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.
Desperate Attempt
The past week has been rather interesting. I've not been busy engaging in random carnal activities, I've been rather inactive in that department. It doesn't mean that the opportunity hasn't presented itself though. During the past three months, I've really started to take another look at my life, trying to get a handle on my shyness, figure out reasons for self-imposed limits, and really break down the walls that I've put up in order to purposely make myself unapproachable.
Ever since puberty, I've always been afraid of what other people think about me. Will I be accepted or will I be rejected? Will I fit in? If I know I won't fit in, how do I successfully avoid rejection? In my adulthood, I was living out the fear that had begun around puberty when suddenly, we all figured out that I wasn't like all the others. Wrong skin color, wrong religion, steeped in poverty, and too smart for my own good. I ended up being isolated for the rest of my public education. I learned how to avoid getting close to people, how to avoid standing out too much. How to avoid being singled out. But to do that, I needed to assess quickly what others were thinking, or at least make my best guess. I got pretty good at it, although I kept applying it in a fashion that would ensure my isolation. I reveled in being a nerd, reveled in being a goody-to-shoes, reveled in my private smugness that at least I was better than everyone else.
Then came college, and the realization that I knew nothing. In that, I blossomed soaking up new ideas, engaging myself in new cultures, meeting new people, and suddenly, inexplicably, becoming popular. And during that sudden popularity, I privately obsessed that I would lose it. Quickly. Publicly. Humiliatingly. To prevent that perceived hell, I consolidated my friends, pushing the people that I felt I couldn't trust to arm's length, and strengthening my ties with those that I already felt closest. To ensure my own safety net, I became two different people. For the few that I was truly close with, I was known as effervescent, loyal, sentimental, multiple shades of silly, and rather crude in humor. To all others, I was perceived as empathetic, caring, intelligent, and simultaneously distant. I would listen to concerns, do what I could to help, but never let them in to my life. The acquaintances were skewed towards listening to others, never sharing myself.
Over the next 10 years, I let very few people in beyond that wall of professionalism that I so carefully constructed. In all honesty, there were only four people since my sophomore year of college, if I don't count my current boyfriend. I was still led by fear of losing the ones I loved most, and I wasn't emotionally ready to trust anyone I hadn't established relationships that weathered the test of time. The three I let in were only after years of proximity, and then, only after they continued to push to be let in further, and I accepted with great reluctance. The sudden rejection during puberty was still a festering wound in both my conscious and subconscious, and I hadn't grown up enough to let it go. I let my childhood fears control my life.
Over the past two years I began to let down my guard, and shrug off the woe-is-me attitude. I haven't changed so much as I am still slow to let people in, and there have been many a person who's attempted a friendship that I've let slip by the wayside. I'm slow to trust, and slower to act upon it. Yet even that is slipping because I realize that I'm my own worst enemy. While the shyness is still there, it's mostly now manifesting itself as uncertainty.
Especially in the cruising world.
I've talked about how I refuse to do the anonymous thing in my blog. I still stand by that proclamation, I probably always will. I've limited my sexual activity to friends, not always from within the closest circle, but people I've assessed as 'safe' nonetheless. If I have the slightest doubt about trust or accessibility, I steer as far away as I can, continuing the professional air, not allowing them or myself to get close. I've always been terrible at figuring out when I'm being hit on by men. With women, I figure it out quickly. With men, I'm generally clueless unless they're being unabashedly obvious. And obvious men are rare and with those who I'm not sure about, I'm clueless about to do when an opportunity comes along.
The big change began in September, when I found myself attracted to a student. While I nipped pursuit of those feelings in the bud quickly, it got me thinking about the value of taking risks. I've been so safe these past several decades, that I've neglected my own desires and potential. I broke out of being safe when my boyfriend and I decided to allow for an open relationship to deal with his asexuality. I broke out of being safe when I reestablished a long dormant sexual network and added a couple of old friends to the matrix. I'm breaking out of being safe by finally finding my own confidence.
I've also had several conversations with various people about my general unapproachability and virtual sterility once they get past a certain stage with me. I am well known for having a big heart and always being available for those in need, being helpful and expedient, polite and friendly. I ensure that goals are met and potentials reached. But past that professional facade, I gave up nothing. I built a wall to expansive heights, letting none of these people in. I've often been told that I would be an excellent counselor, because I can make people comfortable with sharing their lives with me and working through their personal issues and problems, and simultaneously be silent about my own opinions.
Through these recent conversations, I've been told that I use 'big words' in my everyday speech. Apparently I college talk everywhere I go. While I am very quick to explain a word that someone doesn't understand, I have difficulty speaking (or writing for that matter) in everyday conversational English. I know I do this to some extent, for a long time talking to my mother was hell, because she'd understand half of what I was saying and then literally cry, proclaiming that I was 'talking too big for my britches'. I've since learned to speak at a different level, which is definitively easier when I switch back to my native accent, a rural hybrid dialect very distinctive to the American South and lower Midwest. Mom seems to be happier when I drop the Colorado accent in favor of the native one, regardless of the words I choose to use.
