R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 23

He May Be 5’2, But He’s The Tallest Guy in The Room

He May Be 5’2,  But He’s The Tallest Guy in The Room

He’s the guy if you frequent our Lauderdale leather bar, the Ramrod, you don’t notice at first. Short, cute and young with a compact lightly furry body, curly red hair and grizzly beard, it’s not until you spy his cane and limp which wisey forces him to stay in the shadows or hang loose at the small leather store by the entrance and watch the seemingly endless sea of men pass by that you realize he’s different from the rest.

And you’d be right. For at 5,’2, Cody in my mind is the tallest guy in the place.

We first made contact on – where else – but one of the hookup sites. I almost never even consider reaching out to a twenty something – sad to say l have found so many of them to be airheads with the social skills of an unflushed toilet. But l was intrigued by his mention in his profile that he had a disability and his almost defiant attitude that if a prospective bedmate had a problem with that he could, well, go fuck himself. In chatting with him online l found out his disability was cerebral palsy which l confess l knew little about.

Now unlike many guys who get turned off by physical deformity, l had known it since a child when l helped my grandfather who had lost his right arm to the elbow in a factory accident strap on his black patent leather prosthesis that was all for looks when he dressed for Sunday church. In my youth l had dated a double amputee who lost both his legs in Vietnam, and had a wheelchair bound buddy l had met while summering at my Pennsylvania country home who still calls me his private leatherman. But l had never known or even met a guy with CP in my life. Yes, l gotta be honest. l was curious.

I expected the short young guy with the cane and the limp who looked even younger than his twenty three years that l picked up for dinner a week later to start spouting off about the latest Rihanna concert as soon as he got into my car. Instead l was confronted with an incredibly mature, and yes, handsome young man who l realized later was also incredibly street smart, and who like me, fifty years his elder, found most of his peers lame brained. A fellow former Jersey boy, we hit it off immediately. It sounds strange but It was almost like l had known him all my life.

His CP the result of a fucked up childbirth, Cody was pimped out as a  kid by his crack addicted mother to her dealers in exchange for drugs, and when he didn’t always cooperate he was beaten, crazy as it sounds something that made him even stronger and more determined to rise above it all. And unlike many victims of CP who have immense developmental challenges, Cody was born a genius with an IQ exceeding 130 and who, still in his teens, orchestrated his own adoption by foster parents to escape his private hell. A man of his time, he quickly gravitated to lT, graduated high school when most kids still needed to take their shoes off to count, and completed his doctorate – yes, doctorate folks –  by age twenty. This incredibly cute kid with the cane and twisted limbs. He got his first job by disassembling and reassembling an IT corp’s computers – without a manual. The company president was so flabbergasted when he heard the news he flew in from Japan just to witness this boy wonder. Today Cody works in the world he loves and also handles administrative work for a local healthcare agency.

Unfortunately his personal life continued to be a train wreck. His legal husband, a heroin addict who he supported, committed suicide by intentionally overdosing. Cody loved the guy so much and was so distraught that he nearly grabbed a syringe when he found him dead to do himself in. But l think he realized he had been through too much shit to throw it all away now.

His wild side brought him to Lauderdale where as a pup in the local leather scene he entered a polymorous relationship with a handsome older Sir and the guy’s partner. But Cody also had that independent streak in him and while he continues to love Sir to this day, he also knew he needed to be on his own. Today he shares a small apartment with a buddy, rebuilding his once stellar credit that had been obliterated by his husband’s untimely demise, and plans to buy a home soon.

Like many victims of CP, Cody’s condition has led to a multitude of other health issues, including several surgeries. And as if life hadn’t thrown enough shit at him, this sweet young man was in a terrible car crash that left his hip shattered. But where many lesser folk would have given up and demanded a pity party before they jumped off a bridge, Cody not only persevered but rose above it all, a quality – besides his adorably boyish looks, piercing black eyes, grizzly beard that l like to rub against my chest, a handsome man’s penis that feels so good in my mouth and his lightly furry body, beautiful despite or may be because of his deformity – that makes him incredibly sexy.

Now while my childhood was like a Disney movie, l still feel an infinity to Cody, as a fellow short guy, academic nerd and social outlier who learned pretty quick you needed to be assertive to succeed in a tall man’s world.

And while l’m old enough to be his granddad, l view Cody as my super smart kid brother who l am protective of when we’re out together against the morons who are oblivious to his problem, but who l am also learning so much from at the same time.

