Published on June 06, 2005

The girl next to me in the queue starting giving me dirty looks, as if I’d done something wrong,” complained my Thai friend Jan, who’d married an American.

Ironically, Jan wasn’t even with her farang husband when the incident happened. She was, however, on the phone and speaking English.

Jan said the girl then turned around to someone else and commented, “Her English is so good she must have a farang boyfriend.”

The comment alone was fine, but the judgmental tone really struck a nasty chord with Jan. Infuriated, she called me up for a sympathetic ear.

Jan shouldn’t have worried too much about how a Thai woman might be perceived if she marries a foreigner. She had bigger problems later when her husband refused to let her support her family. That was followed by his infidelity, and their eventual separation.

She told me the reason they split up was she didn’t want her child brought up in the US, but I believe there was something far deeper than that.

That was several years ago, but recently another friend of mine dating a European brought me back again to thinking about Thai women getting married to foreigners.

“He couldn’t understand why I had to send money back to help my mum, and I thought it was outrageous that he’d charge his parents rent to stay at his house,” Thanya told me.

Thanya’s boyfriend would demand the best service everywhere he went, and would become extremely confrontational when things went even slightly wrong. In Thailand, confrontation is a serious no-no, especially when you’re trying to have a good time.

“It’s great when we’re alone and don’t have to interact with society,” Thanya told me. Fair enough, but that’s impossible.

No matter how much they love each other, social factors will always be an issue, especially with a Thai woman. When you date a Thai woman, you also bring along her parents, friends, co-workers, relatives, culture and society. There’s no running away from it.

So can Thai girls date foreign men? The answer depends on how crazy the Thai girl is about Western culture, and how much the foreign man admires Thailand.

You’ll get cases like a Thai master’s student who’s used various tricks to extend her stay in the UK. She’s taking more than three years to complete a one-year course.

She hates Thai men and Thailand, and when she dates even the least eligible Westerner, he is God to her. In this case, expect the relationship to last, even though she will eventually become a doormat – not that she doesn’t deserve it.

You’ll also get cases like Thanya or Jan, who are proud of their Thai heritage and also care about their family in Thailand. In cases like this, the openness of the foreign man towards everything that’s Thai is the major deciding factor.

In Jan’s case, the separation was caused by an exceptionally narrow-minded man who simply refused to understand Thai ways.

Thanya’s relationship is still going strong, despite the cultural problems that sometimes creep up. My instinct is to ask her why she bothers, but at least they have a fighting chance as long as they keep listening to each other.

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