⌛ Am I being scammed?

That really depends Bob because you will have to sort out those that do like americans from the ones that like the American life style, whatever they believe that to be. If you are ready to respect their religion, customs, and values then you just may find one that in return likes you.

 

Thai's really don't like outsiders...

It is true Thai’s don’t like foreigners or called Farang they seem to look down on everyone that is not thai. But as long as you have money no problem they well smile and be kind. But what they say after you leave oh my God! Thailand is the land of plastic Smiles. There is a public face and a private face. Thai don’t marry for love but marry for social class or status so they can move up. Philippines and Thailand is like apples and oranges.

 

Jeez teacher that is a load of rubbish. I have spent lots of time in Thailand, have thai friends in aussie and thailand and have mates married to thai women. Your assessment of thai preople is an absolute load of crap. Thais are a wonderful proud race of people. If they don't like you maybe you should have a close look at yourself you racist dickhead.

 

Hmm...I'd likely be somewhere between the last two opinions. Don't know if Teacher speaks Thai, but I do a fair bit...used to be very good at it years ago...worked there for a while and been a tourist more times than I can count...maybe four or five years in total in-country...and he's right to a degree...you do hear some derogatory remarks against farang, LOL even when they smile at you....that sort of thing goes on anywhere though...and many will love you for your baht gun....as long as you have ammo...LOL

Marriage to Thais....well my experience, knowing so many it isn't funny, is they are hard work. Most farang wind up marrying young women who are largely uneducated, come from rural provinces, and frankly don't have a lot of drive to succeed in the west when they get there. In very many cases, their husbands wind up speaking pidgin english and rudimentary thai to their wives for the rest of their lives......also very likely, the duration of their marriage. A lot don't do the distance....it gets very old and more aggravation than it's worth....

Some however do succeed....and these tend to be with women who are educated, have some drive, and adapt to the west succesfully...But....and big BUT....most of those women will marry Thais and avoid the stigma of marrying a farang...But I have seen a few of these sort of marriages and these guys have some gems.....they work well...

That said...some such lucky guys have married Thais - and live the life that most of us who marry Filipinas will achieve...Filipinas are very good communicators out of the box and quickly get even better....require far less effort....and in my opinion much better at raising children and taking care of domestic matters....No contest....

 

I know what I am talking about

I was married to a Thai from the upper class who just wanted a green card and her freedom thai society so she could live the way she wanted. For the first year that we were married she just told people I was her business partner because of the shame of being marrying a white man. We lived there and the States for that three year period of time. I heard her and so many other thai’s speak very frankly about foreigners. I was exempt because I was a rich businessman at the time or that what they thought. I heard them talk about the guys who married poor thai’s girls who opened little hamburger stands, backpackers, English teachers…on and on. Most foreigners are very oblivious to what is really going around them there and in the Philippines. I am not a racist I just told you what I know as a fact. But I heard the same sh*t from uneducated Americans. I guess your nickname loftyone address your arrogance. So many things I could tell you but sounds like you would never understand.

 

No one has ever accused me of arrogance before but I do have a short fuse with sweeping generalisations about an entire race of people. I find it incredible that someone who appears to be a teacher can dismiss an entire race with statements like "all thais marry for social class and status". By all means share your stories about your own miserable experiences and mistakes with the thai upper class but many of us have good friends who are genuine warm thai people and will always stick up for them.

 

First of all, you should keep in mind that (a) generalizations have exceptions, and therefore impossible to predict with certainty based on some widespread trend or practice (your gf may be the exception); and (b) individual cases differ from person to person, and therefore should be approached with care and caution, not with some inflexible view that generalizes indiscriminately about ALL people in a certain cultural or gender group.

I do not know anything about your pen pal other than what you wrote in your message, and therefore cannot tell for sure whether she is trying to scam you. It may be that she really likes you, has no other bf or husband, and feels embarrassed to meet you, or move around her neighborhood (where she might be expected to announce she is with you, who is presumably supporting her, but have terrible looking teeth).