The other night when he was over my place, he spent as much time programming my new notebook as we spent in bed, and the next day when we visited the local Apple store, crowded with yuppies and guppies, to get the cracked screen on his iphone fixed, I wanted to grab him, this short young kid with a cane but the determination of Goliath, and hold him close to me. As much out of admiration as out of lust.

Understand now why for me Cody is the tallest guy in the room?

You Can’t Have It Both Ways

You Can’t Have It Both Ways

A while back, l penned a piece entitled “Do Transgenders Belong in Our Sandbox?,” in which l voiced my view that many transgenders go on to lead heterosexual lives and therefore do not continue to face the stigma and discrimination we who are homosexual most or all of our lives experience, even though if you were born gay you couldn’t pick a better time in history to do it.  Consequently they should not be grouped with us lifers, i.e., gay men and women and practicing bisexuals.

(For the full blog check out http://wp.me/pXwOp-1xq)

Well, a vindication, sort of, of my viewpoint has come from none other than the transgender who created that community’s flag. When Wilton Manors here in South Florida, considered the unofficial gay capital and largest gay party town in the country today, decided to permanently fly the Rainbow flag as a symbol of its stature in the gay mindset, the transgender flag creator, Monica Helms argued that the transgender flag be flown as well since in Helms’ own words in a letter sent to Wilton Manors City Hall:

“Many trans people identify as straight and wish not to be included under the Rainbow flag because of being straight.”

Okay, exactly my sentiments folks but now is where it gets strange: she asked that the trans flag be flown on three annual transgender remembrance days to “show that the city is aware of the large diversity of the trans community and supports them.”

Let me get this straight: you claim most trans people identify more with the straight world than ours, yet you want us to somehow still recognize you.

Why?

If you don’t connect with us which is what l said in my original piece, why would you want to be in our sandbox now? If that’s the case, Wilton Manors should recognize every asexual citizen in its borders, or wives who like to fuck their husbands with a strapped on dildo on Thursday nights …

If you don’t identify with us Rainbow people, then in my mind you’re just another member of mainstream society and aren’t deserving of any special recognition at all.

You can’t have it both ways.

“Online Solicitations Require No Reply.”

“Online Solicitations Require No Reply.”

This was the headline of a recent advice column from Miss Manners, today’s Etiquette Guru.

A guy who used online dating sites was complaining that he often never received a response from women to whom he had sent a “personalized letter … five to eight sentences long … pointing out some of our common interests … and suggesting we meet for coffee and conversation.”

He felt their ignoring his little missiles was rude and uncouth. He continued:

“Even if there is no interest on their part, what is so difficult in a response, something like, ‘Thank you for your interest. While l enjoyed reading your profile, l do not see us as a couple. Best of luck in your search.’

Miss Manners’ assessment of the guy’s dilemma went on for six paragraphs (maybe she’s paid by the word like Charles Dickens was. His profuse prose had its reasons, all financial). She ended with:

“Although your tactful wording could serve as a model for rejecting an acquaintance, there is really no charming way, other than silence, to express, ‘l can’t imagine that it would be worth my while to meet you.’

How would l have answered the guy?

What fucken planet did you land from?

I akin hits on the web to cold sales calls, which means if l ain’t interested in your product – which in this case is you – l don’t have to do anything, especially if telling you l’m not interested is going to eat away at my data usage.

Hell, if l hit up a guy l dig and whose profile sounds like we should be compatible once, maybe twice if l just came home from the bar and l’m drunk, and he doesn’t respond, l MOVE ON. I don’t expect shit if he ain’t interested. Like l say, if they don’t want you, they don’t want you.

Yet l get guys who l’m not interested in who have been hitting me up off and on FOR YEARS. If l didn’t respond to your fifth fucken “You’re hot!“ or your tenth, “Breed me,” do you really think haranguing me will work??

Or may be you’re a MORON ( which by the way was a psychiatric clinical term) and don’t get it.

Some of you may consider me tight assed and egocentric to not at least graciously thank a guy who gives a “You’re hot!” compliment but l find if l do, the guy often interprets this as an entree for more extended conservation. Exactly what l don’t want. Sorry guys, l’m on these pick-up sites to get picked up, not chat.

