Online Dating In Thailand

I was reading this article via Thaivisa.com in The Nation newspaper yesterday about the number... but more surprisingly the quality... of Thai women who are using internet dating services to meet foreign men on the internet.

Apparently while Bangkok and Pattaya's GoGo Bars are where the poor and uneducated Thai girls go in the hopes of finding a foreign (farang) man to take care of them, online matchmaking services have become the purview of the well-educated.

If there is one thing that every Thai lady knows how to say in English, it is "Thai man no good!" The article above makes that point oh-so-clear. The feminists and the do-gooders from the Western world blast "the bar scene" as evil exploitation of Thai girls (and many problems do exist and abuses happen) but they often fail to see that the vast majority of bar-employed Thai girls (only in the touristed/foreign areas... I will be clear on that) are happily turning to prostitution because (1) Buddhist society doesn't consider sex/prostitution to be the sinful practice it is deemed to be in Christian societies; (2) the ugliest farm girl with a third grade education working in a GoGo Bar makes about the same money as a high-school teacher in Thailand, while the prettiest girls make as much as a surgeon; and, (3) they really are looking for Mr. America (or Mr. Right from some other dream-world destination) to come and take them away from abusive husbands, drunk boyfriends, demanding fathers, and lazy brothers.

It only makes sense that those Thai women who are better off would want the same opportunities the bar girls have... admittedly without the prostitution or the immediate need to put food on the table as well. Hence, the spectatular rise of these online find-me-a-man services.

After reading this article, I was curious, and I went surfing. A website URL given in the article led me to "thailovelinks.com", where a quick search revealed thousands upon thousands of women. I wanted to narrow and qualify my search, but in order to do that, you have to create an account, which I did.

I then searched for girls from Pui's home state of Petchabun. There were 1,800 girls with listings, over 800 with photos, and over 50% of whom had been logged in within the past week.

Think about that for a moment: 1,800. The state of Petchabun has a population of about 500,000 people... 250,000 of whom are women. Out of those 250,000 women — to make the math easier — I'll guess that 180,000 of those women are between the ages of 18 and 50. Out of those 180,000, we'll say that 36,000 (or 20%) of these rural Thai people know how to use a computer... and that is just for this one dating site.

The final number: At least 5% of all eligible-aged Thai women who have been online have at least registered (i.e. expressed a pretty significant interest) to find a Western man to take them away from whatever lives they are currently living.

And the lives they are living comparitively aren't very bad: There are college students, teachers, nurses, small business owners, and even a couple of girls with Masters degrees. It really is astounding.

You can register for free, but if you want to access several advanced features and search options, you can sign up for "Gold" at US$25 per month, or "Platinum" at $30 per month. This website certainly seems to be doing pretty well cash-wise from the farang men looking for Thai women: On the men's side, there are 100 men paying the Platinum rate, and 275 men paying the Gold rate... men who actually live in Thailand. (No idea on the number of men outside of Thailand who are signed up and paying.)

Anyway... thousands of women for hundreds of men: That's good odds, guys. I happen to know that even handsome-man jet-setting Playboy (and this blog's number one fan) Franky The Fireman is online looking for — and meeting — Thai women (quite pretty ones if I do say so myself). Sounds like the internet may be the number one new place to look.