If there’s one thing I haven’t experienced here in Thailand, then that would be dating a farang girl. And while I don’t know of any foreigners who actually fell in love here with a woman from their home country (“once you had Asian you can’t do Caucasian”), there are quite a few who actually move here with their beloved ones from back home. My friend Stephen from the UK has done just that last year and I could finally convince him to write about his experience on Thailand Redcat. Enjoy!

If you are reading this and thinking about moving to Thailand with your farang girlfriend then take my advice and don’t do it or if you are reading this and are already living here with your farang girlfriend, I know how you are feeling. You might want to read the rest of my article.

I have recently done the probably hardest thing a man might ever have to do and that is to break up with a farang girlfriend in a foreign country. At the time of writing I am now six weeks into single life and have never been so happy but trust me it wasn’t easy plus I had over a year of what felt like jail sentence.

It’s important to mention that in western countries (I know for sure in the UK) many men tend to “settle” for a girl regardless of looks and simply because it’s easy or they get on okay. Now that’s not to say there is anything wrong with that. I’m sure many of them go on to have long and fulfilling relationships. However if you are thinking of moving here just remember that in Thailand and many Asian countries you will be working by a different set of rules. I certainly settled when I was in the UK and boy I realized you don’t simply have to settle for the first girl you find over here.

Now I’m sure there are exceptions. In fact I know of one married expat couple that seem happy and he claims not to find Thai women attractive (must be in denial) but I think in general 9 out 10 relationships that arrive in Bangkok finish within a year. This is simply based on other anecdotal stories from other expat colleagues, my expat friends, Thai girls friends’ opinions and observing expat couples in Bangkok.

Before we broke up I spoke to my co-workers, and I was pleased to hear that I was not the only one that has had this problem. Speaking to them I realised this appears to be a classic problem and they assured me that the men that move to Thailand with their farang girlfriend the relationship on average usually lasts about a year. So whatever happens it will end eventually, just save everyone the hassle and don’t do it in the first place. I’m going to tell you why.

Now before I begin sharing my experience I am not for one minute saying that this type of relationship cannot work in Thailand because I am sure there are exceptions and in fact I know there are, especially around the international school scene. This I believe has more to do with the social life and mixing with other farang couples plus also international school teachers often only spend maybe a year two here before moving onto another country. I know this because I have been to parties where there are literally 50 farang couples and not a Thai girl in sight.

How it all started

So my story begins after several holidays as a single man to Thailand. I fell in love with the country, the culture, the weather, the food, the history, the beaches, nightlife and of course the women. From a young age I had always found Asian women attractive, this is of course a matter of taste I know, some men like tall white blondes, some like brunettes, I happen to like Asian women! I won’t go into details about why I prefer Thai women as Redcat covers that here. Travelling through Thailand as a single man was a great experience and I felt in heaven because meeting beautiful Asian girls back home in England wasn’t exactly easy.

A quick side note: Now I have discussed this at great length with some of my friends here in Thailand. I have been maligned for my love of Thai women by a couple of co-workers who are “happily” married to western women. They tell me they do not find Thai women attractive and often talk about the amount of “rough girls” in certain establishments around Bangkok when we visit them. As I just said it is a question of taste but myself and my friends have come to the conclusion that they are even in denial or just have never experienced a Thai girl in bed. So before you leave for Thailand you might tell yourself you don’t find Thai women attractive but trust me once you have had a taste you will get the fever just like I did.

Now you might be thinking the only reason I came out here was for the women when actually that is far from the truth, one of the main reasons was my love of Thailand’s national sport Muay Thai. Not only do I love to watch the sport but I also train in the art and did so for several years back in the UK. Obviously many of my friends at my gym in the UK were naturally jealous of me leaving the group to “live the dream” in Thailand and my last session was when I first realised maybe it would be a mistake to move here with my ex.

As I was leaving my last Muay Thai session in the UK, one of the instructors wished me good luck for my new life in the land of smiles and he then asked me “are you taking your girlfriend?” I replied, “yes, of course” he simply said “bad idea”. At the time I felt things would be ok even though I had travelled in Thailand before and was fully aware of the charms of this beautiful country but visiting and living here are two different beasts. Never the less the seed of doubt was planted.

Even though we both felt it would be a good idea, my girlfriend was fully aware that I found Asian women attractive. We had a comfortable jovial relationship in the UK, she was relaxed, confident and would often joke about other people we find attractive. So just like I was fully aware she fancied all of the Kings of Leon she also knew I found Asian women attractive because I told her such. In the UK this obviously didn’t concern her but then as you can imagine it very quickly became a problem for her when we were living together in Bangkok. This then lead to accusations and paranoid behavior, I will get to this later in the story.

We arrived last year in August full of high hopes and excitement for our new life together in Thailand. We had rented a condo for one month and on site there were some bars and restaurants so when we arrived we went for some food. By the time the girl had taken our order I realized I had made a mistake. The ex said innocently “wow she is a pretty girl!” I’m thinking yeah you don’t say…

Now what didn’t also help was that I decided to stop smoking when we arrived in Thailand, after over 10 years of smoking I decided to go cold turkey. So our first 2 weeks settling into Bangkok didn’t go well as we had some blazing arguments even when visiting the beautiful island of Koh Samet. All the time thinking “did I made a mistake?” I told myself at the time that this doubt was a product of my nicotine withdrawal and things would get better.

