286. oppugn

Holy ****, kids, how did it already get to be September 1?

Recently, I have been getting a number of singles ads geared towards… mature adults, which is a special feeling. I’m not sure whether this is due to fact that my internet search history reads like a Stephen Ambrose text, or the fact that I am in my mid-30s.

Do all librarians experience this type of thing? Is Google trying to tell me I ought to be dating older guys?

… on the subject of dating older guys…

Yesterday I learned that one of my ex-boyfriends is now dating a guy I went on a date with several years ago, which is a weird feeling. It’s weird because virtually everyone I used to date is now with a long-term partner of some sort, and I’m the only single denominator left.

As of today, September 1:

• I came out 9 years and 8 days ago.
• My longest serious relationship to date is roughly 8 months and 20 days.
• I have now been single for 4 years, 5 months, and 8 days.
• It has been 3 years, 2 months, and 17 days since I last went on a formal date.
• The last time I had sex was 1 year, 10 months, and 16 days ago.

There’s a lot of emotional baggage wrapped up in those abstract dates. They’re like mini tombstones, with start and end dates neatly defined for each instance.

Possibly the most sobering is that, as of next year, I will have been out as gay for ten years.

That’s a huge fucking milestone.

I’ll also be turning 35 years old.

It means something to be months away from having a master’s degree, having finished my undergraduate degree roughly thirteen years ago, yet having not held a significant job, not having formally entered a career, or not having had a significant romantic relationship that lasted longer than nine months.

I have my theories as to why I still place so much stock in the institution of the traditional, committed, long-term dyad relationship. Perhaps it’s just the longing for a family unit of my own, something I have never really known or felt safe around.

Yet most of my attempts at finding a partner have either been abortive or disastrous. My relationship with Jay lasted a mere eight months and 20 days. Since then I haven’t met anyone who I was remotely interested in who was even remotely interested in me.

(Alas, note the careful wording in the last sentence.)

---

A few weeks ago, I went to see one of my favorite musicals, Sondheim’s Pulitzer award-winning Sunday in the Park with George.

There are a several reasons why it’s my favorite.

As Joss Whedon once observed, the first half is about the struggle of living with the weight of genius; the second is about living in the shadow of it. Through most of my life, I have lived in fear of the shadow of expectation, whether of greatness or genius I’m not sure.

There’s another reason, though.

The Georges of both acts struggle to connect with people around them, and that is something I have never been fully able to do thus far. To an extent, I have been able to connect with people through my writing, to affect them and effect some small changes.

“Connect, George, connect!”

While I am good at a number of things, I have always felt acutely separated from those around me. While other children began learning how to negotiate social relationships in kindergarten and preschool, my formative years were spent at home, largely alone.

Because of the repressive, restrictive religious nature of my upbringing, I learned to censor myself, what not to say, who not to be. To protect myself from judgment and censure, my formative years were spent perfecting the art of keeping people away.

While other children had to learn to externalize their thoughts and organize them for an audience, my formative years were spent in my head, with my own thoughts.

In my silences, it’s not that I don’t have anything to say. It’s that I don’t know how to contextualize for others the long, ongoing conversation I’ve been having with myself for those on the outside. I don’t know if this is a skill one can learn at my age.

When I write about the improbability of finding a romantic partner “at my age,” what I mean is that I am terrified it will never happen—that in spite of my desire to connect and to belong, I lack the requisite social and emotional skills to sustain a relationship.

When I worry about seeing an increasing number of grey hairs in my beard, I think of how long I’ve been working at all this, and being nearly 35 and finishing grad school, and still feeling hopelessly behind.

When I think about dating older guys, I worry about being 35 and how much less time I’m going to have with them before they inevitably die, or before I die prematurely due to stress or the effects of my lifestyle of drinking and, frankly, lack of nutrition.

I think about how I never got to experience the insouciance of dating as a young gay man, and the joys and sorrows that go along with that.

---

I’ve also been asking myself recently  what I really need in a relationship. Do I need monogamy, or will emotional fidelity be sufficient? In the land of gay men, where kink and open relationships are widely the norm, can I afford to be picky? If he’s into leather, am I okay with being the vanilla partner?

