PATTAYA — U.S. President Trump has reportedly soured the dating market in Thailand when it comes to American expats trying to land dates with Thai girlfriends and boyfriends, according to scores of frustrated men who have come to the kingdom looking for love.
“Things were going really well on my date last night with Pimnara, but when I told her I was an American, she immediately stood up from the table, said there wasn’t room in her life for two dysfunctional governments and walked out,” said Scott Markle, 29, originally from Fort Dodge, Iowa.
“I’ve seen what an unstable government run by a dictator looks like,” Pimnara said, referring to the nearly ten years that Thailand was most recently run by a military junta, under the command of General Prayuth Chan-ocha. “Thailand is hopefully over that—although, you never really know—but I’m not going to date someone from a country undergoing a constitutional crisis.” Pinmara continued by saying that rule of law, separation of powers, and sound economic policy were important to her in choosing a partner in marriage. “I need stability in my life.”
Similar stories have been shared with the staff at NotTheNation by other American expats. Chase Almanser, 54, who grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, said he has been unable to get any women to meet with him in person after chatting with them on various dating apps like Tinder and Match.com once they found out what country he was from.
“I thought things were going well with one girl,” Almanser said. “We’d been chatting for two weeks. We exchanged a bunch of photos and talked about our dreams for the future. But the moment I told her I was American, she unmatched and sent me a message saying she was looking for someone from a strong constitutional democracy, with high regard for press freedoms. Doesn’t she know that Donald Trump promised all of that and more?”
The growing reluctance among Thai daters appears to be driven less by any specific anti-American sentiment and more by what many describe as “regime fatigue.”
“We’ve had so many coups in this country. We’ve seen journalists disappear into black vans, the army has shot protestors in the streets, and the ultra-royalists have rewritten our history books,” said Nutthapong Khemphet, a Chiang Mai-based dating coach who runs a matchmaking service that specializes in helping foreigners navigate the Thai romantic landscape. “So when someone says ‘Hey, I’m from a collapsing democracy where the president is openly taking bribes and kidnapping citizens off the street and sending them to prisons abroad,’ that’s a red flag. Or, maybe it’s an orange flag? Either way, it isn’t green.”
According to Nutthapong, Thai men and women in the foreign dating scene see their country as hopefully moving away from the previous decades of dictatorships that plagued the country, resulting in politically-motivated military parades, an often struggling economy, and a lack of due process. “Young people know what they want in a partner, and it’s not the chaos that comes with being a citizen of a strongman government.”
The phenomenon of rejecting Americans has become so widespread that several expats have reportedly begun claiming to be Canadian on dating profiles, leading to an unexpected surge in questions about hockey knowledge and maple syrup preferences during first dates.
“I tried the Canadian thing, but when she asked me to name three provinces, I panicked and said ‘North Dakota, South Dakota, and Regular Dakota,'” admitted Brad Kowalski, 37, from Phoenix. “Suddenly, she said she needed to use the bathroom, but never came back to our table, even though I waited two hours.”
The anti-American sentiment has given an edge to other nationalities in Thailand’s expat dating scene. “Germans are getting a lot more attention,” Nuttapong said, citing swipe data, click rates, and several very thorough pillow talk surveys. “Women are hot for parliamentary democracies, and nothing gets them wetter than hearing about majority coalitions.”
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