The FARANG Speaks 2 Much (tfs2m)

I spent a very interesting Saturday afternoon with some girls I know that have recently been experimenting with ‘man shopping’ on the Internet.

These girls (three of them) are all very attractive, tall, young, university students. Two of them have worked before as dancers in top Bangkok nightclubs. They can get any man they want any time they want, but have spare time, their own PCs and Internet connections and wanted to check out what kind of guys they might meet online. They speak English reasonably well and decided to list themselves on websites that are popular with Farang men (such as Thailand Friends, Love Links, Thai Kisses). They had very good profiles, with quite a lot of great pictures. They are relatively sophisticated Bangkok girls looking for genuine boyfriend candidates (including casual sex if they find the right guy), not Thai country girls looking for any guy to be their husband.

They shared with me their experiences, showed me some of the email and logged IM exchanges they have had with men and some profiles of guys they have talked with or men who have tried to contact them.

As the afternoon passed by, it became obvious to me that the vast majority of farang guys wanting to hook up online with hot Thai girls are making all sorts of fundamental mistakes. These girls were getting literally dozens of emails and IM requests from men every day from across the world, and had learnt how to quickly eliminate guys that they knew would not be interesting to them. I managed to draw out from them the filters they used to assess each guy rapidly and the most common mistakes men made online that led to the girls dropping them or ignoring their emails and IM.

Here is a summary of the major things I learnt if you want to be more effective and successful at getting the attention of Thai girls online.

• Have you own profile that has interesting information with some humor that is not too long or difficult to read.
• You must have a picture on your profile that is you (not someone else) that shows you looking smartly dressed with a clear view of your face, smiling. I was stunned by just how bad most of the pictures were that guys were using. Some guys showed themselves looking as grumpy as hell, others had poor light or blurred images, while many did not show their face clearly at all. The girls get suspicious about guys not prepared to show their face online (‘means he has a wife or girlfriend already’). Worst of all were guys showing themselves surrounded by other girls. I mean, is that stupid or what? And, sorry to say, but these girls certainly gravitated towards better looking guys in the age range of 27-35 (which is why I could never get to meet them online myself!).
• These girls preferred to talk with guys that lived in Bangkok and were working here, and were preferably not English teachers (!). They might be interested in regular visitors, or someone who planned to visit for a long time in the very near term, but were not keen on chatting with men that planned on visiting Bangkok 6 months from now, or who had never been to Thailand before.
• They were freaked out by guys that they had never met inviting them to visit countries the other side of the world, all expenses paid. They all felt this was just too weird, potentially dangerous and the wrong sort of expectations would be set.
• They liked to chat with guys that could speak or understand even a little Thai. They were hugely impressed by guys that used common Thai expressions or even occasionally Thai script in their emails and IM. Those farang men that can read and write Thai have a very distinct advantage online. In fact, those guys are wasting their time on the usual farang-Thai websites. They should just use the Thai language dating/chat sites to meet tons of girls (there is huge interest in those sites in farang men that know the local language).
• Having a Webcam really helps – for both of you.
• Some of the guys were very good at guessing what the IM names of these girls are from clues in their profiles (or probably by trying many combinations on their name until they get it right). Those that were able to start using IM were getting along better than those that just used email.
• There were clear lessons to be learned about what does NOT work when trying to get these girls attention. Any man who constantly complains is dumped: “why don’t you respond? I have sent you ten messages this week” or IM messages: “Hello? Why are you always busy when I am online?” Guys that appear desperate are dumped: “I have tried so many times to meet Thai girls online….” Or “You are stunning. I must meet you. I have never seen anyone that looks like you…” Over infatuation is a turn-off: “I think I love you…”, “I want to marry you…” any kind of rudeness or losing your cool means you will be shut out (one guy used the F word in practically every email or IM), engaging in dirty sex talk too soon means you are out of here (before the girl has hinted she does not mind, or starts it herself), but the worst is making an assumption that the girl is a bar-girl or whore just because she is Thai: “Do you work freelance in any of the Thai clubs?” “Which bar do you work in?” Men who blast the girls with dozens of messages and emails every week will get dumped (especially those that pounce on the girls as soon as they fire up their computers and get online), and the girls get frustrated with men who use complicated sentences, long words, unusual words and poor English. Finally, some guys were trying to use irony and sarcasm in their humor, which does not work in the written form as well as verbal, and rarely works with Thai girls anyway.
• Some men knew what did work. They use a LOT of humor in their messages. One guys response to the girls “I’m busy” message was to say “no problem, I am also busy, today I have to get ready for the space shuttle launch and I’m afraid I will be away in space for 3 months but I will wave when I am over Thailand” – she immediately started chatting to him because “he is funny”. The successful guys appear relaxed, confident and adopt an almost ‘take it or leave it’ approach. Even if the guy knows the girl is online, he does not send her a message every day, and sometimes I noticed very assured guys basically respond to the girls IM with “Hi there – can’t talk now, but I’ll be online again tomorrow” which made the girls even more keen to connect. The successful men come across as genuinely friendly. They flatter the girl, but not too much. They use some Thai expressions. They are familiar with events in Thailand and Thai culture. They have plenty of interesting things to say. What made me really laugh was when these girls showed me tons of emails/IM threads where the guys quickly ran out of things to say after “how are you, what do you do, do you like your job….” It was incredible how many started talking about the weather (must be from England). Those guys that engaged in conversations about Thai music, about visiting temples, about palm reading, about Thai beaches and so on were getting on with the girls much better. Guys that picked up on hints and clues about when it is right to push the conversations towards dirty talk also fared well.
• Men who want to meet Thai girls online should get to know the girl better BEFORE meeting face to face. Too many guys were pushing for a meeting after just one or two online exchanges where almost no really useful information was exchanged. A good tip is to have a plan about what you will do when you do meet – and taking them to see the lesbian show at Suzie Wongs is not a good plan. These girls liked guys that discussed online what they would do when they met – the men did a good job of setting expectations and made sure there would be no surprises.
• Finally, these girls had met several men from their online chats. In about half of the cases the chemistry just was not right and this was obvious to the girl after one date. One guy had spent a bit of money on the night out and was then very pissed when one of the girls told him online the next day that she did not want to see him anymore. This would be a normal night out in farang-land, but this guy blasted the girl with nasty messages saying things like “I could have had sex with 2 girls from Nana with the money I spent that night…” He obviously approached the entire online scene as just another type of Go-Go bar. There are Thai girls online who are P4P, but the majority are not.

To put this in perspective, in total these three girls had received messages from more than 1500 men in a period of two months time (or about 500 men per girl). They actually engaged in conversing online with about 5% of those (25 guys per girl). They met about 5 guys each face to face, with, as far as I know, at least 2 of those each going becoming intimate relationships, some of which are ongoing and everyone seems happy.