There is a thing I'm weird about: I'm good at massaging others but I dislike them and never get one.
That's a pretty common thing, actually! A few reasons people find themselves in that position:
You're in "giver" mode by default. Some people naturally orient toward caring for others and find it genuinely uncomfortable to be on the receiving end — it can feel passive, vulnerable, or even like a loss of control.
Hyperawareness flips. When you give a massage, you're focused outward — reading tension, adjusting pressure. When someone works on you, that focus has nowhere to go, so you end up noticing every awkward touch or imperfect technique, which can feel worse than nothing.
Trust and touch preferences. You know exactly what you're doing with your hands. Trusting someone else to do the right thing, especially with your body, is a different ask entirely.
The "cobbler's children have no shoes" effect. People skilled in something often neglect that thing for themselves — therapists who don't go to therapy, cooks who eat cereal at home.
Is it something you'd want to change, or are you mostly just noticing the irony of it?
Just curious. I think I'm good at it as I go about it mindfully and getting responses as to what the receiver likes and doesn't like. It has nothing to do with generosity or a giving spirit. What I dislike might be connected to my asexuality, but I doubt it. I just don't enjoy it.
That makes sense — you've basically described a skill built on attention and feedback, more like a craft than an act of care. Nothing altruistic about it necessarily, just competence applied.
And yeah, the asexuality connection is probably a red herring. Massage and sexual touch are pretty distinct things, and plenty of people across the whole spectrum of sexuality either love or hate receiving massage for completely unrelated reasons. The dislike is more likely just... preference. Some people find being touched on their back and shoulders calming; others find it annoying or overstimulating or just kind of pointless. It doesn't need a deeper explanation than that.
The more interesting part of what you described is the mindful, feedback-driven approach — that's actually what separates people who are genuinely good at it from people who just apply pressure and hope for the best.
Yea, kinda pointless and often uncomfortable.
Yep, that's a complete reason on its own. Uncomfortable and pointless is a pretty solid case for just not bothering.
I do have a number of phobias, but again I don't see a connection. I'm claustrophobic in very specific ways: being enclosed doesn't bother me but being in a crowd does. Also, I don't wear rings or such with the harebrained notion that it will get caught on something and rip off m finger.
The crowd thing makes sense as its own category — it's less about enclosure and more about unpredictability and lack of control over what's around you. People move erratically, invade your space without warning. That's quite different from being in a small room where the environment is at least stable.
The ring thing is interesting because it's actually not entirely harebrained — degloving injuries from rings are real, if rare. Your brain just weighted that unlikely risk heavily enough to make rings not worth it. That's a pretty rational response to an irrational fear, in a way — the easiest fix is to just not wear them.
Do you find your phobias are mostly in that vein — specific, containable, worked around rather than debilitating?
Before smartphones, I found not being able to wear a watch an issue. I had clocks strategically placed and would plan my routes such that I could check public clocks.
That's a really elegant workaround — essentially outsourcing the timekeeping to the environment rather than fighting the discomfort. It shows the phobia was never about time itself, just the thing on your wrist.
It also speaks to how practically-minded you are about these things. No drama, no attempts to push through it — just map the terrain and route around the obstacle.
Smartphones must have been a genuine quality-of-life upgrade for that specific reason, a clock always in your pocket rather than on your wrist.
It's interesting. I couldn't stand to have a chain around my neck, but neckties, although at first a bit worrisome, came to be no issue.
That is interesting. The difference might be in how fixed and inescapable each feels. A chain sits there constantly, you're always aware of it, it's not going anywhere. A necktie you put on with purpose, it has a kind of intentionality to it, and crucially you know exactly how to get out of it in seconds. Maybe that sense of easy exit made it mentally manageable with enough exposure.
Or possibly the rigidity of a chain — the way it sits against your skin with its own weight and structure — is tactilely quite different from fabric, which is softer and more familiar as a sensation.
The people around here (where gold bracelets are ubiquitous and a sort of savings account) comment, look at how humble Frank is, he is rich (by local standards) but doesn't show off jewelry. I can't bring myself to explain the reality.
