Standing on the Precipice
In the continuing theme of wacky week, I've met a young man that has quite literally, taken my breath away. This is going to be a no-go, because while he is not directly one of my students, he is a student nonetheless. Just because I've been developing my sense of sexual liberation doesn't mean that I'm also losing perspective. The university does hold a policy of prohibiting intimate relationships between faculty/employees and students. That is, only if the students are directly under the responsibility, academic or otherwise, of the employee.
And that's the caveat, this particular student is rudimentarily under my umbrella of responsibility, even if indirectly. Damn.
This is a first for me though. In the six and a half years that I've been on campus, I've never been strongly attracted to a student. I've found many a young man in my courses adorable over the years, but I've never been attracted. Well, except for that one time my first year teaching, but we were exactly the same age. Habitually, when I find a student even remotely attractive, I head in the other direction. If that student happens to be in my class, I make damn sure that I don't give the student preferential treatment. Sometimes I go as far as counting the seconds in my head as I talk to the student to make sure that I'm not spending more time with him versus all of my other students in class.
But he isn't in my class. And he's almost a decade younger than I am. And I've never been attracted to guys younger than myself.
I've grown a lot over the past year. I'm just beginning to develop from a repressed idealistic queer with delusions of self-importance to a more open, happy, fully expressive human being. The catalyst for this journey has been the sexual self expression that I finally have chosen to accept. I find that I'm more surprised about what comes around each corner, the opportunities, the choices, the confidence, than I ever imagined. I am surprised at who I find I am, and whom I continue to evolve. I've surprised myself again, and it's because I can imagine myself attempting something that I've never done before - making the first move.
I'm so fucking confused!
In the past year, I've become comfortable with subtle flirting. Comfortable or not, I've never initiated a sexual relationship. The closest I've ever come to making the first move was with CFAD and even then, I had some help from an outside source.
Subtlety is something I'm still learning. For most of my life, I was stuck in the nay category. Opportunity was, or it wasn't, there was no in between. This approach was especially true in my concept of sexuality. During my brief single period just after I turned 18 and came out and just before I was married at 19, I only would finally 'get' that somebody was interested if they made the move, and they needn't be all that subtle about it - otherwise I didn't get it. Several years of monogamy and a divorce later, I was single again. I was at the same point I had left when I was 19. I only made the connection that someone was interested only if they literally said so. Until then, I was blankly naive.
I've never felt terribly extroverted, much to the consternation of most around me. It seems as if I am perceived as an outgoing and extroverted guy, but inside, I'm generally going through various stages of insecurity. We all do, but I'm still recovering from a childhood where I was pariah. Counting the labels that separated me from my peers then include poverty, grades, religion, race, height, sexuality... Being raised in a sub-poverty Jehovah's Witness household while intelligent, short, gay boy who was the only Asian (and only half at that!) in the county and school district separated me a bit from all those around me. My mother is Caucasian, my siblings are of Latino origin. I was the only one who looked like me. I thought I was the only one who thought like me at the time. Obviously that wasn't true, but the evidence to the contrary never manifested. I felt pretty alone.
Adulthood is a significantly different experience. I've created quite a family for myself of close knit friends. I have a bevy of acquaintances, mostly through my political work, but it's my friends that continue to give me life. My close circle know that deep down, I'm still the introverted person they met when I was beginning college - but they love and support me regardless. That's why, after I told my best friend this story about the boy I met, he was pretty surprised at my reaction.
I find myself contemplating pursuing a physical relationship with this young man. The rational side screams 'no way!', but the emotional side of me thinks of him pretty constantly. I don't know the young man enough to have fallen in love, and I've only talked to him for a total of 3-4 hours total in my life. Still, I'm fascinated by him. I think of him before falling asleep, I think of him in my spare moments. I've made friends with him on myspace (although that's not too far out of the ordinary, being a usual part of my political and social networking with students). This pining has to stop.
I realize I'm standing on a precipice. This young man is quite engaging. He reminds me of myself when I was his age, and for that I know that he is trouble. He is trouble because he is forbidden. I am trouble for him because he doesn't deserve someone like me who is already emotionally linked to another. I understand this, and I am resisting this new found impulse to make the first move. I've never felt this way before, I've never been this confident - and yet - I am not. I'm a blithering coward because I know what's best for this situation: hesitation, common sense and a generous helping of restraint. I've always felt these things though, so how is this situation different? How am I any different from any other time when I didn't step forward with my desires and intentions?
Besides answering that very question with the obvious, 'this situation is significantly different' from the times when I was shy because of self-confidence issues, I have no idea whatsoever.
I'm a gay man in Reno, Nevada. I started blogging to keep a record of what I've been up to away from home. My boyfriend is
an unrepentant asexual, and celibacy through monogomy isn't an option (and I was celibate with him for over a year). I'd like to be monogamous,
but it just isn't working out.



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