I fell asleep without locking my phone on the last night of the holiday. She saw my Line history, and that was the end of it.

I'm 54, from Paris, and Thailand had been on my bucket list for decades, ever since a colleague showed off photos from a trip he'd taken there in the nineties and the idea just stuck with me. Marriage, kids, and an awful wife took care of burying that plan for thirty whole years, thirty years of family holidays in places I never chose, of putting it off again and again until I stopped even mentioning it.

When a friend asked me, already divorced and with the kids grown, if I wanted to join him for two weeks in Thailand, I didn't hesitate for a second. I didn't even ask the dates before saying yes.

We flew Paris to Bangkok, then on to Phuket, in January 2023, two very long flights that went by without me noticing how excited I actually was. My friend stayed with someone he knew and I booked an Airbnb for myself, a simple apartment a couple of streets back from the beach. The next morning, still jet-lagged, I rented a motorbike from a stand by the road and got on a couple of dating apps to see what was around, more out of new-arrival curiosity than any actual plan.

I got talking to Amara, 39, average looking by her own admission in her profile and by mine looking at the photos, which suited me fine because I'm no oil painting either, and at that point in life I had zero interest in pretending otherwise.

I asked, without much preamble, if she'd like to be my holiday girlfriend for a few days. She asked, straight up, what she'd get out of it. I suggested we meet in person and talk it over properly instead of negotiating it like a contract over messages. She agreed, and asked if I could pick her up since she had no transport of her own that week.

She was waiting outside a small shop near her place when I pulled up, and we got a good feeling from each other almost immediately, no awkward small talk needed, and headed to the beach on the motorbike, her arms loosely around my waist the whole ride. She told me she was from Isan, had a teenage daughter living with her mother back in the village, and worked as a chef in a decent restaurant nearby.

She was only available because she'd just come off a week of sick leave. No money was mentioned at any point. We just spent the afternoon together at the beach, nothing more planned than that.

She came back to my Airbnb that evening with a bag of clothes and stayed. We went for dinner on the Rawai beachfront, came back, showered, and I was genuinely stunned. Less than twenty-four hours in Phuket and I already had a girlfriend. I hadn't had that in thirty years.

The next few days were lovely. Beach in the mornings, seafood pulled straight out of the water, the pool at midday when the sun got too much, whole afternoons exploring the area on the bike with no fixed direction, stopping wherever we felt like without checking the time once. It was the first time in years I'd travelled without a locked-in itinerary, and I realised how much I'd missed that. When my time in Phuket was up, I invited her to come with me to Krabi, almost without thinking, before I had time to ask myself if it was a good idea.

Krabi was perfect for it: longtail boat trips, beautiful beaches, good restaurants, the whole package, exactly the kind of stretch I'd pictured for years without ever quite believing I'd get to live it. We took one of those boats out to some sea caves, ate at a fish restaurant with our feet in the sand, and walked around the town at night with nowhere to be.

But the three-day plan was already well out the window by then, and I was starting to worry she was getting attached. I wasn't looking for anything long term, I'd made that clear from the start, or so I thought. I decided not to take her to Koh Samui and let her go back to work.

We stayed in touch daily after that, morning messages before I started my day in Paris, the odd short video call at night when our schedules lined up, photos of the food she was cooking at the restaurant that made me want to book a flight that same afternoon. I decided to come back a few weeks later and take her to Koh Samui for a full week, this time with the return ticket bought up front.

During the time apart, she once asked me, tactfully, without pushing when I hesitated, to help with her rent. I told her my rule was money only when we were actually together, face to face, a rule I'd set for myself on day one so I wouldn't end up like some of the men I'd crossed paths with in the bars of Phuket. She wasn't happy about it, I could tell from how short she went that afternoon, but she accepted it and was messaging me normally again by the next day.

She also asked for a birthday present and I bought her an expensive perfume from a French brand, something that struck me as an elegant gesture. She mentioned, with a smile that didn't fully give away whether she was joking, that gold would have been more practical. Noted for next time, I thought, not knowing yet there wouldn't be a next time to fix it.

In May I came back, less nervous this time than the first, and we went to Koh Samui together. Lamai Beach in the mornings, Fisherman's Village at dusk for dinner among wooden stalls and hanging lights, scooter rides down roads that didn't show up on any map and that she seemed to know by instinct, cocktails on the beach as the sun dropped behind the palms, seafood every night at a different place she picked out. A genuinely wonderful week from start to finish. Probably the best time I've had as part of a couple in my entire life, and I say that counting the marriage too.

It wasn't perfect, though. The language barrier was real, whole conversations reduced to gestures, nervous laughter, and the translation app passed back and forth between us, and the cultural gap showed in small ways that didn't seem to matter much on their own: how she swam, always fully clothed and close to shore; my insistence, which she found excessive, on not riding at night around the island; the difficulty finding common ground beyond food, the beach, and tomorrow's plan. Things that didn't weigh much individually but that quietly added up, day after day, like a hairline crack you can't see yet.

Then, one of the last nights, well into the early hours, I fell asleep and my phone, sitting on the nightstand between us, started playing music from a streaming app that had been running in the background since dinner. Amara picked it up, half-asleep herself, just to silence it so neither of us would fully wake. I'd never set a screen lock, a stupid habit I'd been carrying for years, convenient but careless, that had never cost me anything until that night.

She saw my Line history right there on the screen, no digging required, no prior suspicion needed. Dozens of conversations with other girls, some from months back, some from that very week, all of it right there in front of her, nothing left to hide and no way to explain it that wouldn't sound like a cheap excuse.

In the morning she made her feelings very clear, in few words but precisely chosen ones, looking at me in a way I hadn't seen from her before. To her credit, she didn't make a scene in the middle of the night, didn't storm out, didn't take anything from the room that wasn't hers. She stayed, hurt but calm, until it was properly light out. But it was over, and we both knew it without either of us needing to say so again.

I booked a separate room for the last night, without even discussing it, and we shared a taxi to the airport the next day before going our separate ways, mostly silent for the ride, each looking out our own window. I gave her 10,000 baht before we parted at the terminal, the last thing I did for her, a gesture that fixed nothing but felt like the least I could do.

A bitter ending to something that, right up until that particular night, had been genuinely special, one of the best things that had happened to me in years. I haven't heard from her since the airport, not a message, not a missed call, and I have no right to expect anything else. I should have locked my phone. Simple as that.