Last night I was kindly invited to the high-society wedding reception of a Thai colleague and his stunning new bride. Amongst the 1000-strong guest list of largely wealthy middle-aged Thais I stood on my own for the first half hour while I nervously watched a gorgeous young creature in a tight-fitting full-length evening gown also standing on her own. Did she speak English? Did she have a boyfriend already who would suddenly “arrive” the moment I went to talk to her? There was only one way to find out.

Taking in a deep breath and a long slurp on the red wine in my hand, I sauntered over trying to look cool, calm, and confident – something that was probably hard to do given that I was sweating like a pig in my black suit, nervous as hell, and trying to hide the effects of a recent drinking binge behind the bags under my eyes and three day growth on my chin. But why would I let that stop me from making a fool of myself!

It turned out that my pale-skinned prey spoke some English, was on her own, and quite happy to indulge my no doubt poor attempt at “picking up a girl without making it look obvious I’m desperately wanting to get her in the sack ™ ”. We spoke in broken English and smashed-to-pieces Thai for half an hour or so and somehow we managed to make conversation. In that time I discovered she is studying engineering at university, and that she is charming, feminine, beautiful, and most likely a virgin. Perfect.

“...her daughter, a french maids’ outfit, and a pair of handcuffs.”

Perfect that is, until her podgy, drenched-in-cheap-Mr-T-gold, beehive-hairdo’ed mother arrived on the scene and promptly squashed any further attempts at romance by whisking her daughter away from me with a nod from her head and a smug, milk-curdling smile on her face. Can’t say as I blame her though. Maybe she was psychic and could see the scenes being played out in my mind involving her daughter, a french maids’ outfit, and a pair of handcuffs.

What really ruined the night though was the realization that many of these beautiful, shy, doe-eyed stunners turn into fat, rude snobs with tacky dress sense and ridiculous hair styles once they hit 40. It’s apparently almost a uniform of sorts for the middle-aged, middle-classed woman to dress and act this way as a sign of “status”. No wonder so many Thai men have their twenty-year old mia noi’s on the side if this is how respectable Thai women turn out.

The thought of my young high society engineer virgin bride slowly becoming the same as her mother over the years put me off and shattered forever any fantasies I had about getting married to a rich, well-bred Thai girl. Well, at least until the next wedding I’m invited to…