The Ugly American...and Canadian...and Australian...

Why why why are there so many Psychopathic Ex-patriates here in Bangkok!?!?

So, I've been here about a year and a half, and sometimes it feels amazing and wonderful, and at other times it feels like an extended and mutated form of boot camp. Living abroad is at the very least, challenging -- especially in places that are so completely different from where you come from. And Bangkok is a big, dirty, smelly city with not much in aesthetic value. It takes sometimes hours to get from place to place, and the traffic never lets up. Never. I think you have to be kind of tough to live here.

If you have to be tough, do you have to be difficult?? Can being 'tough' make a generally happy or content person miserable? I still go through my silent rages at things I deem as inefficient and incompetent around me. And truly, I find a part of me saying, "It wouldn't be like this in the U.S.!" Ha ha! Whatever. There's a lot of good and bad in a new country, because you feel yourself standing apart from it, analyzing every single gesture, custom, more, protocol, attitude, etc. with a magnifying glass, and comparing it to what you believe it SHOULD be. This is never a really good thing, because I think it's one of the root causes of those ex-pats who are bitter about everything and constantly say things like, "I fucking hate it when The Thais......"

But what I really want know is...Where are all the NORMAL ex-pats?? And if I think I am one of the only ones, am I actually the pyscho one? I've met quite a number of "ex-pat's," and by and large, they're a big group of druggies/alcoholics and/or angry/bitter/violent people and/or clinically-Depressed-get-me-some-Zoloft-now! people.

Do they come to Bangkok this way or does Bangkok do this to them??? Why are so many of these people so incredibly fucked up? It seems everyone I meet has a personality with an extreme quality about it. Extremely mad, extremely thirsty (for beer), extremely manipulative, even extremely cruel, extremely paranoid, extremely bitter. An American friend of mine said the other day, "You know, Thailand sends its best to America, and America sends all its trash to Thailand." But it's not just Americans. Before I came to Bangkok, I had a great opinion of the Australians I had met in the United States and in Europe. They were fun-loving, friendly, and of course, they loved their beer. Here it seems different. Sure, they still love their beer, but now I encounter men who are macho, sexist, and antiquated in their thinking. They're the kind of men you always hear about, but you really never meet. These men DO exist!

I've met Americans who cannot wait to take minutes away from your life, that you'll never get back, in their ranting about how absolutely horrible the United States is. And yet, it is these same people who cannot seem to find their niche in Thailand.

I've met English who turn up their nose at everyone and anyone, and proclaim proudly how they were "bred to whinge." Good luck trying to be silly and goofy around these people -- they'll look at you as if you're a fucking idiot.

The one group I can honestly say I have no complaints about are the New Zealanders. I've met several, and they always strike me as the most laid back people on this Earth. Rah rah Kiwis!

But that's the thing. Extremes! I meet Americans who either LOVE America *wave the flag* or HATE America *burn the flag and spit on it*. People who LOVE Thailand, thinking everyone here is "soooo nice" and who HATE Thailand, thinking "everything
here is so fucked up!" It gets a bit depressing after awhile. It's hard to be friends with Thais, since it's very difficult to find Thais who speak English well (and after a year and a half, my Thai isn't anything to write home about). And when you go out with other ex-pats, you find that it involves two things a) more drinking of whisky in one sitting than you've ever had in your life and b) more bitching and moaning in one sitting than you're ever done in your life. As one man put it, "That stuff is contagious" (he was talking about the complaining). They both are. It's like this moody, bitter group you get sucked into. You think you feel better by venting it all out, and in the end, you're all just as mad as you were before. You just feel better that others are mad too (a la Aesop's "Misery loves company").

I just want to meet people who are relatively happy, and who like to laugh. To avoid those whose only recreational activity involves a bar and endless bottles of whisky (and no dinner! That takes up too much room in the stomach!). To find people who enjoy eating, who like to go to movies, who don't mind exploring a city of 10 million, etc. I know like THREE of you. As for the rest of you....where are you!?!