Case Study - Bargirl

Note: All names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals and businesses.

This case study is one of a Thai bargirl with a positive result in the end, though the results were not all positive along the way.

Client: An American expat on an expat package in a third country/culture/language (recent war zone). Background as a cop, so he "wasn't born yesterday". Starting to take his breaks in Thailand.

Met a lady at a bar, bar fined her, spent a week or so together on the seaside. He's really smitten with the Thai lady. She took good care of him ... but wouldn't let him get near her home, saying she was too shy about being seen with a farang in her community (which is often true) when she knew him only a week ... and didn't show much emotion until he went to the airport, where her eyes watered as they were saying their goodbyes. He had been frustrated by the somewhat mercenary nature of the relationship, but the way she took care of him, the tears at the airport, and his general compassion for disadvantaged people also worked in his mind.

Back to work in his host country, he missed her, called her up, and she agreed to quit the bar and wait for him.

Over time, a few strange things happened that made him want to find out about her. He decided to talk with a P.I., first just hiring us to go verify that she had quit the bar. (The case was assigned to an expat, as an expat could walk into the bar discreetly. Thai lady agent cannot.)

His girlfriend was indeed at the bar (i.e., she had lied to him). When he called, she quickly ran out the back door to answer the phone in some quiet place. However, she was not too flirtatious with other men, mainly hanging out with a few other nonflirtatious ladies. A different general subset of ladies were on the ball trying to get on with the men. She was really serving drinks, but not very disciplined by the bar. She got drunk and rowdy with her friends, then left at the end of the night, and went home. (He had sent her money already, so maybe she was buying the rounds with that, to the bar's benefit, and nothing wrong with that.)

The guy was hurt about this, but I talked with the guy to give him her perspective, that she needed some other activity like going to school to improve her English. Otherwise, she will get bored at home, and go back to the bar to be with her friends.

So he hired us again to find out additional information. Without going into methods, here is what we found out:

She was living with her daughter and mother as she had told him, but she was also living with her Thai common law husband, as she had been continuously over the past several years. He had a trade skill and regular work (about 14,000 baht per month) but he controlled the money and did not give her much money at all, pressuring her to go out and work while her mother took care of their daughter. She wound up working in the bar as a prostitute, and he knew this, and he took money from her. They had other issues, but slept together, too. The relationship had been on the rocks, but she stuck to her daughter, and she wasn't going anywhere else without a reason. She also had a son which she had not told the farang about, but that son lived with the family of a previous legal husband, and that family was hostile towards her.

Again, he was hurt, but he honored our agreement not to reveal to her that she was under investigation.

After we talked about the situation, he asked me what he should do. I usually don't judge people, as long as they aren't hurting someone else. I try to understand their situations. As regards the relationship, I look at the expectations of both, to see if things are workable. I didn't want to disrupt her family, even though it seemed imminent that if this farang didn't, another farang probably would. He kept asking me what I would advise him to do. I suggested that he consider trying for better luck the next time around, i.e., find another lovely Thai lady and steer clear of this situation. I guess my advice wasn't strong enough.

His emotional bond to her was strong enough to justify working a little harder to give her a reasonable second chance. We came up with a plan, to see which side of the line she would choose, an opportunity for a better life or else more of the same. She worked in the beer bar during the day, noon to 8pm. The perfect choice was English school, a schedule conflict.

(Many ladies are not good at English school attendance, skipping classes or dropping out. Some never go. Indeed, when the farang pays for it himself, some ladies have been known to go back to cancel and ask for a partial refund of the fees paid by the farang, money in their pocket, rather than attend.)

He sent money, and indeed she quit the bar, enrolled in a school, and we verified her attendance. She previously had 8 years of school so that she had needed translators for emails before (a common sidetrack story), but she apparently started writing her own emails. She had email contacts with other men, but she passed these email contacts on to her friends and stopped communicating with the other men. In her emails to her new boyfriend, she acknowledged that she understood he was working in a rough part of the world, but she was willing to go and be a good wife to him, indeed wanted to take care of him there, and make a home for him to go to after work. That was something she could do, and she was willing to fulfill a purpose.

He came back to spend some more time with her, and eventually they got legally married and she travelled back with him to the third country where he worked. That's where they are now, as of the time of this writing. She misses her daughter and they are now looking to immigrate her and her daughter to the U.S. The extended family isn't cooperative about letting the daughter out of their control in Thailand, so now they are looking at their legal options to extract her daughter.

(We did not find out her quality of motherhood, but the daughter would clearly have more opportunity with experience in another country, especially at her young age, and her new boyfriend is clearly a good guy. Nonetheless, it is unfortunate to see people try to use legal force, rather than work things out in mutually respectful ways for the compromise benefit of all. The Thai lady agents get emotionally involved in these issues.)

We keep in touch with him, and they are still happy as can be, planning on a lifetime together. This is remarkable, given the war torn and culturally strict environment they are in, not exactly a vacation for her in America, western Europe or Australia. He had planned on the two of them going to his home country after his current contract, but they have instead decided to extend his working time in former war zones.

Bargirl success stories don't get much better than this one.

Most bargirl investigations come up negative, but many have positive endings.

Sample case studies of Thai girlfriends:

• Hotel employee, fake student, delayed money requests, terrible deception, Bangkok
• Bargirl, success story, mixed but faithful, Bangkok
• Bargirl, Pattaya, with monthly support but repeated urgent pressures for extra money
• Quick entrapment by expat agent
• Surveillance by Thai agents
• Undercover Thai lady agents
• Denial -- sometimes the immediate reaction
• For foreign wife, find out if husband has a Thai girlfriend -- IF
• For foreign wife or man's family, find out about husband's Thai girlfriend -- ABOUT
• Composite issues
• Safety issues
• More case studies... hundreds!

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