Frankly, forming one stable intimate relationship sounds exhausting by itself. I can’t fathom the emotional energy required to establish a constellation of trusted relationships to meet my needs.

These are still uncharted waters, and we’re writing the rules for same-sex relationships as we go along.

255. vicissitude

One man he disappoint me
He give me the gouge and he take my glee
Now every other man I see
Remind me of the one man who disappointed me
— Apple, F. (2005). Get him back. On Extraordinary machine [CD]. New York City: Epic Records.

---

Happy a month and a half into 2016, everyone!

So far this year has been incredibly busy with school and a new (temp) job that still isn’t in my career field but isn’t entirely horrible in its own right. That seems to be the theme of things at present: not ideal, but also doesn’t make me long for the inevitable and final release of death.

As far as a school update goes, after about a month and a half break I feel as if I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. I’ve stopped eating regularly and my sleep schedule is wacked out, but that’s the essence of grad school, right?

The things I’m working on are things that seem to finally matter, mainly because they feel connected to innate passions and talents of mine—not things that any gibbon could pick up and do for $11/hour. I get energized and excited about cataloging and archives, and concepts like metadata standards and schema. Information access is important in our world right now, especially as we’re trying to sift through more data than ever in our history, and we need clever people who can make sense of it all.

At least, enough for most people to find the information they need.

---

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. This fact did not escape me, nor did I forget. I simply chose not to acknowledge it. I did see an increasing number of memes on Facebook and Twitter that were trying to recontextualize it as a day to celebrate love of all kinds, including love for your friends and for yourself. That was nice.

Earlier this month I also turned 33, something I only reluctantly called attention to about five minutes after midnight on the day after my birthday, much to the consternation of friends who did remember and would like to observe it.

My decision for now is to stop calling it a birthday because my birth was something that merely happened, brought into a world that is no longer a part of who I am.

So this year I’ve decided to start calling it my Independence Day, because, as some of you may remember, it was five years ago that Seth dumped me on my 28th birthday… or whatever you call it when someone ends a one-sided friends-with-benefits relationship because they just met someone on a blind date and aren’t really sure where that’ll go, but they don’t see a future with you or a reason to continue giving you false hope anymore.

Happy birthday, indeed.

That was also the night I officially became an atheist. I won’t rehash the whole story, so if you’re new or need a refresher, go here. It’s a fun read, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

So the short of it is that I’d rather not observe that anymore. I need a different context, and reimagining that day as the anniversary of independence from my upbringing seems much more uplifting.

As Björk cries on Volta (2007): “Declare independence! Don’t let them do that to you!”

---

Since we’re on the subject of dates, it’s exactly one month and nine days to the three year anniversary of the end to my last (probably final) relationship with the narcissistic fibromyalgic. On March 24th, I’ll have been single three years, without crossing paths with any realistic romantic partners in that span.

And from today, it’ll be four months and ten days to the two-year anniversary of the last time I was actually on a date.

Probably the biggest fear right now is of being alone for the rest of my life, ending up one of those people who die alone in their apartments, their absence unmarked for months until their mummified remains are finally discovered one day.

Is that likely to happen to me? Probably not. But still.

---

What probably bothers me is that though I want a relationship, I still don’t what I’d do with one. The only concrete associations I can picture are having a (relatively) dependable plus-one for events, and a (relatively) reliable sexual partner. But I know there has to be more to it than that, because why else (besides social convention) would couples stay together for decades if it’s merely a glorified fuck buddy arrangement?

Frankly, I haven’t met anyone who I could conceive of spending virtually every day with for the next twenty years (well, at least anyone who could also feel that way about me) , and beyond. And I’m skeptical about the chances of meeting anyone in the Midwest.

Part of the difficulty is that, after almost seven-and-a-half years “out,” I’ve come to the realization that I’m a demisexual, as described here:

Demisexuals aren’t suppressing sexual desire; it’s simply not there until a bond is formed. They can’t look at a stranger and think, “Wow, I want to f*ck him”—while they might admire a person for his or her body, the urge to have sex isn’t there until an emotional attachment is formed. The deeper the bond, the hornier they are. It’s a simple matter of the heart leading the pelvis.

