Monday, June 18, 2007

Biological Clock

"You're biological clock is ticking." This statement has been around for ages warning single women that they need to find a man. Of course originally it was based entirely upon having children. Most women are best able to have children in their 20s and early 30s. Once you hit a certain age it becomes much more difficult. But the statement has expanded beyond just children. Today it defines when it is proper for heterosexual couples to get together and marry. If a straight woman reaches 30 and is still single, having never been previously married, she is often looked at rather askance, and people begin to wonder if maybe she is a lesbian. The maxim has worked for generations to define the age at which you need to start worrying about the fact that you are single.
But we live in a different time. The age has been getting later and later. Once it was normal for a 16 year old girl to be married. Today most of us would call that crazy and I would guess most wait until around 20 or so. But even still it is not considered unusual for couples to be married in their late 20s. (This is all discussing first marriages of course). But where do gay people fit in? With the destruction of yet again one more potential relationship for me, I find myself asking what the biological clock is for a gay man. When should I begin to worry? I have to admit that many of the signs are troubling. I am a 25 year old gay man who has never been in a long term relationship. I have had boyfriends, 2 to be exact, but neither lasted more than a month. This is not because I haven't wanted a LTR. Since they day I came out it is what I have wanted, but it has always eluded me. The right guy has only rarely come along, and always at the wrong time. For instance as you can read in other posts, the right guy came along just recently, but he was just getting out of a relationship and is still grieving the loss of his ex, and has cut off contact because he says knowing I care for him when his ex doesn't makes it hurt more. There are other examples, but this is the most recent. I swear that whatever Fate is in charge of love has some sort of personal vendetta against me and is seeking to break my soul. To turn me into a jaded man by dangling potentially wonderful relationships in front of me, only to have them snatched away before they can bear fruit.
So this lack of a LTR has begun to worry me. Most other people my age have had such relationships. The guy for instance I like just got out of an 11 month relationship, and he had another before that. My only consolation is that in the end its not really about how many relationships that you have, but how long the last one lasts. I think of a previous guy I liked who is still my friend today who had a couple LTR in his twneties, each lasting several years. But none worked out. Only the one that began when he was 36 seems to be a keeper. So I wonder if perhaps I am skipping the failed relationships? But can they really be skipped? I am constantly afraid that I will meet the one, but having never been in a relationship I will mess things up since I don't have the practice of being in a relationship.
So that brings me back to the pivotal question. What is the proper age for a gay man? I see constant signs of guys who only found each other in their thirties. Do I really have to wait that long? And my biggest worry...will I ever find the LTR that lasts a lifetime? So often I see guys who have been together for 6, 7, 8 years breaking up. 8 years! That just seems like such a huge investment to end it. And how can it take 8 years for you to realize they aren't the one? I can only speculate since I cant even make it to 2 months. So should I be worried? Is 25 old to be this inexperienced? Am I too picky? Should I approach this like a career and just date someone knowing they won't be the one I stay with forever, but just so I have the experience and when potential suitors ask me in the future how long my longest relationship has been, there won't be an uncomfortable silence? I am at a loss. Losing an entire generation of gay men to AIDS in the 80s has left those of us in my age range without guidance. What is our norm? When should I begin to worry? Does anyone really know or are we all just still figuring it out?

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Changes

It's amazing the difference a few days make. Only four days ago I was in such pain not only because someone I cared for was ill, but because he needed comforting from someone else. (see post below) While he still is ill, the greater pain he is feeling right now is betrayal and hurt. His ex, the one he needed the comforting and support from has told him that he doesn't love him and is not going to support him at all through this illness. This was a serious blow to him since he loves his ex very deeply. He has been walking around rather numb and hurt the past few days.
But my pain has been changed. Last night he told me that knowing how much I cared for him made the fact that his ex doesn't care for him hurt even more. Because of that he has decided that while he is healing and getting over his ex, I cannot call or text him. If I see him out I can say hi, but that is it. I haven't figured out yet if this is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand it can be good because I wont be able to constantly worry about him, and I wont be pained by seeing him in pain. But then of course someone I care very deeply about has just told me not to talk to them. That alone causes a lot of pain and hurts me. I think the uncertainty makes it worse too. I asked him if this was a permanent thing, if he was telling me goodbye, and he said no. That this is just while he is trying to get over his ex and while he is dealing with the pain from the breakup. The problem is that that could takes months. And we are both moving in august. My fear is that he won't be at a place where he has decided we can talk again until it is too late. If he moves to LA and I to Chicago without us having hung out regularly by then, then its over. You can't really establish anything but an internet relationship from that far away. So the not knowing if I will hear from him in a week, or if it will be never adds to the stress. The bright side I guess is that I will focus more on my Bar prep stuff and hopefully catch up, but that is hardly good enough to outweigh the bad. Though the blessing I mentioned is that I won't be able to worry about him...I want to worry about him. I want to help him heal. But it has been taken out of my hands. I must stand by and...well not even watch. I must stand by and be oblivious.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Sickness and in Health

