Dating on ThaiFriendly: A Personal Review
What is ThaiFriendly?
ThaiFriendly is one of the largest dating sites in Southeast Asia, with over 2 million members as of 2024. As its name suggests, it mostly caters to Thailand and is a great online dating site for foreign men who want to meet Thai women. But is it worth joining?
That depends on what you are looking for. ThaiFriendly has a reputation for being a meat market hook up site overrun with freelance and hookers. But this reputation is not entirely accurate.
I recently signed up for a three month membership. Based on the experience I have had, I have advice for foreign men who are looking for normal girls on ThaiFriendly with a focus on Bangkok. While there are a lot of freelance/hookers and girls looking for money, there are also a lot of normal girls or girls in a grey area who are curious about Western men and want to learn English and exchange cultures.
This review looks at what ThaiFriendly offers as a dating site and whether it is worth signing up.
What kinds of Thai girls are on Thaifriendly?
1. Normal Girls: ThaiFriendly is a very popular dating site and there are tons of normal or semi-normal girls on it: students, professionals, older women, etc. When messaging with a girl, I usually ask her what she does for work or whether she is a student (usually by the third of fourth message.) This helps to weed out the freelance girls. There are a lot of girls on ThaiFriendly who want to date and possibly even be in a serious relationship.
2. Freelance Girls: The site gets a bad reputation because there are certainly a lot of girls looking for a sugar daddy or short time (st) arrangement. I would estimate that somewhere in the range of 25% of girls on the site are doing this. For men who are looking for this sort of thing, ThaiFriendly is a great resource. But if you are not looking for a freelance girl, it can be annoying to be constantly propositioned online. Still, it is pretty easy to spot and most girls will blurt out directly after a couple of messages – “I do freelance.” In my opinion, because of the sheer volume of normal girls on the site, and the inevitable grey area between freelance and normal girl in Thailand, it is worth it sign up for the site.
3. Ladyboys: Thaifriendly offers a feature whereby you can block “men looking for men” and “ladyboys.” If you are straight and not interested in ladyboys, this feature helps to sort things out. I would say the site does not have that many ladyboys on it and most will tell you directly. While it is awkward to ask, especially if you are wrong, it might be good practice to ask if you are unsure.
Basic Membership vs. Premium
My Experience with the Basic Version
I started off by signing up to the free version of ThaiFriendly.
On the basic version, you can only send one message every ten minutes.
While you can see everyone who is online, you cannot message or view the profile of the most popular girls (of the girls who are receiving the most messages.) These restrictions are real barriers to meeting girls through the site, but it is still possible to use the free version with some success.
I tried messaging a girl every ten minutes while doing other work stuff in the meantime. That worked okay, but I found myself asking girls for their line, instagram, or whatsapp id prematurely, which was often a turn off for them.
I also felt that I was missing out on some of the prettiest girls on the site.
My Experience with the Premium Version
I found the basic free version to be usable for a few days, but was really happy with the results once I did the premium.
Here are the top three reasons why:
- 1. The premium version places members’ messages above others. This worked great. I received three or four responses from girls for every ten or so messages I sent out. And I was able to have longer in-depth conversations with girls before asking to switch to another messaging app. I was able to take the long approach, on a site where most men are taking the fast approach.
- 2. The premium version allows you to automate a generic message and send it out instantly whenever you hit the like button on a girl. This feature is good for mass messaging but I found that I prefer to send individually tailored messages to girl asking them about a pic on their profile or something specific. The automated messaging mostly led to response from freelance girls but not from normal ones.
- 3. You are also able to control your visibility a lot better with the premium version. You can go into full invisibility mode and you can also choose if you want the girl to see or not see that you are looking at her profile. For guys who are dating multiple girls, or who don’t want to be seen for whatever reason, these incognito settings are very effective, the only downside being that girls will not know you are online and so are less likely to message you first or respond.
Conclusion
While the basic version works fine for guys who want to try it out, the premium is way better in my experience. I received a lot of response and was able to set up dates with attractive girls within a few days. It’s annoying to have to pay for the site but it is designed in a way that works well.