Boy Culture

Naturally its the hardest time of year for me.  Always has been, and perhaps always maybe.  I find myself clinging desperately to some childish hope that maybe things will change.  That I'll finally find what I've been searching for for the last nearly 33 years.  I've searched everywhere and nowhere.  All that I seem to cross my path are dead ends of being someone's unspoken backup plan, the rebound, the one that fixes things for the next one to come along.  Will it ever get better?

A Strange Night

I've reached the one year anniversary of being completely and entirely on my own and alone.  I'm not sure how I managed it and I still wonder where the strength comes from just to fall out of bed and get to work most days.  Since my desire to do any sort of regular blogging is essentially non existent, it seemed the right thing was to close the chapter on my other blog and use this more as an online journal.  As with most of my attempts at journaling, it will be infrequent, it will be raw, it will be unfiltered, and probably vulgar.  This isn't a place where I'll be explaining things so as to keep a readership, just writing them down in the hopes that maybe one day they will make sense.  It is my mirror of my self... my reality check.

It was an odd night last night, almost as if the cosmos is trying to tell me something but we aren't quite on the same wavelength yet for me to clearly get the message.  Just a brief catch up... even since hanging out my own shingle I've been depressingly unable to land any sort of dates, or even a circle of friends, to be "normal" with.  I can count on 3 fingers the number of guys I landed a date with in the last 12 months, 1 finger the number that resulted in a return encounter or several, and 2 fingers the number that resulted in any sort of physical intimacy or sense of emotional intimacy.  It's official, my love life is completely and totally dead... bury it now, the stink is just too much!  I just seem to sink further and further in to the whole of despair I began digging some 16 years ago.  I mentioned to dad, he being ever the optimist, that I've stopped looking for a partner or even casual relationship in hopes that maybe it would psychologically set me up to "find love when I least expect it."  Of course it was his fatherly wisdom 'not to give up', a noble attempt to cheer me up.  At least when there are no expectations there can be no qualifications that I'm a failure.. or so I thought.

This wall that I tore down while coming out opened up a piece of my soul that I never could before acknowledge.  After such lengthy repression it is no surprise that the ache I feel in my heart and to the deepest corners of my "core" and my center of being cannot be ignored or suppressed.  This part of me has gone beyond yearning, and seeking.  I cannot tell myself any longer to "be patient" or use any of the usual cliche's or mantras we induce to get ourselves to refocus energies elsewhere to things we can control.  I'm finding that I am less and less able to keep control of my emotional ballast and the intensity of previously suppressed emotion and passion.  Its like a balloon being overfilled and the rupture is eminent.  It feels that I'm on the verge of a complete and total emotional break down - and I know it would not be one I bounce back from. 

That's enough self analysis...  If I snap there are few who would care anyhow so, what the hell, bring that on too!  Back to the weirdness of the cosmos...

Its not often I do late night grocery shopping on the weekend.  Once I get to Sunday afternoon and evening I'm ready just to call it a day and kiss it off.  But not this weekend.  There just wasn't anything left to make lunch for the week, so I had to get the flip flops on and head down the street to my neighborhood QFC.  My pessimism has long over ruled the romantic notion of random encounters with true love at such public places.  These silly insipid twinges of "finding the one" just around the corner are done.  I don't hope nor expect to meet anyone I know or want to get to know in any of my usual or unusual places - it just doesn't happen for me.

Perhaps it really is the onset of my insanity to think I saw out of the corner of my eye while in the produce section some one I was deeply interested in dating but never managed to get past the first date.  How odd it is that such a thing would happen on a 1 year anniversary of the original event (or damn close to it).  How even more odd, cosmologically thinking, that after trying to convince myself I'm really starting to go off the deep end where, just by coincidence, I find myself watching a new movie whose distilled wisdom is don't walk away from your opportunities when they happen.  How odd, that if he was really there, that when trying to look in that direction so as to get a proper look to test my sanity, there was no one there.  Could he have seen me before I properly saw him and had that "oh shit" panic moment of "let's avoid this situation?"  Am I really so hideous that I'm not even worth a friendly "hello" anymore even if we can't be anything more than friends?  My ears and self worth no longer affirm the comments from so many others that "you're so cute and smart I'd totally date you."  Words are, in fact, quite cheap and indispensable --I should know since I use so many in my head.  I look for more than just words, I look for the action to follow the word through.

After meeting Rob and getting to know each other over dinner a year ago, I gave myself a great deal of hope and saw the moment then as a positive affirmation that making the move to town was the right choice.  I even gave a relationship a pretty large potential at that point too.  I mean how many dudes would hop off their bike while you're walking home to introduce themselves and go out of their way to tell you "I look forward to dinner with you."  It just doesn't happen in this town, its not normal!  Despite what I thought was a great evening, ending with a hug followed by a fist bump and "lets keep in touch" ....with only a single text since that evening--I naively thought there was a chance.  After getting over that seeming dead end (with great sadness I'll add), I never gave him much thought until last night and in the weirdness of last night.  The disasters with Navy guy and Party boy were great tumultuous distractions from my first crushing blow being a new city boy.

