Sunday morning. Late to the coffee stand. No one is here today except for me. Just me and all the traffic along the main road, as per usual.

Last night I decided to go to the American Bar after Old Man Wiley saw me walking down the other side of the street heading towards the Pot Shop. He called me and asked me to pick him up a joint.

When I brought it to him, he thanked me graciously and gave me a hug. He said, “Lass, I’ll be lucky if I make it to Christmas. One of these days I’m just going to die right here on the floor.”

I just said, “Please don’t do it in front of me. I already had to watch my dad die. I don’t want to watch you die as well.”

As he continued prattling on about death, I noticed the largest cockroach I’ve ever seen in my entire life crawling up the wall behind him. He noticed the look of horror on my face and turned around to see what I was looking at.

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed. “I hate those things! Scariest motherfuckers on the planet. That’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen! We better get out of here fast.”

We returned to the bar, where Wiley loudly told everyone eating the dinner the story of what we had just seen in the back room, complete with an impression of the way the cockroach’s antenna moved. It was pretty funny, actually. Horrifying, but hilarious.

Welcome to Thailand, a nation where the running joke about Prince Andrew is that he was upset because he requested “four teen prostitutes” but the Thais misheard him and brought 40 instead. Horrifying, but hilarious.

Speaking of gross Englishmen, two of the British Guy’s scummy friends popped around to see Wiley. I was conversing with my friend from Singapore, who had just returned from a business trip in Shanghai. He had not met them before, but he said they were giving him really bad vibes. He was worried about Wiley going off with them, but Wiley insisted they go round the corner to the Irish Pub. I declined to join them, fearing I might run into British Guy again. Instead I stayed with my friend from Singapore.

He has been away on business for the last few weeks, so he wanted an update on some of the characters at the bar. Specifically, the American Lawyer, who we had some trouble with the last time we hung out. He was being very aggressive and grabbing my friend inappropriately while making “jokes” about being gay. My friend felt uncomfortable but wasn’t sure what to say, and I was upset because I don’t like it when people make a joke out of being gay. What’s the joke? I don’t get it, sorry.

The Lawyer has a pattern of this behavior with other men at the bar. So much so that I was able to pick up on it right away after only meeting him once or twice. Up until this incident, he was always in there drinking alone and stewing over something. My theory was that he is gay but he can’t come out because he’s married to a woman and it will literally blow up his entire life. Instead he gets drunk and grabs random guys at the bar and makes a “jokes” out of it, which I don’t think is funny at all.

I told him to back off of my friend and called out his gross behavior in front of everyone. Being a lawyer, he immediately tried to attack me in defense. Unfortunately for him, I’ve been called a “spoiled rich girl playing with daddy’s money” more times than I can count, so his little insults didn’t affect me. I basically just steamrolled his entire argument and wiped the bar floor with him. He scurried away in shame and stopped coming into the bar regularly after that.

The next time I saw him, he came up to me with a huge smile on his face. “I have something to tell you,” he said.

“What is it?”

“I’m gay.”

I smiled at him and gave him a big hug.

“I’m so happy for you. It’s okay to be who you really are.”

“Thank you,” he said.

I only saw him one other time after that, and it was on my birthday. He was so polite and respectful towards me. He wasn’t mean or aggressive. He wasn’t acting up or grabbing guys. It was like meeting a completely different person.

I told my friend this story and he was very surprised. We confirmed with Linda that he had indeed gone missing from the bar after that argument. She said he was in there almost every night for two years and he suddenly stopped coming into regularly after we had our fight. My friend said, “I think you changed his life that night. He must have really needed to hear everything you said to him.”

“Clearly…”

As we were having our chat, two regulars came in for a game of pool. I have met them before. They are from the Maldives. If you don’t know anything about the Maldives except for pretty pictures on Instagram, wow. Let me hear to tell you something you’re not going to want to hear: that place lives under mafia rule, and several members of that mafia were in that bar playing pool together last night.

