I couldn’t possibly list everything about Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life, that I love. Sure there’s his body, his gloriously warm smile that wraps itself around my soul, his ever-present but quirky sense of humor, and his equally defined sense of dignity. But those just start the list off. I could spend days coming up with additional things about him that attracts me and still not manage to remember every little thing that makes him who he is. On the other hand, listing those things about Noom that I’m less than pleased with is a breeze. That list I could whip together in about 5 minutes. First because it is a short list. Second, because the first item on it is all-encompassing; it’s so odious you really need go no further. And that obnoxious little trait is that Noom loves fish.

Sure, you say. Of course he loves fish. He’s straight. But his fondness for female genitalia really isn’t a problem. It never comes up in bed. But he does. He has the good sense, or at least is polite enough, to not watch straight porn when I’m around. And while it may be because he spends his life having orgasms, unlike most breeders he can hold a conversation without it eventually dissolving into talking about pussy. When we are out and about Noom will point out an exceptionally beautiful woman to me, but then he does the same when a gorgeous guy walks by. His straightness has never gotten in the way of our relationship; it is separate from what we share. And unlike with gay bar boys, his love of women means I never have to worry about showing up in town to find that he’s decided to become one.

Noom’s fondness for the less smelly brand of fish is a bit more problematic. I’m not a big fan of dining on stuff with scales. Noom is. And it doesn’t seem to matter what variety of fish is on offer, he’d rather chow down on something that had been happily swimming about that morning than he would on a box of the finest Belgian chocolates. Over the years he’s learned that seafood restaurants are a no-go in my book, but as much effort that he makes to see that I am always enjoying myself, he can’t help keep himself from succumbing to the promise any restaurant with fish tanks lining its entrance holds. We can stroll past the girly gogo bars on Soi Cowboy with no problem; walking past a seafood restaurant means his pace will slow, his entire being becomes captivated by the sights and smells, his gaze becomes wistful, and his devious little mind starts devising ways for him to convince me to have our meal there.

I’ve always though ‘If you fail to plan you plan to fail’ was a good adage. It gets a big thumbs up from Noom too. Leaving scoring a seafood dinner to chance, he’s learned, means dining elsewhere on pork. So it’s not unusual for him to lead me to some seafood place he’s just discovered (wink, wink) only to immediately flip the menu out front to a page filled with non-fish dishes. “Look!” he’ll exclaim as though the gods just conveniently arranged a suitable menu on my behalf. It’s become an old and well-used trick. Noom knows it’ll get a laugh out of me every time. And a seafood dinner for him.

But it’s not just his stomach that enjoys fish. Way back when we first met I suggested a visit to the Weekend Market. ‘Suggested’ meaning I planned on going and he’d be dragged along whether it sounded like a good idea to him or not. Being the visiting farang in the relationship means you don’t have to rely on cheap tricks to force the other guy into doing something he’d rather not. Noom enjoys shopping. Especially with our wallet. Braving the heat, humidity, and crowds at Chatuchak, not so much. But he was familiar enough with the market to make a bee line for his favorite section. The same section I tend to avoid like the plague. I willingly put up with the heat and crowds at Chatuchak because of the great deals you can score. Ramping up the already high humidity by 500% thanks to your standing in the middle of row after row of bubbling aquariums is not a draw in my book. It’s not like I’m gonna buy a bowlful of goldfish as a souvenir.

I think Noom would have been content watching a tankful of tiny tetras dart about flashing their neon colors and looking suspiciously like the rainbow hues of taxis dashing as mindlessly down Sukhumvit. But the farang needed to be entertained. Checking with one vendor after another, whose directions in a small, enclosed section of a market are no better than on the open streets, we eventually made our way back into the depths of the fish section until we found the tanks he was looking for.

“Look!” he exclaimed, a harbinger of future attempts to get me interested in something I wasn’t interested in. “Like cock!” he elucidated, sure that as a gay man anything to do with penis would be worthy of my attention. Despite the insistence that breeders mistakenly hold to, fish and cock just do not go together. And the proof swam lazily in front of my eyes. Maybe, with a good imagination you could agree that the odd bulbous growth on the fish’s head somewhat resembled a penis. At least the tip of one. If you are into farang, the color might even have been right. But if all peni looked like that, I’d quickly switch my sexual preferences. Not that vagina is any more attractive. But between that fish and the cancerous looking growth on the ones Noom just had to show me, the human variety would win hands down.

