Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Can We Take Today Off the Calendar Please

It's been eight or so years since I began my "gay life," marked by the moment I realized that my adulthood would be different (read: difficult) and there was no way to deny or avoid it. I had one last girlfriend during my gay life. She wasn't really so much a girlfriend as she was an asexual beard. But we both got some sort of self-esteem boost out of our dysfunctional relationship and I hear she's doing quite well for herself now so I don't feel too bad about it in retrospect.

Despite my dutiful and supportive beard, I was miserable the first half of my gay life. I thought about what would happen if my parents and my friends found out. I worried about how I would hide my sexuality during college. I lay in bed most nights wondering, "Why me?"

My first gay relationship marked a turning point in my gay life. Today marks two years since. I remember driving home the night we started dating officially (though we were only ever official in our heads) thinking to myself, well I guess I'm pretty lucky after all.

Tralala.

In the time since my last post, I've been trying to move forward with gay life. More accurately, I've been trying to live regular life without suffering a nervous breakdown in a public place. For the most part, I've been successful, though I do tend to drag my feet and look down at the ground a lot like I'm Macy Gray in the music video for "I Try." Life is hectic, I don't know if that helps or hurts.

I still think about "it" a lot, though thinking about it at all is probably thinking about it too much. It's probably unreasonable to not care for four months and suddenly suffer a massive epiphany/stroke and start caring. A friend pointed out to me today that I tried, and he tried, and it didn't work out, so I should just let it go. She also suggested that what I really missed was intimacy and not him in particular. I hate people who are all, philosophical and insightful on Skype. I just want you to tell me my hair looks nice.

I wonder what it's like for him to love somebody new. I wonder if he thinks about me on occasion. I wonder how he can suddenly do without all the things he used to love about me. These thoughts are depressive though. For the moment, it seems like the best thing to do is to bottle up all my questions and doubts and fears inside of me in the hopes that one day I'll forget that they exist.

In truth, all of this posturing is hypocritical. I've been on a steady stream of dates since the summer. The fact that none of them has led to anything seems kind of like it's my own fault and it's certainly aligned with the kind of luck I've come to expect. 

I used to worry if being gay meant everyone in the entire world would hate me. Now I worry if it means nobody (other than my beards) will love me. And while I spent the first half of my gay life wondering, "Why me?" the second half of my gay life (this is assuming I don't make it through 2012) is mostly defined by the question, "Why not me?"

5 comments:

Hetero-Challenged said...

You wrote that in 15 minutes...wow, what can you do in more time? Seriously.

You managed to capture an emotion that most people can't capture in books about feeling lonely and also be funny about it.

With that kind of witticism which must at the least translate to a good if not great personality, it's really just up to time and your choice of men until you get another tall, blond, and if you like, alcoholic type of guy.

Zach said...

Very Carrie-Bradshaw, ending with a question :) *hugs*

D. said...

well at least you'll always have your blog readers...

i think in time you will be fine and move on. you were too good for him anyway.

The Illustrious D said...

'Member the good old times when you used to discuss crushing on tennis pros and I used to discuss racial stereotypes? Now we're pretty much a bi-coastal Cathy cartoon.

Let's meet up in ten years and have cats together.

Dan said...

This may be my favorite post out of the entirety of your blog. The last paragraph offers such great insight into being a gay man.