I don’t understand what’s so broken in me that small moments of intimacy can cause me to spiral.
On Friday I went out with an engineer I had previously gone on dates with but with whom nothing long term seemed viable. We still touched base every once in a while when I was in Long Beach and now that I’ve been living here we’ve chatted but hadn’t met up. We had talked about why I didn’t seem interested in hooking up and I guess that’ll be open ended because sometimes NSA fun can be had, but going out for dinner seemed pretty low stakes. The conversation was good and we ended up going for drinks too.
I think we chatted for about five hours straight catching up on our lives since last we met, fairly surface level though. I guess he wanted to work up the courage for it, but after the first beer he asked, “So what about your love life?” I was so irritated to be asked because I knew there was nothing great to talk about. I let him know that I was bitter and disillusioned from my last relationship and that it was difficult right now to put myself in a situation where I might get hurt again. Perhaps I said it differently to cushion it a bit, but in a short summary that’s where I’m at emotionally. I explained what had happened with my ex and answered his follow up questions for a while and then asked him about his love life.
He reminded me that he wasn’t out to his parents yet and was waiting until he had a boyfriend. I didn’t let him know, but I recalled that being one of the reasons I thought I wouldn’t end up dating him. I asked some probing questions of his decision to wait. No, he wasn’t financially dependent on them. No, not all his siblings knew, although they likely suspected. No, he didn’t think it would be too much pressure to put on the other guy, although he understood what I meant. The topic shifted to some difficulties I’ve been having and how I’d like to go back to therapy and get that sorted, possibly diagnosed, in part so I can tell future potential partners that I process feelings differently for specific reasons. He questioned that reasoning, saying he liked to let his dates discover him and he wasn’t so worried about telling them about himself. When he told me later in the evening that he had commitment issues I asked him if he didn’t think those two behaviors were linked. It honestly was a nice night.
The problem is that on the way home I was crying after the intimacy of our conversation. It wasn’t even that it was that deep, it’s just that I haven’t been that open with anyone in a while. I have moved away from my closest friends and while I still chat with them often, it isn’t the same as being in the same space as the person you’re showing your heart to. And maybe it wouldn’t come as such a shock if I was more open in my day to day life or made more time for others instead of prioritizing solo activities.
The next morning in fact, I was out by Mt. Wilson with two close friends. They too had had a recent death in the family and at different times in the hike we teared up telling our stories. Maybe that didn’t bother me as much because it was familiar territory. It’s true we hadn’t had deaths in our families before, but as friends we didn’t shy away from difficult conversations and had had lots of emotionally charged encounters and yet, we’re still all friends and we’re still in each other’s lives.
For meeting new people, it’s been difficult to be that intimate, because I’m not sure that they will still be there later on. So I close myself off, letting my nurtured aversion to intimacy lead.
It isn’t just new people either. Yesterday my brother in law pressed his head into my shoulder to read a restaurant menu off my phone. I imagine he could feel me tense up and he has called out our family for being too frigid. He grew up with a family that is more physically affectionate than we are, maludjusted in their own way. I had left home thinking it was just me that couldn’t deal with physically being close to people, but have since learned it’s all of us siblings too. For those moments his head was resting on my shoulder, I felt a warmth inside of me and it made me uncomfortable, not the warmth itself but that it originated from my brother in law and that intimacy felt stolen, as if I was crossing a line in feeling anything from the physical touch of my sister’s husband.
That awkwardness around physical intimacy even carries into sex. During foreplay I am actively engaged in physical affection and haven’t ever had a problem with it in the moment. But last Thursday I hooked up with a guy I had been with in the past and had really great sex. The sex this time was awesome too, but there was a moment in between, when he had finished inside me, that I felt uncomfortable laying beside him. I told him my stomach felt a little bubbly and that I needed a moment. While it’s true that I felt a pressure inside that hadn’t been there before, when I got to the bathroom I took some time to just collect myself emotionally. He had been trying to cuddle and spoon me affectionately and I just couldn’t handle that. I went back to his bedroom and we continued for some time, but I noted how, for a time anyway, my mind had detached and wandered, removing my heart from the sex and it was just my body performing a penetration.
