Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Men, Relationships, the Past and the Present

Joe

It was the mid eighties and I was part of the geeky boy crowd at my high school. Joe was a slightly less geeky white kid who was in many of my classes. He wore glass, had curly hair and he was straight. I had a such a huge crush on him. Nothing ever happened between us, although I remember spending a lot of time wishing that something could. He was a nice guy and I'm not sure if he ever realized what my true feelings for him were.

Tony

I let Tony seduce me our senior year of high school. We were two young, horny, Mexican teenage boys and we steamed up the windows of his dad's truck several times that year. We could have, should have been boyfriends, but it never happened. The truth is that I was far too immature for a real relationship. At seventeen, I was still in the middle of coming out to myself. It was a confusing time in my life and I wasn't ready for a boyfriend. Actually, I probably wasn't ready for a physical relationship either, but what teenage boy can say no when an attractive guy is kissing you while his hands roam your body?

We went to different colleges and while the physical aspect of our relationship eventually ended, we stayed friends. Over the years we have drifted apart and back together again and even now I still care for him.

Matt

I was at U.C.Irvine and had been helping out with the campus GLBT student group for a few months when I first meet Matt. He was handsome. He was English. He was eighteen and I was kind of smitten with him. At the time, there were two guys interested in me and I chose the handsome boy. The older more experienced me would have realized that George would have been a better choice than Matt, but at the time I was amazed that this really beautiful guy was actually interested in me.

Matt and I were only together as a couple for a month. It was nice and it was was it was. I gained some needed self confidence from the relationship, though maybe not in the best way possible. I regret that I hurt George's feelings and my only excuse is that I was young and stupid.

Lars

Lars was a body building, Biology graduate student and at twenty-six, he was an older man as well. He had a wonderfully strong body, muscles everywhere. Unfortunately, he didn't kiss that well, which was sad because I love kissing. It didn't matter to much though, because he did everything else very well.

We were together for only a month, but we stayed friends afterwards. I regret that we lost track of other after I graduated and left Orange County. I expect that he is somewhere in Northern California now with a house and a lover of several years. I hope that he is happy.

JonR

Another graduate student. I was twenty and at twenty-eight JonR had been managing not to graduate by studiously avoiding his advisor. We "liked" each for months and it took us forever to even talk to each other about it. By the time we started dating all our mutual friends were thinking that it was about freaking time.

He was thin, lanky and had long blondish hair which he would drag across my chest when we made love. As far as I was concerned he was amazingly sexy and a great lover. A lot of other guys thought so to.

We were nonmonogamous, which was fun and it wasn't. The problem was that even after talking about it, we had different ideas of what the ground rules were. For me nonmonogamy only meant that occasional recreational sex outside of the relationship was ok. I didn't seek out out other guys, but I also didn't say no the two times that someone else was interested in me.

For JonR nonmonogamy meant that multiple relationships were ok. I was supposed to be satisfied with the fact that I was his primary relationship and the other guys that drifted in and out of his life were only secondary relationships. I accepted this, even if I wasn't always overly thrilled by it.

We were together for a year and the relationship ended when one of his "secondary" boyfriends gave JonR an ultimatum, him or me. Needless to say I was not pleased by the choice, heck, the truth is that I was devastated.

I had put a lot of my identity and feelings of self worth into the idea of us being couple. If there was no us, who was I? Other than the guy not worth loving that is. I felt crushed and broken and it took me a long time "rebuild" who I was.

I hated JonR for a while afterwards. It amazed me that I was capable of actually hating someone. It was even more amazing that I felt this way for someone I once loved. Eventually the intensity of my feelings for him died down to the point of not really feeling much of anything for him anymore. Not feeling anything for someone I once loved intensely is also an odd experince.

Roger

At thirty-two, he was a "real" older man (Of course, I'm now older than Rog was back then~smirk~). He wasn't a student and had a real life, which to the student Nico, made him very interesting. We only went on one "sort of date" and that was the night I learned how to two step backwards, a skill I lost ages ago.

Roger wasn't interested in me romantically and was a perfect gentleman the entire evening. He didn't think of himself as attractive and he thought I was a little odd for thinking he was. Thinking back on it, he was also probably flustered by having such a young man pursuing him. Rog let me down gently at the end of the night. A pursuit and one date doesn't make a "relationship," but I'm still including him in this list because I liked him and he was kind to me.

BadMat

BadMat was not older than me and he was not a grad student. I had a small crush on him, but he wasn't interesred in me romantically. We were never anything more than friends who flirted with each other. Unfortunately I'm not sure that the friend label is accurate.

About three years into the "friendship," I found out that almost everything he told me was a lie. I might have been able to deal with that, except that it turned out that he was trying to manipulate me with those lies. That was when I realized it was more than a simple matter of not being able to believe him, I couldn't trust him either.

I don't know why he did it. I don't know if it just for fun or if he couldn't help it. I don't think that he did it out of malice. I would like to believe that it was just an elaborate game for him. A hurtful one, but still only a game.

It might be odd to be thankful that someone didn't find you sexually attractive, but I am glad that badMat had no interest in me. I was still messed up mentally after the break up with JonR and I have no doubt that I would jumped at the chance of entering into a relationship with badMat. Having a friend get his kicks from playing mind games with you is one thing, having your boyfriend do that is something else entirely and I'm not sure what that would have done to me.

John

Yet another Graduate student. I do have thing for older men I guess, although since he is only only a year older than I am, the older man label doesn't really apply. John and I knew each for most of my last year in college and I had no idea that he was interested in me. Apparently I was the only person on campus who didn't know.

I was and I still am clueless when it comes to blatantly obvious things. John like to tell a story which involves how he asked me out to see a movie with a group of friends and I told him that I couldn't because I was trying to get a date for that night (with Roger actually). ~smirk~

The night before I graduated a group of my friends went out dancing to celebrate. At one point, John and I ended up standing next to each other at a railing near the bar area of the club. We were talking, when it suddenly occurred to me that John was nice. Very nice. He was also really cute. Why hadn't I noticed that before?

A month later we moved in together.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, heck I'm not sure why I write any of the stuff I post here, but It's easy to figure out why I have been thinking about the past and how John and I got together. Our eleventh anniversary is this month. It feels as if almost no time at all has passed.

John is sweet, funny, smart, earnest and kind. He is also aggravating and as stubborn as a mule. I consider myself lucky that such a wonderful man loves me and he has told me many times that he considers himself lucky that I love him as well.

Things always haven't been happy and easy and there have been plenty of fights, battles and aggravation over the years, but in the end we always end up turning back towards each other. We know that the other one will always be there when we need him.

I believe that John and I are together not only because we love each other, but because we also care for, look out for, annoy, like, protect, are attracted to, are silly with, fight with, joke with, adore and trust each other. Maybe these are strange things to build a relationship on, maybe not. All I know for sure is that I'm looking forward to the next eleven years.

More later,

nico

Uh, confession time: In the middle of writing this, I started thinking of what I could get John for an anniversary gift, when I realized that I don't quite remember which day in June is our anniversary. Yes I'm bad. So um, John if you read this entry, just ignore this final bit, or at least give me a hint about the date ;-)

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