Although this article is written mainly for the guys, the ladies will learn a lot of what and what not to do in public with your friends or mate of the opposite sex. The men will also learn the real way courtship works in Thailand and why.
The first thing to remember is that girls can touch the guys but the guys CANNOT touch the girls. So if you are walking down the street DO NOT hold hands. It is OK for the lady to put her arm and hand around the man's arm but that's about as far as it should go. There is a reason for this. If a girl lets a man touch, hold hands or put his arm around her the Thais believe the girl is easy, loose or maybe a prostitute. If you look at the way girls act in the bars it is easy to understand that any traditional, well educated Thai girl would not want to be seen as such a person. Thailand is a class society and the girls working in the bars are part of the lower class. Any well-educated and successful Thai man knows this also and would not think of marring a girl of this status. Girls that work in bars are for having fun in the short term and that is as far as it goes. Both Thai men and women know this but for some strange reason many male visitors to Thailand just don't get it. I will get back to this subject later.