A Profusely Emphatic "I'm Sorry"

Sometimes it’s foolish to let yourself feel all the things your heart tells you to feel. But there are those rare occasions where it’s even more foolish not to. The trouble lies in the ability to distinguish between when you are supposed to let your heart tell you how it feels and when you need to stop being foolish. No meter exists. A light won’t flash, an alarm won’t sound, a whistle won’t blow. The proverbial angel and devil battling for your decision only appears in cartoons; in my mind, the teenage girl and the old cynic take their place on opposite sides of my collarbone.

The most recent battle came in a potential visit from birthday boy. He’s in the shit. No one would deny that. When I last saw him—-three weeks ago-—we had spent most of our time talking about his friend’s suicide. I happily expended my emotional energy on listening to him and holding him. It didn’t make sense to have sex; he was too grief-stricken. I understood that and was glad I could help. But, after five weeks of not having sex, I felt a little . . . ripe. I planned a day of hooky that coincided with one of his days off. As time ticked away and I waited for him to let me know when he would arrive, the teenage girl sank into her notebook to draw hearts and write bad poetry as the cynic rocked proudly in his chair, content in his appropriate assessment: he would not be coming. Apologies and promises to meet for brunch the next day followed, but the next day followed only with a profusely emphatic “I’m sorry.”

Any reaction on my part seems flawed. We can’t break up because we’re not together. I can’t just stop talking to him because then I feel like I just added to his emotional mess. My inability to decide which move to make next comes from the inability to tell the difference between a man who is in the shit and a man who is shit.

Momentary Distraction

In my attempt at momentary distraction, I find exactly what I’m looking for: hot gym manager. This past May, I “met” hot gym manager on my “dating” website. We spoke for a while and he invited me to the small gym that he manages for an early morning workout. One of my not-so-secret fantasies is having sex at the gym. Something about a sweaty man with a polite post-workout funk gets a certain muscle ready for some exercise. This fantasy excludes the nasty sex that happens in the showers, stalls, and saunas of the most popular gym in New York. No, I want something after hours, where we would be free to use the equipment creatively and without voyeurs feasting their eyes on our newly acquired playground.

Every part of me was up early that Saturday morning I went to go work out with hot gym manager. The gym, not quite as empty as I had hoped, had the sharp smell of freshly cleaned pool. He led me through a total body workout, unabashedly bending in front of me to show me the right pose and eagerly supporting my arms, back, and thighs in various lifting positions. After I spent all my energy on air bicycles, he popped off the mat and urged me to come into the hot tub. I soaked my sore body in the warm jacuzzi and we chatted and played footsie under the bubbles. Again, he popped up, “Let’s go to the sauna.” From hot water to hotter coals, sweat came for a number of reasons as he spread out and relaxed in the wooden jungle. After my body poured out all its toxins, he took me to the shower. The marbled glass of the stalls could not hide my excitement as I watched him shower in the stall next to me. We made eye contact through the glass. He smiled, then turned off the water, and walked back to the locker room. I slowly made the connections in my mind: he wanted to be friends. I walked home slowly, carefully trying not to exacerbate the sudden blueness I felt.

The attention hot gym manager gives me is innocent in spite of my desires, which made him the perfect distraction from birthday boy. I knew nothing was going to happen. “Come, let’s go get some food,” he texted me on a Sunday that had me suffering from a lack of birthday boy attention the night before. Of course, I would go visit him at work; he was safe. He bought me a sandwich and we watched a movie at his desk while the elderly Upper West Siders got their heart rate up for the day. Thoughts of birthday boy fluttered in the margins of my mind as the slightness of sexual tension—never to be fulfilled—stood before me in nylon breakaway pants.

A Little Distraction

Perhaps others may disagree, which I’m open to, but the first thing that popped into my mind was date multiple people. There’s no law, legal or social, that prevents me from seeing other men while my interest most obviously lies in the man that I met on my birthday. A little distraction from the main goal can provide some much needed focus. I also get to split my attention between several men so that I don’t harp on the one special man’s text. This is similar to having a man on the back burner, but meant for people with a greater need to multi-task their men—it’s like having a whole stove full of pots and something baking in the oven, too.

