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Home » Reader question » Reader question: Friendships in Thailand
Reader question: Friendships in Thailand
Dear readers,
I have a question that I have been running into for years regarding friendships in Thailand.
As with us in the Netherlands & Belgium, it is normal to have friendships with women, where nothing is sought after, and has no such love meaning. We get to know them at school, in the pub, at work or otherwise. You get a nice group of friends, and of course there are sometimes ladies among them.
Now the Thai sees it very differently. Where we find it normal to have contacts with women (friendly). Apparently that does not exist for the Thai. I have had discussions about this so many times with many Thai people. According to them, it is not appropriate for a man to just have a woman as a friend, and nothing else is going on.
Do you know why and what is behind the Thai, a man who has friendship with a woman?
I would like to hear your point of view, and any experience with it.
With kind regards,
Rick
Hi rick,
I don't quite share the opinion that this only applies to Thai. A true friendship between a man and a woman will always be difficult. Especially if there is also a partner.
The movie “When Harry met Sally” explains very well why such a friendship will ultimately fail:
Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8kpYm-6nuE
It has always and traditionally been the case in Thailand that if a man touches a woman, it means that they have a relationship (sex) that is in the mind of most Thais, that does not look good for people here (Thais).
That's what it is in Thailand, but abroad sometimes Thais want to take over the foreign hassle.
Anyway, the average Thai has no friends, it may seem so, but all very superficial.
They suffer from gossip and envy here, and is never the basis for friendship.
Maybe between tomboy and woman /katoy and woman, but man-woman by the way man/man and woman/woman
is it very different; it's never what it seems here.
Is sometimes putting up a tree about friendship with Thai and farang, well 1 thing for sure on my question, how much money have you lent your Thai good friend has NEVER been answered, nothing came, yes or lied.
Just like in the Netherlands, call them acquaintances; friends, maybe you have 1 or 2 real friends there,
acquaintances; many and certainly to borrow 😉
Otherwise it is normal for a Thai to have male friends.
What's really going on is jealousy. As a man with a Thai partner, you usually really don't have to try to have a drink with another woman in a cafe, unless it happens to be a larger group. If your partner finds out about it, you have something to explain 🙂 Or chat too much with it, then it's also hit. Add strange women on Facebook? Prepare yourself when your partner comes home 😉
They are far too afraid that another woman will take their friend away. If you know how underhanded the dating game is played here. Those women know that too and that's the crux. Once a lady has landed a good match, she will do everything she can to keep it.
Friends in Thailand also have experience with Thai friends.
It's fine if you have friendship with a ladyboy that's no problem.
But if you have contact or friendship with a girl from the bar, they will get jealous.
I've tried so many times to explain that I like or like a barmaid, that's all.
But I just stopped doing that, they don't understand or don't want to understand.
That must be the cultural difference and you will have to accept it.
If a man has a friendship with a barmaid, it is considered a sexual relationship by a Thai woman.
For a Thai, a barmaid is not a simple bar employee, but a prostitute.
A friendship between a man and a prostitute is not just talking and saying hello. At least that's how the Thai see it.
Hi rick,
Friendships in general, consists of equals.
Same education, same status, political preference, or same hobby and/or interests.
And yes, friendship is a big word, because friendships are not there for the taking.
In Thailand, people quickly call a compatriot, friend.
Same origin, same language, and it feels familiar.
Nothing could be further from the truth, because there are people among them who could never have become your friend in the Netherlands.
Nevertheless, acceptance here is more accessible than in the Netherlands.
Thai people are more dependent on their immediate family.
This is for their security/confidence, and they can always rely on it!
Say, this is for them, the Bank, social worker, lawyer, and some hope.
In our circle of friends, you see that the wives of foreigners quickly become friends.
Here, too, those women have something in common, and this is their foreign husband.
The women talk among themselves, and this creates a close bond.
