Connie Lingus Advice Column

Dear Ms. Connie,

This letter I hope will be a bit of a catharsis for me. I have read your column for several years and often wondered how so many of your readers who write to you for advice could be so gullible. Naturally we never believe that we, ourselves, would fall into the traps that so many of the men who write to you seem to find themselves. I have spent a considerable time in Thailand. I speak the language in a rudimentary way, but enough to carry on a conversation. I think I am well-read in the cultural do’s and don’ts and feel that over the years of hard knocks I have learned to keep my expectations in check regarding love and relationships with Thai men.

With that as my introduction, I will get to the meat of the matter. The meat in this case is a man by the name of Bunlert. I met him five years ago when I was living in Thailand and working on an Australian technical assistance program in the Northeast of Thailand. I would get opportunities to go to Bangkok on rest and recuperation trips throughout the two years of the project. After about three months of starting the project, I met Bunlert in a hotel coffee shop in Bangkok. The hotel was known to attract freelancers and I had no expectations from Bunlert other than the sexual weekend we spent together before I had to return to the Northeast. Funny enough, Bunlert came from a village in the very province where my project was located. At first I was reluctant to give him details of my “official” life even though there seemed a possibility that if it was worth more than a weekend, I could have my cake and eat it too, in other words, have a boyfriend whom I could see on weekends in the province and not depend only on my monthly forays in Bangkok. I arranged to meet Bunlert the next time I was in Bangkok where he was studying at Ramkamhaeng, with assistance from his family which has land in the province. When we next saw each other, I took him to Hua Hin for five days. We had a wonderful time together. Bunlert proved to be an ideal companion in every sense. He was intelligent, interested in people, respectful of me and others and extremely polite. He suffered from a bit of the country boy shyness when I took him to hotel restaurants or in better class establishments but he seemed to relax as he grew more familiar with table etiquette and dressing the part. Above all he was a gentleman in all senses of the expression.

Anyway, that was five years ago. For a year we saw each other when I was in Bangkok or he came back to the village. Over the years after the project finished and I had returned to Australia, we phoned or communicated by e-mail. It was always in the back of my mind that when I re-established myself in Adelaide, I would sponsor him to come to Australia as my partner. Our immigration laws allow same sex sponsorship upon proof that the relationship is stable and over a year in duration. I was able to show that we had had a conjugal relationship that had lasted over four years so there would have been no problem. I arranged for Bunlert to get his passport and asked him to send me copies of the pages to start the application process. When I phoned him to find out why his pages had not arrived, he seemed reticent on the phone. When I asked him if his passport had been used yet, he confessed that he had gone on a trip to Europe. But he said that he was afraid that his failure to complete his two years of military service would be held against him and he might not be able to exit to join me in Australia so he had accepted an invitation from someone who lived in Germany, but that was all over now and I was his only one. With that news, I decided to come to Thailand and arrange to get him a visitor’s visa and to touch base again, to see if things were still as they were. I must admit that I had reservations about the whole exercise and wondered if I could settle down with one partner even though I am now sixty. But when I arrived in Don Muang and Bunlert’s smiling face greeted me, my doubts evaporated regarding myself and him. We spent a week travelling to the islands during which I tried to impress Bunlert who is now in his early thirties, that he had to be true to me because I was opening up my life to him, and my family had accepted that I would be sponsoring a younger man from Thailand, so this was no empty promise on my part. They were only concerned that I knew what I was doing.

Anyway, I had another week in Thailand and planned to finalize the visa before I returned to work in Adelaide. Bunlert was just finishing his final exams at university so I decided to spend some quiet time out of Bangkok and keep myself away from temptation. Bunlert saw me to the bus and waved goodbye. I had arranged to meet with him at my hotel on my return to Bangkok and we would go to the Embassy to complete the visa formalities. That was the last I saw him. I have called his mobile phone and only get his voice mail. I have never met his family so I have no way to contact him otherwise and I do not want to go to the university to check to see if he really is a student. That would be no problem because I do have copies of his passport. But it all seems so strange to me, an old hand I think, when trying to fathom Thai men. At the same time, I feel rejected after focusing for so long on bringing Bunlert to Australia. I know I am perhaps too old for him and maybe he has found someone younger. He is definitely much more desirable physically than I am. As one old hand to another, what do you think lies behind all of the above Ms. Connie. I would appreciate your take on all this.

Bushed by not beaten in Adelaide

Dear Bushed,

Eleanor Roosevelt was recently quoted in the Bangkok Post as saying, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And if old Eleanor could come up with that after the years she endured the philandering of old FDR during their marriage, then we all should benefit from her stoicism. Your saga with Bunlert is indeed instructive. Not only for yourself but for all my gentle readers and even for Ms. Connie herself although she has erected such impenetrable walls around herself that some have dubbed her impervious to pain. This, incidentally, is totally untrue. Ms. Connie is still open to being abused and suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, even though her tear ducts now only flow in the dark shadows of cavernous movie theatres, well away from the bitchy gossips of Soi 4 and other viper pits. What lies behind the unfathomable behaviour of Bunlert? There are of course, numerous possibilities. In the most extreme and Ms. Connie hates to broach the most tragic, Bunlert may be in a hospital somewhere after suffering a mishap on the pillion of a motorcycle. But in the scheme of things that is unlikely. More probable is that your week’s sojourn in the islands with Bunlert got through to him. Funny enough, and this is the most positive take on your anecdote that Ms. Connie can come up with, Bunlert has had a recognition that he may not be as true to you as he should be. He’s had an epiphany, so to speak. It does happen in this jaded world, and he probably doesn’t even know it. He may also be uncertain of his own commitment to you after all. You did say that you impressed him with your commitment and what you were doing on his behalf. I presume the subtext to your discussion was that you were not wanting someone who merely wanted a passport to a future in Australia. If this is indeed the reason behind Bunlert’s disappearance, then you should leave well enough alone. It is better that you let time heal the wounds and look forward to whatever riches life gives you in the future. To dwell on this loss, and try and search out Bunlert would probably be pointless. He knew where you were emotionally and physically when you were here in Bangkok trying to arrange his visa. His behaviour is very Thai as I presume you are aware. We Westerners love the maudlin hair-pulling scenes which have resulted in the sacrifice of more bone china dinner sets than Wedgwood ever imagined producing. It is beyond us to believe that someone would just slink away without an expression of remorse or at least gratitude for what you have given already. But avoiding confrontation at all costs is the Thai way. It may seem gutless to us Westerners especially when it gets translated into someone leaving the scene of an accident, but the damage done in this instance is only an emotional one and you said yourself you have moments of doubt or you would have sprung for sponsorship without ever coming back to take the pulse of your relationship with Bunlert. You said a mouthful when you signed off, “Bushed but not Beaten”. Stiff upper lip my friend and thank your lucky stars you found out that Bunlert was not just a visa grabbing suck head before you got him putting the angel on your family’s Christmas tree back in Adelaide.