The Reconciliation Of Reality and The Hell That Is Hope
You’ll probably call me cynical. “It’s finally happened,” you’ll say, “he’s become jaded.”
And I’ll respond, as most cynics do, by claiming, that I have not become cynical.
I have become a realist.
There’s been a battle raging in my head for quite sometime now. A cognitive dissonance that only now is starting to quiet. And that’s because one side is losing out: the side I had put my money on. I’ve finally realized that forever isn’t real. And even as I write this, part of me still can’t fully commit to that. Realization is one thing, but to say without question that it’s an undeniable truth is another. I guess that’s why I’m agnostic. As much I want to believe that something doesn’t exist, there’s still a large part of me that wants to be proven wrong. Unlike my agnosticism towards God, though, the smite of not believing that a couple can exists happily together throughout their lives, won’t send me to eternal damnation. In fact, quite the opposite, because the payoff of being proven wrong in this case is the best possible outcome. If I’m wrong, I get what I’ve always wanted.
Text is natural, text is cool, not everybody does it, but everybody should.
Okay that was lame, but don’t let it deter you from what I’m about to say:
Text. People. Back.
It’s so effing simple. And yet, all I hear from friends, and what I often say as well, “why won’t he text back?” It’s frustrating and frequent and it needs to stop. I understand that there are necessary games that must be played (and yes, I know “but I don’t want to play games” - well tough titties my friend, they’re unfortunately mandatory due in part to our faulty programming of being turned off by availability and interest). But here’s the thing, anything more than 20-30 minutes after the first text is unacceptable, and anything more than a day is a definitive “he’s just not that into you.” Of course if the person is genuinely busy that’s a different story, but how often is that true?
And then there’s the non-response which is the cowards way of saying, “I’m sorry, I just don’t see this working out” or “I’m not interested”. And yet the difference in those two courses of action are mind blowing. Where as the actual text can bring answers, clarity and closure, the non-response leaves you wishing and hoping for an eventual correspondence. Not only that, but silence leads to thinking, which leads to wondering what went wrong. It’s a dangerous path, and one that is so simply rectified.
So there you have it, just text back, even it’s not what they want to hear, even if it’s not easy to do.
It could be worse, 10 years ago you’d have to do this kind of thing over the phone.
Love Is What Happens When You’re Busy Making Other Plans
You can work hard at your job.
You can work hard at the gym.
You can work hard at learning a new language.
You can’t work hard at finding love.
I’ve tried. It’s the one thing in the world that you have no control over. In fact, I don’t even think you can be pro-active about it. You can be active or inactive, but pro-active suggests that you have some sort of power of when and where you’ll meet someone. And the truth is, the universe will hand them over when they’re good and ready. And boy oh boy is that frustrating.
I’m going through a spell where I really want to be in the business of dating. So I signed up for an online dating site to supplement real world interaction. I’ll save my thoughts on online dating for another post because there are many (mainly I think it breeds passive aggressive behaviors). I’m already ready to shut it down, but I’m trying to be open minded this go round. And I’m trying to get myself out there, to put myself in positions to meet people out and about. I’ve put feelers out to friends to keep an eye out for potential love interests for me as well. I look good, I feel good, by all accounts I should be firing on all cylinders.
And so here I am, wanting to work hard at meeting someone, listening to Michael Bublé’s “Just Haven’t Met You Yet” on continuous rotation, focusing sharply on the line “I guess it’s half timing, and the other half’s luck,” and trying to not want to want someone. Cause that’s when it happens. When I’m busy or don’t have time, or not thinking about it, that’s when I tend to meet guys. The problem is, I can’t not want to want someone unless I’m distracted with something else. But that something else has be organic, otherwise I know it’s all just a ruse.
So I ask you universe, make me busy or bring him on, cause this Picasso Blue Period is just not working for me.
When I thought about writing this blog, I worried that I would come off as that crazy guy, or that you would think I’m just a bitter, jaded gay. I feel like I should say now, before things really get underway that I am not bitter. Frustrated, yes. Tired, you betcha. But I’m not bitter about dating. I’m actually quite optimistic. Of course I lose hope from time to time, but the great thing is that hope always returns. I would say right now, I’m hopeful but this is definitely a Picasso blue period for me. I mean it’s fall, what would you expect? Summer is when I do best, when the opportunities are best to meet people. And while I met a lot of guys this summer, I feel like they’re all in the past and none of them are really carrying over to fall. Which is fine. What I learned last year is that winter time can be just as fruitful if you’re open to it.
The reason I’m saying this now is because as objective as I want to be with this blog, my heart will inevitably bleed into each posting. Which I guess is a good thing. And as time goes on I’ll get more personal and recount stories of lovers past. I will in some instances be ‘that guy’ or more accurately ‘that crazy guy’, but I’m very self aware of this and so I wonder if that really makes me crazy or just like everybody else.