Visits and vacations are undertaken together, and so they learn to interact with others beyond their own family.
Some women are therefore also afraid that friendship can turn into love.
You can read a lot about this in the media, that women can be jealous and do not want to give up their husbands to another beautiful woman.
This also often has to do with money, because then they are left behind, without further income.
As we know this, from men with a concubine de Mia Noy'
The financial picture will then be split, and sometimes a small one will be added, who also has to share, with the cake.
So that the flow of money is reduced or completely stopped.
So that those women relapse again, and the family becomes their only social help again.
We all know the example that the children pay for their old Mother, because she can no longer collect income, and have no further parental provisions in Thailand, such as AOW.
Depending on ability, parents are paid individually.
Something that the Netherlands also knew about 100 years ago, and maybe again in the future.
There we also see that the breakdown of care is passed on to the children.
So here they have had the participation law for centuries, which now applies to the Netherlands.
Poverty unites people, and who better to trust than your own blood.
Foreigner
In a relationship in Thailand with a Thai, it is normal that she has girlfriends but absolutely no male friends. Just as a man may have friends, but not a single girlfriend, however superficial that may be. If the woman has a boyfriend or if the man has a girlfriend, the relationship with your partner will sooner or later fail. Especially if you like a barmaid, the relationship with your partner will quickly come to an end. That has nothing to do with not understanding or not wanting to understand, your partner just doesn't accept it.
Interesting reader question. Or life question.
Among the Thai acquaintances, there are some who know close friendships.
through thick and thin so to speak.
But it's like with us, you only have a few real friends at the most.
It is different between farang and Thai. Have only had a single Thai friend in 20 years.
And even then, there is opportunism on one side. So that friendship is not that fair.
Added to this: it is different when you do not have a partner, then you can have both friends and girlfriends, as well as the single woman. Only, if someone wants to enter into a relationship with a single woman who has or has had quite a few friends, he will initially be very reserved with that woman and prefer to look the cat out of the tree first.
Not that hard to answer this question tbaw. The same for 50 years ago in the Netherlands. Couldn't you sit on a terrace with your friends in your village while you were married? Gr. Marcel
Women always feature in the responses. The questioner also calls in women.
That kind of friendships are actually out of the question in Thailand.
A Thai both men and women are talking about a boyfriend or girlfriend.
But that is actually the same as an acquaintance. What we mean by friends in our culture is not here
confesses. It's like my Thai neighbor always says. You're not my friend. You are my brother.
Cor van Kampen.
I think it has to do with the environment in which one grew up or ended up in a later stage. I have two now graduated and working sons who were both born and raised in Thailand. One is now married to a Thai Chinese woman. And I can assure you that they both have many Thai friends and girlfriends, especially old classmates.
If there are Thai readers on this blog, I would like to read from them what they think of friendships (between the sexes) in addition to an affectionate relationship.
Thais have a hard time bonding. What matters is family and blood ties. Many Thais are therefore quite lonely in my opinion. They are friends with Thainess, ie they have a kind of warm bath feeling with their fellow Thai, although that also seems to be diminishing. You do see that they are starting to form groups of friends and clubs, especially in the middle and upper classes. However, there is also a lot of mutual competition and jealousy.
In the lower classes they have friends and girlfriends, they say "I love her like a sister or him like a brother" but a few months later they don't remember who you're talking about
I love Thailand, but partly for reasons like this oh so glad I'm not Thai. Experienced several times that people were cheated by their so-called best friends, usually with money.
You describe that beautifully Bram, because that's how it is.
If a Thai has a boyfriend, that's someone they relate to - or can relate to. Until things go wrong, of course.
They call someone brother or sister, in our case rather uncle. But that only lasts as long as the orchestra plays that song, and beautiful songs don't last long.
Consequently, the blood bond is still the best guarantee of any kind of friendship as we know it.
Besides a language barrier, there is still a culture barrier, and don't try to understand that because you are on your own.