The Swipe Back

Expat forums warn men about Thai girlfriends. Her friends have a checklist too.

The meeting takes place on a Sunday afternoon at the café opposite Jeab's nail salon in Chalong, at the table in the back under the air-con, which is where serious things are decided.

Present: Mai, pharmacist, thirty-four, who reads the small print on everything because her job is the small print. Tik, hotel receptionist, thirty-one, who has checked in four thousand foreign men and can tell from the way they hold a passport whether they're married. And Jeab, thirty-three, owner of the salon, whose new boyfriend is the item on the agenda.

His name is Tom. He is forty-four, Canadian, an engineer on a contract at a marina project, and he has been taking Jeab to dinner for three weeks. He's polite. He remembers things. He asked before he held her hand. This is why Mai and Tik are worried.

"Too good," says Tik. "Start with the photos."

Mai does a reverse image search on his dating profile pictures. One comes up on a professional networking site, under his name, at a company in Vancouver that does exist and does build marinas. Another comes up on a cousin's wedding album. The third doesn't come up anywhere, because it's a photo of a dog.

"Dog is real?" asks Tik.

"Dog is real," says Jeab. "He showed me videos. Dog lives with his sister."

Tik writes *DOG — OK* in her notes app.

Next item: Facebook. His account is only two years old. On expat forums a Thai woman with a two-year-old account would be a scam, a second identity, a red flag the size of a beach umbrella. Mai and Tik look at each other.

"Divorced," says Jeab. "Two years ago. He deleted everything and started again."

"He told you this?"

"He told me on the first date."

"Before you asked?"

"Before I asked."

Mai frowns. In her experience men don't volunteer the divorce until at least the fourth dinner, and then it's always the wife's fault. She makes a note to ask about the wife's fault.

Wife at home: none, according to a court document he showed Jeab without being asked, which Tik finds suspicious in itself. Children: none. Debts: unknown. Mai suggests asking. Jeab says you can't ask a man about his debts after three weeks. Tik says forum men ask Thai women about their family's debts on the second date and nobody calls *them* rude.

They let that sit on the table for a moment, next to the iced teas.

Tik does the last check. She's good at this one. She searches the expat forums, the big ones, the ones where foreign men discuss Thai women like used cars, for anything about a nail salon in Chalong.

It takes eleven minutes.

The post is anonymous. The username is something about fishing. But the photo attached is a blurred picture of a salon sign that all three of them have walked past every day for six years.

*Met a Thai lady who owns a nail salon in Phuket. Seems genuine, her own business, never asked me for anything. Is this legit? What are the red flags? Be honest guys.*

There are forty-two replies.

They read them together, heads in, in total silence, the way you read a weather warning. The replies say what those replies always say. *Run.* *The business is her uncle's.* *Wait till the buffalo gets sick.* *Ask how many sisters she has.* *Mate, nobody genuine owns a nail salon.* One man in Pattaya has written six paragraphs.

Mai puts her phone down. Tik puts hers down. They look at Jeab.

This is the red flag nobody expected. Not a wife, not a scam, not a second account. A forty-four-year-old engineer who remembers things, who asked before he held her hand, and who, when he wanted to know whether she was real, asked forty-two strangers instead of her.

"Okay," Tik says carefully. "So what do we do?"

Jeab picks up her phone. She makes a new account on the forum, which takes four minutes. She types a reply under the forty-two others, reads it twice, and posts it.

Then she orders another iced tea.

The reply says:

*She's legit. Her friends checked you too. You passed, mostly. She's reading this. Dinner tonight still OK?*

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Split Decision: Checking a new partner's background online: smart, or a red flag in itself?

*Illustrations are AI-generated.*