. Don’t be fooled by a cute face or mistake knowing 100 words of the same language as innocence, if you choose to date a hooker, expect a similar experience if you chose to do so at home.
3. Don’t open a business in a third world country.
4. If you want to be included, learn the language and the culture(no idea why someone would really want this, you’ll learn nothing important from a Thai, and their humour is ******ed, but loneliness does strange things to a man.)

Having lived in Thailand for years on and of this is overwhelmingly my experience too. It's not that complicated, don't be a dick and life is fine. Or, you know, leave if you hate it so much.

That's not true, I regularly get stabbed in the Starbucks while I'm just minding my own business.

You nailed it sir.

I've been living in LOS for about 13 years. In the first year I opened a business which made zero money and I had to close after 6 months. Lesson learned and only a few thousand dollars lost.

I tried to make Thai friends in the first couple years but it always ended badly...they always seemed to have alternative motives, they had a business deal for me and or wanted something from me. Now I have no interest in getting to know any Thai who isn't part of my immediate family.

I learned enough Thai to do basic business on the street and nothing more. I have no interest in leaning more Thai. The last thing I want to do is know enough Thai to be drawn into a long boring conversation with a Thai. This way I can live in blissful ignorance and not have to talk to anyone.

I also have no interest in getting to know any westerners. There are a lot of dodgy kunce who live in Thailand...I've met a few, no more thanks.

I married a Thai and she's a good woman, I got lucky. It helps to have a Thai wife as I can be isolated from the daily grind of Thai life and she can do the talking when it comes to household business etc.

I've watched a few foreigners come to Thailand, catch the "Thai Fever", marry a bar girl, sink all their money into a house and a bar, lose all their money, lose their bar, lose the girl, lose the house, go back to their home country with their tail between their legs. Thailand chews up and spits out the dimwitted and foolhardy foreigners. I've even tried to give advice on a few occasions, was told to mind my own business, so now I just watch with bemusement.

I'm curious as to what countries ILIA finds enjoyable

Yes indeed...

I do agree to a certain extent with some of the stuff you're saying, but most of what you say is rather extreme.

If you are not willing to share your story (aside from someone in 7-11 having a go at you), that's totally fine. However, I feel like everyone would agree that you've 'said your piece' a hundred times over.

Appreciate your opinions and will continue to live sensibly, but the constant extreme negativity is a little yawn. If you're trying to be altruistic and 'save' people I get it, but maybe tone it down or save it for 'real-world' examples so people take you more seriously. If you cut your posts down to 10% it would be more effective. Cheers and gl

a thai girl smashed his laptop after he was rude to her and then he hit her and then she had her brothers' friends jump him in an alleyway

Cucked

I've lived in Thailand since 2009 and never experienced any of those things either. Strange. Maybe Im just super lucky. Or maybe Im just not a douche.

Super lucky

lived in patts the last few years. the difference of tourist places and day to day places for thai people are night and day. never had any problems, even stumbling home drunk on more than one occasion. Had a mate who fell in love with a working girl early on and it ended bad(of course). Thankfully that taught me to avoid any attachment to a working girl, no matter how good a girl is in bed lol.

The most "dangerous" thing is dealing with police imo. You as a farang have no rights, and are always in the wrong. When i first visited Thailand they were extremely openly corrupt, but it was a good thing for a farang as I could always afford whatever bribe they wanted so didn't have to worry. Now many police have gotten too greedy, and/or deny taking bribes to get more money ldo.

I was just watching gingerpoker on youtube and how he ran back home after false drug possession charges. The pot was his roommates, and they got extremely lucky that the roommate was able to dispose of 90% of the pot before the cops found it...

The reason why people have such varied experiences in Thailand is because different people have different backgrounds, resources, expectations.

I do not understand the hate for the older guys who find some young farm girl in Thailand. Actually, I think moving to Thailand makes the most sense to them. They are doing what they normally can't back home, good for them. It's actually a step up. In contrast, many of the young guys I know that moved to Thailand basically seem stuck with no exit strategy or life plan. They are happy with cheap rent, but life wise and future potential wise, it's a huge step down.

Rules for most of the world can be summarized as follows:

If you are not running businesses at home, you probably won't (successfully) running businesses in Thailand. If you don't bang very desirable girls at home, you probably won't bang very desirable girls in Thailand. Etc.

Sure, things are a little different. And occasionally, people can do better than at home. English "teachers" are actually a great example of this - it's much better than some crap factory job back in the USA.

But for most people, it's not a huge step up and it's usually a small step down. It's a huge step down when you consider long term career earning potential, finding a wife that can stand on her own instead of mooching off of you all her life, eligibility for social security/retirement benefits, ability to determine your long term housing cost via property ownership, etc. People start thinking about this as they get older and it's no surprise that so many make the jump from their balcony as each additional year their expenses increase, their earning potential decrease, and their options decrease.

I agree with dc_publius and especially with what purrretrog said in that quote.

i don't know about those English teachers though. Theyre considered to be straight up losers/failures from the west in Asia. You will have better status in society as factory worker in the west than English teacher in Asia and Asian people can be sometimes very honest about this or how would i say it lol, i mean its Asia.

