the doldrums

I grew up knowing the colloquial usage of the term “being in the doldrums” which means being in a state of listlessness, despondency, inactivity, stagnation, or a slump, but it wasn’t until I saw a Hollywood movie (Bounty, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins from memory) that I learned the origin of the phrase.

It seems that the Doldrums is an area of ocean where the winds weaken, or disappear altogether, leaving sailing ships drifting on the open ocean. Let me offer this bit from Wikipedia:

The Doldrums (often capitalized when referring to the geographic region) is an area of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes….

This region is also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, or are light and shifting. Hurricanes originate in this region. Because of the unpredictable weather patterns, the Doldrums became notorious with sailors because this region’s periods of deadly calm could trap ships for days or weeks on end as they waited for enough wind to power their sails.

I have been — not literally — but colloquially, in the doldrums for some time now, I think.

I’ve been doing some things to propel my life forward… for example, I’ve been dieting, and so far I’ve dropped 18 kilos (or about 40 pounds). I’ve gotten into a routine at the gym with my mate Penfold, which is leading to a fitter Werewolf. I’ve successfully increased my workload, bringing in somewhat higher paychecks, and I’ve been using the increased cash (mostly) to pay off some debt that I accumulated during a financially disastrous 5-moth period last year.

So, it seems hard to figure out why I would describe myself as listless, despondent, inactive, stagnant, or in a slump but that’s very much how things have been in the past few months.

It’s because of two things. One is that I’m beginning to chafe from the lack of challenge in my work. I don’t have a lot of responsibility or a lot of money here in Thailand, and both of those things are big changes from my past.  Throughout my life I’ve always been the boss to some degree or another at work, and that has meant deadlines, decisions and other people relying on me.

These days I work pretty much by myself, with little pressure. I really only need to perform at an acceptable level to collect my hourly rate, and there’s very little room to excel or expand.

When I first came to Thailand it was a welcome change. Work felt more like a holiday… it was rewarding — refreshing. But after 4 years it’s wearing a little thin. I am jealous of people who are racing the clock and doing the things that make or break companies.

But I suspect that the dreadful routine of work wouldn’t bother me as much if I didn’t have my panties twisted in a knot about a girl.

Like the liberated feeling that I had in work when I arrived in Thailand in 2005, I felt equally liberated by the easy sex with beautiful girls that required absolutely no commitment beyond paying the agreed short time price at the end. Like so many other men from countries across the world, I indulged deeply in the pleasures of the flesh here in Bangkok.

And eventually I found my own style that ‘felt’ right. I was seeing (typically) a stable set of 4 girls… having sex two to three times per week without much effort. I had the girls’ phone numbers, and I would simply call them a day or two ahead and schedule them to show up at my room on a certain night. In fact, for most of the girls, we simply established a set night each week, and I could simply confirm the time with them by SMS, and they would show up.

For a year or more this was a system that served me well.

But all of that changed last year in July.

The first half of last year (Jan to May 2008) was a financial disaster for me. My income all but disappeared. But a 6-week contract in June and July was the beginning of my financial comeback. I went to Northern Thailand for six weeks, earning a good chunk of change and I’ve been working steadily ever since.

But it disrupted my happy pattern of regular sex with a regular stable of girls.

While I was gone, I found one little cutie in Northern Thailand who seemed happy enough to be my personal pin cushion for the six weeks I was there. She was cheerful and cute and she kept me balls-deep in pussy while I was in the Mountain region of Thailand.

On my return to Bangkok I had a disastrous first weekend. Regular readers will recall that on my first weekend back in town I had my digital camera, two mobile phones, the cash from my wallet, and all my personal jewelry stolen by a freelancer I dragged home from Soi 4.

Not long after I suffered my infamous fall into a Bangkok sewer on Sukhumvit Road.

I’d say that I was feeling a bit stupid at that point, and possibly slightly betrayed by Bangkok. I was wondering what had gone wrong.

And then my phone rang. It was my favorite go go dancer calling.

I had first met her in October 2007. She’d been one of my ‘regular’ girls, but not really distinct from any of the others in any way. I just enjoyed her good attitude and the fact that sex with her was fun. But somewhere along the line in early 2008 we’d had a disagreement about something. She left my room in a snit one night, and so I hadn’t called her and she hadn’t called me. Half a year had drifted by and I hadn’t seen her.

But in July of 08, having just returned from the North, having just been robbed and having just fallen into a sewer full of shit… at a point when I was feeling a little bit dazed and alone, my favorite go go dancer called me after several months of non-contact.

Obviously she was suffering a dry spell with her customers and doing what every good salesperson does… she was going through her phone list trying to find some fresh sales from old customers.

Her timing was perfect. Did I want to see her? Hell yeah I wanted to see her. A familiar face. Good sex. Honesty.

So she came over.

And I had a great time.

Over the next few weeks I ventured out to the bars and parking lots of Bangkok’s pay-for-play areas, but the results with the girls were mostly disappointing. I found myself more and more picking up the phone and calling my favorite go go dancer.

By late August I’d stopped seeing or looking for anyone else. I was in a monogamous relationship (well, from my side anyway) with a Nana Plaza go go dancer.

As we raced through the calendar from August towards Christmas I spent more and more time with her. We took holidays together to Koh Samed, Amphawan and Kanchanaburi. I was enjoying life, and found myself looking forward to the next time I’d see her.

Sometime in late-November I made a decision that I wanted to try to retire her from the chrome pole. I was gonna invite her to move into my place with me and try to make it something real and permanent. I had an appointment to see her on a Saturday afternoon, and I decided that I’d talk to her about my idea that day.

