sglad

Good morning, a447a! You're up early. I haven't slept and needed a bit of distraction from my work and you came along, my favourite comedian and mature pornstar. Thank you for your comments. I must first apologise for saying you left SN in a huff - that was my mistake. You left in a few huffs - what was it that Brad said...you had more farewells than Sinatra had concerts. Ouch! And even then no one begged you to stay. You said earlier that no one "jumped up and down" when I was "thrown off" SN. Only spoilt little girls jump up and down and stomp their feet when they can't have their way as they go running to moderator...oops...Mommy. Thankfully, there are sane posters like arsenal and Jellybean who said some kind words and a couple of others who gave me their support via PM when I was being harassed by my stalker. Speaking of lack support and farewells without fanfare, it must have really hurt when after having made almost 2,500 posts in 11 years, there was barely whimper from the gallery when you made your final, final...and again very last (is it really? how can we be sure?) farewell. 11 years and 2,500 posts later and not even a moderately soiled handkerchief - I was only there for a month! That must have hurt indeed. Double ouch. Rules are open to interpretation; if they work for you, you demand compliance. If they don't, you cry foul. A poster is good if he agrees with you; he's a troll if you don't like what he says. I see the pattern here... Your comments about Singaporeans are racist and ignorant and not something I haven't heard before. It's like saying all Thais are cheats. You met some Singaporeans and you myopically assume that they are representative of the entire population. I agree that some Singaporeans have spoken English skills that can be improved but there are many, especially among the professional classes, who have an excellent written command of the language. I assume you just don't know them as they do not constitute your social circle or more likely, you are not part of theirs. Our education system is consistently ranked among the world's finest and factors like socio-economic background and whether English is the primary language at home also come to play. Incidentally, I take little comfort and no pride in you saying my English is perfect. Yours isn't so how would you know mine is? I don't seek perfection because it would mean I no longer have anything to strive for. Many times now we've heard of my stalker's omniscience in his knowledge of Asian practice and custom, mostly from my stalker himself and I can totally imagine him "jumping up and down" as he's saying it. Let's for the sake of argument say that I agree. But his is just one outsider's perspective. Chinese culture is broad and is divided by regional, social, economic, religious and class differences, urban versus rural settings and is continuously evolving within itself and viz a viz other cultures. No one can claim sole authority on its many facets. I'm trying to recall what I said about CNY that he disagreed with? Is it about one of my cousin's wearing black? Yes, she did and my grandmother didn't say anything. We were travelling and she was also wearing dress shorts. So was I. It's oookaaayy, stop jumping. Take a chill pill. Some families are OK with wearing black during CNY, some are not. My family is generally cool about such things - two years ago we had our reunion dinner at Chili's Bar & Grill instead of a Chinese restaurant. Shock! Horror! Call the ambulance, my stalker has had a stroke! Chinese culture isn't what it was 70 years ago! Truthfully I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I joined this forum. It seemed fun (and I like checking out the cam whores) but I had my doubts because my stalker had warned me about how boring and repetitive this forum was and something about Person A playing out Person B in order to get rid of Person B when Person B was moderator here - I didn't understand what he meant and I wasn't interested enough to ask him. To me he was like the office gossip - lethal and best avoided; if he could say those awful things to poison the mind of a newbie like me, then who's to say he won't say the same about me to others. Anyway, I'm beginning to enjoy my stay here. Replying to these queries are tedious - I'd rather be posting on other stuff - but I guess it can't be helped. I have to get back to my essay. Have a nice day!

If I'm not mistaken, you can get your travel date postponed if you arrive within an hour after your train's departure in Thailand or a 50% refund. Same-same with the Malaysian train that departs from Singapore - you can get a 50% refund if you arrive within a certain time from the train's departure. I had an Air Asia flight refunded with a credit shell when I missed a flight because I had chicken pox (it was going round at uni). Air Asia, being the stingy assholes that they are, of course only gave me a credit shell for the price of the seat and minus all the add-ons like taxes and whatever so what I got was about 50-60% of what I originally paid. Your medical certificate must clearly state that you're not fit to fly on your travel date.

And you're complaining? I thought you'd be ecstatic.

Thanks, Michael!