I have known what it’s like to not worry so much about these types of things, to not be shocked by intimacy because it’s more normal. Although there is some degree of this that is related to the pandemic, as touching strangers still seems like such a charged event, the awkwardness is not new and had gone away. I think, as I described to the engineer, I’m still reacting to my breakup, to the sudden loss of emotional support. Although I want that, I’m so scared of losing the support suddenly that I’d rather not build it with anyone new.
That’s why, instead, I’m just scribbling into the void, letting these out onto the internet, to fester online.
Tag: gay dating
Clashing Intentions and Actions – Just Part of Gay Adolescence?
I took a small break because I have been stressing out due to an upcoming exam that I am not studying well for. Outside of college, it hasn’t really happened for me that I’m able to study without a classroom structure. After this, I’m going to go ahead and sign up for in person classes, or study with a coworker. Because of these exams and because of my recent break up, I’ve been very upfront on all the dating and hook up apps that I’m keeping it casual for now. Unfortunately, I’ve been having interactions with other men that don’t seem to understand what I mean or where I’m coming from.
I often see it repeated online that coming out leads to a form of gay adolescence, as gay and lesbian teens don’t have the same opportunities to experiment with dating as their straight peers do. Personally, although I had started coming out as early as middle school, I was too much myself to have dated in high school. I did try though and over time those experiences stumbling and putting myself out there have worked to help me figure out what I want and when I want it. That is, while I’ve been comfortable being single and having casual relationships or hooking up off the apps, when I want to be in a relationship, I know how to communicate that out and pursue that. I had two recent encounters where the gentlemen’s stated intentions clashed with their actions and words and I considered whether this was just a part of gay adolescence that I would continue to encounter as a man dating men.
Of the first, I wrote a bit already about my interactions with him. Following a cousin’s funeral, he freaked out because I hadn’t been in contact with him. Some time after I posted the prior interaction he reached out to apologize and said that the text didn’t help us understand each other, that he tends to be very sensitive and was being selfish, but that he didn’t want to be ignored in the future and he wanted to prioritize that. As I was on my way out of town, I said thanks for the apology and let him know I wouldn’t be around. I talked to the friends on that trip out of town and they told me that, told of someone’s funeral, they would have backed down as well, not insisted on being heard out. With that, I decided to unfollow him and remove him from my followers too.
He didn’t notice however and reached out to make small talk, discussing the exam and the vaccines. I engaged with the small talk for a while but after some reflection, let him know that I didn’t want to talk to him anymore as I had just gotten out of a relationship where I had to create emotional space for my ex’s angry and jealous outbursts, but when I finally got angry at him, he dumped me. I related that to what had occurred between us, summarizing it as me having created space for him but he being unable to do the same for me. For some context, when he had come over, I held him while he cried because, as he stated, he just felt very comfortable around me; when he reached out to me because he felt I had stood him up, I apologized but told him it was a bad time as my cousin’s funeral had just happened and rather than back off, he insisted that I needed to prioritize his need for communication in a friendship. As the friendship with him required more from me than I could give, I insisted that we not talk anymore, although I pointed out that he was equating my grief with his personal insecurities and asking me to set my feelings aside.
What I never got around to discussing with him, because I was much less invested in this situationship than he was, was that he had not laid out all these rules ahead of us meeting in person. In fact, it felt like he suppressed all his requirements for having a friendship until after we had had sex. In a way, I feel more responsible for ignoring the red flags as I am slightly older than him and definitely more experienced, but I also felt that I had said many times that I was not looking for a relationship or really any responsibilities right now as I wanted to focus on myself. Although I stand by that, I do feel that I should have paid more attention to what he seemed to mean, which is that he needed a therapist and a stable, committed boyfriend. On the therapy part, I won’t say more than I already have, but he raised several topics after we had met, but before he got upset that I didn’t follow up on a potential hang out, on issues that I let him know immediately were pretty serious and should be discussed with a professional. And on the boyfriend part, it became clear just how serious and committed he expected his friendships to be, to the point where he should just be looking for a boyfriend and find a different kind of trouble.
