After ten years’ experience with Thai ladies I can honestly say they are still the most beautiful and loyal partners a foreign men can ever wish to have. We are all guilty of returning to the West at some point and making out to our friends back home who are riveted to the same pub chair and the same miserable existence how great Thailand is and how amazing it’s woman are, and they have to switch off after a while otherwise they would never go home to their wives, but our Oriental Princesses are not as perfect as we make them out, but as my loving Mum said:

 “It’s my job to criticise your Dad, no one else’s!”

If they could just know what we are thinking:

1.We want to be listened to and understood.

Now this may be down to education and it may also be to some degree about how well the foreign man communicates. But the very least respect any woman can pay a man is by listening and understanding.

We foreigners grew up on conversation, we take it to deep levels, and our conversation means a lot more to us than what we had for dinner and where we are going to. So if you don’t understand what we just said, ask us to explain, we know when you drift off, we are, after all, the masters of mental displacement when you are talking!

Are you listening?

This one thing is the major pitfall I have heard from so many foreign men over the years, but I ask them would they go back to a Western wife and  great conversation and they always grunt; “No way”

2.We love your friends but we want respect in front of them

Few things piss a foreign man off more than being made to feel second best when in a group with your friends. In my experience Asian woman like foreigners because we are cool with your friends, we want you to have as many (mostly girls please) as you like, and we are happy to take a back seat when we are included. Just don’t look at us like we are something you scraped off your shoe, when we do need to interrupt you. How you act regarding us when you are in front of your friends tells us a lot about you!

3.We need more physical affection.

Yes we get it, Thais are being dragged into the 21st century when it comes to public shows of affection, but holding hands in the capital is normal now. we don’t expect you to be draped all over us like we are in Rome or Paris, but a peck on the cheek more often is hardly going to have the touching police arresting us now is it?

4.We want you to understand our movies and music.

We sit down with you to watch our favourite movie, and before it starts we give you a two hour synopsis of how cool this film is and what it means to us on a cellular level, then, after you have slept through half the film, and when we go to questions and answers at the end, you fail spectacularly, please don’t be surprised if we end up in the pub on Sukhumvit till 3 am reveling with mates about the movie!

5.Sex isn’t a movie scene.

We love spontaneity, we love your clothes, we watch you all day and the little things drive us crazy, like how your ankles look in those shoes up the escalator, yes that’s why we always stand a few steps down behind you, we love how can catch a sneaky glimpse of a bra strap, the shimmer of some lip gloss, and then you wonder why, when we try to grapple you to the bed just as you walk through the door back home, and you stop it all, make the bed , fix the air con, adjust the fan , take off all your clothes, check the curtains fifty times and shower for 40 minutes,  you wonder why we get a little despondent at the idea then!

6.We like to hold you after sex.

Now this could just be me and I have been unlucky in ten years of relationships with Thai woman, the longest 8 years, but immediately after sex foreign men like to just lie there with you in their arms and reflect on the glory of it all, nature, little birds and the stars, we don’t really want you to race off like Usain Bolt to the bathroom, staying in there gargling and making weird noises for 30 minutes furiously scrubbing off any love residue off your skin, it actually ruins the moment somewhat.

7.Walk with us.

OK Patong beach Phuket is an exception a Thai lady can walk for hours without being once hassled, throw in a foreign man and she is suddenly Princess Leia at a Star Wars convention, but anywhere else walk with us by our side.

Once I got off the BTS sky train with my partner and she strutted straight off to the shops, I kind of held back just to see how far she would get before looking back for me, 90 minutes later I got a call ‘You nai?’ (Where’re you?). That kind of behavior made me feel very important NOT!

But girls do we really have to walk behind you whilst you go shopping in Bangkok just shelling out the cash as you walk off to the next shop? Makes us feel more like a Butler than a Boyfriend!

Sure we know we are the bread winners, and we don’t mind paying for all things domestic, and that’s one of the best things about Thailand and Asian women, the whole partnership positioning is something foreign men over 35 grew up with, that we are missing desperately from our present day relationships in the West.

I don’t ever want to go back to the time when I was sat with the babies on a Saturday night and my UK wife comes home 4 am drunk smelling of after shave.

Do you agree with my statements or is your experience completely different? I am not the Daily Mail and I have never met anyone who has had their penis severed at the first sniff of infidelity, nor met anyone who’s Thai spouse has had many sponsors sending money to her whilst she robbed the house he’s just paid for. I have to speak from experience.

Image courtesy of Mae Vichy from Mayhem Models