Thanks, vinapu, I'll bear that in mind. From my humble experience, a brief introduction of oneself is not out-of-place in any new social situation and the "spat" you refer to wasn't started by me and I had to respond to it before I had a chance to write about anything else. I did visit a few bars in CM which I will write about shortly (I have a paper due at 5 tomorrow) and also managed a two-night trip to Pattaya last month largely based on the reviews I read here, SN and Gaybuttonthai. But don't shoot me if my reports aren't as colourful or as sexy as yours or numazu's as I'm very matter-of-fact in the way I write!

If you don't know what the significance of something is, why bring it up unless it is to stir the pot? And why should I show you my CV; is that a pre-requisite for participating in this forum? Has anyone else? And if I show it to you, would be I then be subjected to another inquisition as to its veracity? Thank you. I take pride in my writing. But what exactly does it betray?

I didn't bring up SN and my posting history there when I started this thread. Neither did the owner of SN. You, a447a and ChristianPFC did and I responded accordingly. My purpose for starting this thread was to introduce myself which I thought was the polite thing to do being a newbie. My posts after that were in response to what you, a447 and ChristianPFC said. I'm also not responsible as to who-signs-up-where and posts-on-what-forum but from what I've seen it's not unusual for people to register on all three gay-Thailand-related forums. My apologies to forum members - on whose behalf my stalker has generously spoken - if my posts are boring you. I shall confine any references to my posting history on SN only to this thread if they are raised by others.

Welcome to the board to you too, Stalker. Are you still on about this so-called trap that you laid for me which I allegedly fell into because I couldn't/wouldn't cite a Singapore gay forum? You don't think I could have used google and do a simple search of "Singapore gay forum" and therefore needed your help through my so-called alter ego? Try googling "Singapore gay forum" and see what comes up. Do you seriously believe that other people can't make use of the online resources easily available to them and need to resort to you? The best part of it is that you got it wrong. Blowing Wind has been around a long time but I think Trevvy is more popular among younger Singaporeans and you didn't mention Trevvy at all. And the former name of Trevvy is sgboy which is the inspiration for my online handle. The notion that I should visit a Singapore chatroom because I'm Singaporean is just bizarre! If that were the case, then the witty Nirish should be confined to Irish chatrooms and the lovely vinapu to vinapuland and we would have all been the poorer for it! And you're wrong to say that there is extensive information on Thailand in the Singapore gay chatrooms. There are bits of information here and there for the average three-night, sauna-shopping-Silom weekender but nothing much about long-term stay, Thai society, culture and politics and certainly not in comparison to SN, Gaythailand and Gaybuttonthai. As a student of Thai language and culture who is likely to have a long-term involvement with Thailand AND as a lover of Thai guys, the latter "niche" forums would be far more relevant to me. And I don't know why you keep carping about age. I don't know how old the average poster is on these forums and I don't care how old they are. Why are you so ageist? What I do see is a group of people who are mostly having fun, who love Thailand and who also occasionally bitch about Thailand (which is also a sign of love when you think about it 555). The opposite of love is indifference, not hate, and indifference is something you have difficulty grasping because you still don't get it that I have been ignoring you both on SN and via PM because you don't matter to me. I find it ironic that you, who love to brag about young Asian hunks throwing themselves at you "for no money" have such difficulty accepting that a young Asian might be interested in these forums. So which part have you been lying about? And please stop using this thread to bash SN. I know you and your buddy above are bitter about not being able to strong arm the moderators there to do your bidding and have left in a huff but please do not unload your venom here. Please do not turn this into an "us and them" feud when it is really about you and your need for control. All three forums can exist peacefully and in a collegial fashion - occasional ribbing and rivalry is fun and to be expected but let's not turn these boards into turf wars for your personal ego.

I just wanted to add that I did receive a couple of PMs from a couple of well-meaning SN members advising me to file a complaint against my stalker for stalking and harassing me. Apparently my stalker has a history of witch-hunting (and calling them trolls) posters whom he disliked for some personal reason or other and wouldn't let go until he has successfully driven away said posters from the forum. I didn't take their advice as I felt it was all too over-the-top for what was after-all a virtual forum comprising of people I didn't know and unlikely to meet in real life.

