Surfing The Web For Mr Right

[george]

Surfing the Web for Mr Right

Educated women of rural origin, widows seek foreign spouse

BANGKOK: -- Long popular in the Northeast with poor and uneducated women, the so-called mia-farang fashion is now catching on among northern widows and single, well-educated women in Bangkok of rural origins.

A women's studies academic warned it might just be the response of the sex trade to the cyber era.

"The trend is changing. In the past they were always northeastern women from poor families without much schooling. That continues, but the emerging group is widows from the North," Nuch, operator of www.sweetsingle.com, the hottest online dating website, told The Nation.

Nuch's Bangkok-based company Sweet Singles Thailand offers an online dating service for Thai women looking for a foreign groom.

"Interestingly, another growing group is single women from rural provinces now living in Bangkok. They're highly educated; some even have a master's degree from a decent university," she said.

"Seven years ago most of our clients had had failed marriages. Now 60 per cent of our membership is single," Nuch said.

In the northern capital of Chiang Mai, online dating has been booming for years, said Nee Saenphrom, operator of a Chiang Mai-based online dating business that is expanding into six provinces.

"More and more businesses have opened in the past two years, specifically for online dating. You can easily find advertisements in local papers. Some have websites, but most of them have only mobile-phone numbers," Nee said.

One such website boasts it has arranged over 4,000 weddings.

Every day new faces apply for membership at Nuch and Nee's offices. At Nuch's some 40 women sign up daily while Nee's receives some 50 applications per month. Nee's office has 300 members registered, not counting those who succeed in marriage and log off, while Nuch's membership runs to over 1,000.

That is the quantitative aspect, but quality is even more interesting, said Romyen Kosaiyakanon of Chiang Mai University's Women's Studies Centre, who has just finished a research project on "Cross-Border Marriages: A Case Study of Thai Women-Foreign Men Matches Through Online Dating Services in Thailand".

"One-fourth of applicants have bachelor's degrees, 30 per cent have vocational degrees, and 20 per cent have high-school diplomas," she said.

"Half of them are divorced, and 40 per cent say they are single," she added.

The average age of the Thai women was 37, with the youngest 18. The men were 53 on average.

Nee and Nuch said there were several main reasons causing the women to turn to online dating. One is their experience of marriage to Thai men, another is a personal tendency to favour foreign men, and third come economic and social circumstances.

"Many of them said they were tired of Thai men's behaviour, especially their irresponsibility to their families, flirting and dishonesty to their wives. Not all Thai men are like that, but we have to admit that it's true for a certain number of them," Nee said.

"Many women have been raising children alone in order to save their marriages. Now they receive more information and learn that there is no reason for them to put up with it. They have started questioning how it is men manage to do that to them," Nee said.

Pranpreeya Prasongdee, 37, a former marketing manager in Chiang Mai, said she had lost almost all faith in connubial life when she divorced her husband, a policemen, eight years ago.

"After arguments about his new women for years, he started beating me, until one day he broke two of my ribs and badly hurt my head after a fight. I took my son and ran away from the hospital, out of his life," she said.

Nuch said more women visiting her office told her they had a good impression of foreign men, especially their sense of looking after their families.

"There are two groups, one which really want a foreign husband and another group, mostly single women, who are looking for men who can better their social status [in education and finance]," Nuch said.

"I'm not saying they don't do it for the money, but for many of them it's much more than that. More and more women join online dating services to seek long-term relationships, to find someone who will mind their kids, give them more security financially and take good care of them for the rest of their lives," Nee said.

Pranpreeya agreed.

"I decided to apply for membership after taking time to study the service and witnessing success cases myself. But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect," she said. Pranpreeya's getting married in Chiang Mai in October.

Researcher Romyen admitted that it was not easy to explain the social phenomenon.

"Traditional feminists say it's a new type of cross-border sex trade; liberals say it's about fair supply and demand, while many believe it's a new bargaining era on the part of women," she said.

"What I concluded in my research is that it's not a trade in women. What they trade in is contact and access for women.

Supply and demand are certainly biased, though: there are six times more women than men in the system, so men have more choice, without considering the greater power of men in terms of nationality bias [farangs being seen as better than Thais], finances, better access to information and other things," she said.

