I've been going to Thailand since 1986. Nobody had ever binned my gifts before Som.

I'm Norwegian, nearing 60, and I've been travelling to Thailand since 1986, when I literally came ashore at Pattaya from a speedboat off my ship, anchored in the bay waiting to unload at Laem Chabang. I remember that first time with a clarity that surprises me even now, the sticky heat, the beach still without half the hotels it has today, and a group of crewmates as green as I was, all of us with the same look of not quite believing where we'd ended up.

I've been back dozens of times since, first as a sailor and later, once retired, just for the pleasure of it. I know the tricks, I've seen most of it by now, the stories that repeat from bar to bar, the patterns you learn to recognise almost without meaning to. So when I tell you I still got caught off guard, take note, because it isn't easy to surprise me anymore at this stage of my life.

Met a woman called Som on a dating app, 34 years old, a well-paid professional job at a company in Bangkok, the kind of profile you don't expect to run into that often on those apps. She had a good income of her own and the online chat was great from day one, sharp, funny, able to keep a conversation going about anything for hours. We talked and video called every day, sometimes for hours at a stretch, never quite getting tired of it, and by the time I booked the flight I already felt like I knew her properly, not like some stranger on the other side of a screen.

She agreed to meet me at the airport, and there she was waiting by the arrivals exit in a dress, looking stunning, with a smile that nearly made me forget almost twelve hours of flying. She took me straight to dinner at a place she'd chosen carefully, one of those river-view restaurants you don't just stumble across, and we talked late into the night as if we'd known each other in person for years. First few days were good, honestly, the kind that make you think you've finally had some luck after so much time going back and forth on your own.

Then the cracks started appearing, gradually at first, then more and more obvious. Som was constantly on her phone, work calls at hours that seemed odd to me for an office job, video calls with the screen angled so I never quite saw who she was talking to, chat sessions that never ended, barely stopping for a full minute even during meals.

I started feeling alone despite having someone right next to me in the hotel bed or across the restaurant table, looking at the screen instead of at me. I mentioned it a couple of times, careful not to sound too whiny or like some jealous old man, but she brushed it off every time, a wave of the hand and an "it's just work, you don't understand" that started to sound emptier and emptier as the days went on.

Eventually I told her I was going out for a drink on my own that evening, and explained exactly why. She told me to have fun, in a tone that made it very clear she didn't mean it at all.

Jumped in a taxi to Soi Cowboy around 6pm, the neon already lit even though there was still plenty of daylight left in the sky. Sat down at one of my usual bars, had a few drinks at an easy pace, bought some lady drinks in the bars, chatted with a few people with no bigger agenda than passing the time and catching up with a couple of familiar faces from the neighbourhood. Nothing out of the ordinary for someone who's been coming and going from this country for almost forty years, the kind of quiet night I'd had hundreds of times before without anyone thinking twice about it.

Headed back before 11pm, exactly as I'd told her I would, keeping my word down to the minute. Arrived at 10:45 on the dot, rode up in the lift already thinking about a shower and bed, and looked at my phone as I walked into the room to find twenty missed calls, one after another, all from her, some barely a couple of minutes apart.

Phone rang immediately. It was a video call from Som, screaming where are you, the camera shaking in her hand from how worked up she was. I told her I was back at the hotel, sitting on the bed, calm exactly as I'd promised I would be. She hung up without another word, not even giving me time to finish the sentence. I got into bed, put the TV on and started flicking through channels without paying much attention, and shortly after she came storming into the room with the key she still had, threw the things I'd bought her that week in the bin, a necklace and a couple of other bits she hadn't even worn yet, packed her bags in a rush barely looking at me, and left, slamming the door hard enough that the whole corridor must have heard it.

Once I'd processed what had just happened, I realised she still had a room key. Booked a different hotel near Nana Plaza on my phone, packed my own bag in a hurry, and left without even stopping at reception to check out.

Went to Nana without my phone, switching it off and leaving it at the bottom of the case on purpose, so there was no way she could reach me that night. Had a brilliant night, calm, no interruptions at all, an unhurried dinner alone, a couple of beers, enjoying a quiet I hadn't properly had in days.

Came back the next day to nearly fifty missed calls on the screen, a number I still find hard to fully believe even now. I told her the reason I'd moved hotels, calmly, without raising my voice once, and she cried and apologised over and over, with tears that seemed genuine and promises that things would be different from then on. Didn't change anything. Next morning I told her I'd changed my flight and was leaving early. Not true, I just wanted peace of mind for the rest of the trip without any more late-night dramas.

Spent the next few days eating well at places I'd wanted to try for years and never had time for, shopping for a few things to take home at the markets near the hotel, and enjoying myself around the city on my own, in no rush for anything or anyone, not checking my phone every couple of minutes for another call.

On the actual day of departure Som was waiting at the airport with flowers and a handwritten note apologising, standing near the check-in counters like she'd been waiting there for hours. I told her it was too late for all that, my bag already checked and boarding pass in hand. She started crying in front of everyone and tried to physically grab my arm to stop me going through to security, with a strength I hadn't expected from her, until a security guard came over to see what was going on and I had to pull away more roughly than I'd have liked.

Back home the calls and messages kept coming for weeks, at all hours of the day and night regardless of the time difference, each one with a different tone, sometimes pleading, sometimes almost threatening. Then she tracked down my daughter on social media and tried to contact her about me, about what she claimed I'd done, sending her screenshots and long messages laying out her side of it all. That was the final straw. Called Som one last time and told her, without shouting but leaving no room for doubt, never to contact me or my family again.

Some people are like that regardless of where they're from. The jealousy, the constant checking up, the complete overreaction to a perfectly reasonable evening out with a few drinks. Thailand doesn't have a monopoly on that kind of behaviour, not by a long way.