Help, my masseuse is living rent free in my head

[Atetherainbow]

Please be gentle. This is my first time posting in relationships and I’m hurting.

Quick background: I’ve been single for years, with a few short relationships here and there. I feel to busy to spend much time dating. I have an extremely interesting and active life, tons of hobbies, sweet kids, and a fantastic career. I also have a tendency for my mind to get obsessive over things, and sometimes this has manifested as obsession over men.

I’ve had a few extreme crushes in my life, or episodes of limerence. I hate it. The more I care, the weirder I get, which makes me feel less like myself and more tormented and unhappy. I don’t want to waste my life pining over an unattainable crush.

Now for what’s happening. For the last year, I’ve been seeing a masseuse at a place where no one speaks English except for a hired translator. It is a one-room spa with curtains, no real privacy, one translator, and everyone can hear everything, so I never really talk. The whole place is like steroids for limerence: cozy setting, dim lighting, and no words, just nudity and oil and slow music. You cannot say much, only touch and be touched. Someone comes into the curtained space and quietly and intimately touches you and occasionally checks that you’re okay. Then you whisper thanks and leave.

From the moment I first went, this male massage therapist walked in, and I felt chemistry. He came in while I was fully undressed, and I asked if that was okay. He said he did not speak any English at all. So I gestured a bunch of ways, and it turned into a comic back-and-forth. We laughed, and then he worked on me very lovingly. That broke the ice, and since then, he has been gentle and affectionate without words. Sometimes, if I have a bruise, he paused to look at it, never in a bad way, just with a little “hmm” or “ohh.” He often goes over time and always goes above and beyond.

Naturally, it was at first light fun, till it lit up my obsessive brain. I don’t like how much time I think about this man that I know nothing about. Recently, I fell off my bike and was pretty banged up. Through gestures and pointing, I told him about it. He seemed especially taken by it. Afterwards, he made a big show of not taking the tip, even jumping back to get away from me. Through the translator, he said he would not accept it because of my injury. I was touched, so next time I gave him a card with a thank you for his kindness with a little gift. On the envelope I put my phone number next to my name.

He has not contacted me. I am not sure if I freaked him out, or if my assumption is correct that he is married with a wife overseas, or something else. I do not know, but I want out of this mental merry-go-round. Do I just stop seeing him? Do I try anything more?

Yeah love, you’ve lost the lot. You’ve gone full ‘middle aged man in Thailand’
Is it the Turkish place in Liverpool? If so he’s like that with everyone. My god! That man’s hands 😅he’s a genius and refuses all tips.

That post was on the money, but you seem to have ignored it.

You’re not a victim here, you’ve behaved extremely inappropriately. I hate the whole ‘if it were the other way around’ bollocks, but it is actually pertinent here. This is not ok.

You made the place sound seedy and like you were going there for a ‘happy ending’. I can’t make head nor tail of what sort of place it is.

But yes, this is in your head. And I think you should stop going to wherever this place is.

You don't have to go there though do you? If this was a man writing your posts, peeps would be a lot harder on you for being pervy and using traficked girls and women.

You are being so very, very, very unreasonable here. You're a crucial part of the slavery industry by (knowingly!!!) funding it. If people didn't use these services then they wouldn't exist.

I don't know how you can sleep at night, you should be ashamed honestly.

He doesn't fancy you. He probably has other clients who feel the same way about him. I hope he manages to get out of there.

I would be more sympathetic if you were naive and assumed these masseurs are fairly paid. But you even know they're probably being exploited and you still go. Honestly, how can you live with yourself?

Not him, but I’m glad someone understands 🤣🤣

This is so icky.
You've lost your moral compass and your mind.

Him refusing a tip isn't a reason to give a thank you card especially when it is just an excuse to pass on your phone number- yeah really subtle!

Anyway, now you know for sure he's not interested as you've given him the green light. Maybe time to find a new massage place?

If this is real OP you must stop going to that place at once and focus on something else in your perfect life.

Hmmm… that sounds a lot like having fun with us.

Is he Barry from Hull?

Your behaviour and feelings are genuinely quite scary OP. Not normal in any way whatsoever. I’d honestly get therapy for this. It’s so bizarre.

& no your therapist isn’t secretly in love with you either.

So op let's say he does have feelings for you. What exactly is your plan? How exactly do you see it going, getting together with a trafficked man, who speaks not a single word of English, who has no money and can't communicate. Is he gonna come and live with you? Will you be introducing him to your kids?? It's fucking ridiculous op, your post comes off as creepy as fuck to be honest, if this was a bloke writing this about a woman he'd be rightly ripped to shreds.

I’m glad you wrote that. I was struggling, at first, I thought OP was in love/ lust with female ( which would probably be safer at least).

You've been given your answer by him, he has not contacted you. That's the answer.

He's being professional and working within his remit. He's massaging you because you've paid for the service, and yes touching another person is intimate but it isn't necessarily romantically intimate. Of course it feels "romantic" in there with low lights for relaxation if you bring that idea in yourself, but it's not romantic. It's a work place to him, and if he doesn't speak English at all I suspect he's working for low wages at that.

It's not terrible to live in a fantasy land per say, but to involve another person and let alone one in a vulnerable position (speaks no English, needs this job to support family most likely, far from home, low pay etc etc) is very wrong. I hope you can see that, and I would suggest cutting yourself off and just go elsewhere as I don't see how with your compulsion you could seperate YOUR feelings from this working man doing his job.

As with all moral issues, avoidance means you aren't complicit in it. Others may still go and the operation may still continue, but you'd not have been enabling it with your presence and your purse.

This attitude of if I don't do it someone else will is what helps alot of morally ambiguous or actually awful things to continue.

The hyperbole in the responses? You've told us that you think the place is set up for modern day slavery and yet you don't seem to understand why he wouldn't be desperate to have sex with a client? If you were a man you'd belong on some kind of register.

Someone pass me the sick bucket, 😫

I think the nudity, the oil and slow music all amounts to one thing.

P Diddy mansion at 2am

f it’s not slavery, it’s certainly by my book a form of human rights abuse. I don’t see that withholding patronage is the solution. I think these are issues that have to be solved on a systemic level. From my side I feel the role I can pay is tip well, which I do always

No. The role you play is not going to these places and reporting them. 30 seconds on google and I found out how to report modern slavery in the US.

https://www.state.gov/domestic-trafficking-hotlines/

I mean, if your frisson for a few dollars’ tip is worth more than the workers’ lives, you keep telling yourself you’re ’supporting them’.

PS) no, he doesn’t feel anything for you. He’s doing his literal job and you are building this up in your head.

Jesus wept.

He's not 'expressing' anything to you. This is the same thing that causes the 'Strictly curse'. People lovingly touch each other as part of a job, and it causes feelings to develop. But outside of the job, it often doesn't really work.

Find someone else as a massage therapist. You might put this man's job at risk if you pursue him.

This set up sounds .... Wrong. And possibly illegal.

Op I would go for a massage elsewhere. I mean, I have also had extreme crushes but with people I have a pre-existing relationship with. This guy doesn't speak English and is working in a very, erm, strange context.

Of course not going will help to stop this. People will always try to make a profit where there’s a market. You not using these services will be (albeit a tiny tiny) step towards there being no point in exploiting people to provide these services.

When I said illegal, I meant the workplace. Not suggesting op has done anything illegal.