"As for the idea of this being an equal bargaining-power era for women, I found that was definitely not true. It may be a new bargaining era for women, but not an equal one. As I say, all the rules of online dating services favour men rather than women, whether intentionally or not," Romyen said.

"If it's trafficking in women, it's the smoothest and softest kind, though of course there's no equality there either, despite the so-called new bargaining era," she said.

That's an academic's point of view, said Nee and Nuch. Business continues to boom no matter how you explain the ongoing fashion.

"The online-dating business has done very well by me. It's good business, even though I have more competitors these days, but I know I do it better than they do and have more experience. I run it with the good intentions of helping two people find their real long-term soul mate and a better life," Nee said.

Nuch said: "Even though the money from membership is not big, we can supplement it from related services like translation, hotel reservations, cars, visa applications, souvenirs and even wedding services.

"The money to be made attracts more and more people to the business. The question mark is their quality and the risk for the women involved with a non-professional service." Nuch said.

--The Nation 2007-08-12

[Neeranam]

Interestingly, another growing group is single women from rural provinces now living in Bangkok. They're highly educated; some even have a master's degree from a decent university," she said.

Why shouldn't they have Master's?There are very good schools and universities in rural Thailand.

The average age of the Thai women was 37, with the youngest 18. The men were 53 on average

Nee and Nuch said there were several main reasons causing the women to turn to online dating. One is their experience of marriage to Thai men, another is a personal tendency to favour foreign men, and third come economic and social circumstances.

These are the reasons Thai girls go to Pattaya too.

Edited August 11, 2007 by Neeranam

[hgma]

Delighted to see your article, mr George.

It "shows" my "off/on shore theory.

On-shore women are in my opinion mostly women who live around or in ctys, have a good education and know what they want.

offshore women come from rural areas, have almost no education , norms and/or values attatchted to their lives and alomost all of them have experienced traumatic situations(sexually)

They (understandebly) are in for the money, nothing more nothing less

Mind you again not all.........!!!!!!

Then this survey "shows" another point of great importence.....THAI MENS behaviour.

I wont eleborate.

My conclusion after married to a off-shore women for almost 6 years now is

show them the way.

Be an example for your family.

Don't give up because.......

every human been longs to have a relationship based on love and trust .......off or on shore alike.

it's a long way but can be done, i have a wonderful family and a good life.

hgma

Surfing the Web for Mr Right

Educated women of rural origin, widows seek foreign spouse

BANGKOK: -- Long popular in the Northeast with poor and uneducated women, the so-called mia-farang fashion is now catching on among northern widows and single, well-educated women in Bangkok of rural origins.

A women's studies academic warned it might just be the response of the sex trade to the cyber era.

"The trend is changing. In the past they were always northeastern women from poor families without much schooling. That continues, but the emerging group is widows from the North," Nuch, operator of www.sweetsingle.com, the hottest online dating website, told The Nation.

Nuch's Bangkok-based company Sweet Singles Thailand offers an online dating service for Thai women looking for a foreign groom.

"Interestingly, another growing group is single women from rural provinces now living in Bangkok. They're highly educated; some even have a master's degree from a decent university," she said.

"Seven years ago most of our clients had had failed marriages. Now 60 per cent of our membership is single," Nuch said.

In the northern capital of Chiang Mai, online dating has been booming for years, said Nee Saenphrom, operator of a Chiang Mai-based online dating business that is expanding into six provinces.

"More and more businesses have opened in the past two years, specifically for online dating. You can easily find advertisements in local papers. Some have websites, but most of them have only mobile-phone numbers," Nee said.

One such website boasts it has arranged over 4,000 weddings.

Every day new faces apply for membership at Nuch and Nee's offices. At Nuch's some 40 women sign up daily while Nee's receives some 50 applications per month. Nee's office has 300 members registered, not counting those who succeed in marriage and log off, while Nuch's membership runs to over 1,000.

That is the quantitative aspect, but quality is even more interesting, said Romyen Kosaiyakanon of Chiang Mai University's Women's Studies Centre, who has just finished a research project on "Cross-Border Marriages: A Case Study of Thai Women-Foreign Men Matches Through Online Dating Services in Thailand".

"One-fourth of applicants have bachelor's degrees, 30 per cent have vocational degrees, and 20 per cent have high-school diplomas," she said.

"Half of them are divorced, and 40 per cent say they are single," she added.

The average age of the Thai women was 37, with the youngest 18. The men were 53 on average.

