Wednesday 4 March 2009

The Ex Files - Horror Stories Part 1!

I’m only just beginning to realise the full extent of how angry I still am – mainly with myself – over my involvement with Other Man. In fact it’s getting worse and I need to resolve it before I turn into an embittered old maid who can’t bear the thought of letting a man touch her…or is it too late for that…?

This Monday, which is about two weeks after we broke up, Other Man finally felt able to suggest we go for a coffee together, at work. He spent most of the time whingeing about some stupid commission that work is cheating him out of, and also answered my questions about how the rest of his life is going. As usual, he didn’t ask me anything about myself, which is fine by me as I’m a pretty private person, and just because we’ve slept together doesn’t mean I expect him to have any interest in me whatsoever! As we were walking back to our desks he mentioned he was going away in a couple of weeks, to Phuket. I didn’t think much of it at the time because to be honest I wasn’t listening that hard anyway – well, would you?

But the next morning I remembered what he’d said about going to Phuket. Of course – he has this ‘friend’ there – a poverty stricken Thai woman who he sometimes sends money to and in return she calls and e-mails him saying how much she misses him and asking him when he’s coming to visit, and he’s all flattered and charmed and everything. You know the drill. Basically, Other Man is one of the droves of men who like to go on holiday in Thailand and take advantage of the poverty of the local women to get sex and ridiculous amounts of flattery.

Unfortunately for my conscience, Other Man did actually tell me about Thai Hooker before we ever had sex. It was weird. It wasn’t like a confession at all, it was more like “by the way I’m this really great, generous guy and women adore me and want to have sex with me because I’m so hot and such a nice guy, including this cute little Thai girl who I just happened to meet in Thailand, and I send her money because she’s desperate, and she just happens to want to be my girlfriend, presumably because I’m so great and hot etc etc. I was wavering between thinking, "he can’t possibly be interested in me if he’s telling me he maintains a Thai hooker", and thinking "well if he is interested in me, I must be misinterpreting this". And so, because I’m such an idiot, and hadn’t had sex in so long, I decided to let the Thai Hooker thing slide when he told me he wanted to go out with me, and I had sex with him. And now I’m left terrified that the next time I let my health get run down, I’ll break out in genital warts or something. I mean, I could have caught anything from him. And the worst thing is that on some level – and not very deep down either – I knew this before I first went to bed with him. How stupid am I?

I’d like to make one thing clear. I have nothing against Thai Hooker herself. I’m calling her ‘Thai Hooker’ here to illustrate how deeply offended I am by Other Man’s behaviour, not by hers. I don’t believe I am in any position to judge her. Her life sounds dreadful. Apparently she has a baby and was dumped by her husband, and works in a shop for basically slave wages; the baby lives with her family and she sends as much money as she can. Recently, the baby was sick and needed an operation, which Other Man paid for, otherwise it would have died (well so I’m told, anyway). She’s been dealt a pretty raw deal in life and I’m sure I’d be befriending male tourists too if it meant a bit of desperately needed extra money. At least that’s better than hitting the bars every night looking for customers (assuming she doesn’t). Sex and companionship with Other Man probably isn’t such a bad exchange – after all, I did it for free. It’s not that bad, honest. But it’s pretty disgusting that she and so many other Thai women have to barter themselves like that to keep themselves and their children alive.

So what disgusts me is not her, but Other Man’s side of the deal. I could totally get on board with it if he just sent her money, but if sex is being had – and I’m sure it is – then that’s not ok. Buying companionship and sex from anyone, especially a poor woman, is NOT COOL. Whenever I go to Thailand, it disturbs me more than I can say to see all the single guys getting off the plane with me and knowing they’re probably there to take advantage of the local women – buying sex from woman so poor they have no choice but to sell themselves is just a great holiday for these guys. And it disturbs me even more than that to know that I have slept with one of these guys, given part of myself to him. I feel like I’ve degraded myself, and I don’t know how to get my dignity back.

You know what’s really weird? Other Man seems to have dressed it up a bit in his head so that he doesn’t seem to notice what it is. He honestly seems to believe he’s a real hero, a friend of women. I suppose it says something for him that he doesn’t get off on just paying some poor streetwalker to have sex with him, and that he has to maintain some kind of ‘relationship’ through phone calls and e-mails. But can he really be that naïve? Or is it just vanity? He really seems to believe she is actually very keen on him. She’s all “you very handsome man” and “you no have much money but very generous”, you know, all that big white hero stuff. When it’s clear to me that she is in effect calling him plead for the life of her child, and for enough food to eat. He says “She really didn’t want me to send her money!” Umm, yeah right. And does he not know how it looks to me?

Vying for top place among the insults to me, along with exploitation of women, and being tacky enough to do it in Thailand, is the fact that he was so open with me about it. It seems like there are no boundaries any more in how a man will behave towards a woman, and we’re supposed to accept it. When Other Man and I first got together, he actually had the gall to tell me I was lucky, because at one point he was thinking of bringing her to Australia as a de facto spouse, but then decided he didn’t want the hassle of a baby to look after. (No, it’s not romantic – this is a man who told me he’d given up on ever getting an Australian woman as he had no luck in relationships; this is a man who hasn’t got the social skills to get a woman of his own culture and class so toys with the idea of buying a poor woman who’ll have to put up with him.) It’s the first time a man’s told me I am in competition with a Thai prostitute and am lucky he chose me (but then, there have been a few firsts with Other Man). It’s interesting that he didn’t consider himself the lucky one, and believe me I was very sweet to him and enthusiastic with the sex. And he got me for free.

Maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe I shouldn’t be this angry. Maybe my anger isn’t really for him. I suppose I’m really angry with all men like him. And that a poor country like Thailand has this huge sex trade thing going on, where they sell their women flesh to men all over the world, and many people seem ok with that. It’s offensive to me as a woman and as a human being.

But I guess mostly I’m just scared he’s given me herpes or something. Time will tell.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If that was me in your shoes, I'd have a hard time stopping myself from slapping that guy up-side the head everytime I saw his face. Not that it would help him - but it sure would make me feel better :)

Sprite said...

Thanks for the vote of support. It's good to know I'm not going totally crazy...I wonder if I'm overreacting sometimes. Should I adjust myself or should the world adjust to me? Why the world, of course!

Jack and Jill said...

It's always hard when you know you've overlooked something about a man because you liked him. Then the day comes when you don't like him anymore, and you start to wonder "WTF was I thinking in letting THAT go?!?" I've been there MANY times, I assure you.

All I can say is 1) get your ladybits checked out soon!, 2) don't beat yourself up over it, and 3) congratulate yourself for kicking this guy to the curb. He sounds like a total slime ball with this Thai situation he's got going on.

As for Thailand...even worse is when people sell their children into sex slavery for money. It is so depressing.

And if I were that woman, and my child needed an operation, I know I would have done the same thing she did without hesitating. It's her baby, after all - wouldn't most women do the same? So sad that it came to that, though!

Wow, sorry for the long comment!

-Jill

Anonymous said...

Your definately not overreacting.

It's just really sad to know that there are people out there like that guy who don't seem to understand their actions are just plain wrong. Be thankful you got out whilst the going was good I say!

Sprite said...

Thanks Jill. And I will try to get to #1 - not in any hurry though as I don't think I'll be in a position to pass anything on for a while!

Gena - I am!