Gaybutton

Nope. I know where the boys are a lot closer than that . . .

I'll be posting the URL for the new board right here on a pinned message. It probably isn't even necessary for me to post it on other boards. Word spreads fast around here . . . Besides, I don't know why you would think other boards would refuse to let me announce it. Board owners tend to cooperate with each other. If you really do have trouble finding it, just send an Email to me at: gaybutton@gmail.com I'll let the following answer that question:

I am going to start up a new message board after GT moves the current board. I have discussed this with GT and he is very supportive of my decision. I hope the rest of you will also be supportive. My intent at the moment is to open strictly a message forum rather than a full scale web site. While several people have asked me to resurrect my old web site, quite frankly it is just too time consuming to keep articles updated, photos updated, etc. Running a message board takes enough time as it is. I may add a web site to it at some point, but for now that's not my plan. The message board software I'm planning to use is the same software the Gay Ting & Tong board uses (assuming I don't have any problems getting it to work). I suppose I could have decided to just retire from running message boards and use the existing Gay Thailand forums, but I enjoy running a message board as I have been doing for so many years now and I would like to continue. I also prefer to run a board my way and I do think it is a good idea to have at least one board run by someone who lives full time in Thailand. I will not use advertising on my board. That was one aspect of my old board and I intend for the new board to be the same in that respect. I also will not solicit donations. Between domain registration and web hosting services it will cost me about US $90 per year. I think I can handle that. As always, any gay venues that wish to advertise on my new board will be welcome to do so within messages, free of charge. I will post another announcement once I have the new board ready so that you will know the URL for getting to it. However, I do not intend to open it until GT moves this board. Also, I'm planning to do some traveling in early August, so I don't know how much time I'll have in order to work on getting it up and running in time, but I'll do my best. I don't think I'll have very much trouble at least getting something preliminary up and running. I can add bells and whistles later. So, there it is. I will be very happy to welcome those of you who wish to use my board.

The answer to both is yes. Despite the fact that it is illegal to produce or sell porn in Thailand, simply go to the beach. I would be very surprised if more than 20 minutes goes by before at least one porn video vendor strolls by offering his wares. Also, many of the Thai boys who come to my place ask if I have any porn videos. They are always disappointed when I tell them I don't have any (I never did like porn. Not my thing.).

I had an interesting experience. I am not a fan of porn. Those who know me also know I never buy or download porn and I neither watch it nor am interested in it. But there was one exception. By sheer accident I found a few of porn videos that included one Thai guy in particular in each of them. That boy really turned me on. Then, only a few days later I was on Camfrog and to my surprise, there he was. I contacted him and told him I'd love to meet him. He was interested. It turned out that he lives practically next door to Center Condo, so meeting him was no problem at all. He was very nice, very polite, and very affectionate, and he had told me he had been hoping for a farang boyfriend. After we met I told him I had seen his videos. He was very embarrassed and was afraid I would think less of him for having been involved with them. He said he did it because he was desperate for money and was paid 5000 baht each time he did one. I told him I don't think less of him for it and I was really turned on by them. I asked him how he got involved with porn videos in the first place. I got the answer I expected. He said a friend of his had done some and the friend put him in touch with the guy who makes the videos and convinced him to do it. It was easy money and for him, very good money. That didn't help very much. Her literally begged me not to tell any of my farang friends about his videos if he was going to meet any of them. He was also scared to death that somehow his family would find out or even worse, see them. We dated for awhile, but it eventually fizzled out. He just never was able to shake loose of the fact that I had seen his videos. I'm sorry I ever told him. I had no idea he would react like that.

Why would you need such an option? If you're not interested in a meet-and-greet, simply don't vote and don't go. What's the problem? The poll is for those who are interested in a meet-and-greet.

As an aside, if you wish to post some photo examples of his paintings, feel free to do so. Maybe some board users would be interested in buying paintings from him. After realizing the way he had been lying, using, and abusing without giving a damn about how you felt or what it was doing to you, if it were me, I would have given him nothing. I would have just left him there and let him deal with his situation by himself.

