Smiles
November 11th, 2007, 06:00
I met Mr Suphot on the very last night of my first trip to Thailand in 2000.
It was a serendipitous meeting, wholly unexpected and frankly, almost missed. Only my tired contemplative sadness that I was leaving on a jet plane only 7 hours from that moment led me into my Bangkok hotel bar for a last beer, and to sit quietly by myself thinking about my experiences over the last 3 weeks ... mostly in Patong. As I have written about before, I took the left-hand path into the bar, rather than the right-hand walkway to my room . . . the place where I had expected to be only moments before after turning into the hotel grounds.
Serendipitous and ironic as well. The reason I was even in Thailand in 2000 was because I wasn't in Mexico.
I had made a trip to Puerto Vallarta the year before, and it had been a disastrous event, too soon taken. The love of my life (11 happy years together) had passed away in the spring of 1999, and later that year I decided to take a holiday in Puerto Vallarta, where we had always had so many good times together in the years before.
But around every corner, in every disco and restaurant, down there on the beach, riding the waves, hugging the owner of Mama Delores' breakfast cafe, was My Old Man. Now my ghost.
Suffice to say, the whole trip was a terrible idea, and I made the decision not to go there again for a much longer time . . . until the ghost had flown away from loneliness.
So it was off to Thailand the next year. And ever since.
Mr Suphot was standing behind the bar, washing glasses, arranging booze bottles and ready to shut up shop for the night. I sat at the bar and talked with him for awhile. Telescoping time a great deal, it was ~ in this order ~ a quiet proposition for massage, an invitation to my room, a massage of proper intensity, some appropriate 'extras', and and and ..... and in that little hotel room, 'something' happened.
Two months later I was back in Bangkok to find out whether that 'something' was real or imagined.
Seven years later we are still together. Still wonderfully happy with each other.
And ... strange as may seem, growing older together. Now a young Thai man of 32 has just turned 40. This middling-aged farang of 52 just moved into his 60's. I feel like Neil Young ... " ... Old Man, look at yourself, I'm a lot like you were ... "
So, how does a Thai man age? How obvious is it?
We all know Thai guys tend to look in general, younger than they in fact are. That generalization probably goes a long way in explaining the desire most of us on these gay Thailand Boards have for Thai men. Not the only function of the desire I'm sure . . . but that it's there cannot be denied.
I am obviously biased in my desire for Suphot (which has never diminished ... in fact quite the opposite), but his face has changed. It has become more "angled", more lined, and I think more mature. In his time-without-me (i.e. his family, village, working life) he has been through quite a lot in these almost-eight years, and it shows on his face. But strangely, unlike myself, not so much on his body, which is as lean and hard it was all those years ago.
I think you can see that in these 2 photos.
The first was taken (and has been rubbed raw in my wallet) doing the tourist thing in early 2001 in the grounds of Wat Arun, with the Chao Praya River in the background. The second picture is from 2006 at Cha Am ... sitting on the hotel balcony.
The little smile is almost identical in each. The dimple in that high Isaan cheek bone (his sister loves so much!) is in the same spot, though somewhat deeper. The smile eyes still have his characteristic squint. Can you see the impish sense of humour behind the face? It's still there.
Do lips lose their fullness with age? I think I see that in these two photos .. but maybe I'm seeing things.
On the phone last week we were talking about the logistics of meeting at the airport and he blurted out that he was looking in the mirror only moments before and had concluded quite seriously that, " ... I get very old now. Maybe you run away when you see me in airport ... "
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/age4.jpg
So here we are now on the cusp of a bit different life than we had before (2 weeks to go ... some cusp!). This new one we will be together for much longer periods of time ... making a kind of household, watching our baht ... living in non-holiday mode. It's an experiment we both seem to be looking forward to making ~ even at our rapidly advancing ages.
Cheers ...
It was a serendipitous meeting, wholly unexpected and frankly, almost missed. Only my tired contemplative sadness that I was leaving on a jet plane only 7 hours from that moment led me into my Bangkok hotel bar for a last beer, and to sit quietly by myself thinking about my experiences over the last 3 weeks ... mostly in Patong. As I have written about before, I took the left-hand path into the bar, rather than the right-hand walkway to my room . . . the place where I had expected to be only moments before after turning into the hotel grounds.
Serendipitous and ironic as well. The reason I was even in Thailand in 2000 was because I wasn't in Mexico.
I had made a trip to Puerto Vallarta the year before, and it had been a disastrous event, too soon taken. The love of my life (11 happy years together) had passed away in the spring of 1999, and later that year I decided to take a holiday in Puerto Vallarta, where we had always had so many good times together in the years before.
But around every corner, in every disco and restaurant, down there on the beach, riding the waves, hugging the owner of Mama Delores' breakfast cafe, was My Old Man. Now my ghost.
Suffice to say, the whole trip was a terrible idea, and I made the decision not to go there again for a much longer time . . . until the ghost had flown away from loneliness.
So it was off to Thailand the next year. And ever since.
Mr Suphot was standing behind the bar, washing glasses, arranging booze bottles and ready to shut up shop for the night. I sat at the bar and talked with him for awhile. Telescoping time a great deal, it was ~ in this order ~ a quiet proposition for massage, an invitation to my room, a massage of proper intensity, some appropriate 'extras', and and and ..... and in that little hotel room, 'something' happened.
Two months later I was back in Bangkok to find out whether that 'something' was real or imagined.
Seven years later we are still together. Still wonderfully happy with each other.
And ... strange as may seem, growing older together. Now a young Thai man of 32 has just turned 40. This middling-aged farang of 52 just moved into his 60's. I feel like Neil Young ... " ... Old Man, look at yourself, I'm a lot like you were ... "
So, how does a Thai man age? How obvious is it?
We all know Thai guys tend to look in general, younger than they in fact are. That generalization probably goes a long way in explaining the desire most of us on these gay Thailand Boards have for Thai men. Not the only function of the desire I'm sure . . . but that it's there cannot be denied.
I am obviously biased in my desire for Suphot (which has never diminished ... in fact quite the opposite), but his face has changed. It has become more "angled", more lined, and I think more mature. In his time-without-me (i.e. his family, village, working life) he has been through quite a lot in these almost-eight years, and it shows on his face. But strangely, unlike myself, not so much on his body, which is as lean and hard it was all those years ago.
I think you can see that in these 2 photos.
The first was taken (and has been rubbed raw in my wallet) doing the tourist thing in early 2001 in the grounds of Wat Arun, with the Chao Praya River in the background. The second picture is from 2006 at Cha Am ... sitting on the hotel balcony.
The little smile is almost identical in each. The dimple in that high Isaan cheek bone (his sister loves so much!) is in the same spot, though somewhat deeper. The smile eyes still have his characteristic squint. Can you see the impish sense of humour behind the face? It's still there.
Do lips lose their fullness with age? I think I see that in these two photos .. but maybe I'm seeing things.
On the phone last week we were talking about the logistics of meeting at the airport and he blurted out that he was looking in the mirror only moments before and had concluded quite seriously that, " ... I get very old now. Maybe you run away when you see me in airport ... "
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/age4.jpg
So here we are now on the cusp of a bit different life than we had before (2 weeks to go ... some cusp!). This new one we will be together for much longer periods of time ... making a kind of household, watching our baht ... living in non-holiday mode. It's an experiment we both seem to be looking forward to making ~ even at our rapidly advancing ages.
Cheers ...