Chapter 12

Lend/Lose or the End of the Affair:

I have just spent an hour and a half walking along Bangtao beach, in the dark, and in a very bad mood.

Many years ago I had a good friend, an ex-colleague who was a bit down on his luck. He had spent some time creating a software package which was brilliantly written but, in my opinion, of no commercial significance.

I spent many hours discussing this with him and trying to persuade him that even if he believed in this package he should still get a job and pursue it in his spare time.

So when he got a job and asked me if I could lend him £5000 to buy a car so that he could get to work then I was only too happy to oblige.

Six months later I learned that he had not taken the job, had not bought the car and had spent the money on attempting to complete and sell the software package referred to above.

He had been thrown out of his house for not keeping up with his mortgage payments and was basically destitute.

To say that I was angry about this would be an understatement.

If I lend money to somebody I am happy to accept that I gamble on ever getting it back, But I do expect that the gamble I take is the one that I agree to.

Here in Bangtao I have a sense of deja vu.

A young lady friend sent me a text message a few days ago asking, very politely, whether it was possible that I could lend her twenty thousand baht to buy a second-hand motorbike. Apparently her friend had just bought a new one and wanted to sell her old one.

I thought about this and considered that her offer to pay it back at five thousand baht a month was probably within the realms of possibility.

I said OK and two days later provided her with the money.

I heard no more from her until earlier this evening. Incidentally I have noticed that Thai girls keep very much in communication when they want something - and disappear when they don't. But perhaps I'm getting cynical in my old age.

She said she was at the Coffee Bar with her new bike.

I wandered down to admire her new possession. She was right - it was new.

She had decided that she would use my money as a down payment on a new, no not second-hand, a new bike costing something like fifty thousand baht.

I was speechless.

Though I had figured that she could probably, just about, afford to pay me back five thousand baht a month - where is she going to find the money to pay for the rest of the bike?

But hold on - this is not the point. What is relevant is that she has just borrowed money from me for a purpose, which I agreed to, and then used it for something else without so much as a "by your leave".

As I said "deja vu"!

So how am I supposed to cope with this? To be completely honest I feel like setting fire to her damned bike. But of course I won't do that. I'm far too much of a gentleman.

Alas! I think that this does mean that despite how much I care about her, this has to be the parting of our ways.

I mean, seriously, this is just, as we say in England, "taking the piss".

So young lady, despite my best efforts, and despite your undoubted attractions, I fear it is time to wish you a fond adieu and to accept that you are just like all the other Thai girls I have met, although I have to concede that I will miss you - and that you are a very classy act.

footnote: It is the next morning and I have just received a rambling text message explaining why she had changed her mind and bought a new bike. She includes several indignant comments suggesting that I just do not understand her. On that point she is right. But perhaps it is about time that she tried to understand me.

I have now had time to analyse my feelings about this. I was angry, now just sad, that she should feel that she could change the use of money that I had lent her without consulting me. This suggests that once she has my money in her hands she feels that it is hers to do what she likes with. She forgets that it is still my money. If she had bought a diamond ring with it would I have been annoyed? Of course I would. If she had used it to buy a bike costing thirty thousand baht would I have been annoyed? I just don't know. What I do know is that I wish to have some say in how my money is spent.

Perhaps I’m just a ขี้เหนียว (kee neow). Hmmmm!