It isn’t that I don’t have sexual desire. It’s just not that important without an emotional connection present… which does not appear to be how most gay men around me are wired. They’re: A) sluts and proud of it; B) already coupled (with a 75% chance of being monogamish); or C) emotionally compatible but physically not my type.

The irony is that now I almost get reverse slut-shamed for not being promiscuous, as if that’s the default “gay” mode. And I did try it for a while, but it wasn’t me.

So I’m not sure where to go from here.

Ah well. Back to library homework, I guess.

175. hellion

Going into Monday after a hectic weekend is never a great way to start the week.

This Saturday I was the best man in my friends Beckie and Mike’s wedding. Overall, it was one of the more low-key affairs I’ve attended and been a part of. It was maybe ten minutes long. The bride wore blue (almost TARDIS blue!), her brother officiated, and the wedding processionals were both songs by Christina Aguilera that I arranged for two violins.

The reception was also low-key and started about an hour after the wedding, with an open bar and beautiful weather for sitting outside while we waited. Per tradition, I delivered the opening toast, which ended up being a two-and-a-half page essay that included mentions of the United Nations, evolutionary biology, and an excerpt from The Little Prince (which I’ve quoted on this blog once before). Surprisingly, it was relatively well-received, and the bride has even titled her Facebook photo album from the wedding “The United Nations of Mike and Beckie’s Wedding”!

It was also an emotionally difficult weekend for me to get through, partly because it came barely a month after Jason and I broke up (the bachelor party happened the week of the breakup), and almost everyone was there with their spouses or significant others. Aside from me and the maid of honor, everyone there in the wedding party was coupled. Even the one bridesman was there with his boyfriend Roy, who took all of the wedding photos. So I was constantly being reminded there of how single I am, and of how incompatible I am with most gay men my age, so I came away feeling less confident that I’ll ever find a guy to marry.

Eager to get away to get some emotional room (and so that the middle-aged women wouldn’t keep trying to make me dance with single girls—apparently they didn’t understand what “gay” means), I left the reception early to visit a friend of mine. He’d texted me earlier that evening that only eight people had come to his birthday party, and his husband was out of town, and I needed some cheering up too so it was rather perfectly timed for both of us. I ended up feeling much better for the visit, and we had a great conversation that got me thinking about the qualities I want in a future husband, which I’ll write more about later.

Another element that made the wedding weekend difficult was running into the last person I was expecting or wanting to see—Seth, the guy who broke my heart on my birthday in 2011. Last Wednesday I was attending an LGBT networking event at a local restaurant where Seth is apparently a bartender there—a fact that nobody thought to mention to me. I arrived at the place, and was saying my hellos and ordering a drink when I heard someone say my name. I turned around, and there he was, looking sheepish and slightly surprised himself. I’m not sure what the hell possessed him to speak to me when I’ve made it clear that I want nothing to do with him. Probably the same thoughtlessness that allowed him to intentionally ignore the fact that he knew I was in love with him so that he could keep having sex with me. (Very convenient for him. Not so much for me.)

It was an inevitable moment that I’d been dreading. For its size, the Twin Cities is a relatively small place; and for the gay community, it’s an even smaller world. So that he and I would run into each other, or even possibly date some of the same people, was bound to happen.

My reaction to seeing Seth there was to respond with a curt, “Ah,” quickly turn away, and pretend I’d barely noticed him. It was the same tone I’d used when seeing him a few weeks after my birthday in 2011, when I’d snarled “What the fuck are you doing here?” at him.

I spent the evening ignoring him, which was difficult as he was behind the bar for most of it, often chatting with some of the cuter guys at the event. I found myself wondering how many of their numbers he’d managed to get, and how many of them he’d be fucking soon. Part of me found my jealousy after over two years ridiculous and hilarious, but his presence there made it difficult to concentrate or even think.

When the event started to wind up, I closed my tab and left as quickly as possible. I was about halfway home and at Starbucks when I realized that in my haste I’d left my card. Fortunately, I had my tablet with my Wallet app on it, so I was able to pay for my beverage; but it did mean I’d have to go back. When I got there Seth was on the phone. I walked past him to find someone to ask about my card and was waiting for about a minute to talk to another bartender when Seth walked up with my card and handed it back to me, saying quietly, “Here you go, David.” I had the twin impulses to say something snide and cruel in response, but also to get as far away from him as possible. So I hissed a “thank you,” and virtually ran back to my car.