Nee and Nuch said there were several main reasons causing the women to turn to online dating. One is their experience of marriage to Thai men, another is a personal tendency to favour foreign men, and third come economic and social circumstances.

"Many of them said they were tired of Thai men's behaviour, especially their irresponsibility to their families, flirting and dishonesty to their wives. Not all Thai men are like that, but we have to admit that it's true for a certain number of them," Nee said.

"Many women have been raising children alone in order to save their marriages. Now they receive more information and learn that there is no reason for them to put up with it. They have started questioning how it is men manage to do that to them," Nee said.

Pranpreeya Prasongdee, 37, a former marketing manager in Chiang Mai, said she had lost almost all faith in connubial life when she divorced her husband, a policemen, eight years ago.

"After arguments about his new women for years, he started beating me, until one day he broke two of my ribs and badly hurt my head after a fight. I took my son and ran away from the hospital, out of his life," she said.

Nuch said more women visiting her office told her they had a good impression of foreign men, especially their sense of looking after their families.

"There are two groups, one which really want a foreign husband and another group, mostly single women, who are looking for men who can better their social status [in education and finance]," Nuch said.

"I'm not saying they don't do it for the money, but for many of them it's much more than that. More and more women join online dating services to seek long-term relationships, to find someone who will mind their kids, give them more security financially and take good care of them for the rest of their lives," Nee said.

Pranpreeya agreed.

"I decided to apply for membership after taking time to study the service and witnessing success cases myself. But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect," she said. Pranpreeya's getting married in Chiang Mai in October.

Researcher Romyen admitted that it was not easy to explain the social phenomenon.

"Traditional feminists say it's a new type of cross-border sex trade; liberals say it's about fair supply and demand, while many believe it's a new bargaining era on the part of women," she said.

"What I concluded in my research is that it's not a trade in women. What they trade in is contact and access for women.

Supply and demand are certainly biased, though: there are six times more women than men in the system, so men have more choice, without considering the greater power of men in terms of nationality bias [farangs being seen as better than Thais], finances, better access to information and other things," she said.

"As for the idea of this being an equal bargaining-power era for women, I found that was definitely not true. It may be a new bargaining era for women, but not an equal one. As I say, all the rules of online dating services favour men rather than women, whether intentionally or not," Romyen said.

"If it's trafficking in women, it's the smoothest and softest kind, though of course there's no equality there either, despite the so-called new bargaining era," she said.

That's an academic's point of view, said Nee and Nuch. Business continues to boom no matter how you explain the ongoing fashion.

"The online-dating business has done very well by me. It's good business, even though I have more competitors these days, but I know I do it better than they do and have more experience. I run it with the good intentions of helping two people find their real long-term soul mate and a better life," Nee said.

Nuch said: "Even though the money from membership is not big, we can supplement it from related services like translation, hotel reservations, cars, visa applications, souvenirs and even wedding services.

"The money to be made attracts more and more people to the business. The question mark is their quality and the risk for the women involved with a non-professional service." Nuch said.

--The Nation 2007-08-12

[SiamSquare123]

this is nothing more then an advertisement for that website. give me a break. same old bs.

[wasabi]

this is nothing more then an advertisement for that website. give me a break. same old bs.

Suit your self I just found my next 3 wives there!

[TAWP]

"As for the idea of this being an equal bargaining-power era for women, I found that was definitely not true. It may be a new bargaining era for women, but not an equal one. As I say, all the rules of online dating services favour men rather than women, whether intentionally or not," Romyen said.

Oh-please...in this case, right now, there is a surplus of woman against males looking for a apartner - but that is often due to the fact the the firms or locally established, have crappy websites and do none or very little international advertisment. Don't also forget the fact that many woman most likely sign up with several agencys.

Every dating site in the 'west' (and most likely Japan and South Korea aswell) has more males signed up then females. Some of the 'adult oritented dating sites' even suffer with 1.12 up to 1.20 in ratio - but that is ofcourse hushed down since they earn their income on males signing up to silver and gold-packages.

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

The NAtion describes one website as, "the hottest". I wonder how they made that determination? Typical Nation BS. Advertising hype if I ever saw it. There are other websites with far more Thai women members. However, they are international sites and not Thai based. I guess the world outside Thailand doesn't exist.

