When A Relationship Breaks Down

[PeterRS]

I had thought of adding this post to the thread about Love Without A Plan which considers the needs of a partner after one’s death. But this is about a plan whilst alive! Or perhaps, being more accurate, the need for a realistic plan. I can recall less than a handful of posts on the following issue over the last decade or so. It is a cautionary tale.

It relates to relationships that some of us have had with Thais or other Asian boys who move with us to a new life in our own country. I have three friends whose similar relationships have worked out extremely well and where genuine love and caring have resulted in more than three decades together – two with Thais, one with a Japanese. Rarely, though, do I recall reading of instances where the Asian has moved to another country and this has not worked out, for one reason or another, resullting in his returning home. I fell into this category.

It all took place 30 years ago and started with a visit to the original Babylon. Hanging around by the private rooms hoping to find some pleasant company for an hour or so, I heard a voice behind me. The accent was Australian. Turning around I was about to say I was not interested in western guys. But there looking at me was the most handsome young Thai whom I shall name Noom. Background story is long. The relatively shortened version is that when he was about to finish school in Kanchanaburi, he had met an Australian in Bangkok. This man, whom I shall just call X, was in his mid-40s, very shy and not really into gay sex, primarily I think because of that shyness. But he really wanted companionship. Although not particularly well off, he offered to fly Noom to Sydney, put him up in the second bedroom in his house and pay for studies at Macqaurie University, one of the country's best. Why he would seek to find someone in Thailand rather than one of the many young Thais in Sydney always baffled me, until I also realised X was basically a loner.

For nearly three years, all went well. As one who enjoyed gay life, Noom loved Sydney. He was not going to let his friend's lack of interest in the sex scene spoil his enjoyment. Saunas were very much his thing, and he was almost a star because of his body and his looks. But it was not to last. X found himself out of a job during a recession. Now he could no longer afford Noom's last year at university and thus no degree. Being friends, they decided on a solution. X would put his house up for rent, both would fly to rent an inexpensive townhouse in Bangkok where Noom applied to compete his course at the English speaking ABAC University on Ramkhamhaeng. Noom's sister agreed to generally look after X and the house, all of which the Sydney rent would cover – but only just!

It was only weeks later that I bumped into Noom in Babylon. After we found a room, amazingly for me all we did was hold each other and chat. No sex! He was beautiful, intelligent and just lovely to be with. I suggested I take him for dinner. After a meal at the popular Whole Earth on Langsuan we started walking towards the Hyatt Hotel where my client had put me up. It was clear he wanted to come to my room where we ended up doing what we had planned to be doing earlier in the evening! Before he left, we both said we'd like to see each other again.

I was in my last months working for a company in Tokyo before starting another back in Hong Kong. But my existing brief covered the whole of East Asia and I had a lot of trips still to make. That meant I could fly to Bangkok almost each week for a day or two. End result: we saw a great deal of each other, each time both seemingly becoming more and more infatuated. Certainly I was falling hopelessly in love. Although my new contract was on my desk, I had not signed it. After a lot of thought, I made a serious suggestion to Noom that I not sign it. Instead I’d use up savings to come and spend a year living with him in Bangkok until at least he had his degree. What would happen thereafter I honestly had not considered. Red flag #1. A year seemed such a long time!

Apart from his concern over where that would leave X - I always assumed back in Sydney - he said he no longer wanted to live in Bangkok. He wanted to come and stay with me in Hong Kong. Visiting would have been easy. Living permanently vastly more difficult. He'd need an ID card. Without that he could do precious little. Crucially I also had no idea if I could get him into a university to finish his degree. A lecturer friend thought it was just possible, but far from easy! So I did think a lot about it from as many angles as I could and of course I should have said a firm ‘No!’. On the other hand I had many quite influential colleagues in Hong Kong whom I felt could help me get over many the hurdles. Besides, he was adamant. Naively, I gave in. Red flag #2.

I did find a way to get him an ID card but the process took many weeks. University was a very different matter and I had been right to be concerned. For him to forfeit the accomplishment of two years of a degree course in Sydney would have been so utterly unfair. Red flag #3.