So that was the Wednesday before the wedding, when I was already feeling lonely and undesirable, and there was Seth, looking handsome and charming as ever.

The theme of my romantic life is that I can never fall in love with anyone who is able to love me in return, and vice versa. And seeing him last week when I was feeling single, miserable and pathetic was another cruel irony of coincidence.

All that loving must’ve been lacking something
if I got bored trying to figure you out.
You let me down. I don’t even like you anymore at all.
– Fiona Apple

 

168. shattered

Apologies for the delay, all five of you who actually read this. I’ve been working a lot and writing for other sites lately, but really haven’t much felt like talking about myself.

I’ve meant to write about the holidays and the experience of getting through Thanksgiving and Christmas with a boyfriend and his family for the first time. Because while it’s certainly been an experience, it wasn’t as crazy or stressful as I expected it would be. Perhaps it was other people’s descriptions of their family holidays that put me off to the whole thing, or had my hackles raised, but there were no big meltdowns, no plate throwing, no huge blowups or fights, or anything else that ends up in movies about the holidays.

Basically, it wasn’t National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Or Home Alone. No neighbors were harmed during the month of December.

It was curious though to see how both Jay and I dealt with holiday stress. He tends to externalize more and withdraw, like most guys. If things get to be too much, he retreats to a quiet place to read or hide out. When he was forced to sit through gift opening on Christmas Eve, he sat in the corner with a book, mostly reading while people opened presents.

I sometimes deal with stress the same way, especially if I’m going through a bout of depression or am tired. But mostly I deal with stress by simply becoming someone else — or rather, I become a version of myself that can deal with that particular stressor. It’s an automatic defense mechanism, like being a personality chameleon.

This is something I’ve been exploring some in therapy the past few months. For a long time I’ve known that there are multiple versions of “me,” personas that I employ to cope with different social situations and people. My mom was one of the first people to point this out when I was a teenager, and she accused me of essentially being a hypocrite; of showing different faces to people instead of just “being myself.”

Of course, what she didn’t know then was that I was already in deep cover as a gay man; that I was desperately trying to hide who I really was from everyone for fear of being found out and things going very bad for me. In case you haven’t heard, gay teens don’t fare very well in fundamentalist Christian circles.

So during the time when most people are forming their adult identities and selves, and figuring out who they are as individuals, I was developing different masks to hide who I really was.

In one of his stories, David Sedaris recounts how his sister Amy had a penchant from an early age for adopting different characters and imitating the adults around her. She would come in for breakfast and her mother would ask, “And who are we today?” To which Amy would respond: “Who don’t you want me to be?”

Sharing that story with my therapist was rather a light bulb moment for both of us, as it brought to light the reality that this is how most of my relationships have operated for most of my life. I figure out who not to be for someone, and then become that person. The majority of my teen and adult life has been spent playing different characters, different versions of myself, for others. Like the sci-fi show Sliders, they’re slight variations of “me,” with different tastes, likes, dislikes, ways of speaking, acting, extroversion and introversion, and so forth.

So the reality is that I’ve never really developed a personality of my own. I’ve invested so much time and energy into developing characters that are socially acceptable, but haven’t put any of that into personal development. Consequently, it’s difficult to share genuine pieces of myself with others. There is a lot here on this blog that I divulge — stuff from my past, painful memories, frustrations. But doing that in writing, on the page, removed from other people is much easier. I don’t have to risk personal rejection necessarily in writing things down.

Everything really fell apart two years ago when I lost Seth and finally owned up to my total lack of belief in God, two huge things that formed the gravitational mass of the comfortable illusion that everything was okay. I’d come out gay two and a half months earlier, and was still adjusting to the notion of being out to my very conservative family. But God, my Christian faith and the church was still grounding me to the identity I’d been carefully cultivating and maintaining over the years. And I’d been painfully and pathetically pining for Seth for over a year, which provided another neat distraction from the fact that the air was quickly escaping from my spiritual life.

