The Secret To Dating A Thai Woman...

[frimu]

If I go out with my girlfriend in Bangkok I always go out with decent clothing (long trousers with shirt or polo shirt and proper shoes) instead of the tourist shorts flip flop look. That helps a lot in ways of being respected and not being an embarassment.

I sometimes see things in Bangkok that I wish I wouldn't see .... And yes I then also think it must be tourist with his BG.

The way you dress counts!

[Joe Mamma]

Just remember when you catch that Thai lady, not to bring her to your western country for any length of time, or all the Thai will be corrupted out of her soon enough.

[Minnehaha]

The importance of her family is something a lot of guys underestimate and do not understand or respect. Do not ask her to go against her family, particularly her parents.

There is a HUGE difference between dating Thai women and Thai-Chinese women. In general guys marry into the Thai family and girls marry out of the Thai Chinese family. When a Thai Chinese son marries a woman they often continue to live in the family's house. When a Thai Chinese girl marries a foreigner she is marrying out of her family. BUT she will still go for Sunday dinner and continue to give red envelopes to the family. If they are already well off (many Thai Chinese are) then for the most part they will expect the foreigner to be treating their daughter well. And that is all of it.

Marrying into Thai family will (more often than not) mean you are going to be viewed as a supporter. Naturally if the family is poor (and a lot of Thai families from up country are poor) then they will see the marriage as good for the financial future of the family.

HERE IS A SECRET:

If you marry a Thai girl from up country and they want to send money home... set up an understanding from the beginning. Be CLEAR and STRONG. Agree to send a small amount regularly to the mom or brother or a few of them. BUT tell them they need to manage it. If they have a car accident, DO NOT COME ASKING FOR MORE. Under no circumstances get involved in the bail out wash cycle.

And do not loan money. Never. Unless you can get collateral and are prepared to give it away. This is violation of SECRET hint above.

[harber8]

This is more about Thai culture with a bit about dating.

Good for people to read who haven't been here long.

[Rockhopper]

"Thailand Fever" is an excellent read. Those that think it's all about the money are dating the wrong women.

[JLCrab]

My prescription to a long-term relationship as an older guy with a much younger attractive Thai of the female persuasion. You often times enough tell her:

If you hang out with me and maybe we go out tonight, I'll give you 1000 baht. If you want to hang out with your Thai girl friends and leave me alone for (most of) the evening, I'll give you 2000 baht.

Edited March 22, 2013 by JLCrab

[Arkady]

I thought the secret was to never have an empty wallet!

It's lovely romantic stuff. I never thought of writing a poem for her. Perhaps things would have been different!

Nevertheless Amusements is largely correct. I have known one or two respectable Thai women who stay with impoverished farang men purely for love but they tend to be the exceptions that prove the rule and anyway the show ain't over till the fat lady sings. I have also known such ladies to disengage from the relationship when they could see their formerly loved one was never going to make good financially. Often this was because they couldn't envisage having children without means to bring them up but some were past having children by then and had just learned the hard way that love that doesn't pay the bills has a hard job surviving.

While the OP describes Thai women as super demure and shy, compared to the bluntness of the Western women, this is a somewhat superficial analysis. Western women are far less likely to admit to themselves that they choose a male partner based on wealth, while Thai women tend to be quite open about this, albeit not with their partners. I have known several Thai women, far from being bar girls, who have been very candid about marrying foreign men for a comfortable life style for themselves and their children, not to mention their parents. Recently I met a friend of my wife's, a lovely, attractive young woman with a bachelors degree in her early 30s who has been living in Europe and just got married to a farang there. Even though I have heard this sort of story before, I was a bit shocked by the dispassionate way she admitted in conversation that she didn't love her husband or even care much for him but got married because she liked living in Europe and wanted to have a comfortable life style, far from the rat race of doing a low paid office jobs in Bkk. She is very sweet natured and never asks her husband outright for anything, so he probably has no idea of the asymmetrical nature of their relationship and probably never will - just something missing that he can never quite put his finger on. It prompted me to ask Mrs Arkady whether her approach was the same as her friend's!