Hi Christian Thanks for your post. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm the same sglad who posted on Sawatdee Network (SN) earlier this year. You're partially right in your comments. Yes, I was banned, after I had stopped posting on that forum. I stopped posting for two reasons. Firstly, participation on that forum, as with this one, was never meant to be a regular, consistent affair. I post for the fun of it and usually when I have nothing else to do. For example, I was relatively free yesterday and I made six or seven posts here. Secondly, I got tired of posting on SN as I was consistently being stalked by a poster who seemed to follow my every post and hang on to my every word while goading me, taunting me and provoking me on the forum which is there for all to see. I ignored him as I figured he would eventually go away and leave me alone but instead he launched a campaign to get rid of me with the forum moderators as well as with other members for "trolling" which brings me to my second point. You said I was "outed as troll (sic)." This is incorrect. As I understand it an Internet troll is someone who seeks to sow discord or disrupt normal discussions to the extent of endangering the online community itself for the sake of the troll's own amusement. Goes without saying that the use of the term troll is subjective depending on how sensitive one is. A particularly sensitive person might consider a post as trolling (perhaps because it hits them directly on the nose). Another person might see the same post as legitimate if albeit controversial. Obviously, the use of the term troll is easily abused and can be used as an ad hominem attack simply because you don't like what a poster has to say or, as I said earlier, because it hits you directly on the nose. Christian, since you repeated the use of that term on me here, I wonder if you could do me a favour. I think I made about ninety posts on SN; could you point out one post that I made that can be described as disruptive or attempting to sow discord so much so that it was endangering normal discussions on that forum and by 'normal' I mean what can be described as normal for SN? It's been almost two months since I was banned on SN and longer than that since I stopped posting and my stalker was still talking and obsessing over me as recently as yesterday. It wasn't enough that he waged a smear campaign against me, called me a liar and other names, made accusations against me that were not true and kept harassing the moderators to get rid of me - even after I was gone he had to keep me 'alive' in some kind of daily masturbation ritual. I have things to attend to this week but at some point I hope to address his accusations. It's just that the very idea that I have to address accusations made over an anonymous online forum is just so silly - it's just a forum FFS! What was meant to be a breezy, fun endeavour has turned into a cyber inquisition because I had a stalker with too much time on his hands and, like a woman scorned, simply couldn't let go.

Nice to hear of positive real-life experiences with regards to relationships with Thai people. Too often we only hear of negative experiences. Thanks for sharing.

Nice pic and illustrations. I hope the guys have been playing safe as it's so easy to throw caution to the wind when you're partying and this applies to both gays and straights (I heard unwanted pregnancies go up during Songkran).

The Thai groom is aptly named สำรวย (samruay) which is used to describe someone who is foppish, pleasure-loving or idle-rich. The auspicious circumstances of his birth might have led his parents and/or monk giving him that name and lo and behold, they turned out to be right! I didn't know the word สำรวย could be used to describe men as I've only heard it being used to describe women - you learn something new everyday! Question: why do gay couples often wear matching outfits at their wedding? I find it somewhat nuff and uninspired. And why was Samruay wearing football socks? They both should have worn ballet shoes just for the fun of it!

Thanks, Alexx! Good Friday is a public holiday here in Singapore but Easter Sunday is not a national holiday which means we don't get Monday off. That said, many people would have either taken Thursday or Monday off so that they can have an extra long weekend and go off somewhere. Most of my friends have and that's why I'm sitting in front of the computer today. Chiang Mai is loads of fun and the easy life of an exchange student can get pretty addictive but occasionally I get this weird feeling of...I don't how to describe it...of being in a fish bowl, like a nuclear war might be happening out there and I might not know and not even care about it...does that make sense? This trip home has been good as I've been feeling a little homesick as silly as that sounds with Singapore being under 3 hours away.

Either Kim K. or pre-op J. Lo!

If you do a search for posts by 'arsenal' on Sawatdee Network over the last few months, you'll find many reviews of Thai and non-Thai restaurants in Pattaya that he had personally visited. His reviews are usually short and sweet.

"Any of them?" Don't be modest a447a; having read some of your posts I can imagine you taking all of them, at the same time!

Hey there! I've been in Chiang Mai for the last 3 1/2 months on student exchange and like you guys have got Thai fever! In my case literally after that first day of Songkran and I'm now back in Singapore for some rest and home-cooked food. I really like the chilled and fun atmosphere of this forum and I wish I had joined when I first arrived and ignored the dire warnings from elsewhere. I look forward to sharing some of my experiences and impressions of life in Chiang Mai but I probably won't post as regularly as some of you guys. Anyway, a belated happy New Year to all in Thailand and a happy Easter to all who celebrate!