A co-worker set me up with one of the teachers at her old school. She gave me his number and I called that night. To my surprise (and hers!), we talked on the phone for two hours. He, like every other man I meet, has a lot going on and we wouldn’t be able to get together until the next week. Before I got a chance to see co-worker set-up, the middle school teacher texted me randomly on Thanksgiving, “Happy Thanksgiving. I think about you quite often and I hope all is well with you. Enjoy this beautiful day.” What do I do with that? We texted back and forth before deciding that we should go for drinks during the week. I thought we had a good exchange. I thought the co-worker set-up and I had an equally promising exchange over drinks two days later. Neither have responded to texts or calls.

Solution: online “dating” website that I haven’t visited in over a month. I go on when the getting of men gets tough. I’m not particularly upset at birthday boy and the fact that two men gave me the pocket veto doesn’t really bother me either. But, to be honest, a little male attention can lift the self-esteem back to a comfortable height. The struggle comes from birthday boy. We’re not committed or exclusive or anything like that, so I suppose the dilemma starts and ends solely within my mind: when I’m genuinely interested in one guy, I can’t mess around with another. This exposes the inherent flaw in my desire to date multiple people. Ironically, instead of squandering my attention so that my heart doesn’t focus solely on birthday boy, I wind up wanting only him, unaffected by unreturned flirtations.

That Third Elusive Component

Obviously, I shouldn’t base all of my happiness on men. I think the reason that I have so much frustration, grief, and anxiety with romance is because I have everything else. I realize that sounds a bit cocky. I see things the same way Carrie does on an episode of Sex & the City; all New Yorkers are searching for three thing: a job, an apartment, and a man. Unfortunately, you can only have two out of three at any one time. As torturous as teaching can be, I still can’t imagine going to work every morning and not being challenged by the bright, smiling faces of adolescents each day. Teaching is more than a job; it’s a career and at twenty-five, how many others can say they have a career (with decent pay and good benefits)? My apartment is small, but it’s in a great neighborhood and I have a great relationship with my roommate. So why not strive for perfection, prove Ms. Bradshaw wrong, and get that third elusive component?

Patience escapes me. I want to be able to wait, to take things slow, to let my feelings and his run their course. This feels unattainable and I can’t quite determine why. Confession: I’m an only child. I grew up with three adults in my household, all of whom were eager to give me their attention. Does this mean I am doomed to forever expect the same thing from a potential partner? I hope not! How do I manage my impatience so that I can, like Toni Braxton suggests, “Let It Flow”?

De Facto Ostracism

I hope for him being wrong because I don’t think I could ever give up hope and consign myself to being alone. This Christmas, I’ll be sitting amongst family as the only one not in a relationship. It makes sense that my grandparents, my parents, and my aunt and uncle look at each other lovingly—they deserve to be happy and it makes me happy that they are together. Then I will look over at both of my cousins, who bring their significant others to dinner. I enjoy the company of these new additions to my family, but I somehow only see myself as very alone and very gay.

Being single in a group of people doesn’t always bring about such sharp feelings of loneliness, but being the only gay person and the only single person just smacks of de facto ostracism. My imagination can’t help but fast forward twenty years. My parents and aunt and uncle are enjoying their old age with each other, my cousins have begun their own families, and I’m the gay uncle who comes and goes to family events by himself. The weight of my sexuality overburdens the feelings of loneliness. At a certain point, I wonder if it would be easier to couple up with a woman; all the straight people in my family seem to have found someone.

Perhaps I resent my cowardly friend for his forwardness. The psychological game he plays with himself that allows him to enter into a win/win situation seems so tempting sometimes. If I put up a front of accepting defeat before I actually lose, then I, too, can have a sense of comfort if I lose at my own losing bet. For me, this game lacks viability. I cannot trap myself in mental fake outs to perhaps wind up winning. Hope comes from within to sustain the believer in the goal. I hold onto that hope, even if its validation comes from the bring that tells me I have a text. My birthday present sends me a message, “Please know that if I didn’t have to work, I’d be there, holding you and looking into your eyes. And of course cracking jokes and tickling you.” The corners of my mouth turn up, the tears of frustrating welling up in my eyes evaporate, hope is restored.