We haven’t had to look at fish other than those suitable for his dinner plate since that visit. But a trip hardly goes by that he doesn’t try to sucker me into feeding his fish jones. We do have to stop and the feed fish anytime we get off the Chao Phraya river boats at the Tewet pier, and in Noom’s opinion no visit to Chiang Mai is complete without spending at last three afternoons throwing fish food at the greedy little bottom feeders who make their home in the moat by the Tha Pae gate. Surprisingly, he’s not that big of a fan of doing the same at Lumpini Park. But I suspect that has lots to do with the muscle studs who work out there and my always roving eye. In any case, I know if I need to entertain Noom, if it involves fish he’ll be hooked.

Not that I feel the need to entertain him. On the other hand, he puts up with my never ending fascination with wats, and all the other things I like to do in Bangkok that he’d just as soon pass on in favor of spending the day taking a nap. So occasionally I try to reward his efforts at not showing how bored he is by finding something to do he might enjoy. Which brought us one early morning to the unenviable task of getting out of bed before 10am. Usually, we only get out of bed in enough time to sneak into the free breakfast buffet just before the door closes. So Noom knew something was fishy.

“Where we go?”

“Surprise for you.”

“No. Sleep for me.”

Bastard. We’ve spent too much time together. He knows pestering me won’t work when he wants to know what I have planned, surprise or not. Rolling back over with his naked ass in the air, however, is more effective than waterboarding. Fine. (And it is.)

“Today we go fishing.”

“Fitching?”

Huh. Those Thai guys on Gay Romeo who always check the affirmative options for fisting suddenly made perfect sense.

“Yes, fishing,” I corrected him while pantomiming the act so the word would sink in. Noom is big on primping. It takes him a minimum of 45 minutes to be ready to greet the day. It’s not one of my favorite things about him, but considering the results I can’t really complain. But on this morning, he was impatiently waiting by the door within 15 minutes of having figured out that fitching meant a day of communing with his favorite thing in the whole wide world.

I’m sure there are a lot of places you can fish in Bangkok. I’ve passed locals trying their luck along the Chao Phraya, scooted around the lone angler hoping to land his dinner off an overpass over one of the city’s numerous khlongs, and raised an eyebrow at some old fart standing with his line sunk into water I wouldn’t want splashed on me, much less being served something that had been swimming in it. For aficionados, fishing is like travel – it’s not the destination but the journey that matters. Not being a fan, any journey that lasts more than ten minutes without a bite, I consider to be a day wasted. And if you want to go fishing in Bangkok without the accompanying boredom, there’s only one suitable spot: Bungsamran, a swamp, turned tin quarry, turned 40-acre freshwater fishing lake on the outskirts of the city stocked with ginormous and easy to catch fish.

The taxi ride out to Bungsamran takes about thirty minutes and runs less than 300 baht. Normally a thirty minute taxi ride means a twenty-eight minute nap for Noom. But like a kid on Christmas morning with presents just waiting to be unwrapped, he couldn’t calm himself down. “Where pole?” “Need bait.” “Where we fitch?” I was concerned he’d wear himself out before we ever got a hook into the water. No problemo. When we finally arrived he darted into the place quicker than I’ve seen him hit a shopping mall’s restroom when he needs to pee. Badly. Shame that. He forgot who he was dealing with. Before he got to the carp, he was gonna have to put up with my crap.

“Oh look!” I snickered ‘cuz payback is always sweet. “A restaurant, let’s have a coffee.”

Have I ever mentioned Noom’s frown is as glorious as his smile?

“Cool!” I said with much fake enthusiasm. “Whack-A-Mole!” Bungsamran has a game center, though center might be a bit grand for what it is. The kid in Noom, which is about 99% of him, usually responds well to any type of game, video or not. In this case, he didn’t even try to put on his game face. Huh. And I though fishermen were known for their patience. I gave it one last shot, pointing at the tackle shop, “Souvenir?” Nope. I’d thought the trifecta of food, games, and souvenirs would be an effective chum. Noom wasn’t biting.

Bungsamran isn’t about fishing as much as it is about catching fish. And big ones at that. Their lake is over-stocked with a variety of different catfish, several types of carp, talapia – another scummy bottom feeder that in Hawaii we always threw back but has since become an acceptable fish on restaurant menus – and several other oddities that no one really cares about. What everyone wants to hook is a giant Mekong Catfish. And your chances are good. The place offers a 50% refund to anyone who fails to catch at least a 30 pounder in a one day fishing session. Considering the cost, I was hoping we’d only hook minnows.