The point is, things are about to get real raw here and I just want to brace everyone before we get down to it. The focus of this blog will remain the same, but my approach, as I always imagined it would, will shift from ‘this is how it is’ to the ‘you feel me?’ level.
It’s no secret I like older guys. In fact, it’s kind of my thing.
At 25, I would say the median age of the guys I’ve dated hovers somewhere around the 33-35 mark. It might even skew a little higher than that. It’s definitely lowered in recent years, and as I get older so do the men in my age bracket, which is to say that eventually it will all even out.
I have no problem with someone not wanting to date me because ‘I’m not their type’, or because they ‘think I’m too goofy,’ or ‘don’t like the way I eat burritos’. That’s all fine and well. But don’t, under any circumstance tell me you don’t want to date me because I’m 25. And more so, don’t write me off for being 25 before you’ve even given me a chance. Yes, I was in pre-school when you lost your butt sex cherry to the Cure’s ‘Love Song’, but I have a working penis now, complete with a brain that can process a hell of lot more than you give me credit for. Sure there are things you’ll have to school me on, but the great thing about youth is that we’re very open and susceptible to new ideas. Heck, we even welcome them. I just think that connections aren’t built on whether or not I saw Madonna’s first VMA appearance or whether you’ve watched every single episode of Saved by the Bell three times over. They go deeper than that.
The gays have one giant shared experience between them: the joys and pains of coming out. Common ground is inherent in our community which is why a 10 year age gap is significantly lessened by our gay initiation.
If you’re not into younger guys – that’s a different story. But if there’s mutual attraction, it’s silly to cut it short by writing someone off for the age factor. What’s more, and this is the part that kills me, don’t call someone out on being younger, and then act 10 years younger than I am. More often than not, these guys pull the age card and then use the same relationship tactics as a tween girl. Again with the non-response when they’re done with you. This won’t be the last time you hear me say: be straight forward, end things properly and don’t trust your silence to get your relationship ending message across.
More often that not, we write people off based on demographics. And that’s a big all inclusive ‘we’ - I’m as guilty as the next. In the age of online profiles, it’s easy to categorize people based on stats. So very easy. In fact, as humans it makes life easier to digest when we can categorize things – why do you think stereotyping is so prevalent across cultures? But what I would ask is that we look past the stats, and see what’s there offline. Again, I’m not saying date someone who’s not your type, or give everyone a try – you should know what you like and don’t like. It’s just that if attraction and sparkage are both percolating, do not cut it short based on the information you could have found on a census report.
I’m all about the vibage people, and if it’s there you know it. Don’t let a stat prevent a possibly fruitful relationship from blossoming.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the gay community lately. More specifically how the gay community interacts with one another when it comes to dating and respect. We’re not very good at it, the respect part. We’re very passive aggressive in our approach and most of us have been hypocritically burned by the same treatment we’ve bestowed upon others. This is what I’ve come to call dating karma.
It’s simple really: treat others as you want to be treated and it’ll come back to you. Well in an ideal world it should.
None of this is new. In fact, I’m sure most of this applies to dating across sexualities and genders. It’s just that, within the gay community, things are cyclical, which is why with a heightened sense of awareness, me thinks we can break the cycle and make the dating pool a better place for all of us. Which is why I say, gay it forward guys. Don’t just stop calling someone. It’s in that non-response that millions of neuroses are born. Call them, email them, text them and tell them, not in radio silence, that you don’t want to see them anymore. That kind of respect stays with someone and it seems likely that they would then take that and apply it down the road when the situation is flipped.
My specific experiences, most of which have taken place in New York, are frequent and often times I blame it on the city. But I have a sneaking suspicion this kind of behavior is not limited to New York centricity. I hear the same kinds of things from friend upon friend of friend about how shitty guys can be. The truth is, we’re bred this way. Gays are bred to be passive aggressive and it’s not our fault. Just based on our society, we’re forced to suss out who’s gay and who’s not and in doing so we find ourselves becoming little spies who have to scrutinize clues and occasionally work some trickery to get the answers we need. It’s not like you’re able to just look at an attractive guy and do your thing. There are channels that one must go through first. It’s not easy, and we’ve been relinquished to the shadows for most of our lives. And it’s only through bars that we are actually allowed to function like our hetero counterparts and see what we want and seize upon it.
It’s my hopes that through this blog and these postings that somehow, someway, things get better. There are so many nuances to the gay world and navigating them all is terribly exhausting. It’s really just a matter of wading through the shiz and finding out what works for you. Of course there’s not always an outlet for that, but we can work that out.
