Plausibility of What Boys Say

[Jun]

Farang: What do your parents do ?
Lad: My parents are too old to work

Farang: How old are they ?
Lad: 75

Now doing the maths, he's 26, so that means his parents were 49 when he was born. Whilst not impossible, they would be outliers. Perhaps the father is significantly older than the mother.

Perhaps "too old" is a euphemism for being unemployed.

I've heard this story several times, although they don't usually go as high as 75.

[Gaybutton]

I've heard this story several times, although they don't usually go as high as 75.

I usually hear the father died, disappeared, or whatever and the mother is too sick to work.

Let's not leave out the sick grandmother and the water buffalo died, along with "I not have money to pay room." Those are some of my favorites . . .

[Jun]

I've also heard a father died example, but given the poor health and safety, plus minimal medical care in neighbouring countries, it's certainly plausible. I have met this lad several times over a couple of trips and there have been frequent references to his mother, but not his father.
So plausible and consistent.

Another one has his father in the monkey house.

[Gaybutton]

Another one has his father in the monkey house.

Now that is plausible . . .

[Jun]

Another line I hear is "I don't get any customers, as I'm too old. Customers look at me and go to a younger boy".
I might believe that when looking at someone who looks over 30, or is not in good shape.
However, when the story comes from a lad in his mid 20s who looks so young I might even check his ID before offing him, I doubt the story.

He's more likely either to be getting enough customers, or not getting them for some other reason. The other reasons for not getting business might include poor communication, or poor levels of service, leading to few repeat customers.

[Gaybutton]

He's more likely either to be getting enough customers, or not getting them for some other reason.

What would you say is the current customer to boys ratio? Maybe there aren't that many customers for the boy to get.

Also, many customers go to the bars, but don't want to take boys off. Most of the time when I go to the bars, I'm one of them. I'm there to look, maybe chat with a boy, but I very rarely take boys off. It's not the boy's fault. It's that I'm not about to pay the fees involved before even walking out the door with a boy I've taken off.

In other words, a boy saying he doesn't get customers might easily be the truth.

[BKKDreamer]

He's more likely either to be getting enough customers, or not getting them for some other reason.

Maybe there aren't that many customers for the boy to get.

In other words, a boy saying he doesn't get customers might easily be the truth.

I would agree that there are NOT enough falangs who want to off the guys.

Last night I sat at the Meeting Place bar (which is in front of the Foxy Smile and Pattaya #1 massage shops) to say goodbye to my 2 close Thai friends - as they were going home to Isaan for 10 days - as they could not go during the regular recent holiday period as they had to cover for the first wave that already went home for the holidays.
I was there for 2 hours with them. In those 2 hours - only 3 falangs of the perhaps 40 to 50 falangs who passed by took one of the guys for a massage. There were around 15 massage guys working in those 2 massage shops and another 15 in the nearby Soda massage shop.

So, if we apply some simple math - then we see a success ratio of 3 / 30 = 10% (3 out of 30 working massage guys got an off) out of a potential pool of passerbys of 50 falangs - for a dismal 6% possibility potential from the pool of potential customers.

My 2 Thai friends (who work in 1 of the above mentioned massage shops) told me that this is normal for a typical day. That some of the guys go 4 days without a customer or off.

To add insult to injury - some of the customers (from a country that 11 months ago invaded another nearby country) only tip between 50 to 200 baht - which is insulting to the massage guys - as the basic expectation is 1.000 baht. Often in anger - in a Thai way, they tell the people from this country (or any other insulting cheapskate country) to keep their money - as it is too disgraceful to accept it. And as a freelancer - they get ZERO 0 amount from the massage shop.

So, as we see, the financial earning prospects for our guys is quite dismal.

I recently told some of these guys about the legends that I have heard from these forums that the guys used to frequent the beach to meet falangs for business. They were quite surprised to hear this - as they started working in Jomtien after this phenomena had already stopped. I told them that they should return to the beach during the day to drum up some business. I told them that they could walk along the beach with perhaps business cards and/or pamphlets advertising their services - so that the potential falang customer could:

1.) know that they exist,
2.) give them contact details for a meeting at their place (without having to pay the off fee) at their convenience,
3.) or how to find them at the massage shop that they are attached to (as freelancers).