[Aujuba]

A lot of people with money like to call those who are struggling 'jealous' when they criticize the economic system, complain about the difficulty in improving their lives, etc. With these women who have, I'd say its a funny twist to the situation. The poor country girls who have found a way to improve their lives are envied by the wealthy women who have everything but an honest faithful man and the opportunity to travel the world or live abroad. Some people, even here at TV, will look down on the country girls who work at places which 'fast track' them for better lives. When cinderella finds her prince of course the sisters who have everything will turn green. Right now in Thailand it's pretty crazy with the way Thai women are going for foreigners. It's about opportunity, money, and status. Don't be confused; Thai women are going for all foreigners not just those of Europeans decent. Will this craze ever get old? I wonder is this happening worldwide?

Is it safe to say educated Thai women with assets are learning something from low-educated poor country girls?

[basjke]

this is nothing more then an advertisement for that website. give me a break. same old bs.

Suit your self I just found my next 3 wives there!

Every day new faces apply for membership at Nuch and Nee's offices. At Nuch's some 40 women sign up daily while Nee's receives some 50 applications per month. Nee's office has 300 members registered, not counting those who succeed in marriage and log off, while Nuch's membership runs to over 1,000.

No comment.

[basjke]

Nice to see pattaya got online.

[Martin]

"...In the past they were always northeastern women from poor families without much schooling...." and

"...Interestingly, another growing group is single women from rural provinces now living in Bangkok. They're highly educated; some even have a master's degree from a decent university," she said..."

Among those 'from poor families without much schooling' there have always been some women who would have done brilliantly at secondary school and university if they had been able to get there. My research into the growing "Return of the Village Daughters from the West" brought this to my attention.

Spending enough years in a decent Thai university to get a first and then a Master's degree is likely to reveal the dangers of hitching herself up to an irresponsible Thai man. So it is not surprising that such women are looking to finding ways of dating farangs who have the reputation of being more responsible as husbands.

Recently I read an article by Professor Jim Dator, who has had an eminent career as a leading thinker in Futures Studies. He suggested that universities in the future wouldn't need all the real estate that they have previously needed as much of their learning provision could be done on-line. My thought was that universities are also providers of an appropriate milieu for youngsters to find a marriage partner ("Nowt but a husband-hunter", we Northern academics said about some of our students!).

If the matching-up is also going on-line, universities will be able to sell off chunks of their campuses big way!

[a2396]

They neglected to mention how much it costs the lady to sign up and/or maintain the service & what the service actually does for them. The ones I know charge 2,000 bht per mo. or 20,000 to 30,000 bht per year. If the efforts result in a successful marriage, the matchmaker gets 100,000 bht + 50% of any sin sod (cash on the barrelhead). Needless to say, the motivation is to snag men of means, who will be able to enrich all parties accordingly. Many times these matchmakers are doing most of the communicating & emailing, since the women's English capability is inadequate. If their English were up to speed, they wouldn't need to go to an agency. One lady I know spent 70,000 bht in 18 some months, on such a service and did not like the results (the man wasn't rich enough).

[WAERTH]

You must be rich just to pay their rates! Unbelievable what they charge. Like 99 dollars a month, that is 1/25th of my paycheck just to be able to talk with someone!

Waerth

[a2396]

You must be rich just to pay their rates! Unbelievable what they charge. Like 99 dollars a month, that is 1/25th of my paycheck just to be able to talk with someone!

Waerth

That's for the top of the line "Silver Membership". I have never seen such a complicated fee structure for such a service, with several catagories of memberships and various classes of ladies, who may or may not be contacted via a particular membership class. Sure hope no innocent gents get stung on this one. I will certainly not be one of them.

[astral]

But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect,

By the age of 17 the damage is most probably irreparable,

but with the right motivation it might work.

From my own experience young Thai's do not see the reasons to study hard

and fritter away the opportunities when they are offered.

[a2396]

But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect,

By the age of 17 the damage is most probably irreparable,

but with the right motivation it might work.

From my own experience young Thai's do not see the reasons to study hard

and fritter away the opportunities when they are offered.

I am glad she is considering marrying the Aussie because of her true love for him and not for any other material or monitery gailn.

[highdiver]

But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect,

By the age of 17 the damage is most probably irreparable,

but with the right motivation it might work.

From my own experience young Thai's do not see the reasons to study hard

and fritter away the opportunities when they are offered.