It is always a good idea to think what would the situation be, if you came home one night and told the missus that you had lost everything including your job in some unfortunate gamble and you were going to have to sell up the house and car and she would have to go back to work. The flip side of this is to ask yourself what would you do, if your beautiful Thai wife was suddenly disfigured in a terrible accident. Sobering stuff and I hope it never happens to any of us but it keeps you honest. And BTW it also applies to farang women.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Arkady

[Arkady]

My prescription to a long-term relationship as an older guy with a much younger attractive Thai of the female persuasion. You often times enough tell her:

If you hang out with me and maybe we go out tonight, I'll give you 1000 baht. If you want to hang out with your Thai girl friends and leave me alone for (most of) the evening, I'll give you 2000 baht.

You don't mind where she goes, as long as you don't have to go with her, eh?

[capt_canada42]

.... don't forget your bank book and bring lots of cash with you..

[JLCrab]

My prescription to a long-term relationship as an older guy with a much younger attractive Thai of the female persuasion. You often times enough tell her:

If you hang out with me and maybe we go out tonight, I'll give you 1000 baht. If you want to hang out with your Thai girl friends and leave me alone for (most of) the evening, I'll give you 2000 baht.

You don't mind where she goes, as long as you don't have to go with her, eh?

That's right. After enough time, it is called Trust.

[Suffinator]

The most sensible solution is NOT to date one in the first place, resulting in zero grief for you and your wallet.

[bendywire]

[cnb][/cnb]

I have made a mistake or two and after some very stupid mistakes I took a break and followed the following rules.

1) Learn to say no and mean it.

2) Make her understand EVERYTHING

3) Never date a girl who could well be old enough to be your daughter. I found women under 30 here are like teenagers.

4) Never meet the family unless you have future plans like marriage. Once you meet them they see wedding bells and they will be telling everyone in the village.

5) Only go for the ladies who are working, if they are working it shows some level of responsibility on their part to do something with their lives.

6) Never let them move in for at least 6 months because that should be enough time to get over the puppy love stage.

7) Learn to speak Thai.

If all of the above fails then go back home.

[IMHO]

I guess each to his own secrets but in my personal experience the young non-BG Thai lady was by far the aggressor party.

Yep, my secret to dating Thai women is very simple: stop saying "sorry I'm not available"

[arthurwait]

Excellent work.

[Dukeleto]

And which plastic planet are you from ? needs , wants , dreams ,desires ? bro its cash, simple fact indeed if the wallet is empty so are you .disagree with me ? then go tell a woman u have no cash etc see how far that gets you .maybe she will politely smile and say its ok but no money does indeed means no honey

You my friend hang around the wrong areas and the wrong sort of women ,if you date hookers then you are dead right ,but when you meet and make friends with decent Thais its a different game altogether.

Well written piece; it captured a lot of what I've already been thinking on the matter.

As far as the money-incentive, I'm with Doc on this one. A no-money, no-honey deal clearly indicates you didn't get "one of the good ones." My wife's a keeper -- frugal, reluctant to spend money even when I encourage her to. I trust her implicitly in all matters, financial or otherwise. When we moved to Japan, I had to force her to take an allowance -- money she was not accountable to me for. She didn't want any so I established an allowance of $150/month which, for Japan, ain't much. She mostly bought household items with this, whatever clothes & make-up she needed, and gave me part of it back nearly every month.

As I said, she's a keeper.

My Japanese wife is like this as well as being tall and beautiful and 13 years my junior and who recently gave me the most beautiful son and I met her in Thailand! All my friends want one but it took me 45 years to find her so I'm keeping mine.