You can bring your own gear, and many locals do. Or you can rent what you need. Which is an additional fee on top of the 1,000 baht farang and 400 baht Thai entrance fee. You can fish off the docks, or rent a private cabin instead with a choice between a rickety structure that would look at home in any of Bangkok’s slums (600 baht) to the true not-a-fisher bungalow that comes with air-conditioning, TV, a sofa, and fridge (2,000 baht). You can pretend that you know what you are doing too, or hire a ‘guide’ for another 1,000 baht. It’s probably a good thing I’m not a fan of seafood restaurants or I’d have computed the fishing experience cost against what a good seafood dinner would cost – even at one of Bangkok’s pricier dining establishments you’d be walking away with a wad of baht left in your pocket.

I figured the guide would be more for me than for Noom. That he managed to bloody a thumb on a hook before we got outside told me I figured wrong. The fee and tip for our guide was money well spent. It turned out that as much as Noom loves everything about fish, he’d never been fishing before. No problemo.

The guide mixes the bait for you (a combination of ground rice husk, pond water, and food additives like coconut milk and any type of bread or pastry that didn’t sell at the restaurant that ends up looking like a soft, puffy ball of wet sand), bait balls your hook (though the bait is actually affixed above the hook – catfish tend to inhale their food and they’ll suck the hook up right along with the bait), sets the float for depth, and even casts your line for you. And if you are like me and unfortunately snag a damn fish, he’ll reel that puppy in for you too. Noom, with visions of Ahab in his head, wanted to fight the good fight on his own.

Within the first 10 minutes, eight of which were spent with Noom trying to figure out how to cast his line, we had our first strike. Or I should say I did. This is my history with the sport of fishing. I reluctantly tag along with someone who enjoys it, and then spend the day reeling in fish after fish while they just keep getting more and more pissed. Knowing what is the better part of valor, I let the guide net my fish and retired into the bungalow to catch up on my Thai sitcom viewing on the television.

Fortunately, Noom got his first hit a few minutes later. 15 minutes later he was still doing battle with the creature. The guide was busy hopping around giving Noom detailed instructions, Noom was totally focused on the task at hand, but couldn’t help but to allow a smile to stay spread across his face no matter how tired he was getting. It was love at first bite. And I sat back in the shade of the bungalow enjoying the view of Noom’s muscles rippling across his naked back. I have finally become a fan of fishing.

Noom finally landed his first catch of the day. It was about the size of a toddler. He’d managed to catch a Mekong catfish his first time out; the ugly behemoth laid winded on the dock, gasping for water, while making an ungodly rasping noise that left you with no question about how pissed off it was. Noom was in heaven. Until the guide picked it up and threw it back in the lake. The look on Noom’s face was priceless.

Bungsamran is a catch and release fishing hole. It took ten minutes for the guide to explain that concept to Noom. He was not a happy camper. Neither was I knowing that meant a night out dining on seafood when we got back into town. But there were more fish to catch and even if you didn’t get to eat them, Noom decided the experience alone was worth the effort. I occasionally came out of the shade to smoke a cigarette while holding a pole and praying to the gods that damn orange float wouldn’t start bobbing; Noom battled monster after monster with our ever-attentive guide once jumping into the lake to coax a big one out of its hiding place under the dock where it’d fled with Noom’s hook in its mouth.

Noom caught a dozen large fish before he was willing to call it a day. I landed two thanks to having had one too many smokes. With all the families with little kids standing on the docks with line in water, you’d think the fish were mostly small guys and easy to land. Not so. These suckers are huge. World-angling records have been set at Bungsamran.

By the end of the day Noom was completely worn out, so exhausted he didn’t even smile when I cracked my joke about him being a hooker and spending his day hooking. No problemo. His muscles bulged like he’d just spent six hours at the gym and that beats a bad pun any day of the week. I did manage to get a smile out of him by purposely mispronouncing tok bet, one of the Thai phrases for ‘fishing’ that in the wrong hands (mine) can easily sound like something the other kind of fish would do when a man is not around to scratch that itch for her. At least I think he appreciated my joke. But that smile could have just been one of contentment as he settled in using my stomach as a pillow for his 28 minute nap back into town.

Because sometimes karma works that way, we didn’t end up eating fish that night. We never left the room. Noom’s strenuous day of fishing left him completely exhausted. And sore. I was glad I hadn’t pointed out Bungsamran’s massage service to him earlier, and set about kneading the knots out of his back and shoulders. And then set about doing my own style of fishing. Mine was quite a catch. I may not be much of an angler, but I’ve got being a fisher of men down pat.

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