I have just flown back from Croatia and using my birthday massage and acupuncture voucher just before I went on holiday seemed like the perfect idea.
So I turn up to a very tiny clinic in North London, with only a little old man to greet me at the door. He asks me what my problem was. “Nothing” I say. “Then why are you here?” He asks. “It was a birthday present”, I reply with a confused tone in my voice. He looks disappointed. It’s not a good start.
He tells me as the female masseuse hadn’t turned up yet, he will be “performing the acupuncture” on me. He asks where I want it. “In the massage room if that’s ok” I reply nervously. He meant which body part. Oh… “My back?”
He takes me to this tiny room where I’m told to strip off… fully. Hmm, I don’t think so. So I keep my jeans on and he looks a bit bewildered. As if it’s odd for a stranger to be uncomfortable taking all their clothes off in front of a man old enough to be their great uncle. I’m then told to put my face into the massage table and try to relax as the sound of drilling goes on outside the window.
Once the needles are placed the man starts a procedure that is known as cupping. If you haven’t experienced this, imagine someone giving you six love bites down your back and leaving circular bruises for over a week. It’s horrid. For 30 minutes I am left to lay there and “relax” with drills, cups and a little man knocking on the door every five minutes to ask how I am feeling. It feels as relaxing as sitting in a dentist’s chair covered in leeches.
After what felt like a life time of back sucking, the time is up and the cups removed, my bruises revealed and I’m happy to take the rest of my kit off to wait for the masseuse to come in. I felt for her considering the first thing she would see is my arse and six love bites.
The lady walks in without a word to me, just unclips my bra and begins. I don’t know whether to talk or not. It was another awkward moment added onto of the awkwardness I was already feeling. I simply couldn’t relax as the lady was pulling out the tight knots in my back but as I look through the table hole and see her black sparkly pumps I decide to just try my best to enjoy the moment.
After an hour of pure bliss and feeling like 20 years of stress had been pulled out of me, the lady speaks for the first time, just saying: “that’s done” and leaves the room. I am suddenly left feeling disheartened, used and almost betrayed. I let this person make me feel amazing and now she has gone, without even a goodbye. I walk home feeling light as a feather but filled with mixed emotions. My advice if you want this done, is to go in open minded, emotionally detached and ready for anything, kind of like a one night stand I guess…
