Newest Stories
I fell asleep without locking my phone on the last night of the holiday. She saw my Line history, and that was the end of it.
A 54-year-old Frenchman meets Amara, a 39-year-old chef, on his first day in Phuket, and within 24 hours he already has a holiday girlfriend. Months later, in Koh Samui, an unlocked phone reveals his Line history to her: dozens of conversations with other girls that put an end to something that, until that night, had been genuinely special.
I followed her one day instead of believing her story about the family visits. She didn't go to the bus station — she walked into a hotel with another man.
Retired in Pattaya since 2017, a 55-year-old Polish man falls for Apple, a 32-year-old bar girl with three kids to support. For months he believes he's the only man helping her out financially. One day he decides to follow her instead of believing the usual excuse, and discovers he was just one of several sponsors supporting her at the same time.
An Australian messaged me to say the woman I'd fallen for was his girlfriend of a year. Today she's my wife.
At 44, divorced for a decade, an American meets Tay on Facebook. A month later, already in love, he finds out she'd spent the past year with an Australian man who'd visited her village in Isan. She confesses everything honestly and asks for one chance. Years later, they're married and building a house to retire in.
She helped me find my hotel on day one in Bangkok. Twelve days later I found out her name, her age, and almost everything she'd told me was a lie.
A 31-year-old Australian meets Noi when she offers to help him find his hotel in Asok, Bangkok. Twelve days of perfect attention later, on their last day together, she tells him she loves him just as her ID card reveals a name and age completely different from what she'd given him from the start.
A trip to Vietnam taught me to tell lust from love. I went back to Thailand, met a woman 24 years younger than me, and I'm about to propose.
A 52-year-old Canadian, after mistaking lust for love on a trip to Vietnam, goes back to Tinder looking for something real and meets a Thai woman of Chinese descent 24 years younger than him. Three weeks together across Bangkok, Pattaya and Koh Samui become the start of a long-distance relationship that, bumps and all, is still going strong toward a proposal.
I had over a hundred matches on a dating app my first night in Asia. One crossed a border to meet me, and turned out to be married, with three kids.
A 26-year-old Australian engineer, freshly arrived in Asia for a hydro power job, downloads a dating app his first night in Vientiane and racks up a hundred matches in hours. A Thai woman crosses the border from Nong Khai to meet him. Days later, a Facebook search reveals she's married to a wealthy European man and has three kids.
She was the perfect wife for eleven years. Then she used the visa, the custody courts, and social services to walk away with everything.
A British engineer married Knock, a woman from a respectable Bangkok family, and for eleven years she was the perfect wife. Once they moved to the UK on a spouse visa that cost two years and a fortune, everything changed: total control of the money, a women's shelter, a custody battle, and an ending he never saw coming.
I threw up on the pavement outside a hotel in Phuket at one in the morning. A stranger sat with me until sunrise and wouldn't take a single baht for it.
Divorced and burned out from work, a 42-year-old Lebanese man booked two weeks to Thailand with no real plan. On his last night in Phuket, food poisoning left him vomiting on the pavement outside his hotel at one in the morning. A stranger who worked at a nearby spa sat with him until sunrise and refused to accept a single baht in return.
I checked her passport, her certificates, years of photos. It all lined up. It cost me $30,000 to learn that wasn't enough.
At 57, living in the quiet peace of a marriage that survived my wife's third affair, I met Pre at a bar in Nana Plaza, Bangkok. She was 37, looked 25, and had a perfectly verifiable story: passport, divorce papers, years of social media photos. Over six months I sent her 30,000 dollars for her family, her studies, and a Denmark visa that never came through.
12,500 baht for two bottles of wine. As I got out of the taxi, I watched the manager get in with her.
An Austrian met a woman from Thai Friendly in Bangkok: an expensive dinner, a shady venue, another bottle of wine, and a 12,500 baht bill topped off with a guilt trip about losing face. The final scene outside his hotel made everything clear.
She'd step outside to take calls from other guys. At least she was honest about it.
A Portuguese man used the Phuket Sandbox for a no-strings escape and ended up with Som, 32, three months of hidden beaches and one clear rule from day one. Four months later he understood she'd never really stopped keeping her options open.
I met three women in three cities. The one stuck in my head is older than me, not younger.
A 54-year-old Swiss man tried his luck with three online dates in three different Thai cities. The Khon Kaen woman had a steady job, her own home, and paid her own way, but turned out to be a few years older than him. Now he's not sure whether to let that matter.