re: respect, if you go to a shopping mall and see a farang with a thai girl, the odds that she is a prostitute are:
Farang over 40 yo = 95% chance
Farang > 30 yo = 80% chance
Farang 20-30 yo = 66% chance
So I think thai people respect farang about as much as you can respect someone walking around a shopping mall with a prostitute.
((im not trying to talk bad about prostitutes. i could really care less; i am just trying to give you a thai person's perspective))
Also, there are millions of farang in thailand. its not like you are a sight unseen - unless you get into the rural regions.
you can discuss all of this boring stuff endlessly on
www.thaivisa.com/forum, although the only time i post there is to troll: having a conversation with those guys makes me want to jump infront of the bts.