I didn’t realize then how deeply my world shattered the night of my birthday. I’d been running a carefully organized circus for 20 years, and all of a sudden the neat solar system I’d built to manage everything quite literally imploded. To cope with the pain I divvied up all the feelings into the different shards of my personality — parts of me that were already managing those different areas of thought and emotion. It was as though I truly became a different person after that night.

Apparently this is common amongst people who grew up in highly stressful and repressive environments as children. In order to survive we break apart to manage the stress and “pass” for acceptable to authority figures. For our child selves, it was life or death. We don’t have a choice.

So now I’m left as an almost-30-year-old with the personality equivalent of a broken mirror. I still revert to my chameleon state when things get stressful. And I still feel removed from various feelings and emotions. Memories are there, but the feelings are strangely absent. It’s an interesting place to be, going into my third decade.

More to come.

 

87. cellophane

I don’t have a whole lot of time to write today, so I’m just going to set the timer for 5:00 and see what happens.

The past two weeks have been consumed with writing/editing, with the goal of completing a short fiction collection I’m planning to submit to a literary competition, the deadline being November 1. I’ve got two stories left to finish and polish but the rest are in good shape. But that’s why this blog has been rather quiet as of late.

Do you ever have moments when you realize all of a sudden that you’ve turned into the crazy Meryl Streep character from Woody Allen’s Manhattan? That’s what happened to me yesterday.

While going through Facebook updates, I came across one from my friend Jenny, who had liked a post from Seth basically saying that he was having my best friend Emily, her husband and their 3-year-old son Liam over for dinner. Naturally I flipped out, as all mentions of Seth generally cause me to do, turning me from a relatively sane, rational individual into a raving lunatic. Like Meryl Streep. I angry-texted her to the effect of, “I know where you are and who you’re with.”

For Emily to fraternize with Seth, even over an informal get-to-know-you dinner, is interpreted by my crazy brain as her siding with the man who shattered my heart, a cruel invalidation of the pain I’ve experienced over the last year and a half, and ultimately a betrayal, unintended as it was. It’s bad enough that she’s still a Christian now that I’m an atheist, and that she and her husband are going to be involved with SafeHouse, which means that Seth will be their pastor and they’ll see him regularly, so there will be this walled off portion that we can’t share and can’t talk about. Now she’s having dinner with him—and I know how charismatic and charming he can be.

It comes down to my emotionally paralyzing terror of abandonment, and what with losing my faith and subsequently my community and my family for the most part, there’s just a lot of loss to deal with all at once—and I’m largely dealing with it on my own, since there’s no one really there to lean on when I lose it. Emily’s been the one constant in all of this. I already feel replaceable and forgettable enough—that people will eventually figure out that I’m not that interesting and move on.

And I have a hard enough time believing that anyone could ever stay with me as a partner. Seth’s rejection of me in February, coupled with the long string of failures and rejections in my past, as well as my failures in the romance department, all add up to this devastating conclusion that I will always be alone and no one will love me.

It’s like my birthday became this dividing line in the sand, with me on one side and Seth on the other; and along with Seth is God, my whole past life, and anyone who is friends with him, which leaves me increasingly alone over here. My inner narrator knows damn well that the line is completely self-imposed and that I’m the only one walling everything off, but the hurt and pain drown out all reason and rationale.

Fuck. There’s a lot to process right now, and I’m way over 5:00.

Hope I haven’t taken up too much of your time.

57. invidiousness part i

… and why I hate Valentine’s Day so much.

Truth be told, it’s because I’ve never been able to take part in it. Or rather, had a positive experience that would refute the notion that it’s anything more than a tawdry, vulgar pseudo-holiday dreamed up by the Marquis de Sade to torment those who are miserably single [he said with a permanent scowl etched into his craggy, careworn face].

It’s a day when happy, coupled people blissfully buy into the spurious notion that there’s one day in the year when we should all be extra attracted to each other, and men go out and make grand, sweeping gestures to their girlfriends (or boyfriends) to make up for the fact of how neglectful they are towards their significant other the rest of the year.

Or maybe that’s just me and that damned speck of mirror-glass in my eye.

