I've Moved Up In Life

It's hard to start. Why does an obedient, fundamentally good young man in his 20's like myself all of a sudden find himself the customer of massage parlors and escort services in Vancouver?

The answer that I have, and that many others in this website have also provided, is rejection. Rejection, and its close associate, the loneliness that comes after it, leads many of us to believe that we are fundamentally unloveable. And for us, the prospect of trading some of our money for the affection and the satisfaction that an escort, or a masseuse, or a prostitute (you name it) can provide is not just about sex--it's more about safety, the feeling that all you have to do to keep this girl by your side is treat her right and pay her promptly.

Stick to that, and you will not be rejected. Simple. Straightforward. Safe.

Whether my rejection experiences are more or less acute than those suffered from others, I cannot tell. I have unfortunately only had one girlfriend in 24 years of my life, and it proved to be a harrowing experience, a few months' worth of happiness in exchange for years of suffering afterwards. In light of that, and of my horrible loneliness, I decided to visit a massage parlor in November of last year. Since then, I've moved up in life--from happy endings to BJ's to the full "service." I've been there, done that. Not that I am proud. But it's the unfortunate truth.

My latest experience was with an escort called A. She came from the same South American country I did, a tall, dark-haired girl with a great body. She says she's in town to "learn English," which I doubted, but who cares? For an hour and fifteen minutes, I had someone listen to me wholeheartedly, rub my back, provide me with the ersatz-girlfriend that I crave for but feel that I am unable to attract, and then at the end of it all she even asked for my phone number.

"You will call me again, right?" she asks.

I would like to say that I won't. But my hour with A. felt like water washing my wounds, easing the pain of my brutal loneliness, helping me feel accepted and valued again, a feeling that I haven't felt in many, many months.

Some people say that love is priceless. Well, to those people I say, for two-hundred and seventy Canadian dollars, something quite like it is there for the taking. At least until the hour is done.