Now here are some facts: There are literally armies of young ladies who invade net cafes every day and email or chat with foreigners in the Philippines. There is hardly any female in the Phils who does not communicate with foreigners via the Internet (including college students). Almost none or very few of them can afford their own Internet connection at home. They take advantage, instead, of the huge number of such cafes, there are several of them in each block! They cost about 5 to 10 pesos per hour, depending on how far from a city such café is: the further away, the cheaper. Just imagine, you live in a neighborhood of a provincial town, for every 300 feet or so there about 2 such cafes! If you are a young Filipina and have nothing better to do (nothing as exciting, anyway), how about go fishing for foreign hearts in cafes? Most cafes are open until or past midnight, and some never close. If you think you are on a fishing expedition to find the right lady, think again. You are actually being “fished”, meaning, you are seen as potential prey, rather than the other way around... Fishing of this type has been raised to an art in the Phils, complete with camera-equipped desktops, booths separated by walls to give you "some" privacy (although there are usually many other females usually just out of sight giggling and advising and having fun together, sometimes a bf or other males who hide their faces from you but see everything you write and how you look on camera, etc.)... There is a subculture of standard phrases and schemes that ladies use in their email and chats... As an American making an average salary, you are being perceived by many not only as a potential throb for emotional excitement and laughs, but also (sad to say) as a walking ATM machine, except also equipped with a lonely heart ready to fall in love... If you are a "foreigner", you are probably one of many "foreigners" each lady has managed to attract to her lovely net. But pls don’t misunderstand this hugely ignored subculture of love in the Phils: if you know how to handle it, it is not only harmless, but provides lonely, older males a happy respite from the daily grind of the rat race (for example, in the US), if not the cold stares of still desirable (probably still slim) younger American ladies who have long ago written you off as near-dead. And like smart American businessmen who hire cheaper labor abroad, you contact lovelier ladies elsewhere!

You just got to learn how to play the Filipina game without hurting yourself, or, for that matter, the ladies that you are communicating with. These ubiquitous Filipina cyber ladies are not only usually by far more romantic than what you see on an average day in the U.S. (or other “industrialized” nations), but are usually both (a) financially desperate; and (b) seek a better life for themselves, even if it means marrying a foreigner. If you happen to be Caucasian, for some reason many of them seem to love your long nose more than any other part of your anatomy, including anything else "longer" you may be the proud owner of... This seems to be the female equivalent in the Phils of the male preference for “lily feet” in mainland China… Back to the subject at hand: If something goes wrong, who loses what? So let’s say that you find out that your lady has a secret Filipino bf (or husband) and another foreigner bf, and you get really hurt AFTER you have spent a fortune on her. She walks away from the relationship with all that money that you invested in her, while all you have to show for your efforts is your memories of a few good times. You could have spent by far less on any of the glamorous ladies of the night almost anywhere you travel in the Phils, for God's sake, why did you have to invest thousands on a dream?

It is not that uncommon for Filipina ladies to have secret local bfs, and use YOUR money to buy gifts for their bfs or relatives (my Filipina gf pointed to another Filipina who, she confided, has an American bf who sends her a lot of money, with which she ended up buying a motorcycle for her Filipino bf who was riding with her on the motorcycle)…. So go figure… Another example: Unknown to me, my own Filipina gf had another “local” bf, and also yet one more American bf. Now I know she liked me, probably even loved me, but who can beat using two American lovers for their money? I found out by accident that the other guy paid Philippine Airlines to move her around every time he visited the Phils, while I used Cebu Pacific! I also found out that after I returned to US, she would be with her local Filipino bf, showing off her money to the other immature (younger) idiots in her group, all of whom probably laughed at our (American lovers) expense (and probably considered us to be gullible idiots). How did I find out? From other... Filipina ladies, of course… As anyone who knows anything about Philippine customs knows, it is not unusual for Filipinos to tell on each other… Some ladies become jealous or offended by Filipinas who refuse to "share" their newly found wealth with them, and give unsolicited "advice" to their foreigner bfs...