[lookingeast]

Very funny...reads like something out of 1980s guide-book to romance in asia...something from before the internet age...and it is IN ITSELF, the one thing it warns against - Prejudiced, or biased. Particularly the stuff about NO SEX on the first, second, N date - that's very funny, and SO out of date. I've been with my wonderful Thai lady for over four years and she is way more adventurous and foxy than this conservative description; she is a highly respected govt teacher known all around the city, but since we met online, we had 'hot times' over the 'net before even meeting in person ! (thank you webcam ;-) And at 33, as far as she is concerned the generation that came after her is completely wild and far from waiting for marriage before sex, are enthusiastically 'at it' with their university chums - something she would never have done a decade ago. The post is sweet, and the guidance about Thais wishing to avoid conflict and say nothing rather than something negative is useful, but its overall picture of romance in modern, cyber-age Asia is hopelessly behind the time

Edited March 22, 2013 by lookingeast

[Arkady]

The importance of her family is something a lot of guys underestimate and do not understand or respect. Do not ask her to go against her family, particularly her parents.

There is a HUGE difference between dating Thai women and Thai-Chinese women. In general guys marry into the Thai family and girls marry out of the Thai Chinese family. When a Thai Chinese son marries a woman they often continue to live in the family's house. When a Thai Chinese girl marries a foreigner she is marrying out of her family. BUT she will still go for Sunday dinner and continue to give red envelopes to the family. If they are already well off (many Thai Chinese are) then for the most part they will expect the foreigner to be treating their daughter well. And that is all of it.

Marrying into Thai family will (more often than not) mean you are going to be viewed as a supporter. Naturally if the family is poor (and a lot of Thai families from up country are poor) then they will see the marriage as good for the financial future of the family.

HERE IS A SECRET:

If you marry a Thai girl from up country and they want to send money home... set up an understanding from the beginning. Be CLEAR and STRONG. Agree to send a small amount regularly to the mom or brother or a few of them. BUT tell them they need to manage it. If they have a car accident, DO NOT COME ASKING FOR MORE. Under no circumstances get involved in the bail out wash cycle.

And do not loan money. Never. Unless you can get collateral and are prepared to give it away. This is violation of SECRET hint above.

The Thai Chinese route can work well for some but many get to detest the compulsory Sunday lunch or dinner with the in-laws and the family's meddling influence on their daughter and, if they are wealthy, there is always the assumption that the farang son-in-law is a gold digger, even if he is CEO of a multinational in Thailand. There is also often resentment that the mixed marriage has blocked opportunities for getting closer ties to another Thai Chinese clan through marriage. I remember one guy who married a very good looking UK educated Thai Chinese girl with such impeccable Queen's English that you would assume she was an English Rose, if you didn't see her face. She had all the feminism of her farang education combined with the Thai Chinese clan thing. My friend left his job and tried to set up his own business but got zero support from his wife who resented the drop in income but didn't deign to put her overseas education to use in the workforce. Eventually it dissolved into acrimonious arguments like, "How dare you make me lose face by driving me to Sunday lunch in your crappy old Toyota when my brothers arrive in brand new BM, Benz, Porsche etc. Can't you understand how humiliating that is for me." Needless to say they divorced.

I think for most people managing the less well off Thai families is an easier and more enjoyable proposition, although I would steer clear of actual prostitutes. These days there are loads of Thai Thai girls with degrees. In our family Mrs Arkady is the gate keeper and sternly shoes away relatives that appear with outstretched hands, so that they rarely try it now, but we are always open to genuine deserving cases within and outside the family, even if they don't ask.

[super22k]

A. First ask her if she can speak English.

B. Ask her if she is from Bangkok.

C. If she is,she will want to know how you know.

D. If she is not,she will want to know why you thought she was from Bangkok

E. So now you are having conversation and she is interested in you.If she is not-ditch her.

F. Ask her to show you round a Temple.

G. Tell her you love Thailand(not her).

H. Now ask her for a date!

The secret is show an interest in her and be very confident about yourself.This seems to attract all women.

[mancub]

Just look around and witness how Thai males " date" and treat Thai women ( in different social circles)......don't try to understand all these generalised concepts of "Thainess " just treat the woman you're with/interested in ,as an individual , just as you are !