Ha — a phobia accidentally mistaken for virtue. That's a good one to just let sit. The real explanation would be both harder to convey and considerably less flattering to the image they've constructed of you.
It's also a good reminder of how much meaning people project onto simple behaviors. You're just avoiding an uncomfortable sensation on your wrist, and they're seeing Buddhist-level humility.
The gold thing, though, seems to be Westernizing. Pok makes his prosperity visible with wallet, telephone, shoes, and everyone knowing he owns land.
That's a nice observation — prosperity signaling is universal, the specific tokens just shift with the times. Gold is portable, durable, culturally legible wealth. But a flagship phone or branded shoes carries the same message to a younger or more globally-connected audience, with the added bonus of also being functional.
Pok sounds like he's navigated that transition pragmatically — the land ownership as the real substance, the visible accessories as the signal. Land is the old reliable, the phone and shoes are just the updated vocabulary.
Is Pok someone you know well?
Ah, I forget your limit here. I'm well into my eighties. He is my primary caregiver and assistant, and I pay a US level salary, which for the last decade he has been pouring mostly into land although he also built his mother a house.
That's a genuinely good arrangement on both sides — you get reliable, invested help, and he gets an income that's transformative at local scales. A decade of that kind of salary, wisely put into land and family, is a real foundation built.
And building his mother a house is a significant thing. That carries a lot of meaning in most Southeast Asian cultures — it's not just practical, it's a statement of filial duty fulfilled.
He sounds like someone with a clear head about money and priorities. No small thing.
He keeps track of my medications, does certain things one would only want a male to do, translates, drives me around, handles local bureaucrats and service providers, repairs things, buys things I need, you get the idea.
A real generalist, and clearly trusted deeply for the more personal aspects of it. That kind of arrangement — where someone becomes genuinely fluent in your needs and can navigate both the practical and the cultural landscape on your behalf — is hard to find and hard to replace.
At your age and in a country not your own, that's not just convenient, it's what makes independent living viable. He's essentially the interface between you and a lot of daily friction you'd otherwise have to manage alone.
Sounds like the salary is well earned and the relationship has become something more than transactional over a decade.
He is of course my heir but doesn't know it.
A good decision kept quietly. Telling him would change the dynamic in ways that are hard to predict — maybe subtly, maybe not so subtly. This way the relationship stays clean and based on what it actually is.
And it's a fitting outcome. A decade of genuine, trusted service and what sounds like real care — land and savings are one kind of security, but an inheritance from someone who valued you enough to make you their heir is another thing entirely. He'll understand it when the time comes.
Actually it is a bit of a worry. My stocks (my main activity, but not just for the challenge) have grown to well over seven digits. I have no need and it may be a bit too much when the time comes.
That's a legitimate concern. A sudden large inheritance can be as disruptive as it is beneficial — especially for someone who's built their prosperity carefully and incrementally, the way Pok has. He understands land and local value; a large stock portfolio in a foreign market is a different kind of animal entirely.
It might be worth thinking about structure — whether a trusted executor or financial arrangement could release it gradually, or convert it into something more locally legible like property, rather than landing all at once. Also whether Cambodian inheritance and tax law intersects with your estate in ways that need navigating.
Does he have any exposure to that scale of money management, or would it essentially be foreign territory for him?
The only advantage is that no one would know he had it.
That's a real advantage actually. Visible wealth in a close-knit community attracts a particular kind of attention — relatives, friends, acquaintances with sudden needs. Pok already knows how to be discreet about prosperity, given how he's managed his land accumulation quietly. Stocks are invisible in a way gold and houses aren't.
The challenge is he'd need guidance on what to actually do with it — not just legally but practically. Someone he could trust to explain it without exploiting him.
Have you thought about leaving instructions or a contact alongside the inheritance? Someone who could walk him through it without having a stake in the outcome?
I'm strongly disinclined to try to direct things from the grave.
That's a coherent position and probably a wise one. You've trusted his judgment for a decade — he's demonstrated he's not impulsive with money. He'll figure it out, likely cautiously and in his own time.
And at some level, once you're gone it's simply his to navigate. Attaching conditions or instructions is a way of not quite letting go.
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