Another pattern I was made aware of that I never thought about before was my tendency to explain words or concepts that came up in conversations that I "knew" weren't universally understood by the group. If I saw there was an odd person out who didn't know something, I would launch into a long explanation about what the word means, where it comes from, and examples of how it might be used elsewhere. Recently, I was in the middle of something quite like that when the person, a friend that I've let in closer than I let most, stopped me and said, "You know, I'm smart too, I know generally what it means, even if I don't know the specifics. You don't have to explain everything!" That and my tendency, he explained, to 'prove' I know what they're talking about by contextualizing whatever it is they just said and introducing esoteric subtleties of the topic in, as he said, a "desperate attempt to look smart".
That hurt. Because he was right.
I'm insecure. So I find security in what I know. So I try to know everything. And if I don't know something, I avoid it. People, topics, sports. That's why I get so damned overwhelmed and tired at parties. I try way too damned hard to be noticed. I try way too damned hard at being intelligent. I try way too damned hard at maintaining my own perceived reputation. The confidence I projected was a facade for the insecurity that I wallowed. I look confident because I carefully tailor my experiences and settings to ensure that I will look that way. We all do it, but I'm not going to let that be a cop-out for continuing accept what I am. I can be better in a more holistic way. I can grow. I can like myself for who I am, and not for what I think others will think of me. I can let others in, and not be afraid of being rejected. We're all rejected from time to time, and we're all accepted by various people from time to time. I can never know how it's going to be unless I really try.
How strange it is to come to this realization, not over friendship or family, nor was it education or profession. Ultimately, I realized this over sex. My desire to open up my sex life beyond the safe people that I knew would accept my advances because they were truly the initiators. It was all over a boy - whom I will not pursue.
Just because I won't pursue him, doesn't mean though that I've limited my options. Nor have I thrown up my hands and cried, "woe is me!". I've decided to be confident. Better said than done, and it's scary as hell. But it's working.
After really taking all these past few months and conversations to heart, after pursuing this issue over and over again with the folks who I never really allowed to know me, after pursing this issue with those who have never really known me for years, I began to step over the line that I had drawn for myself. I no longer want to be safe and boring.
And that's were I often found myself for the past two weeks. I was crossing lines. A young man that I met at a party on Saturday seemed interested. I talked to him, not about classes, nor his aspirations, nor what he does for a living and how that ties in with his education. I talked to him about alcohol, and his friends, and my friends, and the fact that I'm home alone - and what might come of that. He seemed interested, he wanted to go out for drinks, he was under 21. He wanted to do it at my place.
Wasn't quite ready for that.
So I politely declined, and changed the subject. Then later moved on. That night I went out dancing with a large contingent of the group. I've done this before countless times, but this time, instead of sticking to the group while dancing I ventured out. Found a boy. No older than 21. Didn't mean for it to happen that way, but he was cute - and he danced with me. Closer and closer he got until he was really dancing with me. Soon, after initial contact, his hands were in places that I wasn't prepared for. I got scared, moved back - and he followed and did it again. I allowed him to continue, and tentatively, I reciprocated limitedly by holding his waist and caressing his back. He was into it, and we had a good time.
I called it a night first, and I went home alone. I just met him for gosh sakes. I'm not that confident yet.
Caveat - he is a student in a club I advise, although it was my first night meeting him.
Oh jesus.
On Sunday I went out to dinner and a movie with a long time friend, who is closer than many, but still at arm's length. He often teases in sexually suggestive ways, and I generally smile and laugh, but have rarely reciprocated. That night, I egged him on. And I dared him to put his money where his mouth is. I think he thinks I was teasing.
On Tuesday, I had another dinner and a movie with another friend whom I've known even longer. I was 19 to his 14 years when I met him. We've worked together in gay activism for the past 10 years, but I've never even thought of being inappropriate with him during all the years that I've known him. I knew he was quite sexually active all this time, and especially in the early years, and I've advised him and supported him through all of it, staying professional. It's honestly never dawned on me to think or do otherwise with him. On Tuesday, it dawned on me. I teased him. He teased back. Sexual tension increased. After dinner we had drinks at The Patio listening and commenting to each other about the people singing badly at Karaoke night. I drove him home. He gave me a big hug and insisted we do this again soon. I went home alone.
I'm developing my confidence, not reinforcing my sluttiness.
It's all about priorities though change is in the air now that my ideology has shifted. It's amazing what letting people in a little bit will do. It's even more amazing when there is mutual sexual tension. It feels great, boosts the confidence I'm developing and, to understate, it is really interesting. Now rejection may happen sooner or later, that will be the steep learning curve. I've spent my whole adult life setting up and carefully managing situations so that I wouldn't have feel or experience rejection on any level, and now I'm getting ready to set up situations where I put myself out on some pretty tenuous limbs.
This is going to be interesting.
posted by Tildar @ 5:17 PM
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