Yes, I’m one of those peevish, vituperative, curmudgeonly people who begrudge the fact that others are happy and having a wonderful time today, and wish they would all just collectively go fuck themselves and remember that there are those who aren’t blissfully happy; who (full disclosure) desperately wish that there were someone to brainlessly buy into this farce of a “holiday” with, and maybe for a few, fleeting hours forget how cheap, bloody and cruel life is the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year—or, on a more positive note, spend an evening with that “special someone,” maybe have a nice dinner and feel part of the universal experience of romantic love.

And, naturally, fuck each other silly at the end of the night.

Another reason that I begrudge Valentine’s Day so deeply and with such contempt is that a year ago today I woke up with the guy I spent the majority of this past year pining, crying and agonizing over. Let’s call him Seth. (No, really, that’s his name.) He was the first man I have ever been in love with, exacerbated by the fact that I knew he didn’t feel the same way about me. Shortly after our first sexual encounter, he basically told me that flat out, breaking my heart the first time. Before that, I found the idea of unrequited love silly and self-abasing. “Get over it!” you’d hear me say, doling out advice to inconsolable, anguished friends whose predicament I now find myself in. “He/She is not worth the pain you’re putting yourself through!” The funny thing about it though is that you can’t stop caring, or wishing, or hoping. It’s wholly irrational, but you hold out for the slim chance that maybe, just maybe, the veil will be drawn from their eyes and they will suddenly see you for the loving, caring, perfectly compatible person that you are.

And so Seth and I became what is affectionately referred to as fuck buddies. He was more or less using me for sex, apparently under the misguided notion that we were just having fun. Or some shit like that. And every time I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I’d get through to him; that he’d see that we could be more than friends; that, even beyond the whole sexual compatibility element, we got each others jokes, wanted the same things, had a similar approach to life and faith and intellect.

As Bobby Fisher might say, “No dice.”

This Valentine’s story concludes a few weeks ago, on my 28th birthday, with me drunk and sobbing in a friend’s apartment. Everyone had left Seth’s apartment (where the birthday party was being held), and I was too drunk to drive. Two other friends of mine live in the same building, but have a cat, and I am extremely allergic to cats, so normally this would end with us in his bed, having sex and me spending the night. It was not to end thus this time.

Seth had been on a blind date a week previous with another guy, and wasn’t sure how it was going to go, or even if it would go anywhere. My heart sank when he talked about this, but again I held out for the hope that it wouldn’t work, that it would just be another dalliance and that if I hung around long enough that he’d fall for me as I had for him. On that February 2nd though, he said that he was starting to like the guy more, and things were getting more serious between them. I was trying desperately to put a brave face on it and not let it bother me.

Flash back to earlier in the summer. I had just ended a relationship with my second serious boyfriend (let’s call him Nick) and was starting to date a new guy (we’ll call him Jack), and the night that I’d told everyone about Jack, as we were leaving, Seth asked if he could kiss me before things got too serious. And so, still being madly in love with him, we made out in the stairwell of the apartment.

Back to the night of my 28th birthday, eventually it got late and everyone decided it was time to call it an evening. It was obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, and he said I could crash there, but that I would need to sleep on the couch since he was starting a relationship with a new guy. And that’s when it began.

For weeks prior to this, I’d been agonizing over whether to confess my feelings to Seth or not. Some good friends who knew about the whole fuck buddy situation said that there was no way he couldn’t feel the same way, at least on some level, because nobody could do those things and be totally detached. Right? And I was determined not to let him be the biggest regret of my life.

So there in his apartment, drunk and enraged, I spewed everything at him that had been building over the weeks and months—how stupid I’d been to have let him play with my heart that way, how he’s not worthy of me, how I deserve better than some guy who can fuck me whenever it’s convenient for him to get his goddamn rocks off but then toss me to the curb once something “real” comes along, as if I were that cheap and disposable. On top of it all, he’s slated to be the pastor of a fucking GLBT-friendly church. I told him he’d do this again to someone else, that he’d play with some vulnerable guy’s affections who’s desperate to find a good Christian gay man, take advantage of him, and break his heart too. I called him a monster, a user, and a whole host of other awful things. No sense in being a writer if you can’t use them as a scalpel.

