Member-only story
No, I Do Not Offer Happy Endings
I’ve joined Instagram to promote my work as a massage therapist. The weird and wonderful things I’ve seen in just a month….crikey. I was not ready to reenter social media, y’all. I do not think that has any bearing on my ability to reenter “polite society”, mind, but I still feel left out of the collective party.
So, aside from being messaged relentlessly by scammers who offer me thousands of pounds to promote their product to my <checks notes> 145 followers, I have been asked to send money to the Gambia, sent weird halloes from strangers, and been asked about my personal life. It is all okay because there is a block button.
I’m a big girl, I can handle some weirdness at a remove, but when someone comes to your place of work, things go badly, and you wonder if Instagram brought them there, it can go something like this:
<Sweaty, gleckit eyed man in his late 20s comes down the stairs, wheezily>
Me: “Hello, can we help you?”
My coworker and her client getting a pedicure: “ Hi! Hello!”
Sweaty man: “I’m just looking for a massage. Found this place on the internet, been trying all day to get a massage. Do you have any time just now?”
Me: “I do have two hours free at the moment, yes. Would you like to come into the treatment room here?” I open the door and gesture in.
Sweaty man goes into my room. I ask if he has any particular issue bothering him today.
SM: “Well, I just need to relax.” [alarm bells go off in my brain, reader] “I work in a foundry and I am just real tense”
Me: “Right. OK. I will see if I can help.”
I explain that I will go wash my hands whilst he can disrobe and get under the sheets, face down. I explain I will knock before I come back in to be sure he is covered up.
When I come back in to the room, he is face down, but one butt cheek is peeking out from the covers. I say, let me help you cover that up properly. I maintain the “benefit of the doubt” setting mentally and begin the massage with head, neck, and back work. Sweaty man is not relaxed, he’s right, but he has a sort of bowstring tension to him that isn’t right.
