Back home, it would be unthinkable to marry a prostitute (Would you pay your own wife for a hand-job behind the bottle-bank?). In Thailand, however, to ask a stranger how he met his partner would be crassness bordering on Tourette's Syndrome. Ex-hooker wives and girlfriends seem to be the norm here.

In fairness, many of them are lovely girls and you would never guess the secrets of their lurid past but others are as rough as fuck. Why do nice guys do it?

Could it be White Knight Syndrome? Planeloads of lonely, kind-hearted guys arrive in Thailand each day and there are plenty of damsels apparently in distress to choose from. The widespread belief that hookers want to be saved is typified by headlines like "37 prostitutes rescued from massage parlour" but they have a rather hollow ring to them. Reports of "37 traders rescued from brokerage house" wouldn't elicit much sympathy would it? If coercion is absent, all that remains is career choice.

When a Thai bar girl says "I want leave bar go school get good job", what she really means is "fund me a life of idle luxury so I can be more selective about the guys I fuck for pleasure and profit behind your back." She already has a cushy number with great pay and perks. It's her straight-laced sisters slaving away in factories and rice paddies that deserve our sympathy. Most guys already know this, so why do they still choose a Thai hooker?

On the face of it, respectable Thai women offer everything a man could want. They are polite, charming, caring, great with kids, beautiful and not too difficult to meet. Unfortunately, each one comes complete with a meddling money-minded family. If judged rich enough, you would be herded to the altar with indecent haste. Long, informal courtships are frowned upon. This is peddle-to-the-metal romance.

A popular figure of fun is the wedding obsessed woman who regards the groom as a trivial detail but in Thailand no one is laughing and money comes first. The family probably has a cardboard cut-out of their daughter in a bridal gown alongside a wealthy groom. Do you want to be the man who puts his head through the circular opening where the husband's face should be? I suppose it depends on the girl.

Nice Thai girls tend to be just as conventional as their parents. They may even collect stamps. Western guys who move to Thailand are often anything but conventional and are used to western women who drink, smoke and kick-arse at pool. Generally, nice Thai girls don't - although things are slowly changing.

It's the freewheeling bar girls that make visitors feel more at home. They differ from their respectable western sisters only in their approachability, sunny disposition, striking good looks and devious nature. They are similar in that they enjoy casual sex with the best looking guy they can find. Often they are fun to be with and many men become romantically involved with one special girl.

The down-side of taking on a bar girl is the damage it does to your reputation. No matter how well she scrubs-up, other Thais will suss her out instantly. Her surprise visit to your workplace could even cost you your job. These girls have a knack of becoming clingy at precisely the wrong moment - i.e. when your Thai colleagues walk in. Flaunting her relationship with you elevates her status a little. You, on the other hand, look like a total prick.

The pitfalls don't stop there. Pity the soft-hearted guy who marries a bar girl (possibly unknowingly) and invests in her all his dreams and money but remains just a detail in her busy love-life. It's rather like wasting your life savings on rotten fruit - except the taste left in the mouth is fouler.

A sincere, marriage-minded man should avoid hookers at all costs and beware of girls who are easy to meet. They may claim to be respectable, but 90% are lying. This figure rises to 100% at the Nana Disco. In a future posting, I will discuss how to spot a con-artist.

Most guys come to Thailand just to have fun. Helping them to enjoy themselves is what bar girls do best. However, those sincere about taking a wife should seek out the nicest girl they can find and accept no substitute - or anything that rhymes with it.