We found a new condo and over the course of the next 3 months I didn’t go out much, we spent time together in our condo but I did get some part time work at a language school. One day I was waiting for the students when this stunning white skinned Thai girl walks in. She was my only student and I was trying to keep a lid on how attractive I felt she was. She had booked a short one-month course to brush up on her English before she became an airhostess. At the end of the class her friend who worked there asked me straight up do you think she is pretty and do I have a girlfriend, talk about being put on the spot!

My ex-girl friend and myself worked different hours so I often found myself alone in the condo so I would read up on life in Thailand on sites like this. This only served to wet my appetite for what I could be getting up to as a single guy in Bangkok and around Thailand. So if you do decide to move to the Kingdom with your farang girlfriend then do not read any sites like Thailand Redcat, as it will only serve to make your life even worse!

So after 3 months I left the part time job at the language school and got a job at an international institute. I was working with many expats from my home country and my social life exploded, now all of a sudden I was getting invitations for nights out but as you can imagine bringing my girlfriend along wasn’t really the vibe, which posed a problem for me. I couldn’t count the amount of times we had an argument when I arrived back from a night out. I made many new friends and this leads me onto the next problem a farang girl might have living in Bangkok: Making new friends.

Problems for Farang Women in Thailand

It is difficult for western girls to make friends in Thailand. I am drawing from my personal experience and anecdotal evidence from friends and Thai girls. My friend’s Thai wife said to me after she met us, your girlfriend will find it difficult to make friends and she was right because she made maybe one or two friends. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule but I think this is a serious problem for farang girls. There could be many reasons for this but I think what it boils down to is losing confidence and self esteem, even the most average Thai girl is more beautiful in comparison plus if she is working with all farang males or Thai staff who don’t speak decent English then where else can she go to make friends?

You Farang girlfriend will almost certainly lose her self esteem, become less confident and generally suspicious of your behavior. In my case she was a very relaxed confident girl back in the UK but this almost completely changed within three months of living in Thailand and she began to get suspicious and one two occasions she went behind my back to check my phone, one time finding a conversation with a good friend back home talking about how I wished I was single all the time and it would be over soon and bragging about having fun on Cowboy.

So the rest of our time together fell into a pretty tedious routine. Work, boring night in, thinking of excuses why I didn’t want sex, the weekly fuck to keep her happy (which was more like climbing a mountain), drinking with my friends, missing out on night outs with single friends because I didn’t want the fall out back at home, moaning to my single friends about being stuck in a relationship, questions about why I am late home, accusations and arguments. It was feeling more kin to a jail sentence and I was too much of a coward to end it.

Time to Break Up

That is my story and you probably thinking what tip have you got for breaking up with your farang girlfriend who has followed you to Thailand. Well, this is not an easy question to answer. Ending a relationship wherever you are in the world at home or abroad is never easy but is especially difficult when you live with your western girl in a foreign country. Also there is no good time to do it either. I fell into the trap of thinking I cannot do it now because her friend is visiting her next month or I can’t do it now because we are going home for xmas. In fact I planned to do it after Christmas but then realized both of our mother’s are coming in Easter – it all goes on. The point is there is always something in the pipeline when you live abroad so just do it, it will be painful but do it. It may cost you a flight home and in my case a new Samsung TV.

After living in the Kingdom for the best part of 18 months I see little reason why farang girls would want to live here for long term. I suppose if you are a very attractive confident western girl you might be able to get on but for the average English girl who is super confident living in England, she cannot survive over here long term because comparing herself to even the most average looking Thai girl will make her feel insufficient and she will never be able to compete with Thai girls for farang men, unless of course they find Thai men attractive then they might find it easier to find a man over here.

So I hope my story will help to inform people who think about moving to Thailand with their farang girlfriend and also inspire some unhappy men to do the right thing and end their relationship. A few points to remember when living in Thailand with an average western girl:

• To both of you, even the most average Thai girls will look like super models.
• You will have to make up crazy excuses as to why you have no sex drive.
• Your Farang Girlfriend will think it’s something wrong with her.
• Walking around in one of the countless of huge shopping malls in Bangkok you won’t be able to concentrate as you will be distracted by what seems to be an unlimited amount of beautiful Thai women.
• You will meet girls and wish you were single.
• You will end up frequenting certain famous districts within Bangkok and Pattaya so to inflict even more torture upon yourself (unless of course you are a naughty boy but then you have to live with the guilt)
• You will start to look at your girl friend in the way you might look at either a car crash or a dead animal.
• Sex will be more like climbing a mountain rather than having sex with your loved one.
• She will get very jealous of your new social life which then leads to suspicious behavior, paranoia, accusations and of course many arguments!
• She will change almost over night – in my case she was a confident relaxed girl but changed into a suspicious paranoid non-confident bitter farang girl.
• You will get jealous of your single friends or either your friends with beautiful Thai girlfriends or giks.

Now by no means is my story a “one size fits all approach” and like I said earlier in the article there are many exceptions plus I am sure many western couples have a fantastic relationship in Thailand. I just wanted to share my experience and offer advice for anyone else who finds themselves in the situation I was in. I welcome any feedback and other similar experiences. Thanks for reading guys and good luck!