The Reality of Dating a Thai Bar Girl

July 22, 2022 - Reading time: 15 minutes
Updated September 2, 2024

If you are visiting a touristy area of Thailand, and you enjoy drinking alcohol or spending time in 'adult entertainment' venues, then you are likely to meet plenty of bar girls during your trip. Indeed, many foreigners decide to spend their vacations in Thailand with bar girls and sometimes this can lead them into long term relationships... But what are the realities of dating a lady that works in one of Thailand's night life areas?

What is a Thai bar girl?

Unsurprisingly, Thai bar girls are ladies that work at bars in Thailand. These ladies are responsible for serving drinks and entertaining patrons of their bar, however, their services extend to leaving the bar with customers and spending intimate time with them.

Bar girls earn a small commission each time a drink ('lady drink') is purchased for them by a customer, if a customer decides to leave the bar with a lady and take her to his hotel room then he will need to pay what is known as a "bar fine". A bar fine is effectively a payment which is made to the bar as compensation for them losing a member of staff. The lady will also earn a commission from this payment, as well as a direct payment from the customer himself for her services.

Popular bar girls have the potential to earn decent sums of money, especially if they are attractive and customers are keen on them. If the lady is able to find 'sponsors' who decide to commit themselves to her and send her money on a regular basis, then there is a potential for her to earn vast sums of money.

Of course, if the lady does find a sponsor, or a man that commits himself to her, then she will claim 'never to leave the bar with customers', and to only earn money from drinks commissions (or a salary from the bar). This is a story which we have heard time and time again. When we are asked to then conduct an investigation and check, in the vast majority of cases the lady will be happy to leave the bar with us. Most guys believe that their girlfriend is 'different' until they are confronted with the results of an investigation.

Leaving the bar with customers serves multiple purposes. For a start, it allows the lady to earn fast cash, which she might need to support her family or as payment for everyday expenses. Secondly, many bar girls enjoy sleeping with clients and leaving the bar with a man can help to increase her face by showing other women in the bar that she is desirable and able to find customers.

Lastly, hooking up with customers from the bar creates the potential for a serious long term relationship... Some guys do meet with bar girls in Thailand, form an emotional bond and relationship with them, then eventually get married or have children together. Believe it or not, these type of serious, long term relationship can stem from guys meeting 'working girls' in Thailand, and there is a potential for such a relationship to form with each bar fine that is paid.

Why do men date Thai bar girls?

In our experience there are essentially two categories of guys who find themselves in romantic relationships with bar girls. Firstly, there are guys that met their partners whilst vacationing in Thailand and seeing the lady's workplace upfront... Perhaps they spent time with the lady over multiple nights, which turned into several days or weeks, and during that time they formed a romantic bond with the lady which continued after the end of their vacation.

Due to the popularity of online dating sites, apps, and social media, many bar girls are also able to find foreign men online and form relationships with them using the internet. If a lady that works at a bar uses an online dating app, then she will usually claim to work a 'normal' job or that she is studying at university, for example. If you are thousands of kilometres away then you might find that it is impossible to discover the true occupation of the person that you are speaking to.

If a lady is upfront and honest about the fact that she works in a bar, then she will always claim that she "does not leave the bar with customers". However, most of the time when we check this for our clients, we find that this claim is false. Bar girls almost always agree to leave the bar with our agents, regardless of what they tell their boyfriends.

In order to make the claim not to leave with customers believable, bar girls will often call their boyfriends at the same time every night as proof that they are sleeping in their own bed - however this can be remedied by making a phone call from their customer's balcony or toilet where he cannot overhear the call, or just making a quick trip to a convenience store to buy supplies and making a call from there. Other times bar girls will even call their long term boyfriends in front of their customers, as evidenced by videos which have appeared on popular social media websites. OR the lady might only agree to 'short time' arrangements so that she can still maintain full contact with her boyfriend.

If a guy is constantly communicating with a lady by sending her messages online or making calls to her all day every day, then he will feel that he has a pretty good idea of what is going on in her life. The reality of the situation if the lady works at a bar is usually much different; guys can find themselves believing a 'Matrix style' false reality where their 'girlfriend' is seeing multiple different guys every week or even every day without them ever finding out.

Most guys that date bar girls believe that 'it could never happen to me', or 'I am talking to her 24/7 so she doesn't have an opportunity to see other guys' or even 'she really is different and doesn't care about money!'... The truth is that most guys will never discover the truth unless they decide to hire a private investigator to check on their girlfriend.