At first it was just the two of them, so nothing seemed very out of the ordinary. They like to go in there all the time. It was when their friend rolled up that we decided to dip out. This guy rolled up in a luxury vehicle. Someone else got out of the car first and opened the door for him. It looked like it was his bodyguard. The guy who stepped out of the car had gangster written all over him, and by that I mean you could just feel the shadiness radiating off of him. His bodyguard opened the door to the bar for him and he walked inside to go play pool with the other two guys.

After we watched them through the window for some time, my friend looked at me and said, “Oh hell no. I’m not going anywhere near that tonight. Let’s get out of here before more of them show up.”

I said, “Yeah. It’s definitely Maldives Mafia Night. Last night it was Irish Mafia Night, now it’s Maldives Mafia Night.”

“I’d rather deal with the Irish Mafia,” he said. “They are for The People.”

“Yes, they are.”

We decided to leave and go back to the rooftop, which was convenient for both of us since we are neighbors and live in the same building. We just hung out and talked for awhile. He’s married and upfront about it, which I appreciated as someone who just wanted someone to talk to and nothing else. It was very easy to form a simple friendship with him. He travels for work constantly and always meets people from all over the world. It’s very interesting to listen to his stories about the places he has been.

I thought about this a lot last night. I meet a lot of guys who are married and upfront about it. I’m not trying to bang every random guy I meet. I do like to make friends, and it’s much easier to form friendships when you can both be upfront about not being interested in anything romantic. I don’t know why the Irish Guy chose to lie to me about his situation, but it was definitely a choice. He was shady as fuck. He’s definitely a man who likes to keep his secrets.

My friend was telling me about Shanghai, which is a place I’ve always wanted to go. He showed me his photo album from his trip. There were pictures of him hanging out with all his work colleagues. There were some real hotties with bodies in those pictures. Maybe I should move to Shanghai if that’s what the single expat guys look like there. Wowza!

Last night I also learned that I like rugby. Well, not really. I don’t give a flying fuck about the sport itself. But the men… wow. They have the cutest butts! They had the Ireland – Japan match on at the bar and it was like hot Irish beefcakes for days. I was watching that match like, “This is what I need. Just some hot rugby player guy who is made of muscles and has a cute little accent and works some boring corporate day job where he makes a lot of money. Now I know what to look for. I can pin a photo of a random hot rugby player to my vision board. Thank you, Irish ancestors!”

Am I still a little bitter about the night I spent with my Irish Guy? Yes, yes I am. However, I am feeling much more hopeful about the future after watching that rugby match. Could not tell you what happened or even who won, but I can tell you that I am a great admirer of the beauty of the male form.

I walked outside this morning and there was a really hot guy in the pool. He had the muscles and the tattoos and the whole fit upper body and he was just beautiful. Beautiful. Watching him get out of the pool was like watching an esoteric perfume ad. No idea what’s happening or what they’re selling, but this man is beautiful. I’ll have whatever he’s having. Actually, no, wait, I’ll just have him.

After witnessing this, I thought to myself, “How did I ever reach the point where I hated men? I do not hate men at all. Men are so beautiful. Just look at that. He’s like a Greek statue with tattoos. Love it.”

I love not being angry. I used to be so angry. When I was living in South Dakota, I was having meltdowns multiple times a day. I was so angry all the time. Angry at everyone and everything. Now I’m just like… who cares? What is there to be angry about? I don’t live there anymore. My family is fucked up, but it’s not my fault and it’s not directly interfering with my life anymore. And yeah, these men just be out here wildin’, but it is Thailand, and they’re a dime a dozen. You get two farangs for the price of one. It is what it is. I am not angry anymore.

As I was leaving the bar last night, Linda, the lead bartender, reached out to hold my hand. “Be careful,” she said.

“Thank you for watching after me,” I replied. “I am still so new to this world.”

She squeezed my hand and nodded at me with a serious expression on her face. “I look out for you, naaa. I am CCTV.”

“Yes you are.”