Honest 'Butterfly' Meets Girl From Naklua (Part 5)

First of all, I take the opportunity to respond to a trend that I thought I saw in the responses to Part 4 among some readers. You will not hear me speak of a 'missed opportunity'. A (life) long relationship is just not for me. So I'm not looking for the 'true'.

Suppose I had realized earlier that I was so in love, and suppose the girl from Naklua had proposed to marry me, I would still have rejected it.

And if I were looking for a life partner at all, I would strongly prefer someone who has Dutch as her native language, and for whom 'security' cannot be mainly translated into a piece of 'social (financial) security', however much that is also understandable and to a certain extent respectable, and certainly does not necessarily have to stand in the way of a good relationship.

And now I just pick up where I left off.

I was satisfied with the way our exchange of views had gone. She responded, she responded kindly and there was no intention to avoid any further contact coûte-que-coûte. I could not and should not expect more. It made me feel good that she had no objection to remaining good friends, although I was of course well aware that that could actually have only an extremely limited meaning. Did I ever see myself traveling to Germany to drink a cup of coffee with her and her husband and reminisce? To ask the question is to answer it. No one wants such an awkward gathering. No, chances were I'd never see her again.

Did I have anything to do with it at all? Yes, I do. If I didn't do crazy things, she probably wouldn't 'unfriend' me, and then I could keep following the wedding and the further course of events via social media. And so I did. Occasionally I still felt pain, but I also felt it when I wasn't looking.

In my contacts with her I limited myself to heartfelt congratulations on the wedding day itself, and a few brief reactions to the honeymoon report. Only in private messages, which were always answered kindly. Her husband, as far as I could deduce from the photos, turned out to be a suitable choice. At least I have the impression that she is a cultured type, and no one will get the idea that she is out with her father.

While they were looking forward to a sunny future, it was cloudy in the Netherlands, and it rained from time to time with a temperature of about sixteen degrees. Occasionally the sun shone through the clouds and then the terraces filled up. The nice thing about the Netherlands is that you can sit in the sun and get a little tan. I can never do that in Thailand. And you can just cycle through the dunes without dripping with sweat, get a kilo of beautiful meat in the supermarket for next to nothing, and throw half a liter of beer in your cart for less than twenty baht. I've always had it quickly, but it can be said.

Would the tickets be very expensive, with the holidays approaching? That turned out to be not too bad, and there were no urgent reasons to wait much longer for the outbreak of world peace in the Netherlands. The pile of mail had been dealt with. There would have been a surprise: I had won a prize in the postcode lottery! A Dove package with soap and shower gel and stuff. To be picked up at the local bakery! Unfortunately, the collection deadline had already passed, so the letter disappeared in the trash. The letter reminded me of an email I had received from the postcode lottery at the beginning of May. I had won a nice prize, but somehow they couldn't give it to me, so I was asked to contact them by phone. I hadn't thought about it at all and now I had to laugh about it. All that effort for a soap and shower gel that the baker didn't know what to do with either. That was also about the most exciting thing that happened.

And everything was itchy again. It was waiting for a trigger that would pull the trigger.

It was now June 24. I was online banking and the balance of one account – a more or less dormant one – caught my eye. Almost a thousand euros more than a few weeks earlier. I looked further. A credit of € 892,14 with the description 'Postcode lottery – bicycle payment'. Now the penny dropped. I had won a bicycle at an address where I had not lived for months. They could not give it to me and then they apparently transferred the value of the bicycle.

All systems were 'go'. Ten minutes later I received my e-ticket for the flight to Bangkok two days later.