Age gap relationships in Thailand
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 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.
I've been going to Thailand since 1986. Nobody had ever binned my gifts before Som.
A Norwegian who's been travelling to Thailand since 1986 met Som, a Bangkok professional, on a dating app. One evening of drinks on Soi Cowboy was enough to trigger twenty missed calls, a bag packed in minutes, and months later, harassment reaching his own daughter.
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.
I kept coming back to Pattaya for thirteen years. In the third bar on Soi Honey I met Jib.
A 42-year-old Dutchman started visiting Pattaya in 2010 and never stopped coming back every January. In 2022, in a bar on Soi Honey, he met Jib, from Isaan. Two years later he bought land from her family, fully aware of what that meant.
She gave me a free bowl of noodles at her mum's stall. The buffalo has never been sick.
A 50-year-old Brit, freshly divorced, met Nitia, a maths teacher in Khon Kaen who'd spent years keeping men at arm's length. Years of FaceTime, visits dodging COVID, and a first daughter later, the wedding is no longer a possibility but a foregone conclusion.
I opened a joint account with the million-baht dowry. She started quietly withdrawing money without telling me.
A 62-year-old retired American recounts how he met Dada at a Pattaya massage shop, married her in a Buddhist ceremony in Isan, and everything fell apart when she started quietly withdrawing money from the joint account he'd opened for the dowry.
I gave her 400,000 baht and two years of my life. One day she went to a temple and never spoke to me again.
A 51-year-old Canadian recounts how he went from a tense relationship in Pattaya to supporting Lek for two years as she built a food stall in her village near Prakhon Chai, until she vanished without explanation after a temple retreat.
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.
At 55, I Wasn't Looking for Someone Younger. I Was Looking for Someone Honest.
At 55, after a quiet divorce, a man opens a profile on TrueMatchAsia with no real expectations. There he meets a 27-year-old Thai woman he talks to almost daily for months, until he flies to Bangkok to meet her in person. A story about what actually holds a relationship together when nobody's watching the numbers.