The Filipino bf will play it low and cool while you are visiting the Philippines (assuming your lady is one of those who have such a bf), sometimes when you are with your gf at a party he is transformed to a cousin or some other relative, until your departure (and he may be using even your fancy underwear that you left behind, and not only your presumably faithful "gf").… Since foreigners stay only a couple of weeks or so, the local bfs have learned to put up with this inconvenience... They are generously rewarded for their "patience" and understanding by their gfs with some of ... your hard earned money (sometimes even the lion's share, while you thought all this time that you were paying for her medical, dental, or school bill). And don’t fool yourself thinking that if you ask them whether they have another bf, they will voluntarily ingest truth serum in their veins and tell you the truth!!! Will NEVER happen (unless you catch them in the act, which will not happen unless you live there for several months, and have your eyes and ears wide open, and your brain constantly on “yellow alert,” and hopefully another Filipina will finally wake you up, what is commonly referred to in the Phils, not without some justification, as the "crab mentality"). Another example: another one of my Filipina gfs that I fell in love with turned out had a secret FEMALE lover (as in... "lesbian" relationship)... She finally confessed to me, but I was very lucky to have stumbled upon some "evidence" without which I would have never found out the "truth." No wonder I found her with short hair during my second visit to her house (lesbians in Phils are referred to as "tomboys" and usually cut their hair short).

I have many stories to tell you, but I will stop here. To conclude, here is my advice: (a) NEVER believe what you hear, but take it with a POUND of salt (b) never become abusive, remember Filipina ladies are still by far the most beautiful ones in the world, can be very gentle if you know how to handle them, (c) respect the ladies you are communicating with because no matter what happens, even if you are scammed of EVERYTHING you have, remember that in most cases foreigners are as much a victim of their own readiness to fall blindly in love, as of the financial desperation, and often immature dreams of the Filipinas that conned them, and therefore both are victims mainly of circumstances, rather than of some sort of conniving “organized crime” (otherwise, many marriages in the US may also be characterized as being criminal due to parental pressure to marry someone rich, thus betraying an inclination to deceive the other merely to “catch” someone wealthy) (d) "buyer beware," do not trust anyone completely until you live with them in their own communities for at least SIX MONTHS TO A YEAR… If you choose to send a few dollars, put emphasis on the FEW, and send them with the full understanding in your own mind that they are given as CHARITY with NO STRINGS ATTACHED!!! So if you end up sending your lady $40, big deal! She at least kept you company through email, and psychologically lifted you up for a while! (think of the hundreds of dollars people spend on therapists, in this case you at least had a chance to not only get some "love therapy," but also possibly make love to her like you have never made love before, all for the “entry” –and unsolicited—price of an admission ticket to her presumably “available” heart). But by no means should you end up FALLING IN LOVE WITH HER--esp. if you do not know her up close and personal and for at least six months to a year right there with you “in her face.” Now you may ask, how can I do that? Exactly! That’s what they know you usually CANNOT do, which is why they feel safe in soliciting your love (however smoothly or gently), because in the end even if you meet with them, they can window dress their bridal entrance with all the appropriate window dressing of a "brief" affair... Don’t misunderstand me, she may have fallen in love with you (not this particular one, necessarily, but some hypothetical lady in the future), but if something goes wrong, you both get hurt-- EXCEPT she walks away with your money, and you ended up with NOTHING! So you see, it is easier for a Filipina to … “fall in love” under such circumstances...

 

WOW, I mean wow like in WTF...

Just came back from Siquijor, you really can't leave the kids for 3 days alone

 

The questions would be, are you here to settle or look for a bride. Because if you plan to settle, you do not need someone to tell you what to do or what to decide on. If you plan to marry a Filipina, then by all means, worry. Worry about finding the right one because that will make it worth all the hassles you will go through.

 

So that is why this forum started getting exciting again. Take another business trip daddy. :p

Yes, never underestimate what you may learn through gossip or a friends best friend.