I believe that you can read the largest of things from the smallest of clues. It was with this attitude that I went in search of tenuous clues in the referral logs of OfficialAres.com. There are a lot of misspellings and typos of the word Ares that – eventually – get the users to the site. It was these that I attempted to analyze with my Sherlock-homes style sleuthing skills. Did I learn anything? Probably not. Did I have fun? Oh yes!

First up were the spellings of Ares that appear to have emanated mostly from the Latin America area. These misspellings were Aries and Aires – both, interestingly, ‘real’ English words.

Next most popular on my misspelling list was “Areas”. There was a strong Greek contingent in this misspelling so I can only guess that there is something in the sounds of the word Ares in Greek that makes it sound like it should be spelt ‘Areas’. This is also possibly (I reluctantly admit) a slip of the finger since ‘S’ is next to the final ‘A’.

Arez is a spelling favored by the French and those who speak it (Canada and Africa being popular locations for these misspellings).

Other misspellings – and ones that I can’t hope to decipher – were Aeres, Aris and Aers. All interesting, perhaps, if you’re like me!

Trying to understand Patong girls left me in the dark. Literally. I loved Patong itself and from the start it seemed like I was really interesting the local ladies. I lapped this up, naturally; being fairly average looking this was a fantastic ego boost for me. What I really appreciated about the Patong girls was that they were so open about their feelings for me: if they liked the way I looked, then they told me.

And so it was that I fell into the trap of trying to understand Patong girls. Trying to understand any women is a difficult task for even the most astute of men , but trying to understand Patong girls proved beyond my mortal means.

None of the Patong girls seemed to care that I was going home in a week, and they just wanted to be pen pals once I’d gone. This seemed fairly harmless, so I agreed. Then the requests for money started coming. I really liked some of the girls and they really liked me, so it seemed okay to help them out. Still I wasn’t doing very well while trying to understand Patong girls.

And so I returned, penniless and despondent, to the US. Maybe I still don’t understand.