But now I seem to be in a permanent dating drought.  And there is no relief in sight.  Maybe insanity is the only way out...

Tuesday, 3 AM

Tuesday, 3 am
Once again I’m wide awake.
Waiting for this time to mend this heart of mine,
That keeps on breaking.
Newspapers I throw away
Wash the dishes in the sink
3am, on Tuesday
I have too much time to think.

I could call out to heaven I could crawl down through hell
Nothing will change the way they are, and nothing every will

He thinks I can’t hear him cry
And I pretend I don’t know all about the 3 am’s he spend wrestling with your ghost.

I hear him call out to heaven, I watch him crawl down through hell
He still can’t get over you
I know he never will

Nothing he says can bring you back
He’s got nothing left to show
But a pocket watch and memories
For that kiss out in the snow

I hear him call out to heaven, I watch him crawl down through hell
He still can’t get over you
I know he never will

I hear him call out to heaven, I watch him crawl down through hell
He still can’t get over you
I know he never will.

Another painful year comes to a close and the chasm in my heart and soul widens that much further.  I really don't know what keeps me going any more.  Its not my work, and its surely not my personal life.  The outlook of being employed after the new year is grim with projects falling thru due to lack of funding.  The company is in the hole pretty deep after the last project which we lost our shirts on, where I have yet to get caught up again in back pay.  Every attempt I make to find a boyfriend, partner or future husband only results in greater heartache and frustration for guys to get their shit together.  I seem to be the sort that everyone wants to use rather than respected and appreciated.  Living a lonely loveless life is poison, each season that passes seems to only strengthen my fear that all has turned to vain ambition.  Will things only get better after my heart stops and the neurons in my brain no longer fire?  Is that's all that's left for me in this world?

Trying yet again

Rare are the times I put anything here.  For those lucky enough to have found my deepest of inner thoughts (not that its difficult), which are what go here on my journey, some new and hopeful developments.  Its too soon to make any sort of comment on my usual forum of thought, but I wanted to put something here.

Through the miracles of the internet, and Connexion where I have ended up meeting the most worthwhile of date-able people I am trying again.  And hopefully a little wiser this time.  I've been chatting with great guy with a common Moho connection in this area.  He's new to these parts and hasn't yet been chased off or shut down by too many crazies or native passive-aggressive sorts.  I dare say by what little we know about each other he seems to be the most stable and worth while person I've encountered since being out.  Employed by one of the largest companies in the US located here who has, for now, secured a substantial government contract, attractive sort, and with the same faith background.  Doesn't seem like a bad start to me at all.

So we have planned to meet up at a mall roughly geographically between our two locales where we intend to get to know each other but also plan a going away party for our mutual friend.  And then we have tentatively planned to go from there to downtown to have some fun together.  Not quite sure what yet but we'll play it by ear I think.

I remain hopeful that this one might have the possibility of going somewhere other than being "just friends."  I'm certainly ready and waiting with great anxiety for one with some permanence to happen.  As a friend once suggested, I have a lot of love to give, the trick of life will be finding someone willing to receive it and also reciprocate.  May the seeds of desire I have carried for many years find fertile ground.

Sliding to a new season

As I posted on my main blog a door has closed.  I had hope for my relationship with Jerremy even though it was a fools hope.  I had convinced myself pretty well that once he was over his depressive funk and feeling better about life that somehow we could hit the reset button and try again with him actually trying this time.  I was pretty sure it would work.  But I guess that was not to be.

In the last couple of weeks he has gone in to a relationship with someone from his Toronto days.  Its apparently rather serious as this is the first one causing him to change his facebook status.  No small move if you ask me.  He couldn't be bothered to tell anyone he was seeing me so this must be big.  They also intend to live together in some other state they are still negotiating.  In the mean time, because he can't stand another Seattle winter, Jerremy will be moving to Boise in November.

While as a friend I must be supportive, I felt the rest of my heart associated with that relationship desire shatter to dust.  As I usually do I tossed in one of my depressive gay movies and sobbed in to my pillow.  How sad it is when one has a better emotional relationship with their pillow than a human being.

I'm not sure what will happen with Jerremy.  His vote was to live in Salt lake City, his significant other still deciding.  I hope its just not another situation where he is taking advantage of another person while running away from resolving past conflicts.  Time, as always, will be the great equalizer of all things and it will be seen where it goes.