I am glad she is considering marrying the Aussie because of her true love for him and not for any other material or monitery gailn.

and this makes her so different from all othe women in the world that come from low social back ground

reading some of the posts here, one can assume that "marry for money" is totaly a thai concept.

[digitele]

Just looked at that site briefly.

Let's see a 22 year old women wants a man between the ages of 35-50.

Maybe they think the older guy has more buck$, easier to control?

Ahhhhh The Dream Merchants.

Looks like a money maker.

Old wine in a new bottle.

[Martin]

".... a 22 year old women wants a man between the ages of 35-50...."

There have always been, especially in agrarian communities, younger women of high ability who have been attracted to the idea of having an experienced, economically-established man as their husband.

The idea that marriage should be something based purely on romantic love between two equally-young people hasn't got very deep roots, and never flourished totally.

If the above 22-year-old woman gets a husband who is even right at the limit of that age range, she has reasonable hope of having a supportive husband throughout her child-rearing years. She'll be 42, when he is 70, and their kids should be well on their way to being independant.

[digitele]

There have always been, especially in agrarian communities, younger women of high ability who have been attracted to the idea of having an experienced, economically-established man as their husband.

The idea that marriage should be something based purely on romantic love between two equally-young people hasn't got very deep roots, and never flourished totally.

If the above 22-year-old woman gets a husband who is even right at the limit of that age range, she has reasonable hope of having a supportive husband throughout her child-rearing years. She'll be 42, when he is 70, and their kids should be well on their way to being independant.

Martin, I hear you and can't disagree on one level. I am thinking more of the angle of get a rich, stable falang like Noi did

type of conversation / motivation. The pressure on the women within their peer group / family motivated by money, security.

One previous post on this topic, to paraphrase about Cinderella and the jealous sister angle. That is also correct.

Glad the rich girls get thier just deserts. I bet they are cruel as they can be to their preceived darker, poorer sisters.

There are many wonderful Thai women out there. Let's face facts, Thai women are the best. Thai men on the other hand.

Business is business (these types of websites) they are selling it to these women. Right, wrong, not for me to say.

Once again, a good Thai women is the best asset one could ever want really. I love em'

[rainman]

.... Nuch, operator of www.sweetsingle.com, the hottest online dating website, told The Nation.

Well, if it's advertising it's pretty bad, considering they wrote the website address wrong. It should be sweetsingles.com, not sweetsingle.com

[thwock]

Mr Right = silly old fool without a brain who will buy house and all the trappings and then get kicked out.

Mr Wrong = not have too mut cash so not get chosen from start and keep looking Mr Right

[Neeranam]

Mr Right = silly old fool without a brain who will buy house and all the trappings and then get kicked out.

Mr Wrong = not have too mut cash so not get chosen from start and keep looking Mr Right

Very very true.

[jtp]

But the prime reason is I want a brighter future for my 17-year-old son. Unless I marry my Australian boyfriend, my son will only get a mediocre education. He can continue his studies abroad if I do. He wants to be an architect,

By the age of 17 the damage is most probably irreparable,

but with the right motivation it might work.

From my own experience young Thai's do not see the reasons to study hard

and fritter away the opportunities when they are offered.

I am glad she is considering marrying the Aussie because of her true love for him and not for any other material or monitery gailn.

Yeah,i can see how much she loves him...NOT!

[JustinCredible]

this is nothing more then an advertisement for that website. give me a break. same old bs.

Sounds like someone has had a "knock back"

Never mind, you will find someone eventually!!!

[nikster]

You must be rich just to pay their rates! Unbelievable what they charge. Like 99 dollars a month, that is 1/25th of my paycheck just to be able to talk with someone!

Waerth

Just another way to sucker the poor out of their money.

They could do the same for free on craigslist.... argh.

[Arkady]

The article was not very professional and reeks of favours being given to publicise the websites but what's interesting about this is that the trend of reasonably bright girls from the provinces who have come to Bkk to study and work who are using the Internet in a serious way to find foreign husbands is really true. The profile of Thai women looking for a foreign husband has definitely been upgraded from nearly illiterate bar girls, although they are still in the market along with factory workers who sometimes rent a pick-up truck to come and join these dating services - sometimes mothers and daughters, aunties and nieces all come together.