[OZEMADE]

I saw all the photos and the meet pretty Thai girls advertising on this forum and lost my train of thought. What was the question again?

[arthurwait]

I guess each to his own secrets but in my personal experience the young non-BG Thai lady was by far the aggressor party.

So true.

Women under 40, especially under 30 have no problem indicating to you they are up for it. Probably something to do with so many not getting much due to the amount of straight single women outweighing the amount of straight single guys.

[bendywire]

A. First ask her if she can speak English.

B. Ask her if she is from Bangkok.

C. If she is,she will want to know how you know.

D. If she is not,she will want to know why you thought she was from Bangkok

E. So now you are having conversation and she is interested in you.If she is not-ditch her.

F. Ask her to show you round a Temple.

G. Tell her you love Thailand(not her).

H. Now ask her for a date!

The secret is show an interest in her and be very confident about yourself.This seems to attract all women.

If the answer to A is no and you don't speak Thai then you can forget the rest of this advice.

[JLCrab]

As for step A. above: If she says 'Yes' to speak English, move on. If you never go out with a girl who can speak English you can avoid many of the problems mentioned in Posts 1 - 50.

[Arkady]

Very funny...reads like something out of 1980s guide-book to romance in asia...something from before the internet age...and it is IN ITSELF, the one thing it warns against - Prejudiced, or biased. Particularly the stuff about NO SEX on the first, second, N date - that's very funny, and SO out of date. I've been with my wonderful Thai lady for over four years and she is way more adventurous and foxy than this conservative description; she is a highly respected govt teacher known all around the city, but since we met online, we had 'hot times' over the 'net before even meeting in person ! (thank you webcam ;-) And at 33, as far as she is concerned the generation that came after her is completely wild and far from waiting for marriage before sex, are enthusiastically 'at it' with their university chums - something she would never have done a decade ago. The post is sweet, and the guidance about Thais wishing to avoid conflict and say nothing rather than something negative is useful, but its overall picture of romance in modern, cyber-age Asia is hopelessly behind the time

This is true. When my wife went back to university to complete her degree about 4 years older than her class mates, she had previously attended a state college upcountry and was shocked at the mores of female students at a famous a Bkk private university. One of the first classmates she met got nicknamed the university bicycle because she proceeded to try and screw as many male students as possible - about three a week in the first term. Many of the girls slept with one or more kiks as well as their regular boyfriends. When they started working after graduation, several of the girls went through revolving doors of Thai and foreign boyfriends, thinking absolutely nothing of putting out on the first night with a young farang guy they just met on RCA. One or two of them were confused sexually and flip flopped between gay and hetero relationships, not really as bis but trying to discover what worked best for them and rebounding from one to the other when something didn't work out. One girl had a fling with a bi man and got threatening calls from both his female and his male lover!

[lookingeast]

[cnb][/cnb]

I have made a mistake or two and after some very stupid mistakes I took a break and followed the following rules.

1) Learn to say no and mean it.

2) Make her understand EVERYTHING

3) Never date a girl who could well be old enough to be your daughter. I found women under 30 here are like teenagers.

4) Never meet the family unless you have future plans like marriage. Once you meet them they see wedding bells and they will be telling everyone in the village.

5) Only go for the ladies who are working, if they are working it shows some level of responsibility on their part to do something with their lives.

6) Never let them move in for at least 6 months because that should be enough time to get over the puppy love stage.

7) Learn to speak Thai.

If all of the above fails then go back home.

1) Totally on the ball - in fact make it NO !

2) Good idea, but unfortunately, given the old philosophical problem of 'other minds', it's not even possible to be sure that a best friend from the same street one grew up in 'understands everything' - language just ain't that reliable/precise.

3) You mean 'young enough' ? Good point, but with an irresistible girl, it is possible to hang on for a few years, until they grow up.

