Loyalty Testing and the Fall of Love

Coming to America. Maybe it’s already here. I don’t know what you 18-24 set are into, and I’m okay with that. You do you and send me postcards. But I think the thing I’m about to tell you is way bigger in Vietnam than it is here. Loyalty Testing.

Very simple premise. You suspect your significant other of being a low-down dirty cheater, or maybe you just met them and don’t know, so you hire a company (I use the term loosely) to create fake social media profiles to flirt with them and see if they take the bait.

Like I said, easy premise. In Vietnam, you can catch that special for the equivalent of $8.20. And Pham Minh Ngoc, a service provider, fielding a hundred calls a day.

I don’t know whether this is big among younger people in America yet, but it probably will be. It’s trust. We live in a world now where trust is a fading virtue. Hell, monogamy is a fading virtue, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but then we normalize playing the field. So when we have to put our hearts into one person, we have no idea if they’re going to see us as “the one” or just “one.”

Loyalty testing services are horrible. In Vietnam, testers can try to hook your loved one for months. They can use every method at their disposal, and even if someone passes a loyalty check, who’s to say they don’t already know about those services and are more discrete? Maybe they don’t trust people coming at them out of the blue?

Biggie, though? If you find out your partner is using a loyalty testing service on you, the lack of trust is going to kill it for you. You may then be the one with a legitimate reason not to trust.
Unfortunately, disloyalty, cheating – it’s what you risk when you open yourself up to someone. If there’s no risk, you’re not looking for romance, you’re hiring for a job.

Story by Liam Sweeny.