A Review in Two Letters

Letter 1. From James/Elyes to Me:

Dear Meng,

Forgive me for not writing sooner, but, something strange is going on. As you know, I left Auckland to take up a new position in Bangkok, and I was really looking forward to it. However, since coming here, my world has turned upside down. Completely. I fear I may have left the real world behind, and might now be the lead in a Thai BL. Is this a good thing? Or bad? Help!

Since I stepped foot in this beautiful country, people keep calling me handsome. It has never happened before. Men, women, children, pigeons... they all call me handsome. That was the first clue. I have also lost most of my body fat. You can now see muscles in my body that I did not know existed. Then there is my skin. You’d think that, even with sunscreen, my translucent skin would become more and more tanned, being this close to the equator. But, if you can believe it, I’ve become paler. I suspect someone has been applying a thick coat of make-up on me when I'm asleep, all over my body, and it refuses to come off when I shower. You’d also think that the humidity of Bangkok would mess up my hair into unmanageable frizz. But no, every strand perfectly falls into place, even when it's wet with lube or shampoo.

I am the head of a company whose name I do not know, and whose business I do not understand. I wear suits. It is 35 C outside and I wear suits. I do not sweat. For some reason, I also cannot button up my shirt. Every time I try, it keeps unbuttoning itself, sometimes down to my waist. I go up to my colleagues showing my nipples and navel. Is this sexual harrassment?

I have an assistant. His name is Pat. At this time, I’m pretty sure we have an abusive relationship. I think I’m still gay in this world, or at least bi, but I’m not allowed to say it. Everytime I try to, someone chokes my throat. Not sure who. (Also, all the men in this world seem to be gay, except for one friend of Pat’s. Who would have thought it? Gay friends are no longer the side-kicks, but straight men are. Progress?) Anyway, this assistant does not to do any company work. He just manages my sex life. Which, I think, takes up a good chunk of my waking hours. I know he’s in love with me, and I like him too, so it is only fitting that I treat him horribly, and make him cater to my every whim. I am obsessive, possessive, and controlling, and I'm pretty sure I'm gaslighting him too. I suspect I'll be stalking him soon, then abduct him, and keep him under house arrest. All very romantic. But he loves it... I think. Weirdly, I have this other fuckbuddy named Kim who’s much hotter, and way better in bed. Pat, by comparison, is stiff as a board, and resists me like a Victorian virgin. Yet, the BL gods have willed it that I must lust after this wet blanket.

I keep falling ill. Pat keeps falling ill. We both keep fainting, often from a cold, often caught from a single drop of rain. But we don’t go to the doctors. Oh no. We unbutton our shirts instead (in my case, there's just one button left), and we gently rub each other’s white-as-chalk chests -- and, weirdly, our knee-pits, which is apparently an erogenous zone here -- with wet towels. I suppose leeches and blood-letting are no longer sexy.

Am I the arsehole here? You don’t need to ask Reddit. I am. Yet I’m sure there’s a reason for it, and a past will be revealed which will perfectly justify my present behaviour. Until then, I’ll have to put up with everyone calling me a “red flag”. Which is fine, because I hate "green flags". Only, I’m not sure I want to stay here. I know, it’s a pretty cushy life I have right now. I'm rich, hot, immensely fuckable, and answerable to no one. Who’d want to give all that up? But it sits so oddly with the world of today, and the person I was, that my conscience might not permit it. We shall see.

I’ll write if I have any updates. Pray for me.

Love,
J./E.

*****

Letter 2. From me to Elyes

Dear Elyes,

You will notice that I'm no longer calling you by your birth name, because I've been waiting for a reply to my last three letters, and have received none. I must presume therefore that you have now embraced your new identity, and are completely of the BL world, with no access to reality whatsoever.

To be honest, I'm not upset. I rather envy you. You get to live in a world where homophobia does not exist, the majority of men are gay, and straight people exist just to support you. A photographic negative, in other words, of the real world. As you say, you are rich, handsome, and attractive to anything that can breathe, and the writers make sure that, however horrible you are to people, you will always win, and you will always get a happy ending. There is, admittedly, a Mephistophelean bargain here: you've been reduced to a mere stick figure without any psychological depth or complexity, upon whom is foisted the most boring of lives, and the most nauseating of words. Worse, all the people around you suffer for it. But you don't care, the writers don't care, and the audience who eat this up certainly don't care. They'll "ship" you no matter what.

I was, for a moment, sad for you, because you are now trapped within the confines of this world, and must live out the same segments of your new so-called life over and over again. But then, you get to be perpetually young, and perpetually rich, and perpetually happy, while others around you, including the man you supposedly love, get perpetually marginalised, hurt, or shoved aside. I suppose that, at least, is a faithful enough reflection of the real world.

I'm glad you got to escape our mundane realities, and gladder still for the fantasy you get to live out. However, I have lost you as a friend, and I won't see you again. The fact that the writers wrote you into this kind of cheap, derivative, nonsensical world, instead of creating a fantasy that is less demeaning to others, more worthy of you, and had greater ambitions, makes me very, very angry. I'm angrier still that Thai BL has decided that such stories, which they keep churning out at the rate of one a week, is all that its audience deserves. Each new series promises a new world, and new friendships, only to rob us of both. It has gotten very tiresome, and I can't take this anymore. I have decided to quit your whole world for good.

I'm sorry if this sounds rather wistful, if not bitter. Call it grief. I don't know if this letter will ever reach you. But I do hope you are happy. I shall miss you. And I shall miss the best days of Thai BL.

Take care, my friend.

Love,
Meng.


Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: Blame it on the Bossa Nova
DON'T SAY: Where's HR?