Sunday, September 30, 2012

#16

A reality: I see a bleak future ahead of me.
                This is for two reason: 1) I don’t think I could do casual sex. I think I’d have a tendency to romanticize anything I did and become attached. 2) I don’t find gay couples cute. I don’t want to become one of those old ones who’ve been together forever. Those two factors (combined with the fact I have trouble seeing myself coming out, especially to my family) leave me picturing a rather lonely future for myself. I come home from work, sit at home, and surf the internet creepily. Occasionally, my physical needs will result in a one night hookup despite my better judgment. I then spend the next week or two in a stupid fantasy: what I could have said to my hookup so we could live happily ever after, how I could run into him again, how he would declare his love for me. Of course none of these things will happen, and I’ll forget about such foolish, unrealistic notions until my need to be intimate with someone once again overrules my mind’s protestations. I sincerely hope that is not how my life ends up, although the thought of it makes me feel more resigned than depressed.
                So why don’t I think I could do casual sex without becoming attached? One has to do with me and my interactions on the internet. I stumble on some gay blog where I identify with the author, and before you know it, I’m picturing starting a relationship where I can make all their insecurities and frustrations go away. A relationship perfect enough that all remaining reservations about my sexual orientation are swept aside and all that matters is we have together. A relationship that is a fortress to keep the rest world and the problems it brings out, with only room for the two of us inside its walls. This fades relatively quickly, some faster than the others. However, it bothers me to be so detached from reality for even the shortest times. I try to be logical, I try and quash such ideas, but they still come. Despite my choice of a science major, I am still prone to an overactive imagination (though maybe a lot of science nerds are, hence Sci-fi/Fantasy books). I also have had a brief experience with a guy I mentioned once. We didn’t do much, but I spent the next seven years still picturing him and me having one last encounter that turns into a night of passion following him confessing that he too has been in the closet, hiding his feeling for me all these years. But that won’t happen. We haven’t hung out in years (and not for lack of me inviting him). I’m pretty sure he’s straight, and even if he wasn’t I’m pretty sure one of his other friends would jump on him before I could. Just the brief interactions I had with him have stayed with me for years. “So what?” one might say. “Those romantic idealizations don’t have to apply to random people you just pick up. In the gay community sex can be as casual and anonymous as you want.” And why not? Why shouldn’t I sleep with anonymous people I can’t connect with? Surely then I wouldn’t be able to form some misplaced sense of attachment. And I probably could do that, except for one thing: I don’t want to be that person. While I’m not really religious, I still believe sex should mean something, that it’s an act that shares a special part of your very self with another person. I don’t want to become desensitized; I don’t want to be unconcerned with the consequences of sex. I want it to mean something, to have a sense of love and attachment in my life. If all I needed was release, I can stick to solo action. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I actually have it, but I can’t imagine sex is worth giving up that belief. I believe in self-control, that wanting to do something in no way justifies doing it. Just because I want to pick up some random guy does not mean it will help my willpower or sense of satisfaction in my life. I want to control my body, not the other way around. Maybe I should be a Buddhist. As tempting as it is to just say “fuck it,” I don’t want to fill my life with easy sex. I don’t want to be that person.
                So why not find a relationship, someone I can build a life with? That goes back to me finding gay couples creepy. I think the main reason for this is that I have yet to meet one (or see one on TV) that honestly convinces me its love and not lust. I think a lot of gay relationships are more about sex first. The guys meet and hook up or are friends, then friends with benefits, and then decide to make it a thing. And some certainly do get all cutesy and lovey-dovey, but it seems so childish. It’s so constant and over the top. It’s almost like they’re trying to convince someone (either themselves or others) that they are in love and not just lust. A lot of them seem like high school level relationships, and never mature into anything else. It just stays as something shallow where the two can’t see how impermanent and superficial their relationship is (again, high school). Maybe a reason I have this view is the large number of open gay relationships you read about on blogs. There was one where a (Canadian) couple was engages, but one was finishing college far away so they had an open relationship so neither would have to go without sex. God forbid. Vee always says right after you break up, it’s hard to go without regular sex, but you stick it out and you get used to it. It’s not a reason to go whoring around just because you miss it. Or other stories you read about a couple having a threesome with another guy. I’ve heard of couples who’ve been together for years engage in this. Granted, some straight couples try and spice things up too (wife-swapping, etc.) but it just seems more prevalent in the gay community. Maybe this is because I’m not really in the gay community that I have all these conceptions about what it’s like. Maybe if I went out and met more gay people I’d feel better about it. But I doubt it. So many gay men seem to never properly settle down, staying mostly single their whole lives. The old couples also strike me as shallow, though this may be because most of the depictions I’ve seen of them are on TV. I’ve never actually seen/met an older couple in real life. On TV, they’re either a stereotype or some forced, transparent propaganda for “equality of love.” Of course, maybe the other reason I find old couples creepy is because homosexuality is so connected with sex. There is absolutely no way to forget that these two unattractive wrinkly old dudes (sorry to anyone that is offended. Take comfort in the fact I too shall age and be in that position.) are fucking each other in private. Somehow, it is so easy to forget that straight married couples also still having sex into old age. I don’t know why that is, just something about two same-sex people in a relationship makes it impossible to forget about the sex. So yeah, basically I’m not in any hurry to rush into a relationship (and not just because I don’t know any gay guys). I don’t want my relationship to be based on sex. I don’t want to have to screw a guy just to get to know him. I want to fall for a guy’s personality. If I like a guy, I honestly won’t care what they look like. I used to have a little bit of a crush on Barry just because he’s a nice guy, and he’s 300 pounds. I would much rather have a single good relationship than hundreds of hookups. However, I don’t see that happening. And that is why I say fuck reality. I honestly can’t picture a happy gay future for myself. I miss the times when I could lie to myself and say I’d like girls when I got older. I’m past that. And now I have to live with what my gayness means for my future. And I’m not looking forward to it at all.

4 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree with you more. I'm affriad of starting a relationship too. I don't want it to turn into something shallow.

    I also feel the my love life future is bleak. I'm probably going to be single for most of my life, though I'd rather be single then have many shallow hook-up relationships. I think the gay community is focused way to much on sex. I find it a little concerning that it seems the only way for most gays to connect is through sex, that they can't just have a really good friendship, or intimately know every thing about each other.

    Maybe that just my perception, but still.....that's the vibe I get from most gays.

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  2. I think your perception of gay love is distorted by what the media like to pretend is gay love. You said yourself that you don't know gay couples and that you don't meet gay people. So, you don't know what it really is, what it can be.

    Give yourself a chance :)

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  3. I am still hoping to find someone good in my life. If I do find them, I won't care what (true or not) other gay relationships are like. I can be hopeful even if this post was pretty pessimistic. This blog does tend to show my most negative side, since that's what I feel the need to get out of my system

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  4. So...young gay couples are based on lust and old gay couples are "shallow"...I know it's "fuck reality" so it can't be realistic to find definitions or perceptions of love and sex through media and concluding your conclusions.

    anyone who's had a decent amount of sex, though "decent" varies from person to person, will almost undoubtedly testify that sex is not the end all be all of homosexuality, that a lot of times, it's about non-physical chemistry....and maybe you feel some couples are "lovey-dovey" or over the top is that it's something you've never felt or had it reciprocated back to you?

    I couldn't imagine myself acting like a "fool in love" losing "power" in a relationship, or being consumed by an inexplicable desire to be around someone then it happened, and I doubly hate lovey-dovey folks cause I basically was one of them then I wasn't.

    I think first love hits like a ton of bricks, so watch out or you'll end up with a bad back. But it's good for you, teaches strength.

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