A friend of mine was looking a few years ago and actually used one of the websites mentioned in the article. He was only interested in the university educated girls. The profile of all of them was practically identical: modest provincial background and broken family with disappearing father (a disproportionately high number of policemen fathers featured in the profiles!) but worked hard in high school and left home to go to university; met first serious boyfriend at university and expected to live happily ever after with him but got a terrible shock when she found out he was bedding her best friend on the sly. After recovering from the severe psychological trauma she decided to turn her back on Thai men. Her knowledge of farang men, gleaned largely from Hollywood movies had taught her that farang men are more family oriented than Thai men and are not in the habit of disappearing without at least making provision for their children as her father did. After graduating from university most of them are disappointed to find that without good family connections or a masters degree from overseas, all they can find is boring low paid jobs. This reinforces their desire to find a foreign mate and their willingness to leave their beloved "muang Thai khong rao" and seek a better life for themselves and their future children overseas.

My friend dated a lot of the women from the website and came across a few who were asking for money practically upfront and a couple who were obvious recycles that had already been on "trial marriages" with one or more male members overseas. One male Japanese member apparently got fleeced by a girl who got him to pay her sin sot, build a house and buy gold and then her husband kicked him out but the website owner said it was his fault because he went it alone after the initial introduction (to avoid paying her a cut of the sin sot). But most of the girls fitted the standard profile mentioned above and seemed reasonably sincere, if somewhat direct about wanting to know about his job, assets, how much he earned etc but then that was to be expected. He eventually found some one not through the website by chance and gave up the dating service but thought that the service was probably not too bad for farangs outside Thailand who are perhaps fleeing a bad experience with a farang ex-wife or just want a younger and prettier wife than would be interested in them at home. The marriages must be tough at first, particularly for those Thai women who move to countries where English is not the national language but, if both go into it with their eyes open, they probably have more chances of success than farang marriages with bar girls with no education who may see it as a way to save up money for a few years and then go back to their Thai husbands. The websites are expensive for both men and women but, if the website owner is responsible and honest they are in a position to do some vetting and filter out rogue members to protect other members. I looked into the website in question today, having not seen it for a few years, and noticed that they have become more aggressive in putting overtly sexy photos up, whereas before the approach was to try to make the girls look demure and marriagable. I guess the competition has got tougher but be warned that the girls often don't look as good as their pictures.

On the other hand there are also a lot of websites which are peer to peer with no moderator and members contact each other for a low fee. I have known several guys who trawelled these websites to find naive Thai and other Asian girls in search of foreign husband. After a bit of email correspondence and exchange of photos to filter out the uglies, the prim and proper ones and the non-English speakers, they have had a lot of success in getting them into bed after one or two meetings, whereas the girls from the expensive websites tend to be guarded and are more likely to come with a chaperone. I am not sure what happens when a Thai girl has been pumped and dumped by a potential farang husband. Perhaps there is another website for Thai girls looking for a lesbian relationship after they have been disappointed by both Thai and farang men!

Anyway the takeaway from all of this is that macho Thai society is not changing fast enough for today's modern, educated Thai women. They are now using modern technology to lift themselves out of it and fast forward to countries where stringent divorce laws force men to have a more responsible attitude to wives and families. The question sociologists and Thai government officials should be asking themselves is whether Thailand's gene pool will eventually be depleted as the more intelligent rural women vote with their feet and take their genes somewhere else, leaving only the dunderheads to stay and reproduce with Thai males. The cyber option releases social tension by letting the women escape, whereas they would otherwise have no option but to stay and push for social change.

[Gnarpjohan]

Arkady: very good post.

The educated women from the provinces + western men might even be a very good match in quite a few cases? These women seem unfairly unappreciated in their home country, partly perhaps for reasons such as skin color and ethnic/social origin. The career opportunities for talented and highly educated Isaan folks might leave more to be desired? Honestly, I don't know but I have a feeling that might be the case.

Now, in the western world, I feel that there are quite a few guys around whose potential qualities as family fathers aren't really that appreciated. Accountant Joe might be turned down a lot since there are more exciting guys around to mate with. The income factor is not that important in wealthy countries. But as a dull but reliable and caring dude with steady income, he could be a catch for Lek-the-Isaan-woman who knows the hardships of life in quite a different way than many a western-world woman. And, of course, the kids will be pretty...

No, I won't claim that I'm not biased here