Do any of you think that this marketing strategy might work?

Do any of you know why the guys stopped frequenting the Dongtan gay beach years ago ?

[Jun]

What would you say is the current customer to boys ratio? Maybe there aren't that many customers for the boy to get.

Also, many customers go to the bars, but don't want to take boys off. Most of the time when I go to the bars, I'm one of them. I'm there to look, maybe chat with a boy, but I very rarely take boys off. It's not the boy's fault. It's that I'm not about to pay the fees involved before even walking out the door with a boy I've taken off.

The customer to boy ratio ?
A tricky question. I would have thought it was approximately 5 customers per boy in somewhere like Home bar. Difficult to be sure when there were some Asian customers and boys can come and go as they please.
Next door, the ratio was probably nearer 1:1. Then if we go somewhere like the badly located Dojo bar, the boys comfortably outnumber the customers, at least recently.

I've defined a customer as someone who shows up to buy drinks. Whilst customers are still seen leaving with probable offs, that's quite rare these days.

There are various reasons for this.
Like you and I, most customers do business online these days. Possible reasons include:
(i) Preferring to have fun earlier in the day.
(ii) Separating drinking from sex.
(iii) Having a written discussion about services to be provided, to prevent misunderstanding.
(iv) Avoiding off fees. Since the boys are freelance and drink prices exceed those in equivalent girly bars, I'm not sure why an off fee should be levied. Also, as every boy that's been to my room in the last 2 years was initially contacted on line, why would I suddenly want to pay an off fee just because he freelances at a bar ?
That's if they still apply an off fee ? How could they enforce it when the staff are freelance?

In other words, a boy saying he doesn't get customers might easily be the truth.

Not getting customers may well be the truth. However, I just don't think the reason is his age. If he's 26 and would pass for under 20, I think there is a different reason for no offs.

He was offering to go and sleep with me yesterday, but I wasn't planning on taking a boy then. Now as far as I can tell, he's not active on Grindr or Hornet, so he's excluding the marketing portals where we think most of the trade is done. He's not communicated particularly effectively using Line either. Another Khmer lad who has far less spoken English and no written English manages it just fine.

Another reasons could be poor proficiency in bed, so no repeat offs.

Also, I believe the normal tendancy is to plead poverty and claim they are doing very little business.
This include the ones who buy iPhones as presents for other family members, have a constant stream of new expensive trainers and exhibit various other signs of extravagant spending.

[Jun]

Another reason for not offing from bars:
(v) I need to travel to Jomtien, as that's where the attractive bar boys are. When I get there, the boy I'm thinking of offing might not be there. So I'm then going to be rapidly searching around for an alternative, whilst trying to stay off the beer.

Compare with online, where we can just exchange a few messages on Line, at any time during the day and fix up an appointment at a mutually convenient time.

So, top of my list of reasons why this lad is not getting customers is lack of aptitude for conducting online trade, but at this point in time, that's only speculation.

Performance is definitely another factor. One of my regulars seems to be getting better and I'm delighted to keep seeing him regularly. All the clues suggest he's getting plenty of customers.
Another one seems far worse than in previous years. I gave him a second chance, but there won't be a third. Prior to the second meeting, he was messaging me every day asking to meet and he's not been that desperate, even during covid. So I don't think he's getting much trade.

I'll keep hiring the ones who deserve it.

[Gaybutton]

Do any of you know why the guys stopped frequenting the Dongtan gay beach years ago ?

Yes. Most of them never really wanted to go to the beach in the first place, but that was before the advent of the apps. They would go to the beach hoping to meet farang. Once the apps became popular they stopped going to the beach and hunted farang on the apps instead.

Most of them have a major aversion to getting dark skin, so they keep out of the sun and avoid the beach. That's why you very often see Thais, and not only the boys, dressed as if they are on a trip to Antarctica - covered from head to toe in heavy clothing totally inappropriate for Thailand's climate - but that way their skin won't get dark.