At the risk of sounding flippant, Jess, finding a boy is easy. Keeping him can be a challenge. The cost of staying alive isn't all that high-- the equivalent of a few hundred dollars or pounds each month goes pretty far, but the obligations rarely end there. In a land without social security, the family unit remains the major support structure, and if you take on support of a boy, the cliche that you take on his family has a fair amount of truth. I don't claim expertise, and welcome correction, but most of the young men I've met in bars or massage parlors in Bangkok have come there because it's where the money or education is, and would be more than happy to move on back to a city nearer the village as soon as an education is finished and a good job or enough money is sent home to make a nest egg and a small house on the family spread. I do happen to think that's a worthy investment in another life if, like myself, you have no family to support and money's not too tight, but given how very easy it is to lose one's hard in this country it's helpful to remember than an investment isn't the same as a purchase.

Conversely, if you link up with a young entrepreneur who has really sorted out the scene with older farang, he's much more likely to have his eye on a Swiss chalet and a new CRV as he is that modest spot in the suburbs, bragging rights being important, and you could find yourself one of a number of investors, each neatly blocked to avoid the other. Youth and beauty are commodities in Thailand as much as anywhere else, and it makes small sense not to cash in on it.