The worse are those guys who you have to insult by clearly stating, “l”m not interested. I’m into fur and you’re not furry. Sorry.” (l don’t have to give a reason why but l do so that the guy sees there’s a very concrete black and white reason why we wouldn’t click) who two weeks later hits me up again with another “Be my baby daddy.”

If there was ever a reason for a mercy killing, this is it.

 

The Third Sex Redefined: Today’s Bi-Married Man, Part II

The Third Sex Redefined: Today’s Bi-Married Man, Part II

So why does a guy who knows damn well a dick is the only kind of anatomical equipment that’s really gonna excite him get involved with a woman, and – yikes! –   marry her?

“I didn’t know I was gay.” Maybe the guy doesn’t recognize his true sexuality deep down inside, though today with the web and mainstream media, I can’t believe anyone could be that naïve or sheltered.  Or is he trying to fool himself and thinks if he just gets married, those strange urges will pass? Sure, there may be men out there who very admirably suppress their sexual desires and sublimate them into husbandhood, fatherhood and profession. And if these same men can live their entire lives that way with perhaps a M4M tryst now and again, who are they hurting?

“I’ll end up in hell.” or “I’m just supposed to get married.” A lot of this is a generational, ethnic phenomenon. Thirty or forty years ago, guys, particularly Catholic or Jewish or Muslim and/or from Eastern European or Middle Eastern ethnicities were often in the marriage vise when they turned 22. Then there are those who needed to carry on the family name or fortune. Have things changed all that much in our so-called enlightened society to make it easier for the gay blades among these ranks today to slip out of the marriage noose? I don’t know. But is it being more of man not to start the ruse in the first place? Move out of town and get out from under it all.

“The right guy never came along – until now.” Maybe that contact with another guy at a point in life when we reach that fork in the road happens after that walk down the aisle.

“My wife doesn’t want sex anymore and treats me like shit.” Some bi-guys, usually the over forty group, will tell me that the reason they turned to men for sex is because their wives don’t appreciate them any more. Or they don’t want to, or can’t keep up with hubby’s attempts to hold on to his youth, whether it’s staying in shape or wearing the latest threads. Or the woman just plain doesn’t want to have sex. Enter another man who tells the guy he’s hot. O.K., but I still say the urge for the male species had to be there in the first place.

“Living straight is just easier.” Maybe it just comes down to the fact that straight life has a script, gay life is free fall, and some guys would rather follow a script, i.e., marry by 25, have your 2.1 kids by 30, etc.,  and worry about the consequences, if they ever come, later.

Like the average non-descript gay guy I often speak about, bi-married guys are not a group that ordinarily stand out like some radical drag on roller skates at the gay pride parade. They live their married, often suburban, sometimes rural lives like any other married men. Only, unlike us full time gay boys who frequent the bars and sex clubs on a regular basis, bi-marrieds often wait for the opportunity to present itself, at the gym, adult bookstore, or more and more online where faux personas are as common as dog shit on a city sidewalk., do their business, then go home to wifey and kids as if they had just had a haircut or a beer with the guys. Or they have a job that gets them out of town a lot and offers plenty of opportunities to screw around.

BTW, when it comes to the gym, I’m not talking just about those guys who live in the cities where the gyms are mixed or even tipped in favor of us gay boys. Hell, a bi-friend of mine with grown kids gets action all the time in the sauna at one of the named health clubs in the heart of New York’s Long Island suburbs. When I naively asked him how that could be, he smugly replied, “One of the guys just watches the door.”

And while gays like to live in their deceptively safe urban ghettos, bi-marrieds feel surprisingly more comfortable in the burbs or boonies where they can fade into the woodwork like other marrieds. This is even true if, post-divorce, they’re raising their kids on their own, or with a partner who some kids view as their second “Popi.” When a divorce occurs after decades of marriage, the now adult children, maybe because they’re from another generation, often have no hang-ups about Dad announcing he’s gay; other times, they desert him once that closet door has been flung open, poisoned by a vindictive wife/mother or society.

Bottom line, bi-marrieds are out there in numbers greater than most gays or straights would believe and, who knows, despite all the challenges, may be happier, too.

After all, who can really define happiness?