My next issue with men hiding their intentions, or not being honest with them, comes from men hiding their age. Although it’s never truly been an issue, it happened recently that two men, one in his mid-thirties and another in his forties, have said that they are 29 years old. The latter’s profile actually stated 26, but I asked him what his age was after he sent some face pics. He said 29, I pointed out I was turning 29 and asked if he’d like to try again on giving his age. Now, I’ve said all this very politely, because I get that youth is a commodity in the gay community, but it feels odd to have them use my age when they’re clearly older.
The former deserves a little more talking about as I went on a date with him. He started off as a blank profile, which immediately set off flags, but he was quick to share pictures of himself. I let him know right away that I would be on my guard because I always am with blank profiles. Although I understand that there are good reasons for that, such as teachers not wanting to be seen by their students, I haven’t had good interactions in the past with these types of profiles. This time was going a little better; we agreed to meet at a local restaurant and other than being a little late, he showed up. Immediately I could tell he had lied about his age, but decided not to bring it up right away.
We chatted about different things and overall had a pleasant conversation. At some point, he mentioned a six year relationship, described how it had ended some short time before the start of the pandemic, so seven years ago. I told him that was a little odd because his profile said he was 29 which meant he had to be 22 when they had gotten together. At that point he said, well no, he was something like 33 or 34, which made more sense for the length of their relationship, but said his profile was just old. The explanation was suspect, but as my most recent ex-boyfriend is older than him, I didn’t care to follow up. What did interest me was how he went on to describe his ex-fiancé as a home-body, preferring to stay in on Fridays than go out, how he just seemed very boring and didn’t like going out as much as he did. He had previously let me know that he would be partying all of Saturday and Sunday, specifically hosting a giant get together at the beach on Sunday. So in my head I really considered asking him for his ex-fiancé’s number. All I said was, “that sounds how I like to spend my Fridays, just prepare some food, have a nice edible and just relax.” Even on the question of weed, he said he hated being around stoners. He didn’t know the lingo but basically once couch lock set in his anger would peak.
Although the date went well, I figured I would not bring up the topic of dating again. He ignored me all weekend anyway, which was fine. But tell me why on Monday he hit me up saying he felt like we had a great connection and that we should date more seriously. I let him know that I didn’t want to given that the issues he had with his ex would be the same we would have and that I didn’t feel the need to put us through that. I was happy to continue to hang out with him on the weekends but not for anything beyond casual fun. Unfortunately, he has decided that I will change my mind and that I just need to give him time, to make time for him, and I’ll see.
For these guys, I don’t know exactly what’s leading them to navigate the dating world in this way. But I can see that they aren’t clearly communicating their intentions and needs. At least in the first case, from his perspective he was wrong to have placed any respect, or trust, in me. In my case, if he had let me know just how critical the stakes were for our interactions, I would have left him alone, certainly not inviting him over to casually hook up, or not believing him when he said he was open to it. On the latter, I’m not ready to date. But when I seek to return to the dating world, I’ll be trying my hardest to avoid personality types exactly similar to my ex, so it’s interesting to have a guy who described all the problems with his ex be things I love, and still have that same guy be interested in me. Finally, as far as hiding intentions go, I don’t think I’ll get to the point where I want to hide my age. In part, it’s because I’m not interested in younger men, but also, I think as a young man of a certain age, I’ve been exposed to more age positive media. But I’m hoping to always be just a little too lazy to lie, a little too lazy in dating to be anyone other than myself.
After all, in the words of Darren from Bedrooms and Hallways, “Simplify your vibrations. Your sex life simplifies itself.”