LINE
LINE is the messaging app almost every Thai person uses daily — for personal chats, business, and often as the very first place a relationship actually happens, well before WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger ever come into it. In several stories on this site, LINE is where the relationship itself is documented: months of daily messages before a first flight is booked, or, in one story, a phone left unlocked that revealed an entire second relationship history in one glance. Asking for someone's LINE ID, not their phone number, is usually the real first step in Thailand.
Frequently asked questions
Why does everyone in Thailand use LINE instead of WhatsApp?
LINE arrived early and built deep local habits around it — stickers, official accounts for businesses, group chats for almost everything — and became the default the way WhatsApp did in much of Europe. Asking for a LINE ID, not a phone number, is the normal way to exchange contact details in Thailand.
Do relationships in these stories actually start on LINE?
Often, yes — several stories on this site describe months of daily LINE messages before ever meeting in person, and in at least one story, LINE message history became the evidence that ended a relationship rather than the tool that built it.
Stories related to LINE
We shared a room with separate beds and her family wouldn't let me pay for a single meal. My last night, she chose to sleep somewhere else.
After seeing plenty of bar scams in Thailand, a Swedish man was introduced online to a woman from Isaan looking for something serious. Months of daily calls and a visit to her family later, the relationship never quite came together. It wasn't the love story he hoped for, and it wasn't a scam either.
At 60, I flew to a village in Isaan for a wedding that wasn't mine, and for a few hours it felt like it was.
I was 60 when Kop, 37 years younger than me, brought me to her cousin's wedding in a village in Isaan. I met her parents, slept apart from her out of respect for her family's rules, and watched a full traditional Thai wedding, dowry included, feeling for a few hours like part of a family I barely knew.
I came to Udon Thani for a two-week hip surgery. The nurse who cared for me those two weeks is now my wife.
Peter, a 62-year-old Australian, travels to Udon Thani to have hip surgery at a private hospital, avoiding the long public waiting list back home. Ploy, the head nurse on his ward, becomes far more than his carer during recovery.
She suggested I spend some time in Pattaya alone. I didn't know it was a test, and I failed it.
A 54-year-old South African met Noi, 32, near Khao San Road in 2019. She never asked him for money despite her troubles, and the Koh Chang trip was perfect. But one night of drinks in Pattaya without her changed everything, and the pandemic finished it off.
Her mum had always planned for her to move to Germany and run the family business. I showed up two weeks before that was meant to start.
A 25-year-old British English teacher met Nisa in Khon Kaen, a university graduate from Isaan with zero interest in the nightlife scene. Her mum, living in Germany, had other plans for her daughter. This is the story of how he won the family over and decided to stay in Thailand.