Jeeb got married three years ago to a boy from a very rich family. Last year, she got divorced. She was very depressed and I tried to cheer her up, but then she got very sick.

She went to see a doctor at a hospital. He cured her, and as soon as she was well, the two of them started going together. They've just got married.

I'm very happy for Jeeb, but I feel very sad about myself. Jeeb and I both come from families with the same economic status, and we've had the same education. But I'm not as beautiful as Jeeb is, though people tell me I look okay.

I've never had a "real" boyfriend, just relationships that never worked out. Those boys didn't care about me. I want to get married and raise a family. I want to find someone who will love me and want to be with me for life. I feel so alone.

Please help me. Why can Jeeb find two "Mr Rights", but I can't find even one?

Tui

Dear Khun Tui,

If you asked your mother that question, she would say, "You just haven't met the right man yet". I am not your mother, so I'm going to say what she would probably never say to you.

My dear, it doesn't matter how close you and Jeeb are or how similar your families and educational status are. You are not her, and she is not you.

Please don't be blinded by what Jeeb has. You say that her two husbands are "Mr Rights", but one evidently wasn't. Would you want to go through a painful divorce that made you so physically ill that you needed medical assistance?

I can't tell you what the future holds for you. No one can. I do know one thing, however. People who start relationships with the opposite sex only thinking about marriage in mind are usually unsuccessful. They - and probably you - are trying too hard.

Please try being a good friend first, not marriage material. As my dear mother used to say, "Husbands may or may not come and go. Good friends last forever."

Dear Khun Melanee,

May I compliment you on your reply to "Mother" last week? She obviously doesn't know the difference between doing real work and simply copying it from the Internet. What's worse is that she's encouraging her nine-year-old son to behave in this way as well.

It's a sad fact, however, that this woman is sure to disagree with you, the way she did with her son's teacher. Some people don't understand that over-protecting their children doesn't keep them safe. It just keeps them from learning how to behave in society.

Max

Dear Khun Max,

Thank you for your compliments. For the record, I'm not too happy about parents who do their children's homework for them either, but that's another topic entirely.

Dear Khun Melanee,

How silly can you be? Normally, your answers to readers' letters are uplifting, but your answer to BV last week was just plain wrong.

BV claims that when her husband changed the freebie holiday his company gave him and his family, it came to "just" Bt500 extra per year. She implies that such a small amount of money was nothing and that her husband shouldn't be held accountable.

As the new overseers have pointed out, however, Bt500 per year for five years comes to Bt2,500. Assuming that her husband would have continued in this vein for another five years, the total would have reached Bt5,000 - if he hadn't got caught first.

Doesn't BV realise how many people subsist on Bt2,500 per year in this country? Such an amount is certainly a big deal to them.

Besides, it doesn't matter how much money he was stealing from the company. Taking more than what the company had offered was plainly unethical. BV needs to rethink her belief that her husband is the most ethical man she knows.

Henry

Dear Khun Henry,

If you read BV's letter again, you'll see that, in fact, her husband had offered to make good on the Bt500, but he was told not to worry about it.

Call me silly, but, according to me, a company that worries about such a small amount is most probably missing the employees who've been helping themselves to millions of baht of the company's money.

Problems that Melanee can advise you on? Fax (02) 751 4446 or e-mail her at melaneepetra@hotmail.com.

By Melanee Petra