Can you elaborate a little bit? You may. I don't think of it really as a confession. More like simply being honest considering I started this topic. I was dumb twice. I hope there won't be a third time. Your joke about until the money runs out is no joke. That happens to a lot of farang. Despite the emotional attachment, and the attachment they have convinced themselves the boy also feels, in plenty of cases if the money runs out, so does the boy.

Many of us are currently in, or have been in relationships with Thai guys. Some are working beautifully. Others turn out to be nothing but problems and horror stories. Where do you fit in? Are you currently in a relationship? Did it begin fairly recently and you're not really sure yet where it's going? Are you in a relationship that you consider to already be long-term? If your current relationship is working, have you been in past relationships that went bad? If yes, are you happy you did it? Some are probably very happy and would do the same thing tomorrow. Others wish they never got involved and are about to end it or they feel trapped and can't find a way to get out of it. I have no idea what the statistics might be. Are most of you who are in relationships glad you're in it and are truly happy - wouldn't have it any other way or do you wish you never met the guy in the first place? In my case, I've been involved in live-in relationships with Thai guys twice. Both went sour in the end. Part of it was their fault and part of it was my own fault. In the second relationship I was one of those guys who everybody else but me could see that I was definitely with the wrong person. I was blind to it and it took me a long time to finally wake up and accept the reality of what I had gotten myself into. It was difficult, very difficult, to end it both times, but I knew that despite the difficulty and heartbreak it nevertheless had to be done. We'll never be in a relationship again, but with the first one, now years have passed. We're both over it and we're still good friends. The second one, if I never see him again it will still be too soon. I've vowed never to get into a relationship again. Up to now I'm living up to that vow and I prefer it this way. Of course, I fully expect the day will come when I meet the guy I think is finally my Mr. Right. If that happens, I hope I'll be lucky this time. But, more likely I'll be stupid again. So, where are you in the relationship thing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SnxaNt64PE

Yeah, but Bush started it all ( not that I have any sympathy for the others).

Personally I would mind seeing Bush have to personally compensate every soldier or family and civilian, on both sides, who was killed, wounded, had property destroyed, or was otherwise seriously affected by an illegal contrived war that is still costing untold amounts of money every day, money that otherwise could have been used for positive purposes. Obviously even with all his wealth he doesn't have the means to do that, so once he's lost what he does have, let him sit on a corner with a sign and a tin cup.

Please continue to do so. The thought of eating in any restaurant at which you might be present makes me nauseous.

That's good. At the end of that article it also says, "On Tuesday, Florida-based Spirit Airlines announced that it will charge its customers $20 to $45 for items they place in the overhead bins." I don't know if Spirit went ahead with that, but that also seems like a true rip-off to me.

I see a tremendous difference. I just had a look at GT's rating of Duc's Bar. "The boys there are great." What does that mean? "Duc is entertaining . ." What does that mean? "IMHO some of the hottest guys around - all my type . ." What does that mean? I have to guess what his type is and I also have to guess whether his type is also my type and whether what he considers hot is also what I consider hot. Whatever those mean, it's not going to convince me to go there or to avoid there. To me, it's non-information information. If you see restaurant reviews as the same thing, I can only say that I don't agree with you. You said I try restaurants based on other people's reviews and other people try restaurants based on mine. I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem if people really want to try to rate bars. I've already stated what my priorities would be based on bar ratings, and GT's rating of Duc's bar contains neither of them. So, his rating is of no interest to me. If it is to you, I have no objection.

That would be something new - certain bars concerning themselves with what is and what is not legal . . .

Soooooo, spying again! Yep, that's where I was. Did you happen to notice what I ate too? Yes, it was a downpour last night. I was lucky. I left just as it started to drizzle. By the time I went up Pattaya Tai to Sukhumvit, less than ten minutes later, Sukhumvit was flooded to the point that the water was up to the door level on cars. Within ten minutes! I'm glad to see that Pattaya has brought the drainage problems under control . . .