And, like a typical Hollywood romantic comedy, that was the day I learned that she was going to Europe for six months with a customer.

I’d known for some time that the trip was planned. I just never imagined it would be for longer than 2 weeks or so, and I had doubted that she’d even be able to get the travel visa.

But she did.

And around Christmastime she left. I fact, I haven’t seen her since Christmas Eve, which I spent with her in her room.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do when she left. Wait for her? Seemed stupid and unrealistic for two reasons. First was the obvious issue that any guy who wanted to pay her to come to his place for six months must have marriage in mind, and second was that obvious availability of other go go dancers here in the city of angels.

But my cash was tight — while my favorite go go dancer had been in town I’d been spending every spare satang to have sex with her as often as I could. I’d simply increased the pace of spending and fucking when I knew she was going abroad, and I had fully drained my bank account (along with most of my bodily fluids).

So I decided to economize, get physically fitter, and pay down my existing debt while she was gone. Whether she came back or not, I’d be in better shape all-round by the time she returned.

My birthday rolled round about a month after she left, and I treated myself to two long-time sessions with a local girl from the Asok area. She was great fun… a good birthday present to myself.

But then I quickly returned to a strict budget that didn’t allow for bar fines, short-time or long-time sessions with hookers.

I managed to get through about 6 weeks before I started feeling that old ache.

So a few weeks ago I figured it was time to venture out to the bars and street corners of Bangkok again. To resume my old habits of catting around.

The results were pretty bad. For example, one night I barfined a little cutie from the Pink Panther bar in Patpong. We got in the taxi to go to my place. We hadn’t gone far when she said to me, It’ll be 2,000 short time.

I had no problem with that, and I playfully said that I’d planned on only giving her 100 baht. She responded rather seriously to what I said. I tried the joke again, “Okay, I’ll give you 200 baht.”

If you give me 200 baht, she said, I get out of the taxi now.

I snapped at her: “Get out then if you want”

She did. We were only about 6 blocks from Patpong on Rama 4, and we were in the right hand lane, but she hopped out of her side of the taxi.

Our conversation had been in Thai, but as it turned out, the taxi driver spoke damn near perfect English. He said to me in English, “I told her you were only kidding, but she didn’t listen. Stupid girl.”

In any event, I went home alone and with my wallet lighter to the tune of a 600 baht barfine for a six-block cabride with a Patpong dancer.

My next effort was at Soi Cowboy about a week ago. I had had a long evening drinking, starting with happy hour around 5 p.m. Somewhere around midnight I barfined a girl from Jungle Jim’s. From memory her name was Som or Oi… Som I think. She had a body that was wrapped very sexily and looked like a million bucks. The promise of a long night of satisfying sex with this girl was very appealing. She was on the tall side, and she was wearing a sexy black top and a short skirt. Fantastic.

ON the way home I actually ran into Penfold and Bangkok Bad Boy sitting on the sidewalk slurping down some late-night noodles. I stopped and chatted with them. Penfold told me the next day that looking at her he would have hit her in a New York minute.

Out of the shower in all her glory her body lived up to the promise. No baby marks, hourglass shape, large natural beautifully formed tits that stood up proudly. Wow!

We had a few preliminaries, but when it came time for the main event, I couldn’t get an erection. I was chock-full of beer, and wee willy was asleep and unresponsive. I just couldn’t make it happen.

I suggested a little oral help might solve the problem, but she wasn’t keen on that idea. I was just intoxicated enough to then suggest that losing the condom might do the trick… I may have even been a bit insistent on that point.

To her credit she was having none of it. She rather huffily told me I was an idiot to think about sex without a condom, she re-covered that gorgeous body with her sexy clothes, grabbed her oversized bag and whisked out the door while I sat limp-dicked naked on the bed.

O for 2.

There have been a few other bad situations with bar girls in March. Thank goodness the month is almost over. The fact is that, in spite of paying barfines, making the effort, and even getting as far as being naked, on my knees and between a girl’s legs with her pink pussy staring me in the face, I haven’t succeeded in getting laid. That’s quite a feat in Bangkok, where getting laid is normally as easy as buying milk at 7-11.

I’ve been dating a bit. A lovely young ICU nurse who seems to think I’m worth the effort. We’ve done dinner, movies and last week we even went to listen to live music at a club. This seems to be a relationship that can only end in tears.

My work will take me out of Bangkok for 6 of the next 9 weeks… probably a blessing for the nurse, who would do well to be rid of me.

Because my mind is still on my favorite go go dancer.

I am pretty sure that my inability to get laid by professional hookers of late is a self-destruction based on my own desire to simply wait until my favorite go go dancer gets back, and try to pick up where we left off. No one can fail to nail three or four bar girls in a row unless you really just don’t want to.

I realized today that my favorite go go dancer is scheduled to return to Bangkok in about 60 days. My busy season for work starts tomorrow… I’ll be flat out working most of that time between now and her return to Bangkok. In fact, I’ll be out of town when she gets back.

Like long-ago sailors who marked time in the Doldrums just waiting for the wind to catch their sails, I am simply marking time at the moment, waiting for my favorite go go dancer. The decision I made back in November, to retire her from the pole and move her in with me, sits unresolved.

I’ve done the most idiotic thing a man can do; I’ve fallen for a Bangkok Bar Girl. I don’t think I’ll be able to move out of the doldrums and get wind in my sails again until I see her in person and resolve whatever is going on with me and her.

Like the nurse, there’s probably no scenario involving my favorite go go dancer that has a happy ending, but I get the feeling that I won’t be moving on until after I’ve seen her again.

So I’ll drift along and count the days.