 

“The Third Sex” Redefined: Today’s Bi-Married Man

“The Third Sex” Redefined: Today’s Bi-Married Man

There was a movie produced in the pre-gay lib days of the nineteen thirties entitled “The Third Sex” which attempted to address what made us, homosexual men and women, “the third sex” tick. Well, I think it’s time to redefine “the third sex” as a distinct faction within our demographics, at least the gay male demos. It’s the bisexual male, in particular, the bisexual married man, who is married or was married, kids optional. Another time-worn term, “down low,” which used to refer only to African American bi-men, is also being more frequently applied to bi-married guys, white, black and all the other shades of the race or ethnic rainbow.

Now, being a purist gay all my homo career, I think I’ve screwed around, for the most part, with only other purist “men only” gays. But lately, for some unknown reason, I’ve encountered, spoken to, befriended, or bedded down with a growing number of bisexual men, married past or present.

(I’m not talking about the unshackled bi-male, members of today’s Pan Generation,  who flip flops between sexes til he begins collecting Social Security or starts ordering Viagra off the web. In my mind, these foot loose and fancy free bisexuals are just another variation of the immature Peter Pan/Tinker Bell American male. Nor am I addressing those good hearted, never-been-married gay guys who play foster dads or adopt the kids straight society doesn’t want.)

I’ve always thought that bisexuality was a crock and I still do. Not that a guy can’t fuck a man and a woman and not enjoy both. It’s just that we all gravitate to what we feel most comfortable with. So, I don’t care if you screw guys and gals. If your brain, as the experts say, the body’s biggest sex organ, is aroused by the male species, that’s what you’re gonna prefer in bed. Period.

That being said, there are a lot of guys out there, a lot more than we think or mainstream America would believe, who play both sides of the sexual fence. Half of me envies them for having seen it all (I confess: I’ve never fucked a woman, and wondered over the years what it would be like, along with having children). The other half of me despises those bi’s who suddenly walk away from a marriage and fuck-up some woman’s life (if she truly thought the guy was straight) or, worse, their kids, particularly if they’re minors.

Even if when these guys call it quits the kids are grown up and on their own, again, is it fair to leave wifey, often middle aged, out to dry? We all know it’s easier in this society for a homely, portly straight guy to get some action or even find love than an attractive 45+ year old lady (unless the divorce left her loaded – read cougar); that’s just America for you.

The fact remains they’re out there, out there in droves.  Some are actively married with grown kids and grandkids, others are divorced and disowned by their family or, because they had a loser of a wife, are raising or have raised their kids on their own or, in some cases, with a male partner.

But why, do you ask, would a guy who knows he’s gay get married in the first place? And have children yet?

Some possible scenarios Friday.

 

Signs Something’s Amiss in your “LTR” (And Things You Should Be Careful About If You’re The Guilty Party)

Signs Something’s Amiss in your “LTR” (And Things You Should Be Careful About If You’re The Guilty Party)

What are some of the signs?

He suddenly has a lot of overtime, but he’s always broke.
He’s on the pc or smartphone for hours, but whenever you step in the room, he’s always on the AOL home page or says he’s chatting with some old childhood  friend on Facebook.
He decides it’s time to buy his own pc or make he activates the lock feature on his phone.
He’s forever meeting up with straight college buddies when they’re in town. Only you thought he only graduated high school.
He’s visiting folks more and more out of state but he told you he was an orphan.
He’s either got late night meetings or business trips always on weekends, even though he works as a cashier at the local True Value.
He announces the all-gay gym he goes to has expanded its hours and is now open until 2 a.m., seven days a week, including Christmas.
He runs out for toilet paper at Walmart and is gone four hours.
He confiscates the cell phone bills before you can look at them.
He keeps gushing about the better camera on his new smartphone but never shows you the pics he shoots.
You open the pc and find twenty something Mapquest requests for local addresses in just the last month, none of which you recognize.
You find empty tab casings for Viagra in the trash, only you don’t use it and he’s a bottom.
Whenever you go out together, there’s always some guy mistaking him for someone else.
He’s on the pc/smartphone for hours.

 

 

So You’re Calling It Quits

So You’re Calling it Quits

You and/or he have really tried to make it work but you’re just not compatible, or whatever rules the two of you set down at the beginning about other guys and who’s washing the dishes keep getting broken. Or maybe you built the whole relationship on great sex and that great sex has gradually become as boring as repeats of his favorite sit-com. Or, worse, you’ve become his background noise or his yours. Yes, it’s time to Call It Quits. So what do you do to make the break as painless as possible?

Cardinal Rule Number One: Don’t wait too long.