That night I also told him I no longer believe in God; that the church is a sham, and that he’s living, walking proof that none of it rings true. He listened quietly, tried to explain himself (which I’d have none of), and then left the room. Upon which I called my friend who lives upstairs, asked if I could crash there, and then spent the next hour sobbing on her couch. I’d hated myself for what I’d done, and hated him at the same time that I loved him.

But I also knew that the friendship, the relationship, was over.

Since the 2nd, I made it my resolution to do away with my old sexual morality, because chances are I’m never going to find a soulmate, and impersonal hookups are about as close as I’m probably going to get to the intimacy that I desperately crave. In the last few weeks I’ve had more sex than I have in my entire life, but it hasn’t filled the void, and I knew going in it wouldn’t satisfy. Maybe I’m just trying to get Seth out of my system.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t jump on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon and celebrate the triumph of romantic love with the rest of the callow world. Last night, a guy that I’d been seeing and talking to for a few weeks decided to call things off. It was a mutual decision; I’d been sensing that we weren’t any more than just friends, but it still came as a bit of a crushing disappointment, especially considering that, even if it wasn’t going anywhere, that perhaps for once I could temporarily shut my eyes, not be alone on Valentine’s Day and believe that maybe, just maybe, love and romance really are possible. But, as usual, he turned out like all the others. This man too “disappoint me.”

I’m still waiting for someone to prove me wrong.

56. invidiousness part ii

Because this sums up my mood today so perfectly, I shall let Fiona do the talking:

Those boon times went bust
My feet of clay, they dried to dust
The red isn’t the red we painted
It’s just rust
And the signature thing
That used to bring a following
I have trouble now
Even remembering
So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night
And keep on letting him change all my plans
I’m either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry, to quit
Or i just really used to love him
I sure hope that’s it

I knew that to keep in touch
Would do me deep in dutch
‘Cause it isn’t the rush of remembering
It’s just mush
And the signature thing
Is only growing harrowing
I should have no trouble now
To keep from following
So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night
And keep on letting him change all my plans
I’m either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry, to quit
Or i just really used to love him
I sure hope that’s it

– Fiona Apple. “Tymps (the sick in the head song).” Extraordinary Machine. Mike Elizondo, Brian Kehew, Jon Brion, 2005. CD.

39b. freeze ray

The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.

To explain—since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation—every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.

— Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Moping ahead, FYI.

Has it really been this long between updates?

Basically, right now I’m despairing and reeling from a bit of a crushing disappointment. I met up with the friend of a friend of mine who happens to be gay, Christian, going to seminary, and loves Jesus. A few weeks ago he came out to his fundamentalist parents, and the conversation didn’t go so well; so I was curious about how he was doing, and if I could be of any help. Turns out he’s one of the most level-headed guys I’ve ever met: humble, adorable, and almost everything I could have imagined in finding a guy.

Oh yeah—and gorgeous blue eyes. Gorgeous. (Did I mention that he loves Jesus?)

So we did coffee on Saturday for about four hours, then went to Solomon’s Porch on Sunday evening, and went out to Pizza Lucé afterwards to talk about the sermon.

… and in the process defined our relationship. Well, rather, I went balls out and laid everything out on the table: not something I’m used to doing. No expectations; certainly a level of hope that he might possibly feel the same way. It was one of those all-or-nothing moments, and I just wanted to know if he felt anything for me at all beyond friendship.

He was very flattered, and very nice about it, but he said he’s not interested in me romantically. We had a relatively long talk about it, and came to an understanding, and I’m as okay with it as can be.

Still, I’m feeling rather… down. This is the second guy in a row who’s not been interested in me, and everyone keeps saying that I’m this great, amazing guy; and at least this one had the decency to tell me to my face (because I asked) and not let me be led on; but no one’s interested. And yes, I’ve only been on three dates in the year and a half that I’ve been out, but I still can’t help but wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Emily and I had a long talk about this last night, and then with Justin this afternoon: both of them assured me that isn’t true. So even if I’m some sort of unicorn, I’m still alone.

Perhaps my standards are too high. I am expecting a lot from one person (speaking of unicorns). But of course they’re high, because I take this quite seriously—and this is my future. Our future. And I’m not looking to date “casually” (ye gods, I hate that term).

