I want it, but I don't

‘I want you to stop buying me things. We meet over drinks. That’s enough,’ Ball told me.

I had just bought pizza for Ball, myself, and carer R.

After I ordered the thing, I handed over the phone to carer R, as I am hopeless with directions.

‘Come to the end of the soi. We’re at the ya dong shop,’ he said.

‘I have never seen anyone eat pizza with ya dong before,’ said Ball.

A shot glass of ya dong goes for 10 baht. Most customers are taxi drivers, and other simple types. It is a country drink, though its popularity is now seeping into Bangkok as well.

Ball reprimanded me for spending so much (480 baht, for a large pizza, chicken, and garlic bread).

‘R and I are embarrassed. There’s no need to be so generous,’ he said.

As soon as the pizza arrived, Ball took out a slice and gave it to one of the kids who lives with carer R’s mother-in-law.

Carer R asked if he could take out a few more slices, just in case his mother-in-law was to get hungry later in the evening. Another child aged about 10 lives with her. He declined an offer of pizza, but took a piece of chicken and garlic bread instead.

It was exciting watching this activity. I liked the way carer R and Ball helped others before they ate anything themselves.

The night before, Ball told me he rarely eats fast food, as his family doesn’t have the money. He didn’t put it quite like that, but I knew what he meant.

‘I eat it if it should come along,’ he said.

‘So, would you like pizza if I order it?’ I asked.

He smiled, nodded, and said nothing.

That’s a Yes, as far as most Thais are concerned. Ball and R feel a keen sense of kreng jai (obligation), if I do anything out of the ordinary. As an honorary Thai, I try to keep my head down and do as everyone else does.

I might buy a full bottle of ya dong for everyone, rather than a half bottle as the Thais do, but if no one makes a fuss, no one needs to feel any different.

Occasionally, however, I want to do a little more, if only because the act of giving is so enjoyable.

Carer R and Ball don’t know it, but for me the highlight of ordering a pizza was seeing how they gave to others around them before they agreed to partake themselves.

Even then, they were reluctant. I had to find a plate for Ball and put a slice of pizza on it myself before he would agree to eat. Carer R ate nothing, claiming he was sick of pizza, as his last employer used to shout his staff to pizza meals so regularly that the novelty had now worn off.

How does the foreigner know what is an acceptable display of generosity - and what will make people feel awkward, rather than happy to be the recipient of someone else’s largesse?

For Thais, it is probably easier, as no one has much money.

I have more than the average Thai, though not a huge amount more. In any event, boyfriend Maiyuu holds on to my ATM card, an arrangement which suits me – or I might be inclined to show even more generosity (and discomfit my Thai hosts in the process) than I do now.

‘I wonder if you can separate the two. I know you have never asked me for anything, but perhaps I just like giving. Can you understand that?’ I asked Ball.

In truth, I have not given much. I have bought him a belt, and a pair of jeans, because someone in his family told me that he had none.

I have bought food for his mother twice, and now the pizza. Yes, I’m bad. I am making people feel awkward, but hopefully not too much. In any event, can’t they find it in their hearts to forgive?

‘We don’t have to be like father and son. We can just be drinking friends, as you’ve given enough,’ said Ball.

‘You're getting old. Why don’t you try to find a girl, and have a family? Thais like to deceive farang. I worry you have ended up with someone no good,’ he added.

‘I have only ever had two girlfriends – Jay, my present one, and one other girl, who left me,’ he said.

Ball's girlfriend paid us a brief visit, though he shoo-ed her away.

‘Go home...we’re talking,’ he told her.

‘Can’t I sit for a while?’ asked Jay, who had just finished her job at the supermarket. Ball’s younger brother Beer picked her up on his motorbike, as he usually does.

‘Are you looking for trouble?’ he asked.

She left.

I gave carer R and Ball a brief reading and listening test. Both left school early, though carer R’s English is better.

Ball, I was dismayed to find, can barely read or understand a word.

'I used to skip English classes,’ he said.

Ball asked me about foreign girls. A sample of his questions:

‘Do you think foreign girls would find me attractive, or would they look down on me?’

‘If I flirted with them, would they get upset?’

I replied that foreign girls would jump at the chance to get to know him, as he was so handsome.

‘First, though, you might have to learn a little more English,’ I said.

Ball isn’t interested; not yet, anyway. My friend farang C, who has met carer R and Ball, sent a text message.

‘It is so obvious that you have nothing in common with those people,’ he wrote.

Yet when I am with these two, I am relaxed.

Carer R is like a safety net, waiting to collect my mistakes.

If I say something wrongly in Thai, or behave ineptly (buying expensive pizzas, for example), I know he will come to my rescue.

If a passer-by asks who bought the pizza, R will come up with an explanation which helps me save face.

‘The farang forgot himself, and was thinking of home so much that he just had to order Western food,’ he will say.

I massaged Ball for a couple of hours: I rubbed his shoulders, legs, waist.

He put his legs on my knees.

‘Keep massaging in a straight line,’ R joked, as he watched me plunge my hands right up to Ball's groin.

I went up his shorts leg, but stuck strictly to the leg, just as R advised.

Whenever a motorcycle came our way, I would have to take my hands off him, as he worries about what people in the neighbourhood will think if they see him with a farang.

‘I really enjoyed the night you took me to my bedroom,’ he said, referring to a visit I made to his place a few weeks ago, where we were able to sit in privacy for once.

I can’t recall doing anything special that night, other than inviting him to sleep in my arms.

About 2.30am, I excused myself to go home. Ball, for the first time, declined to escort me across the vacant lot between carer R’s stand and my condo.

Only the night before, he told me how much he enjoys our walks across the vacant lot. Last night, however, he stayed seated.

As the night wore on, young Ball started to look ragged. My young man rose late in the day, but was already in need of bed. His T-shirt was stained in front, and rumpled under the arms.

As carer R chatted away absent-mindedly, I took Ball’s hand, and kissed it.

‘Good night,’ I said.