Get out of a relationship before you’ve invested too much into it. And I don’t mean just emotionally. Once you’ve bought a fridge or a condo together, you’re married, and it takes a lot more to untangle the financial stuff than just collecting your Titan Studios DVD’s. And definitely call it a day before you do marry. Jesus, marriage is a legal contract, guys, not something to gloat to your friends about.

Cardinal Rule Number Two: Don’t let guilt get in the way.

You’re doing him a favor leaving him if he isn’t going to get from you, or you from him, what a relationship should offer two people. Whatever the hell that is.

Cardinal Rule Number Three: No scenes.

If there aren’t financial encumbrances, leave like a thief in the night. Better a note or e-mail than another protracted argument or teary session that goes nowhere.

Cardinal Rule Number Four: Be civil.

No turning up the heater on his fish tank, or keying his new Cooper, or threatening to circumcise him a second time. You’re two men. Take what’s yours, work out the rest, if you have to, get an attorney, and get out from under. And ditto with the lawyer if former lover boy pulls destructive behavior on you. Fist fights in the middle of Targets just aren’t smart. What, you wanna be 86’ed for life from Home Furnishings?

Cardinal Rule Number Five: Don’t put up with abuse.

If physical abuse or addiction on his part is in the picture, and you were too dense to see it before, or figured you could change him, get out before it’s too late. So go back and live with your mother in Omaha for awhile. That’s still better than ending up in traction or putting up all you have to bail him out of jail.

And if you both started the relationship as meth heads, coke heads, alkies or whatever, cool it before you both end up in the sewer.  Birds of a feather fly together and we all gravitate to guys who are enablers of our own worst habits.

Cardinal Rule Number Six: Move on.

If you were The Rejected One, don’t get soppy or drown your self-pity in three dollar Long Island iced teas or some bad crack, or flood his cell phone message box with teary pleas. If you run into him in mutual circles, be cordial but keep walking.

Cardinal Rule Number Seven: Don’t bring up loves, present or past.

So some threesome turned into a twosome, only he or you were no longer in the picture? Or six months ago you caught him screwing around and you forgave him then, but now you want to replay the video tape, particularly if that “love with a proper stranger” is who he’s leaving you for.  WHY? What’s the point, huh?  If, at some point, you run into them at the supermarket check-out, say “hey” and grab the latest issue of “People” until the brain-dead cashier gets to your Puppy Chow. Running suddenly to the health and beauty aisle for a box of Trojans to make some kind of statement is just being gauche.

Cardinal Rule Number Eight: Do what you like to do and who you’d like to do NOW.

Get right back into it – the gym, the beach. And some non-committal sex can be good for the soul.

Cardinal Rule Number Nine: Think before you leap. Again.

Examine what went wrong and why, so you can avoid those pitfalls the next time. Was it him, or was it you? Maybe you’re just not marrying material; you don’t like to compromise, you like fresh dick every week, you’re too clingy, or you attract guys who only take advantage of you. Better it not happen at all than go through the same bullshit all over again. Break-ups can be expensive when it comes to time, money and Prilosec. Especially if they were made legal.

And finally:

Cardinal Rule Number Ten: Don’t burn bridges.

Don’t tell him before you slam the door one last time how small his dick is or how bad a fuck he was. Who knows? In six months or six years the two of you may have changed or matured enough to be mutually re-interested, if even for a night. You want those accusations (even if they’re true) to get in the way of some renewed hot times?

 

 

The Inferiority/Superiority Meter: Our Fragile Egos in Overdrive: Part II

The Inferiority/Superiority Meter: Our Fragile Egos in Overdrive: Part II

While external forces (a hot, cruisy stare, a stranger’s disparaging whisper) will trigger the twitch of the Inferiority/ Superiority Meter, its roots are deep seated in our respective psyches. Many folks reflect on their high school years with nostalgic fondness. Me? When they had a class reunion a few years ago, all I wanted to do is go back and pull a Carrie on the whole fucking bunch. My adolescent years were pure hell: I was the shortest guy in my class, unathletic, the last to be picked for teams, a nerd, not interested in girls nor them in me, and hairy as hell to boot. Fast forward to my early twenties when I started hitting the scene in L.A. where I was going to college,  and discovered guys accepting, desiring me, simply for what they saw and loved that fur. Shallow, sure, but also deeply elemental.