Note to readers: I cant spell, so its pretty useless correcting my spelling mistakes.
I now find myself faced with what is perhaps the most difficult emotional situation I have ever had to deal with. Before yesterday I had only really broke down crying once in my life. Now I feel like it is going to happen about every half hour or so. It almost happened twice yesterday while I was at the gym working out. My newfound grief comes because someone I care about very much found out yesterday that he is very ill. (Details of the illness were edited because I realized that is private info that is not for me to share.) He began treatment today, and may have to begin more strenuous treatment soon. This morning it was something in an IV, and it has made him very sick. Reminds me of that age old saying about the cure being worse than the disease.
My grief is two fold. First, this man, age 22, is someone I care very deeply for. Though we have never dated, from my side at least there is love. To find out that someone you love, who is so young and smart and such a bright presence in the world is suffering from such a critical disease is heart breaking. Add on top of that how bad the treatment makes him feel, and I feel like I am worrying about him 24/7. I am sure I have already annoyed him with all my offers to help. I don't think I have ever felt such a blend of worry and sorrow and grief and even a little despair all at once. Words in this blog cannot adequately convey how I feel.
Which brings me to the second, and if possible, even more difficult part of my grief. All I want is to help him. Do what I can to make him feel better, support him, entertain him, hug him. But I can't give him that. Not because I don't want to. Like I said, I want to more than anything. And he needs these things. But not from me. He is in love with someone else. A guy he dated for about 11 months before they recently broke up. Though they had a very rocky relationship, my friend loves his ex. And as much as I want to be the one to help him and support him, he needs it from his ex. He needs it to come from the one he loves. When they talked yesterday, however, his ex didn't take the news well. I wasn't told details, but as much as my friend needs him, I don't think his ex has any plans to be there.
Today we were supposed to meet for lunch. He was running some errands and was going to come meet me. While at the pharmacy, however, he became very sick from the treatment he received this morning. I wanted so much to come to him, to comfort him. Give him some Gatorade and listerine, and all those things you do when someone is sick. We were texting at the time, and when he told me he was sick I told him to tell me where he was so I could come get him. But he didn't. He called his ex. The next message I received was that his ex had come and picked him up. And so this is the wrinkle. I feel grief because of his situation, but I am also feeling it because as much as I want to help him, he wants it from someone else. This isn't jealousy. While it sounds like it reading this, I know the feeling of jealousy, and this isn't it. This is something unique. A feeling of helplessness and sorrow. Something I hope you never have to feel. I am happy that his ex actually did something for him, but at the same time it pains me because I feel like there is nothing I can do. I just have to stand by and watch as he suffers. Maybe I have some caregiver needs that I never before realized. I feel like I need to provide support for him as much as he needs it. And it is tearing me up that I can't give it. I am watching Angels in America now because it is so on point. I am hoping for some guidance from it.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Lonely

Well worry not, this post will be quite different from the last one. Quite. But for an update, that guy did finally break up with his boyfriend. He is going through a hard time because of it, but it was necessary. But I am beginning to wonder if he is indeed as great a person as I once thought. I had thought him both hot and nice and cute and outgoing, but lately I have begun to wonder if he isn't rather flakey and inconsiderate of others. But I have washed my hands of the whole situation so no more on that. Now on to the real topic of the day.
There is a scene at the end of the movie Contact where Jodie Foster is testifying before Congress about the experience she has just had. She cannot prove what happened, but she knows that it did. That it was real. In describing the experience she says it was a vision of the universe that says we are not, that none of us is alone. There is more to the statement, but that particular part always resonates with me. I am not ashamed to say that I pretty much always cry at that movie. That's why I bought it. Any movie that can make me cry belongs in my collection. Another movie that can do that is Meet Joe Black. I love that movie for various reasons, but there is a character, a Jamiacan woman, who asks death why he came to earth. His answer is that he was lonely. She responds by saying, roughly "Don't fool yourself mister. We mostly lonely here too. If we are lucky, we have lots of pictures to take with us when we go." Both of these scenes have one major theme in common. The lonliness of humankind. Which made me wonder, are we all lonely?
No doubt we have all felt lonely before. But there is a superficial level of lonliness, where you are alone and are bored. This can easily be solved often by picking up the phone and calling a friend or family member. But is there is a deeper lonliness? I think there is. I say this because I feel it. Something that is more than just not having anyone sitting next to you talking to you. But something at a far deeper level. A lonliness that results from not having anyone know every shred of your thoughts and being and existence. We cannot read each others minds or see through each other's eyes. And so we are each an individual creature, capable of understanding what people feel, but only because we too feel it. We cannot actually feel it in the manner they do, or truly understand.
Love is the closest thing we have to two people being one. I will admit that my own lonliness may result from not having a significant other who I can share everything with, and who I trust completely. I am actually not a very trusting person when it comes to relationships, so that is a challenge for someone. But I wonder if even love has the ability to fully cure true lonliness. There will always be things we don't know about each other, even after spending decades together. This is unfortunately a question that I do not have the ability to answer. I believe there is a deeper lonliness. One that results from not being able to bare your soul completely. Is love the cure? Or something to make the symptoms less until that ultimate cure, death. I take some solace in that scene in Meet Joe Black. Because when she says her line, I realize that I am not the only one who feels lonely in this world. There is some solace in the idea that you are not the only one. That it is not because you lack the social skills (read: I am shy) to make friends or because people don't like you. It is because all of us are this way. But that is just a movie. I wonder if there are real live people out there willing to admit they are lonely outside of a therapists office. Well I just did. Who will join me?