"expect a similar experience if you chose to do so at home."

Yes, generally true, but the whole point of moving to Thailand is so that you can leverage the difference.

Some obvious ways are build up savings in home country, which then will go much further in Thailand. This is why it makes sense for those that are older to be here, and the younger ones are losing out in opportunities in their home country.

Or able to work remotely in IT related jobs that pays western rates. For example, a sr software developer here makes about 900k baht/year. But if you can work remotely for US firm, you'll make at least 3m baht/ year.

Or play poker online ldo.

Another huge difference is in dating, if you're a guy that have money, you go up in the dating food chain. Again, you just need to have more money relative to Thai population not relative to your home country.

So if you have 100k usd savings or make a good living online, and can afford a 50k baht condo, you can have quite a dream life here that would be impossible for you in home country.

Most higher class thai women in Bangkok (as in locally born) are extremely predatory and will use the local advantage (language + connections + strong bias in their advantage) to get one up over you.

It's a predatory ghetto mentality with a veneer of respectability. They have no interest in you beyond money they can extract from you unless you're their age, speak fluent thai, have dozens of higher class local friends and are well integrated (I can count those guys on one hand).

If you live in a very fancy place and live the high life especially in these times you make yourself a target.

Totally different from a decade ago where people stuck to their lane just like with the US falling apart right now.

I never really had this white god experience in Asia. Asia is amazing as i like the culture, weather, timezone etc., but life in Europe isn't that much different, but im young and came to TH in 2015. You guys have probably more experience and can compare how it was 10 years ago. Im not sexpat and dont do prostitutes so maybe that will be difference, i dont know lmao

Quite a few thai girls told me that western men are poor.

It's probably because majority of the guys who come to TH live off their savings above the means temporarily for few months trying to make it and they go home or they have few months gig going on. If you're a girl who is looking for long term serious relationship (most girls do) then guy like that isn't very +EV bet for her. They're not that dumb anymore i guess and she met few guys like that before already.

and then backpackers, English teacher's reputation, hipsters, homeless westerners etc. don't really add up to the "every white man is a millionaire, so above everybody else, def good catch" image.

If you're good guy who makes ok money and you're not too fat then you'll do ok, but you'll do ok in your home country too.

Most young guys are not levering anything, they just fall for instant gratification of living in Pattaya. Some of them will make it till their savings are gone, most don't.

compared to what? all the fabulously wealthy thais living in western countries?

These girls are delusional narcissists living at their parents apartment / townhouse, making 12-20.000 baht in some service sector job and looking for Mr. Millionaire who will never appear. They have a place to sleep, food to eat, enough money to buy fancy clothing to pretend to be part of the elite and an attitude like their **** doesn't stink with zero push back from thai guys because they don't want to risk pissing off crazy vengeful girls. All they really have to offer is insults and a nasty attitude trying to destroy your ego so they can control you. Do you really want to go to the 3rd world to deal with that?

They're looking for guys that give them face: Dressing preppy, fancy dinners, driving fancy cars or taking the most expensive Uber / Grab everywhere.

The chinese thai culture is incredibly narcissistic and focused on pretending you're a millionaire while you're barely scraping by so people will suck up to you and do you favors in the hopes you can help them down the road.

Keep in mind most of BKK is a barely developed sh*thole one step above street sh*tting India and all those largely empty fancy condos owned by foreign investors and the local 1% just give the appearance that there is more money to go around than there actually is.

Maybe corona will bring a lot of them back to reality but the smartphone induced narcissism is most likely pathological so they will do anything to keep face and if that means scamming and extorting people to keep up their facade (leased car etc. LA style) then so be it.

How hard did you hit her ILIA?

I'm sure ILIA had similar scathing remarks about western women before taking the plunge in Asia. Dude just seems miserable wherever he is. I noticed he glossed over the question asking which country he actually likes. At least there's someone waiting in the wings to take over the bitter old man mantle when lol69 is ready to move on.

What do you have against fat guys? What did they ever do to you?

Really enjoyed your post and the statement above caught my eye. This is one of the other items I see in the poker house/travel threads for Thailand and other countries.

I'm referring to the posts where "I'm moving to <insert country here> and I'm paying $1k USD for a sick condo . . . "

Isn't the whole point of going to another country to find a tremendous bargain that lets you live better than the US? $1k is plenty of rent in many, many U.S. cities and at 50k THB (!!!) . . . well, that is a mortgage payment on many, many decent homes across the US.

I live in Las Vegas, have access to online poker (sure, its not PS, but it will do) and I have a monthly nut that is lower than the majority of these posts. So now I move to Thailand and I'm paying the same rent as back home and I have to live in a third world country? No thank you.

I'm sure some people will say that I'm overlooking the cultural experience and all that and that's true to a small degree. What about access to modern healthcare? What about support from local friends and family? What about other personal growth opportunities you will miss by not being in the US? If you're going to lose out on that, at least get yourself a low monthly nut in <insert country here>.