Thai Dating, insights from a Thai

The pressure to date has been pretty interesting. Everyone from church members, to coworkers, to complete strangers has asked me if I have a girlfriend yet (as I mentioned in a previous blog entry). My conversation with Ten, a good Thai friend with fabulous English, helped me understand some aspects of Thai dating. Ten is now married with two kids. Before that, however, he had a number of girlfriends, thus entitling him to a considerable knowledge of the dating scene in Thailand. Ten’s first insight was that Thai girls take dating much more seriously than in the U.S. In the U.S. for instance, most people expect to have a handful of boyfriends or girlfriends before finding the right one. In Thailand, however, by the time you are a couple the girl assumes it will lead to marriage. Ten mentioned how almost all of his girlfriends wanted to get married; he was almost always the one who ended each relationship.

The second dating insight was about why there are so many Thai women married to foreigners. Ten shared that many of his girlfriends preferred Caucasians to Thais. This attraction is less based on physical features than it is on wealth and opportunity. Rather than stay in the same home in Bangkok for the rest of their lives, Thai women understand that Caucasions who comes to Thailand usually have money and interesting lifestyles. If they marry Caucasions, for instance, they will get to live abroad and have a high standards of living. Second, Ten explained to me, Caucasian men have a fairly good reputation for treating their wives well. Ten shared that some Thai women don’t want to deal with an average Thai man that might drink, gamble or not work. A Caucasion that has the skill set to come and work in a foreign country, however, generally has his act together. The numerous successful Thai-Western marriages provide strong examples for those who want to follow suit. Obviously these generalities don’t apply to all Thai women, but it is a very visible part of life in Bangkok.