Friday, June 01, 2007

Superficial

So it has been a long time since I have posted, but I am sure you are used to that. My topic today is somewhat....unpopular. And when I say that I mean this is one of those things that society says you should NEVER say out loud, because to do so makes you a bad person. Well actually society says to even think it makes you a bad person, but I am convinced that a lot of people do think it, but they are afraid to say it out loud. And before you go off thinking too scary of things, I am not talking about paedophilia or incest or anything like that that harms people. This is something more simple...superficiality. In this instance, thinking that looks, both face and body composition, matter. I will put a warning right here up front: If you are my friend, you might not want to read this, because you might not like me anymore afterwards. You have been warned.
Now I have long admitted that looks matter to me when it comes to dating and sexual relations. They matter to everyone really. I mean how can you have sexual relations with someone you don't find attractive. But today's post goes beyond that. Or, well maybe it doesn't. Perhaps that is exactly what it is about.
Let me start with an example. I have a friend here in Iowa City. He has dated a guy for almost a year now. It has been a very rocky relationship full of his boyfriend treating him like crap, cheating on him, and suffering from alcoholism. But I am going to set aside those obvious reasons for why he should dump him, and go to the superficial one. This friend of mine is very attractive. He is about 6', pretty blue eyes, in great shape, muscular, arms any guy would envy, nice tan, etc. Anyone, both gay guy or straight girl would go out with him, and indeed he gets hit on all the time. Although I am not sure he realizes thats what people are doing. His boyfriend, however, though of the same age, lacks his physcial characteristics. He is tan, but it is one of those plastic looking shades from a booth or spray on, he is shorter, he has bad highlights, and worst to me, he weighs like 100 pounds. Very, very skinny guy. What it is called...a twink. I am sure I have discussed twinks before. I have a passionate dislike of them as a group normally. And no change with this one. He is super effeminate and has lots of attitude. Well since they have been together for so long, there are plenty of photos of them out at bars and such. And when I see them...I think there is something wrong in the world. Like the fates were asleep on the job, or Cupid fucked up and hit the wrong person with his arrow. Surely two such people should never be together. I tried for a long time to wrap my head around why my friend ever agreed to go out with the guy in the first place. (He has since admitted to me that he doesn't find his bf attractive either, and that the guy isn't his type at all)
And to make matters even more superficial (that is the topic of the day afterall), I consider the guy beneath my friend. I feel he could do so much better and has either settled or lowered himself to go out with this guy. He actually loses a little bit of respect in my eyes for going out with him. Its like seeing someone with great potential, and then squandering it. He has been given, and he has worked for too, this gift that most people will never have, and he is wasting it. This isn't the only time I have had this reaction. I remember being at Circuit in Chicago and seeing this absolutely beautiful shirtless guy (its a gay dance club, so of course he was shirtless), with a fantastic body and flawless skin I can only dream about, and then I saw his boyfriend. And I just wanted to cry. It was this little 18 year old twink. Practically a child. So these examples are to say that to me the perfect world is one where people date, for lack of a better term (because I am not a fan of this one), within their league. Or at least close to it. Up or down 1 or 2, alright, that works. But someone at the top with someone...well not even really in the middle? No sir! That's just a travesty.
Now before you think me absolutely the worst person ever, I should say at least that these judgments extend only to the dating/sex realm. None of this stuff matters when deciding who your friends are, or who to hire for a job, or things like that. In those areas who really cares what folks look like? Nor am I saying that two pretty people should date just because they are pretty. Looks are not the only thing to be considered. Personality and intelligence are equally important. I am just saying looks are too. So in conclusion I have realized that I am superficial...and I don't care! Hmm, does that make me a bad person society?