Part time bar girls

Some ladies work at beer bars or clubs on a freelance basis where they can come and go as they please, and some that work normal jobs in the daytime may decide to freelance in the evenings or just hookup with men in a nightclub or a 'freelancer friendly' bar. If your girlfriend does decide to use her spare time in this way then finding out what is going on will be almost impossible if you are not living with her or in the same country.

Why do Thai ladies work in bars?

Ladies often work at bars in Thailand as there is the potential for them to earn decent sums of money. The minimum wage salary in Thailand is relatively low and in many cases not sufficient for supporting a family of people. If a lady is responsible for supporting her family, then working in the adult entertainment industry brings the potential to earn more cash than she otherwise would without having a university degree or some form of stable career or business.

Working in bars also presents opportunities for the lady to meet with customers, form emotional bonds, and potentially create long term relationships. If a customer decides that he does not want the lady to work in a bar then he might decide to build her a house in her home village and send money to her so that she can live in the countryside without working in an adult entertainment venue. Many guys do hook-up with bar girls and invest a lot into their relationships both emotionally and financially.

Searching online you will find many people that advise against forming any type of serious romantic relationship with a bar girl, and the reasons behind this advice are obvious. However, for a Thai lady that does not speak English and would like to find a foreign boyfriend, working in a beer bar or go-go bar could be seen as a means to achieving the goal of finding a partner.

Do bar girls have more than one boyfriend at the same time?

In a television segment which was broadcast as part of the program "Scam City" on Canadian channel Travel + Escape, a Thai lady was interviewed who seemingly confessed to having three foreign boyfriends at the same time. In a classic example of the 'Thai girlfriend scam', the lady explained that some of her boyfriends sent money to her on a regular basis, and others would only send money when she had a 'problem in her family' or was struggling with cash. She went on to say that her boyfriends would support her so that she 'did not need to work in a bar'.

Many guys that fall in love with bar girls really do believe that their girlfriend is 'different', and that she would not cheat on him. The reality is that bar girls are often able to meet with a high volume of different guys, and each client that the lady sees has the potential to turn into a long term relationship/sponsor.

If you find yourself involved in a romantic relationship with a lady that works (or previously worked) at a bar in Thailand, then you might find checking her lifestyle and activities to be a worthwhile endeavour. We can help to perform a Thai lady investigation and check whether she is being truthful to you.

What is the 'girlfriend experience'?

The 'girlfriend experience' is a term which can be used to describe a working lady's relationships with her clients. The lady will effectively treat her client as though he is a long term boyfriend, rather than someone that is paying to spend time with her.

Many bar girls are young, attractive and good looking. It is easy to understand how a client could develop feelings for a bar girl, especially if she is providing him with the 'girlfriend experience' and making him feel that he has really formed a special bond with her that extends deeper than a mere business arrangement. Many guys would not plan to enter into a serious relationship with a bar girl until they start to spend time with a working girl and develop feelings for her.

Are there databases of Thai bar girls?

Yes, there are little known about databases which contain ladies that are 'on the game' in Thailand, including bar girls. These databases contain information and images published by the lady's clients, and are searchable by the lady's name or nickname. If a listing exists under the lady's name then her identity can be further verified using images.

While we obviously cannot share links to these databases to non-clients, we typically search them when performing a bar girl investigation or a background check, in order to see whether our client's partner features in them.

Can I make my relationship with a Thai bar girl work?

Some guys that form relationships with bar girls will simply allow their girlfriend to earn money by continuing to sleeping with clients - to them simply accepting the situation is the easiest resolution. In our experience it is far more common for the lady to promise that she will never see other customers, and then continue to do it anyway.

There is effectively no incentive for the lady to stop accepting 'bar fines' if her boyfriend is not sending money to her on a regular basis... And even if you decide to send money to a bar girl, this does not guarantee that she will stop doing her job either, as we often discover during investigations.

Some men do form relationships with ladies that work at beer bars or go-go bars in Thailand; they go on to get married, have children together, and lasting relationships. However, there is another side to relationships with bar girls which entails lies, deceit, and sexual promiscuity.

Whether or not you can truly 'take the bar out of the girl' will partly depend on whether you are 'financially compatible' with your partner - that is to say that you are capable and willing to provide her with enough cash for her to change her lifestyle and find a normal job. Are you willing to support her financially and to continue doing so for as long as it takes for her to become financially independent (if that ever happens)?

Whether or not a relationship can work will also depend on whether the lady already has existing relationships with other men, and what her intentions are. Of course, determining this is more difficult and is usually something that our clients ask us to help them with. Does she truly crave a long term relationship with one man or is she just looking for a quick pay day...?

Learn more about bar girl investigations.

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