What I learned after 5 years of Dating in Vietnam

What's dating like in Vietnam? So I'm really lucky. I've been dating my Vietnamese girlfriend now for more than two years, but for about three years before that, there was a lot of dating happening, so I've got a lot of experience under my belt. People want to know, so I thought I'd share my experience. Should be a juicy topic, so let's get into it. There's definitely some interesting cultural differences between dating in Vietnam versus Western cultures. Most of my dating a few years ago was in Hanoi, in Northern Vietnam, where the culture in general is way more traditional than the rest of the country. So in Western countries, we tend to date casually. There's nothing wrong with playing the field for a while, dating a few different options until you find someone that you really click with. But in Vietnam, people don't tend to date casually. Vietnamese women can get very attached and things can get serious pretty quickly, and this is because there's a lot of societal pressure and pressure from families for women to get married early here. So a lot of women will prefer to be married and have two kids by the age of 25. That's the kind of societal norm here. They even have a word for women that get to age 30 and they're single. They call it A, which means like unwanted or left over. It's really frowned upon. Families will be very judgmental and always be harassing you, saying, you got to go out, get a husband. What are you doing? So one big difference here is that relationships can move very quickly. Even after just a few weeks, sometimes women will want to invite you over to their house to meet their parents, and this is because they want their parents to meet you and approve of you early on so they don't end up wasting a bunch of time dating for you and then realize you're not a good fit. Women will usually live with their parents until they're married, even late into their 20s. So I dated a girl one time, she was 29 years old, lived with her parents, and her parents were very strict. So she had to be home by 10 o'clock every single night, no sleepovers allowed, no weekend trips, traveling away with a boy that was completely out of the question. So you can see how that would limit a relationship from happening. So we got along great, but after a couple months, it was like, okay, I'm not anywhere close to getting married yet, so this just isn't going to work out. Another difference is that Vietnamese women don't really prefer to use dating apps. So it's catching up a bit now, but still not nearly as much in Western countries. So Vietnamese women would rather meet their partner through friends or work colleagues, you know, kind of like in the old days how we used to do it. And actually, I think most women would love to have anyone come up to them at a coffee shop or a bar and just start a conversation, for example. It's not like in the Western countries now where if you actually try to talk to somebody in real life, apparently you're a creep. So an app like Tinder that everybody's used to, it's mostly used for hookups and not really a serious relationship. So if you're just looking for a hookup, no judgment from me, but if you're looking for something serious, I think the best way to do it would be to join local groups, activities, meetups, something like that. Try to meet people out in public in real life. Just don't be afraid to go up to somebody in a coffee shop and start chatting. So of course, everything that I'm talking about, I'm speaking very broadly, very generally here, but this is just my experience. One thing to keep in mind when it comes to apps, there's a really common scam that happens here all over the country where a girl will match with you on some dating app and they'll invite you to a specific bar and so they end up working for that bar. They get commissions by trying to bring people in to spend money there. So in general, Vietnamese women would never be so forward to even suggest a place to go. They want you as the man to pick it. So if that ever happens, it's definitely a red flag and just keep that in mind. It's happened to a lot of people, especially in Hanoi. Another thing to keep in mind is the language barrier. So you can meet plenty of girls that have really good English. A lot of the younger generation has really good conversational English, no problem, but you might find that someone speaks conversational English fine, but after a while you'll realize that you can't get into really deep conversations and this is actually going to really limit the relationship on how it progresses. I had plenty of dates with Vietnamese women that didn't speak a word of English and it was really fun at first for me to try really hard to speak in Vietnamese only, but after a date or two you realize there's no chance to make this work. It's just too difficult to communicate. One point that might sound a little backwards or negative here, but I mean it in the best way possible. Vietnamese women are very feminine, very soft, very caring. They love to take care of you, cook food for you. Things that in the West we might consider outdated or too traditional. I know modern Western women don't want to be associated with these kinds of things at all, but here in Vietnam it's still very much the case. Another tip for guys that might consider dating Vietnamese women, in the West when you go on your first date you're probably going to plan something fancy. You want to impress her and take her out for an expensive dinner, right? So in Vietnam, dates can be much more casual. Most girls would rather just meet up for coffee and talk for the first couple dates even. Even just driving around, parking by the beach, a river, a lake, something like that and just having a conversation. It's not uncommon for a girl to invite you to go out and drink and eat food with a couple of her friends, so you might end up having to have a couple group dates before you even get your one-on-one dates. So in general, girls are going to prefer casual dates, you know, just something like drinking and eating street food barbecue at a local joint. That would probably be my best recommendation for like a first proper date, would be street barbecue where you're grilling and cooking the meat at your table, or something like a lấu, hot pot, where you're just cooking all the food at your table, so it's very interactive. You're just eating and drinking slowly while talking for an hour or two. That's probably the best real first date you can do after a couple coffee shop visits. Now if you're in Saigon, Saigon has a much more modern dating structure. Everything that I said about all the traditional stuff in northern Vietnam, that pretty much all goes out the window. So there, girls are probably going to want fancy dinners, they love the nightlife and dressing up, stuff like that. So for me, I prefer the very Vietnamese traditional vibe, but it just depends on where you're at and what type of girls you're dating. The last thing I have to address is the idea of gold diggers, so a lot of people will think that Vietnamese women will only be into foreign men because they assume that they have a lot of money, and I think this is completely false for 90% of women here. One of the things that I love about Vietnamese women is they don't really care about money the way western people do. They're not impressed by fancy things, they don't have super high expectations to do expensive activities all the time, they're mostly satisfied by just the little things. Way rather just have someone that's interesting that you can have a good conversation with. No girl is going to care what kind of motorbike you show up to pick her up, and she's not going to be impressed if you take her to a steak dinner but you can't have a good conversation. Of all the girls that I ever dated in Vietnam, I only had one who was pretty open about the idea of, I'm a foreign white man, so I must have a lot of money, so I have to pay for everything and we should do expensive things all the time. Luckily I got out of that one. So overall, dating in Vietnam can be great. I think Vietnamese women are generally interested in western men and western culture. If you're here in Vietnam, you should definitely give it a shot. I think dating in Vietnam is a lot more approachable than even in western countries. So everyone's experience is going to be different, I just wanted to share my own, so I hope you enjoyed it. Subscribe to the channel, see you in the next one. Peace!