Connie Lingus Advice Column

Dear Ms. Connie Lingus,

While I dive into the turgid waters of internal dialogue with trepidation, I feel it is my professional duty as a contributor to Thai Guys to take issue with your “take on the world”. Your vehicle is your column in Thai Guys. Mine is a circle of Quentin Quisps over bridge and Bloody Mary’s in London. It has now been some years that you and I have been giving our views of gay life in Thailand. Mine is based on frequent visits to Thailand. Yours come from long time residence. I favour an approach accentuating the eternal lightness of being. You on the other hand seem to revel in vilifying those who would wax romantic over the virtues of cultivating the affections of the transparently opportunistic. Although I try not to encourage my friends to wallow in the bathos of unrequited love, I do feel that we are all due our own allotment of oblivion. Why not allow those poor northern brethren to escape their tepid lives in Bergen, or Poughkeepsie or Trieste for the splendours of life in Sunee Plaza. Who’s to say that a pulchritudinous watchmaker from Berne should be denied his sexual nirvana in the arms of a less than loyal go-go boy from Saphan Kwai. Should the fey flight attendant from Melbourne who is sponsoring his waiter from the restaurant on Sukhumvit be denied the attendant illusion that the stripling actually seeks him out for his fleshy charms rather than a possible passport to success in Australia? You would seem to demand that we all toe some pure line of honesty. If we are going to drape transparent gold-diggers over our arms like ermine stoles, and grace the front rows of Panorama Bar, should we not carry on the pantomime, by acting like it’s love sublime. At least for the moment. Why deny us that? Life is too short.

When I blow into town in Thailand and prepare to feast with panthers, I do it with the same bravado our patron St. Oscar did. I bring a collection of (fake) silver cigarette boxes for each of my favourites. And of course I give each his gift unbeknownst to the others. I do not come to rock the sexual boat. I never have had the illusion that the boys really love my pale blue curls. I think I am very clear in my own mind, why they want me. And I certainly believe they are very clear why I want them. For me, ‘tis a bargain made in Heaven. Thank God it’s there as a certain relief from my life in London, and Happy 2003 you bitter old queen. Keep it twee in 2003. Our bridge group loves you.

Myrtle (Mrs.) from Bloomsbury

Dearest Myrtle,

I am truly glad you blue haired girls in Bloomsbury love me. While bridge has never been my game, I know of a group of friends playing regularly in Naklua who would welcome a fresh trump. You Myrtle have unfortunately presumed that Ms. Connie means all she trots out in her rejoinders to her many fans in Thai Guys. While Ms. Connie does have certain heartfelt beliefs about how a lady should conduct herself in polite company, she knows that the ladies who prance about through the incestuous triangle of Pattaya, Bangkok and Phuket, are oft times not true ladies but world class rip-off artists. Many of them come to us in Thailand with murky pasts. They may surround themselves with thieves and hangers-on but they will survive because that is what they were doing on their own home turf before they ever decided to jump ship and land in Thailand. So why not continue the behaviour that allowed them to amass an ample nest egg back home using the same techniques of chicanery, double-dealing and fraud that they were so successful at in their respective homelands. Our tiny gay expatriate community in Thailand is rife with rumours of who is screwing whom and why that queen hates the one across the soi with such vitriol. Those who drop in for a brief respite from Bloomsbury, to Bangkok, Pattaya or even Phuket (the last time Ms. Connie visited the gay scene there, it was a mini-war zone) and plunk themselves down to watch the flow on Soi 4 or Panorama or Soi Paradise for a few weeks, never realise the petty hatreds that are seething around them.

So Myrtle to make a long monologue shorter, and cut to the chase, it doesn’t really matter what boys are being picked up and displayed for all the wrong reasons. What matters to Ms. Connie is the lack of real love in the lives of the expats who live in Thailand. Perhaps it is a matter of too much too easily available. Ms. Connie may come across as having a nasty slice to her view of life in gay Thailand but basically she stands for the best in life. Sometimes Ms. Connie’s natural empathy for her oppressed confreres gets beaten down by the antics of some of our brethren who act like cows in a China shop. But generally, and in the spirit of the New Year, Ms. Connie is hopeful that we who are gay and male will attempt to treat each other with respect and good manners. For Ms. Connie, in 2003, “respect” is the key word. While respect can involve love, it also includes appreciation for each of us as human. While we may not agree with how other people act, and what they stand for or don’t stand for in life, the least we can do this New Year, is to resolve to respect each other in the hope that there will be a snowball effect and we all be better for the effort.