Dear Hillary,
It amuses me when I read some of the letters that men send to you complaining about how the bar girls that move in with them seem to always want more money. You live with a bar girl until you are ready to move on or tired of being an ATM. You guys have it easy. I have been married to a Thai woman for 8 years. When I met her she worked in a hospital, I guess you would call her a non-bar girl. Here’s my point; I have spent much more money since being married than I ever did when I had bar girl friends. When you marry a Thai girl, you also marry the entire family. My wife has six sisters, all married with kids. They never ask me for money; however, when I see that one of the them is having a hard time paying off the bank loan because the rice crop was flooded out, a nephew or niece needs money for school, a brother-in-law is laid up in the hospital because one of his bulls kicked him, or another bother-in-law drives around in an old rusted out Mazda P/U while I drive a New Nissan P/U and our house is paid for, I help them. Do you think I turn my back on them and “move on”? The eight years I’ve been married to my Thai wife are the best years of my life and I hope for many more. Although I respect and admire the bar girls - theirs is not an easy life, they are just trying to survive - I will never go back to that kind of life.
Uncle Bill

Dear Uncle Bill,
Why didn’t you wait for me? I am having a hard time paying off a bank loan (tried to buy 50 kg of rice the other day and it was more than my salary, so I approached the bank for a food mortgage), and I have a rusty old bicycle as I can’t afford a pick-up (but I avoid bulls at all costs). You have also correctly described the Thai families (that you marry into) - they are not (despite claims to the contrary) all standing in line with their hands out. They are ordinary people who look after each other when needed. You sound like such a nice man, my Petal, I shall cry myself to sleep tonight having missed you. However, I am so happy to hear you are enjoying the “best years of my life”, and yet do understand the plight of the bar girls. Or rather, the trade of the bar girls, as they are not forced into working from around a chrome pole - they choose that existence. “Plight” is how they promote it, looking for (several) kind hearted gentlemen (ATM’s) to give them their pin numbers and fantastic plastics. Stay well, Uncle Bill.

Dear Hillary,
Is that Tim guy for real, who wrote in asking how to transfer big wads of money to his ever-faithful sweetheart? He has fallen into the Thai trap of bringing everything back to financial terms. “You love me? Give me 20,000 baht. You really, really love me? Give me 40,000 baht. You love me forever? Give me 100,000 baht!” Relationships are not based on money, but on trust and that wonderful emotion called love. Not infatuation, which is the bar girl’s stock in trade. These old dudes start believing the lies that this 18 year old has fallen in love with him, so “just send me some money honey and I’ll leave the bar and go back to the village and wait for you coming next year.” So the infatuated dork sends the money over to his “sweetheart”, so that she doesn’t have to spend her nights going to bed with the endless supply of old losers like him. Hillary, you did try and warn him, but I think you should have just told him to stop being an idiot and wake up to himself. Remember, “You can take a girl out of the bar, but you can’t take the bar out of the girl!”
Telling it straight

Dear Telling it straight,
I think you are being a bit hard on Tim, my Petal. There have been many relationships between bar girls and older “sponsors” which have worked well for both parties. The problem is getting the Tims of this world to understand that it is a two-way street. She gets the benefit of an income, while he gets the benefit of the company of a lovely young girl. That works well for foreigners living here, but I don’t think it works as well for the ones living overseas and coming over for their three week holiday each year. It really is asking too much of the girl that she gives up all opportunities of gaining money for the other 11 months 1 week. Would you? If there is money to be made, then why not? Even 100,000 baht a month does not guarantee faithfulness, when the relationship is only based on money, I agree. And always remember, “You can lead horse to drink, but you can’t make it water!”