Be Careful When It Comes To Trusting People In Thailand

When I first came to Thailand, I remember meeting somebody on a night out, a friend of a friend of a friend. But within about a week, he was asking to borrow money and even trying to crash on my couch. And at the time, with everything still new, that almost felt normal. Because the truth is, it’s incredibly easy to meet people here in Thailand.

But often there are hidden motivations, intentions, or simply underlying pathologies at play. And what feels like a friendship at the start can quickly turn into somebody relying on you, pulling you into situations you don’t fully understand, or just taking you off track entirely.

So in this post we’re talking about travelers, expats, and making friends here in the kingdom. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Psychology of Fast Friendships

One of the first things you’ll notice, especially when you arrive somewhere like Bangkok, is how easy it is to connect with new people. And there’s actually a bit of psychology behind this.

When you’re in a new environment and sharing unfamiliar experiences, it naturally speeds up how quickly people bond. It’s the same reason that workplaces organize team-building activities things like escape rooms or group challenges. But it’s situational, and in most cases you have no real idea who the person is.

And this often plays out in ways that aren’t obvious at first.

When Friendships Become Stagnant In Thailand

When I first moved here, one of my closest friends was a very charismatic and outgoing guy. He organized parties and brought people together. It’s actually how I ended up staying here in the city. But after a while, I started to notice something. His entire life was on a loop.

He was a teacher here for nearly a decade. And his entire life revolved around weekends, drinking, partying, and socializing with very little substance, direction, or reflection.

Newcomers like myself would get pulled in, adding new energy to what was essentially a repetitive and stagnant situation. And while it wasn’t malicious, it often put people onto a dysfunctional track.

As time went on, our lifestyle shifted and we drifted apart. And then one day, he deleted me from all his social media platforms along with most of our friend group from the time, which I later learned was just part of the same cycle repeating itself as he needed to build a new group to prolong the loop.

When Farang Stories Don’t Add Up

And this feeds into something else you notice. A lot of people here are in the process of finding or reinventing themselves. In theory, that can be a good thing a fresh start and a chance to reset. But in practice, it also means you’re surrounded by people whose past isn’t clear and whose current situation doesn’t always match what they say.

You’ll encounter plenty of people who describe themselves as consultants, entrepreneurs, or digital nomads. But when you start looking a little closer, it doesn’t always add up.

The cost of living in Thailand is relatively low, and somebody might arrive here with $5 or $10,000 and simply call themselves an entrepreneur, which definitely sounds better than unemployed.

But sooner or later, these people actually need to make money. And that’s where you start to encounter a lot of hustles.

When Well-Intentioned Ventures Go Wrong

And sometimes they don’t sound all too bad. For example, I had a friend who started a crypto-related business during the pandemic boom. He was actually making good money with a trading system, and with that success he became confident, and eventually people around him started investing in it as a business.

But in reality, his success was largely driven by favorable market conditions. And when the market turned, he lost almost everything.

And that’s the thing you’ll encounter a lot of people here who are trying to build something. Some are outright scams, but even the well-intentioned can run into the same problems: overconfidence combined with a lack of structure or knowledge, and it’s often driven by one main motivation: survival.

The Survival Mentality Transactional Relationships

Because that’s exactly what a lot of people are doing here. Thailand has a way of pulling people in. And many expats simply don’t want to leave even when they should. And they try to find a way to stay, figuring out how to cover rent, food, and usually drinks for the next month each and every month.

For these people, relationships often become transactional. Connections happen faster and with more intensity because they need them to. And much like my attempted couch-surfing friend from our introduction, you’ll suddenly be bombarded by constant messages and attempts to build familiarity quickly.

And before long, it shifts. They start asking for money, help, or even a place to stay. And normally, they disappear just as quickly as they arrived in your life, moving on to somebody new and especially newcomers who haven’t experienced it yet.

Knowing Few vs. Meeting Many

And if you step back, there’s one thing that connects all these situations. You’ll encounter a lot of people here, but you’ll know very few.

For example, in the United States, it’s estimated that up to 5% of the population has narcissistic personality traits, and rates are far higher in men. So, in a male-dominated, transient expat population in Bangkok, where people are often here to reset, reinvent, or escape, do you think that number goes up or down? My personal guess: it probably goes up.

And the same is true for most other personality disorders.

The Extreme End When It Gets Dangerous

And this brings me back to yet another encounter in my early years here. I met somebody on a night out with friends who attached himself to us very quickly. Somehow we all got split up and I was stuck with our newcomer walking around in the Sukhumvit neighborhood here in Bangkok.

That was enough for me and I quickly departed. But I had added him on social media, and not long after that he was posting from a hospital in Cambodia, telling a story about his drinks getting spiked and how he was shaken down for money by local authorities. And then there was one final post. He claimed he’d been arrested on drugs charges, and his account then disappeared.

Even today, I have no idea what happened to him. But on the extreme end, staying around the wrong people for long enough can be dangerous.

Drug offenses in Southeast Asia are typically extremely serious, with penalties including life imprisonment or even death. And this is an issue that’s showing up in the news more and more younger travelers who get pulled into drug courier or trafficking roles, often through social circles that appear to have started off casually.

Stagnation and the Jaded Expat

And of course, there’s also a more mundane risk to all of this, because in many cases, the wrong friends just take you off track slowly. Living in the same routines for months and even years the same bars, lifestyle, and conversations as occurred with my friend during my first year here.

It can look like freedom, but over time it becomes stagnation. And these folks often become the jaded expats sitting in the bar complaining about the old days and how Thailand has changed.

Acquaintances vs. True Friends

When it comes to making friends over the years, I’ve learned ways to filter all of this out. And one of the simplest but most effective is this: consider people acquaintances until they truly become a friend.

After over 11 years here, I have a handful of truly close friends. These are people I generally trust and consistently keep up with. But I also have dozens of acquaintances. These were situational friends who I encountered along the way during my journey here, and often they’ve been very mutually beneficial relationships.

For example, the party loop guy who recruited me to live here actually helped me out quite a lot. And it was a fun year, but it didn’t really go any further than that. I learned a lot about trading from my friend whose crypto business ultimately failed, and later developed my own system which was actually very lucrative.

And even the random guy who wanted to sleep on my couch is still a friendly acquaintance. He just knows that he can’t actually get anything from me.

And that’s the key. Make lots of acquaintances but only really trust a few.