It wouldn't help me any. I prefer deciding those kinds of things for myself. I'm not going to go to a bar or avoid going to a bar based on how others might rate it. There are also too many people, and we've seen these kinds of posts before, who have something against certain bars and are not above telling others how terrible it is even if it isn't. The only thing others have to say about different bars that interests me are reports about drink prices, off fees, and features such as the Happy Bar upstairs feature. Other than that, I'm not interested. Of course, that's just me. If a lot of people would want such a rating system, I certainly have no objection. I simply would pay no attention to it.

There are those who think so. Who says the only place to have booze is at a bar? Besides, if people think I'm going to show up, probably nobody will come. My own mother once threw a birthday party for me. She wanted everyone to have a good time. For that reason I wasn't invited . . .

Nothing is wrong with it if you are planning something more formal such as GT suggests in his post above and you're willing to do the legwork. What I've been talking about was for something entirely informal. What I've been talking about is something like, "I'm going to be at Ganymede Saturday at 10:00pm. All board members are welcome to come for a pay-for-your-own meet-and-greet." By the way, to avoid confusion, That's just an example. Saturday I doubt I'll even be in town. What GT has in mind is something at which he intends to foot the bill for drinks and have food served. Yes, obviously something like that requires advance planning. Invitation-only is the only way I know of to avoid freeloaders crashing the party. That means doing it somewhere other than at a bar, such as someone's home, apartment, a meeting room, or restaurant unless he wishes to rent out an entire bar for the evening. Quite frankly, I don't know why everyone seems to think a meet-and-greet has to be at a bar at all.

On the face of it, I don't think it's such a good idea. There are too many problems with it. What some people would prioritize, others would not. And how would you rate the boys? A lot of people love the well defined muscular types. For others, that's just what they dislike. It's too subjective. Not only that, but a lot of these boys change bars quite often. How would you rate a bar that would get high marks for nearly everything on your list, but here comes the pushy mama-san to spoil it all. In my opinion there is only one way to rate a bar. You either like it or you don't.

Very good idea. You get to supply the name tags . . .

I'm not putting down anybody. How hard is it to say "Hello, I'm here for the meet-and-greet."? If somebody is too shy to do that, then he'll either have to get over it or miss the meet-and-greet. What takes planning? If I were to say I'd like to have a meet-and-greet Thursday at Two Guys at 3:00pm, you either come or you don't. What beyond that needs planning? What do you need, balloons, engraved invitations, and a caterer? Like I said, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any problem about someone who wants a meet-and-greet to just go ahead and do it. People will either show up or they won't. What's the hard part?

Can you tell us a little more about it? I, for one, am not familiar with it. Where is it?

That's very simple. That's why I used to do these things on the terrace of The Ambiance. We would all sit round-table style, which gave everyone the same status and there was never any problems for people who others did not know. If a meet-and-greet takes place at a bar, if "newbies" are too shy or socially inept to be able to introduce themselves, that's their problem. I don't see it as breaking into a closed group. The whole point of a meet-and-greet is for openness. I don't understand what you mean by having some sort of container in which to put in a few baht to buy refreshments. Like what? Who decides what refreshments to buy? You better not make it me because if I'm sent out to bring back refreshments, then everyone is going to be chowing down on a few bags of fried grasshoppers and moth larvae. I don't understand why people keep wanting to make this complicated. If someone is interested in doing a meet-and greet, all anyone needs to do is write a post saying let's have a meet-and-greet and say where to meet, what day, and what time. If people want to come, they come. If they don't or can't, then they don't. There's always the next one. Everybody pays his own bill. No donation boxes that make people feel obligated to contribute. If you want to drink, you pay your own bill. If you want to eat, order your own food and pay for it yourself. It seems so simple to me. Am I missing something?

I think everyone is well aware of the concern we have expressed for years about the bars that employ under-age boys. I don't see anything wrong with also discussing other aspects of the goings-on. Now, as for a "bar-quality-system," I don't recall any discussions about that and I don't even know what you mean by it. If you explain it, we can discuss it.