Internet dating

Letters to Bangkok is a story of love born on the internet between a practising Thai surgeon and an English University marketing manager. The initial Skype conversations and subsequent letters are true and exact records of written exchanges between two people trying to find love. Below is an extract of pages 17, 18 and 19 of the actual book.

The Skype Connection September–November 2008 ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,’ the famous throwaway saying in Casablanca brings me immediately to thinking with amazement how I first met sweet Pen. Reflecting on this momentous meeting, well momentous in terms of its life-changing impact on my small world, I often pose myself one question: How is it possible that two people, effectively total strangers, with widely different backgrounds and experiences can begin a conversation through a chance meeting at a moment in a time and place on a social chat forum called Skype and through that conversation set off additional exchanges leading eventually to two hearts beating as one? (See explanation of the term Skype below.) It must be said at the outset that both Pen and I came to the site with reservations and varying degrees of scepticism born from previous failed and disappointing encounters on Skype, where people come and go with regular monotony, like ships in the night or ghosts briefly haunting the ether space but soon to disappear without a trace. It is the nature of the beast called social Internet chatting that you may find someone interesting and then they disappear, never to be seen or heard of again, with no by your leave, refusing to reply to further communications, leaving you saying, ‘Um, it was definitely something I said!!!!’ I had an early impression from what Pen said that she was more experienced on Skype in comparison to me, a relative newcomer. But why did Pen and I come to seek out one another in the first place? I was searching initially for company and solace, as I was suffering in a loveless, rather cruel relationship. Despite my experiences, I have always been an optimist, eternally inquisitive and open minded, a people’s person. Setting aside early negative encounters on social sites, I have been blessed with a strong belief in the goodness of human nature and a belief in destiny.

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Whether I believed that destiny could be found in such a chance and brief encounter is a moot point. I had just come through a long and difficult marriage which had ended de facto, and although I had not made the break physically from my ex-partner, I had signalled my intention to leave, and in mind and spirit, I had disassociated myself from intimacy or any future plans with this failed relationship. So yes, in one sense, although not consciously acknowledged by myself, I was searching for a human being to fill the emotional chasm left by years of mild mental abuse born of being married to an aggressive and sometimes violent alcoholic. I was seeking someone who might be sensitive, caring, supportive, loving, someone who could be my friend and confidant, someone I could trust with my heart, a lover that would be my love for always, not just temporarily, someone that would be my encourager and someone that would share my dreams and let me share hers, and most importantly, someone that would not betray my emotional trust—a big shopping order, you might say! And in that respect, I had already decided to cast my net wider, beyond the shores of England, and sought an international partner to be my friend. I was already familiar with some of the attractive qualities that an Asian woman might bring to a relationship: loyalty, selflessness, spirituality, a caring, loving, and generous nature, and rarely abusive of alcohol. I was also physically attracted to the Asian look with their dark eyes, sultry looks, and long dark hair. For Pen, Skype perhaps offered, amongst other things, an opportunity to develop her English and friendship, but maybe also, she was seeking to find ‘someone’, having remained unmarried for the best part of thirty-four years. But it was clear, well, in an overtly stated sense, that she held a more sceptical stance than me about the virtues of finding someone she might trust on a social chat site, as some of her first comments bear witness. Whatever the reasons, we both met for the first time on 19 September 2008. It was an exchange at once bizarre and comical but also filled with pathos and shared, deep inquisitiveness about each other. Even in those first early exchanges, I began to feel warm about Pen. I felt a strong attraction to her in my soul. I was being touched strangely by a force that was greater than both Pen and me, and there was definitely on my part what the French call a ‘je ne sais quoi’ about Pen. (I had to look up the exact meaning of this to explain to non- French readers, and in perfect clarity I offer, ‘Cette femme a je ne sais quoi’, meaning ‘That woman has a certain thing I cannot explain’, a

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charm, an indefinable enchantment.) So already forces were at work upon me, and later on in our story, you will see me teasing Pen with comments like, ‘Do you know Thai black magic love potions?’. But on a serious note, black magic or just old-fashioned chemistry between boy and girl, something happened, and as time unfolded, I was powerless to stop it. So was it chance we met? I will let you decide. Note: Skype is an Internet social chat site where you can search a person randomly, by country, gender, language, and age, or a combination of these. Some use Skype and the many other Internet-based social forums for entertainment or a language exchange. Some use it as a means to fulfil fantasies, including sordid fantasies, and others, perhaps a significant number, use it as a means to find friendship and love.

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