In the meantime, evenings, nights and weekends with him were just a total joy. I merely regretted all the time I had to be away from him working at the new job. Then with Christmas on the horizon, I asked him where he'd like to go for a short vacation. Just as he said Australia, I received a request from my new boss to attend meetings in Melbourne in the run up to Christmas. We decided on a few days in Melbourne followed by a week in Sydney where we both had friends. The destination settled, I was booked in under my name at Melbourne's Hyatt. Noom spent much of the time with his friends when I was working. On our third morning, I was up early and noticed a fax under the door. Since Noom was not a paying guest, the envelope was in my name. Noom was still fast asleep.

I then realised my new world was in fact a fantasy. It was a handwritten note to Noom from a professor in Sydney. Basically it said that when he got to Sydney this guy would be thrilled to continue their relationship and for Noom to stay with him. In effect the thought began to hit me that I had been virtually a means to an end. And this was clearly why Noom did not want to stay in Bangkok. I sent a fax to the professor guy to tell him Noom and I were now in a relationship and we would be going back to Hong Kong after Sydney. Quite how I never discovered, but Noom found his response. That basically said he understood and wished Noom and me all the best. But Noom’s attitude thereafter totally changed. 

He was very angry that I had read the original incoming fax. For two days he became almost insufferable. I also became perhaps too obstinate. As it looked as though our relationship might be coming to an end, then what was the point of his staying with me in Sydney? I told him that either he decided to spend our week together in Sydney to give us time to see what could be worked out, or I would change his ticket and have him fly back to Bangkok as soon as we reached Sydney airport.

This was all a part of Noom I had never seen before - or even with any other Thai guy. A total change, almost an about turn. I tried to see it from his point of view - and in that I had a degree of success. But it did not lessen the pain. If he stayed on with me in Sydney and then moved in with the other guy, he'd still eventually have to return to Hong Kong to pick up everything he had left in my flat. How could he afford to do that? How would I feel? As his mood just did not change, I came to the conclusion it would be best to send him back to Bangkok. At least there he would be able eventually to finish his degree. 

Since I knew where he lived in Bangkok, on future visits I was tempted to go over to that part of town and at least apologise for the part that I played in disrupting his life. But I didn't. Of course I blamed him for withholding information about what he could have called a 'previous' relationship Sydney. On the other hand, I also blamed myself for not seeing the red lights flashing. Yet I often wondered: how by coming to Hong Kong did he expect we would eventually be going to Australia so that he could be with the other guy? I suppose at some point I must have told him that as I would be reporting to the regional office in Sydney, that might mean I'd have to attend occasional meetings there. 

Like more than a few have done, I had let my heart overrule my head – in a big way. And I ought to have been perfectly well aware of this. It is advice that every visitor to Bangkok is told to avoid!

After I had packed up what he had left in Hong Kong, I never saw him again. If that episode with Noom finally made me realise one thing, it is that unlike my three friends mentioned at the outset I was clearly far too wrapped up in my work to devote the time and the understanding to making a relationship with a Thai or any other Asian develop and mature outside his own country. I learned the hard way. I should just have been content with the adventures I had always had with lovely guys in Hong Kong. I hope others are much more realistic when they visit Thailand and fall for the boy of their dreams. We do need to consider their dreams and possible motives just as seriously as our own.

[Ruthrieston]

Back in around 2004 I met a young gentleman who was working in My Life for Happiness bar in Boystown. My first visit to Thailand had been in 1998, so I had seen and heard a lot, but I still fell in love. Took it slowly, in 2005 I flew him over to stay with me in London for a month, and he seemed to enjoy it. In 2006 I brought him over and we celebrated our Civil Partnership in the Registry Office at Chelsea Town Hall, and my friends threw a party for us. That was in December, and then in August 2007 he told me he was missing Thailand and his family and he was leaving. I paid for his flight back to Thailand, drove him to the airport and waved goodbye, with a broken heart. Me friends threw a bigger party after he left! His parting gift was to tell me he had HIV and I should get tested, and yes that was his gift, though my fault for taking the risk of letting him have unprotected sex. Love makes us do stupid things. 

[floridarob]

4 hours ago, Ruthrieston said:

Love makes us do stupid things. 

Lust even more so.....