Yet, for most of my adult life, no matter how successful I was in my career and in getting men, I never really outgrew the feelings I had when I was fourteen. It was classic manic-depression on some level I guess, or what I like to more glamorously refer to as the Marilyn Monroe Complex. The bitch goddess seemingly had it all, yet could never abandon or move on from her fucked-up childhood (raped by step-daddy, etc., etc.).

Am I alone in this? Aren’t so many of us fixated on how we look in that next mirror or glass door reflection or check the scale three times a day, or spend money on clothes we don’t need to look good? Or throw that $40. T–shirt we wore just once in a Salvation Army clothes bin if we think it did nothing for us?

No, it wasn’t until much later in life that I realized we all have our strengths and weaknesses and that confidence in oneself comes from within and is not dependent on other people to make it happen.

Only then can we dump our respective I/S meters on the top of the shit pile of Life’s Crap.

And move on.

 

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The Inferiority/Superiority Meter: Our Fragile Egos in Overdrive

The Inferiority/Superiority Meter: Our Fragile Egos in Overdrive

Most of us deal with it every day of our lives, straight and gay, but because we gays are just a teeny weeny bit more concerned about our appearance, we tend to suffer with it the most. It’s the Inferiority/Superiority Meter or I/S for short, which can twitch quicker than a dick coming down from a Viagra high.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. One moment you feel like Hot Shit, on the Dickter Scale of one to ten, a thirteen; a microsecond later, you just feel like Shit. A minus five.

Sure, there are some ugly sons of a bitch who have the ego of Trump, and some hunks men and women would give their right ball or tit for who are quietly comfortable about themselves, and never realize what a powerful tool physical beauty can be. But I think they’re in the minority. For most of us, our personal I/S meters are fluctuating constantly.

Of course, for gay guys it’s often set off by our environment, i.e., how we feel we are being perceived (not necessarily the reality) by the men around us.

You’ve been cruising some hot guy all night and by his looks and body language you think you have the deal almost clinched when he gives you that stomach wrenching dead glance just as you’re moving in for the kill. That’s when your Oscar winning acting skills help you save face and you walk by unperturbed.

Ah, but inside, you feel like Shit.

A guy comes onto you big time on one of the apps. Like you’re practically his soul mate. You’re ready to set the date (for the wedding) when he comes back and tells you very delicately, “Sorry, didn’t look at your (height) (dick size) (eye color). I like ’em  (short) ( tall) (big dicked) ( monster cock) (green) (brown). Don’t people fucken read anymore?

Or the glow after you’ve had terrific sex with some fuckin’ hottie who, though he’s had his fun, and you yours, still goes on to tell you how fucking hot you are. Or having all eyes suddenly turn on you when you decide to take your shirt off in a bar. You feel like Hot Shit, like you’re a porn star par excellence, jerked off over by millions of adoring fag fans.

That is, till one homely queen snickers at your unabashed exhibitionism.

Wednesday: The possible roots of the I/S Meter in all of us.

 

I’m a Good Catch. Yet …

I’m A Good Catch. Yet…

I’m about to embark on my sixth book and fourth work of erotic gay romance, here having love in one’s life plays a pivotal role in the story’s plotline  The plotline really got to me as l completed a detailed outline, something l do for all my books before l actually sit down and write them, so much so that l, the author, and a realist by nature,  started crying. I realized that perhaps l write my books to fill a void in my own life. For as l am about to enter the seventh decade of my life in just a few months, l recognize the blunt truth that l’ve never experienced love, true, uncompromising, deep and abiding love with another man.

Sure there’s my ex, George, who l met when l was 25, and he 35. In the beginning it felt like love, but now l wonder if it was a third lust, a third hormones, and a third infatuation.  We stayed together for most of our respective lifetimes even after the sex dried up because we thought the same way on many planes (both of us are conservative thinkers)  and both were responsible to the other when it came to our shared financial commitments.  George was and remains the straightest gay guy l have ever met but that was also our nemesis, since he was the jock and l was the nerd.

I loved to travel; he hated flying and, yes, had a phobia about foreign food. I was the intellectual who loved collecting mechanical antiques which he thought were junk; he was the New York Mets fanatic, watching a game l thought was a bore. I tried to fight old age, went to the gym and watched my diet; he loved the 2-4-1 Entenmann sales and thought the only reason l went to the gym was to suck dick. I needed to get out to the bars on the weekend as a stress reliever from my crazy job, as a ego lifter and to try to get some dick in the baths and sex clubs; he preferred watching Andy Griffith and “Good Times” on TV Land. About the only mutual interest we shared was the love of our dogs.