The thing that sucks most about this is that I could do the club scene if I wanted to. I could be getting laid every night, but I won’t because that’s not me. My fucking morals get in the way, and we both know that playing the slut and having wild, crazy sex wouldn’t make me happy in the end. So I’m taking the high ground and am still miserable. In the end, I may be right, but no less alone.

I do know that the # 1 thing I’m looking for in a guy is that he loves Jesus, can articulate why, and has reconciled his sexuality and his faith to a degree where ten years down the road he won’t suddenly realise that being gay is wrong and leave me. That is a deal breaker. Even if he’s the most amazing guy in the world, if we can’t agree that Jesus is everything, we’re not going to be able to agree on anything else. Yes, that’s a massive generalisation, but when it comes down to it, that’s got to be central.

Because the fact is that I’m a progressive fundamentalist, proud of it, and I take Scripture and its place in my life very seriously. So as I said to a friend of mine at work this afternoon, if he loves Jesus (in a serious way, not in a “Jesus is my friend” way), everything else will fall into place because our priorities align.

I’m saying this knowing that such a man is probably rare, and my chances of actually finding one are about as good as getting struck by lightning three times in the same day. I’m not too hopeful or optimistic, but trying not to be bitter and jaded. No one wants chewy snickerdoodles. However, with each new rejection, all my fears and insecurities are being reinforced and confirmed, and I’m finding myself less willing to be generous, and more guarded with my heart and affections. Even this time around, being open-minded and trying to not have any expectations, I still got my heart stomped. Not intentionally, but it still happened.

Again, I’m trying not to have expectations going into this—dating, and all. There are some general things that I’m looking for, of course, besides the spiritual aspects. As a male, attractiveness is sort of a presumed quality. And some of us get a lot of flack for it, but I’m definitely looking for a masculine, non-effeminate guy. While he doesn’t need to be built and muscular, I am attracted to slimmer, trimmer guys. Toned is a plus, but not essential. An average build would be acceptable, but let’s be honest (and this is a very crude analogy so bear with me), it’s like buying furniture—first you have to imagine it being around for a while before committing to it. He’ll have to do the same with me. I’m picturing having sex with this person (and lots of it), but also waking up, going to sleep, eating, arguing and travelling with him. And some of that will happen over time as I get to know him.

On the positive side, one of the good things that’s come out of this is that in actually contemplating being with someone, I would be willing to adopt children and raise a family with the right guy; and those of you who know me know how I feel about kids, and how radical a statement that is.

I might have said this before, but I wouldn’t need to work as much as I do. The craziness of my life is largely a placebo to fill the empty void-chunks that remind me that I’m a miserable, lonely guy. And it would be nice to be able to pour time into someone rather than something. Sure, I’ve accomplished lots in the last five years, but I also want be known for being a good boyfriend.

It also made me realise that I do want to get married, regardless of whether or not it’s legal and recognised by the time we get to that point. I’m kind of old fashioned, and want to formally commit to one guy (even though the sex part might not be attached to any sort of ceremony). It would certainly be weird having my family there, if they decided to come at all. But hell, I’ve had to watch my sister kiss her husband, so they can damn well do the same for me.

But moral of the story is, via extrapolated matter analyses from a piece of fairy cake, I’ve determined that since I haven’t found the right guy at 27 that it won’t happen at all, because the statistical likelihood of actually finding what I want is pretty low. And the one guy I did find who seems absolutely perfect isn’t interested in me in that way.

So I’m sort of getting a bit of my own from when I broke up with my first boyfriend. Now the glove is on the other hand. And it hurts like a banshee, man.

In conclusion, it should be noted that I’m not giving up entirely on seminary guy (but in a non-creepy, wait and see way). I am kind of an acquired taste. Maybe over the next few months, if he doesn’t start dating someone else, I can win him over with the charms I’m going to acquire over the next few months. Maybe I could try singing some Dr. Horrible to him sometime…

I just think you need time to know
That I’m the guy to make it real
The feelings you don’t dare to feel
I’ll bend the world to our will
And we’ll make time stand still
That’s the plan
Rule the world
You and me
Any day
Love your hair

Happy Birthday to me.