4) Absolutely right. Way too many blokes roll off to the village and the extended family at a ridiculously early stage - and to those who say the Thai girl will insist on it after a few months or a year or two - no, mine hasn't. A lot depends on her relationship with the family; and whether she is a modern person or very traditional.

5) Another great point. Having to crawl out of bed, get smart, be out earning her own money until evening - all good !

6) Mmm - not sure about this one - 6 months might not be long enough !

7) Now that is a great thought..but i knew as soon as i discovered how difficult it was, that i was not going to learn to speak Thai to any decent level - not because i couldn't (i'm good with languages generally), but because i just didn't want to devote the time needed to do it properly. It does make a huge difference of course that my partner is an English teacher and a good one - way above the average.

I made a list like yours, but i made it before i ever set foot in Thailand, 5 years ago. I had some of your points on it already - not being required to meet the family; and having her own job. But i also had : Must speak & write GOOD English; Must not have been married before; Must not have kids; Must not insist on us getting married; and must not expect me to pay a 'monthly fee' to her as a condition of our relationship. I remember that when i told my list to 'old lags' in LOS soon after i arrived, they all said i was dreaming and would never find a girl that ticked all the boxes on my list. But they were wrong, i did. My advice to all would-be partners of a Thai woman : AIM HIGH, you never know your luck ! :-)

Edited March 22, 2013 by lookingeast

[benbear]

I truly believe that its all in the food.

Example : Took this girl our once for an expensive slap up meal and after that never heard from her again. Ok, might of done something wrong but I felt it went pretty well.

Took another girl out a month later and we ate som tam, moo yung, oam pak and koa nua (Isan all the way at 230 bht)

Happily married with her now.

[JLCrab]

One of the first classmates she met got nicknamed the university bicycle because she proceeded to try and screw as many male students as possible - about three a week in the first term.

Gee and I read that whole long post just waiting for the part where your wife introduces you to 'the university bicycle'?

[VINCENT2012]

Dating A Thai Woman!

why writing a so long article for that ?

THERE IS NO SECRET MAN.................................................JUST PICK UP YOUR WALLET AND PAY... ! IT ALWAYS WORKS.! and when you are finished to pay they will go with another guy.

but it is also not valid only with thai woman it works like this everywhere you have poor situation.

[atyclb]

Based on my experiences; TW can be quite liberal and open minded. Yes there is a lot of "love of money" in all of Thai culture, even in mainstream women. For me the most difficult issue is the poor reliability, poor responsibility, low punctuality selfishness and erratic behavior. Also lack of emotional maturity. Unless one is simply seeking a "warm body" to be with, it is not easy to find high function people. Let me reiterate normal function level Korea/Japan women but in Thai's.

There are TW that are financially independent and do not simply expect the man to pay, pay and pay. They will invite and pay and or share the bill. Such TW are not often found on internet dating sites though. IMO Thailand is definitely not the best place to find female companionship based on above and moral structure of society.

I have found Taiwan to be a pretty good place to find high % of high function friends. Their education level is good and level of xenophobia is low as is national pride; just normal people and lots of nice women there.

Edited March 22, 2013 by atyclb

[Minnehaha]

My prescription to a long-term relationship as an older guy with a much younger attractive Thai of the female persuasion. You often times enough tell her:

If you hang out with me and maybe we go out tonight, I'll give you 1000 baht. If you want to hang out with your Thai girl friends and leave me alone for (most of) the evening, I'll give you 2000 baht.

I have lived in Thailand for 14 years. I have never had a Thai gf ask me for money. ever. I have had paid sex workers (more than a few) make an agreement with me for money beforehand. I know this is weird. But I have only dated up country uneducated women a couple times. But in 14 years I figure I have dated over a hundred Thai girls of different backgrounds... mostly middle class and a few upper class. Not sure why I am so lucky. Now I am married and we share the money and neither spends crazy or plays games with money.

They say the number one reason why relationships break up (marriages especially) is fights over money. I guess your system works for you. You have an agreement with the girl and she knows like pavlov's dog what she can get either way.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Minnehaha