Even now, nearly a year after finally breaking up though we speak on the phone almost everyday, ours continues to be a very, very rocky relationship. But, yes, l will “love” George, to the end since we have shared so much over the years – medical crises, family losses – even if we can no longer live together.

And in the decades that followed after we co-habitated and l was forced to live a sex life of deceit by default, (he never wanted to talk about IT yet neither of us wanted to call it quits – we had gotten too lazy) there were men who l felt something for, but l knew even then it wasn’t love.

There was Tony who l met when G and l would be up at our vacation place in PA’s Poconos. He was retired at 47 from construction though having lived and worked on Staten lsland l smelled Mob. I was already in my early forties when Tony and l first played around. Soon, Tony was urging me to leave G and live with him and that he would support me. Hey, Tony was a handsome, built like a brick shithouse of a guy, we had great sex, and l was flattered by his proposal. But I didn’t love Tony and career driven me was already climbing my corporate ladder to success so l didn’t need him for money.  It became obvious a few months later when Tony called George and told him everything that Tony had loved me deeply.  (The difference between deep love and deep hate is a hair.) That phone call almost ended G and l, but again because G was resistant to talk about it, my life of deceit and discretion continued.

l have had hundreds of sexual encounters, some shit, some okay, and a handful with some of the most handsome men one could imagine. I also developed my small stable of fuck buddies which went on for many years till l left New York in 2002. Luck and the fact l did not get into anal sex as a New Yorker living through the AIDS crisis no doubt saved my life. Remember, AIDS up until the mid nineties was a death sentence. The hottest men of my generation are six feet under.

But because of the restrictions on my solo social life – early on George, who should have married a woman and lead a str8 existence, lost interest in sex with me or anyone else but never wanted to talk about breaking up or about my indiscretions –   l  likely robbed myself of the opportunity to develop a long term relationship with another man on my wavelength since l skipped social venues for the shitholes designed for drive-by-sex.

To be sure, like most of us, l had my infatuations. Gil, arguably the handsomest man l ever had in my checkered gay career, l met down here in Florida. Already old enough to be my son, it was Gil who introduced me to Tina and forever after cemented its association in my mind of hot sex with a hot man. Only a disciplined person can overcome that powerful pull and so far l have policed myself, realizing that a drug that is psychologically addictive, unlike heroin or cocaine or even cigarettes and alcohol that have their psychological component but are first and foremost physically addictive, is the far greater Satan.

Now at this point in my life l have the good fortune to sport a coterie of good looking fuck buddies, again three out of five of them in their forties and old enough to be my son, who l enjoy and who enjoy me. But only one of them do l have a growing emotional tie to, which is becoming increasingly painful to me since we have both agreed neither wants another LTR, each having gone through our own respective Gay School of Hard Knocks,  and since l realize my feelings for him will never be reciprocated on the level of mutual lovers.

We have fucked around on almost a weekly basis going on three years, know about one another’s past lives and shortcomings all too well, have even used one another as confidants and father confessor; Jim has also sought my advice on personal and work issues as his “older brother.” And certainly we have had our romantic moments in bed, but when l’ve brought up moving on to a fuller relationship  – a friend with benefits, who knows –  the discussion goes nowhere. We severed ties for a few months  because of this impasse and after some bitter words were exchanged, but then he came back to me on Scruff and l welcomed him back, since how many FB’s who meet on a weekly basis as we did have sex as lustful and erotic as the first time we connected. And he seems to have gotten closer, yet …

But just the other day it hit me. Why am l selling myself short?  I’m a damn good catch, still a sexy fucker, masculine, HIV negative with no major health issues,  a great sex partner, intelligent, savvy, financially comfortable and looking for the same in another guy in his forties or fifties who leads a stable, rooted existence.

Just like Jim.

Plus since l have twenty or more years on him,  and G is my elder by a decade, his chances are excellent he will be my heir.

Finally  l got a reality check.  If Jim wanted more, Jim would have told me.  He certainly had many opportunities to do just that.  So rather than live in some prom girl fantasy, l accept the relationship for what it is – damn good sex – and play it out till either he or l or both of us decide to move on. While us gay boys are eternally optimistic, if love is not in the cards for me, so be it.

One damn thing I’m sure of.

I’m not alone.