I can relate to these guys. On my first tour, a FL tried to pick me up in Tai Pan. I had no idea she was working. I just thought she was a nice girl who was up for some fun. I didn't go with her, and it wasn't until over a year later that I understood that she was a freelancer. I also remember going to Club Banana, and thinking there that the ladies were rather unfriendly. I only went a couple times and the only one who made any real effort to pick me up was a girl I had been with before for a few nights after I picked her up on the street. I have also gone with other girls I picked up on the street who told me they worked as FLs at Banana. But at Banana I might never have met them.
On my second tour I went to Tiger almost every night and often to Tai Pan. Because I was always accompanied by either a TG or a BG and theri friends, I was not aware that any of the women were FLs. Most of the good-looking girls seemed to be already with guys. The ones that weren't as good-looking, it would not have occurred to me that anyone would pay them anything. The only girl who tried to pick me up once when my date was at the restroom was a real fox. I didn't realize she was a FL. It was only later when I saw her in a barber shop, and she told me that she really liked me and would be glad to go with me for nothing, that I realized that she was a FL.
On the street it is a totally different thing. I realized on day one that most of the girls on the street at night are available, because of the constant solicitations. When every girl seemed to be soliciting me, then even if a girl wasn't soliciting, I would think that if she is standing around on the street loooking pretty, then she is probably open for business. I never made this assumption about girls in clubs, and never had the feeling that I was being solicited there, although I have only been to clubs unaccompanied by a girl a few times.
So I guess I'm just stupid, but I really never understood any of this until I read all the stuff on this forum. In many, many nights and many, many hours spent in Tiger and other clubs, what I saw was guys, lots of them, trying to pick up the girls. I never saw girls openly trying to pick up guys. It never seemed much different to me than clubs I go to in the US. Since I've been there just in high season and at Songkran, I have never witnessed a night where the girls really outnumbered the guys to any great extent, as I have read in the accounts of low season times. There were times when I went to Tiger with a TG and 3 or 4 of her friends. They seemed offended when guys tried to pick up on one of them and were appreciative if I told a guy to quit bugging them who was trying to pick one of them up. Occasionally they would spot a guy that they really thought was hot, then they would be checking him out and giggling like schoolgirls with a crush, but never once did they make any attempt to pick him up.
So this is the side of the disco scene that I saw and there was nothing I saw that made me think that the other girls in the disco were different from the ones I was with, some of whom had either Thai BFs who were bartenders at other clubs or farang sponsors who they seemed to be quite faithful to from all that I could see. They were just out for a night with their GFs, with me playing host because they were my TGs friends, and I enjoyed their company. After hours we would sometimes all get together with their Thai BFs, and then often it was the Thai guys who bought the drinks for all, including me.
JayBee