It's just a sad day that this particular door is now closed and nothing else appears to be opening.  (Sigh) What do I do and how much longer can I do this?  I feel like I'm starting to get too old to handle the feelings and exhaustion of rejection.  With not even a single dating prospect anymore I'm not sure if I want to do this anymore.  I just want to give up.  I suppose for now I stick to what I'm good at... music and desiring not to be single.

A little confused on a monday morning

Ok, so I'm a little confused today, and needed an excuse to post a shameless picture of a sexy guy in his boxers.  Sign me up (thanks Wyatt for posting this on yours)!

After not seeing each other for about two months or talking in a few weeks after things went south in what I hoped would be a potential relationship I was out again yesterday.  Well I'm not sure I would call it a date.  We used the term "hanging out."

But how it all came about just leaves me in a mental fog, or perhaps that is just a side effect of seeing a 3D movie yesterday.  Yeah, don't need to see one of those again, especially with the cost.

So I was at a party hosted by one of my gay college friends on rather short notice Friday. I thought well what the heck, it beats moping around the house trying to find love online through my connexion profile.  So I went.  It was a little later than I like to start things as far as time goes but I hadn't see this friend and his boyfriend in a while so I was due to at least drop in.  It was a new crowd of people for me.  Every last one of them people I didn't previously know - at least for the first few hours of the party.  Now I should mention it was a little bit of a sexy party, the theme being aphrodisiacs, and the requisite adult beverages were there to make it such - not that I ever partake in such drinks. And not surprisingly there were, ahem, sexy things going on.  We'll just say sexual things.  No surprise when you get a room full of buzzed horny gay guys in one room together everything from revealing your manhood to full on, well never mind, would be taking place.  Again I found myself missing out on the fun - but doing those things is no longer a motivator for me anymore.  Perhaps if I were still 23 I would have some how found myself being wild and crazy with them too, but I find myself being more and more removed from the frivolity of youth.  I guess this is what happens when you get old.

So it was very interesting observing.  The evening progressed and additional participants trickled in, some left.  It was quite a surprise when "Junior" of my MoHo connections was to join the fun with two additional friends (also apparently of Moho) persuasion with him.  It was nice not to be the only sober guy at the party.  And with all of the "gettin it on" that was going on it gave me people to hang out with.  One of the guys was really quite cute - young, but cute.  But it doesn't end there.  So Junior decided to call a guy, incidentally the same guy I was seeing until I thought it ended a few weeks ago.

So Junior goes off in to a back room to talk with him and tell him how much fun with other crazy gay men he is missing.  The "significant other" was spending time in Las Vegas, which I was aware of through facebook.  But lo and behold, Junior comes back after a few minutes and hands his phone over to me saying "he would like to talk to you."  I'm not sure what the reaction on my face may have been at the time, probably instant panic.  After all, things ended rather abruptly and we hadn't seen each other for a long time or spoke for a while.  I just didn't know what I would say and I was caught off guard.

So I go back to the same back room and we chatted for a little bit.  I won't dive in to details other than he wanted to apologize and share with me that he is working on some things in his personal life and wanted to see me again and hang out and asked if I had any plans Sunday.  After I was done with all my meetings and things I didn't have any plans so I said sure.

So we made a date as it were.  I had no preconceived ideas or anything.  I intentionally would not let myself read anything in to it other than I was hanging out with someone I know.  We decided to see a movie, Clash of the Titans 3D, and then went to a little dinner afterward.  It was genuinely a pleasant time.  I didn't feel like I had to impress him or worry about what was or wasn't going to happen or other factors.  I didn't feel awkward in the slightest.  We could just enjoy each other's company doing something fun together.  Honestly it was probably the most stress free 4.5 hours I had in a very long time, even though we had to change restaurants since the one we went to was sold out of food.

He had some things to do at home and I had to do some prep work for a class I'm teaching tonight so we parted company after 8PM.  A good thing on a work night.  But I spent the entire drive home dissecting the weekends events.  While I'm not foolish or naive enough to presume this means things between us will resume I did realize something.  And in the non-existent privacy of this blog I'll admit I still have feelings for the guy.  Every time I see him he is cuter then the last I saw him.  Mind you all those feelings are very carefully boxed up in my emotional storage closet (what a turn of a phrase eh?).  But there they are, right where I left them - perhaps with a little more dust on them since the last time they were used.  Rummage through them I did and even recalled some good times, some beautiful moments, and some not so good times.  However I very carefully wrapped them back up, put them in their very safe and sturdy container, and placed them gently and respectfully back on that shelf.  I had to tell myself that now is not the time to pull these back out - but maybe with some of the hopeful signs he gave that perhaps they may be of some use.  Otherwise it will be out with the other stuff for spring cleaning.  But for now, they sit waiting for that right time.

But I'm confused. I just don't know what to make of it, and I'm not willing to risk what I did last time.  I guess I watch and hope while keeping my pace of one day at a time.