I’m having the same problem with Lampang that I have with lots of towns I don’t live in. I find myself idealizing it for the simple fact that it has nothing to do with me. If I were to live here, I’d become somebody else entirely, and that is Lampang’s allure for this retired old fool.
There aren’t many foreigners living here compared to Chiang Mai, so if I moved here I’d be more likely to lose myself in a Thai culture that has no intention of accommodating me except in the most superficial of ways. Today, when I got a massage, I found myself fantasizing about becoming the partner of “my” masseuse. She was attractive enough to make my job easy. My reverie didn’t have much to do with her to begin with.
In order to put this latest fantasy to rest I had to imagine that my current partner either died or left me. Then I could come back here and look this massage lady up. Never mind that I don’t have a clue if she’s married, has a boyfriend, or single. Statistics tell me that massage ladies in their early forties are almost always single and highly receptive to having a foreign boyfriend.
She was thin and strong and had a pleasant face. When we talked, she seemed intelligent. She spoke more English than most Thais and was learning it from the Internet. I applaud her ambition and drive.
Experience has shown me once a foreigner gets involved with a massage lady, the free massages stop soon after cohabitation begins. Will she keep working after we move in together? Good question. What will she do if she’s not working? She doesn’t seem like the type to keep house and watch television.
Actually, I thought that would be true of my current partner, but she turned out to be exactly that type. This new lady said she has an eighteen-year-old daughter. That could spell trouble. It would certainly mean some sort of expense. If she stops working, I imagine whatever support she is now giving the daughter would fall to me. Hmm. Hard to get excited about supporting a girl I’ve never met and one who hopefully will not offer me sex in return.
Oh what a tangled web we weave…This is the geezer’s dilemma in Thailand. How do you press your advantage without doing so? What are my real intentions in living here? Do I want to be an equal partner, a worker among workers? Of course not. I want an almost free ride. We all do. Even the girls who are attracted to us we retired foreign men want this.
Endure and thrive 