Dear Hillary,
I came with my parents to Thailand four years ago. After two years I had to go back to Europe to go to college. While I was staying in Thailand I had been dating a guy who works in my father’s company. He is Thai. I come regularly to visit my parents during school holidays, at which time we see each other. We also write to each other on a regular basis. From the beginning I knew he has a Thai girlfriend. I accepted it for he always told me he loved me. I thought I can deal with it, hoping that one day he might change his mind and leave his girlfriend. When he and I are together, we have a lot of fun. We are very happy, and we spend all our free time together. He is very caring. He takes me out and buys me things. We are having, so it seams, an almost normal relationship except that his girlfriend is between us. She lives in a different city and sometimes she comes to visit or he meets her on the weekends. She doesn’t know about his affair with me. As soon as she leaves or he gets back from her place he calls me up and we spend the rest of the time together. The last time, he even called me up while she was in town (she was at the hairdresser), asking me if I would like to have breakfast with him. I went there but instead of breakfast we had sex, as usual. After that I had to rush off. Last night I asked him four questions, insisting he give me true answers. 1. Does he want to stop the relationship with his girlfriend? His answer was no. 2. Was his girlfriend pregnant? His answer was no. 3. Does he like to stop our relationship? His answer was no. 4. Is he getting married to this girl? No again. After a while he admitted he is getting married in about 8 weeks. I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore. He told me he loves me and I should try to understand him. Even after he is married, he doesn’t want to lose me, and he still wants to date me. He told me it is very common to have a “mia noi” in Thailand and nobody would mind it. But I am a European! Now I ask myself, is he worth fighting for? And if so, how should I do it?
Want to be No. 1
Dear Want to be No. 1,
If you had asked me all this before you found out that he was getting married, I could probably have predicted what was going to happen. He is a Thai. Most Thai people from good families do have to marry a Thai to be accepted in their community. There’s almost no way out for them. He has been using you for his needs and he still wants to do so, and you are the poorer for it. You should stop seeing him immediately. This might be painful for you and you may cry a lot, but think about how much you would cry when the first baby within his marriage arrives. You’ll always be number two only. Would you like to lead a life of being alone on weekends and most of the time in the evenings, except for a short visit he pays, just to go to bed with you? Go back to Europe, finish your school and if you are open minded, you’ll soon find somebody else who will be focusing only on you, and the faster you do that the better.
 

Dear Hillary,
My daughter is entering the first grade in September. The curriculum includes sex education with topics like AIDS, etc. I think she’s too young to be given this kind of information. What is your opinion and do you think this subject is part of the curriculum in Europe also?
Concerned Mother.
Dear Concerned Mother,
You should be happy about being a concerned mother. These days, we no longer have a choice but to teach our children about sexuality. I say this not only because of my philosophy, but in these times with all the STDs, especially AIDS, we have an obligation to teach our children about them in the early grades. This information must be passed on so that its geared to the child’s degree of maturity and comprehension. We should not frighten children about the dangers in sex, but make sure that they know the facts. The second reason that we must make our children sexually literate is that because of television children are much more sophisticated about sexual matters than ever before. They don’t have to walk in on their parents making love to see two people in bed anymore.
Sex is a part of our everyday life. The earlier children learn to know about it, the less they will be curious and therefore can protect themselves from these kinds of diseases.