Coward's Logic

Without my dude on the back burner, I was forced to reach back into my dating missteps to find some entertainment when birthday present bailed on me without warning. With the World Series freshly over, I found myself newly connected with adorable, mixed sports-lover. We cheered for opposite teams, but tension sparked feisty texts. We met at a club, danced, flirted. At a diner afterwards, I began to remember his issues. He’s terribly afraid. I’m not sure what inspired his dating phobia, but talking with him reminded me of his deep cynicism. He claims that he hates sex, finds cuddling repulsive, and consistently exclaim, “What’s the point? I’m going to end up alone anyway.” As with all things, he comes on quite strong—sharp and bitter like poorly sweetened lemonade that hits you right in the jaw with a surprise stab. Without even considering his friend’s presence at the table, I reminded him that he enjoyed sex when we had it and then afterwards he fell asleep in my arms. “That was different,” he protested, “I was drunk.”

I imagined us on the street, me calling him a cab and telling the driver, “The nearest AA meeting, please.” This type of destructive thinking is the loud coward’s logic. Unlike most cowards, some think they can mask their craven thoughts with bravado, boisterously claiming self-imposed platitudes that no one would dare dispel. The logic, however, reveals a glimmer of hope. The loud coward tries to capitalize on the win/win situation. If my former love interest does wind up alone, he can always bitterly claim “I told you so.” However, if he finds someone with whom he can enjoy sex and stand to cuddle afterwards, then he still “wins” because he reaches partnership with an individual he loves and wouldn’t mind being wrong. I explained this to him. He changed the topic. Typical: what makes a coward craven is his inability to face his own fears. I suppose he wouldn’t even name this trait as cowardly or fearful. I’d bet he call himself pragmatic.

He did say something interesting while we were out. He said that a man is not ready to enter into a relationship until he has faced the fact that he could very well spend the rest of his life alone. Once he becomes content with the prospect of being alone—not lonely, but alone—then his relationships will be much stronger.

All Rondezvous Have to End

But, everyone knows that you never move onto the next one. Your first instinct is to move back to the old one. Last month, I read a New York Magazine article about sex diaries. The editor who compiled all the sex diaries the people of New York posted mentioned “the lover on the back burner,” pointing out that every unattached individual, no matter if they have someone on the front burner that they focus most of their energies on, has someone that they can call, “just in case.” Just in case they don’t have a date on Saturday night. Just in case they need a date for a wedding. Just in case they need a little sumthin’ sumthin’ at two in the morning. Just in case the one on the front burner turns out to disappoint rather than satisfy at any particular moment.

My dude on the back burner, whom I referred to as my “jump off” to friends, proved to be intolerable after a good three months of what can be termed nothing else other than hot sex. Several key factors remained a mystery: name, age, occupation. He was forward, direct, smooth. I guess he was in his late thirties; I never asked because, well, it’s rude, but also because I have a very young mother and I would have creeped myself out before my first orgasm if I knew he was closer in age to her than me. He was short enough so that even I could see the shine on top of his shaved head. I was never a big fan of the purposefully bald until my palm gripped the smooth skin stretched over his skull when he went down on me. The texture of his sweaty scalp on my smooth palm felt slick and slightly morbid, which oddly excited me more than I thought it would. Perhaps it was how well he did everything that made me not care that I technically could not call out his name in bed—-or in the bushes of Central Park where we flipped one night in August. He put so much effort into each stroke of his hands, each kiss of my neck, each thrust of his body. Sweat poured off his well-developed chest, flooded down his sinewy back, slid between his smooth cheeks.

But, sadly, all rendezvous with him had to end. Nothing we did together went wrong. He seemed the perfect hook up until he started texting me. Now, I will fully accept any snobbery associated with being a teacher of English. Punctuation is my friend and if I can’t spell it, then I figure out how to do so properly. Understandably, not everyone has this same drive. My preference, however, is to only surround myself with students who do not have this drive and for me to get paid to help them have that drive. No one paid me to instill the same drive in my hook up, so when it came to a point where I had to say, “Half the time, your texts make no sense,” it also came to the point where I stopped responding to them.

Dwelling Doesn't Really Help

On a date with the middle school teacher, he shared that whenever he talked to his best friend about a man he was with, they ask each other, “What song did you hear?” When my hand positioned itself on my birthday present’s hip and I tilted my head towards his, Beyoncé started singing “Smash into You.” I let her grace the soundtrack of my life. The rising tones of her voice matched the temperature of my body. He made me feel hot, from that first kiss to the way he slid his arms under my back to the feel of his breath on my neck when leaned toward me at a Chelsea bar. Still, as I try not to grieve his evident strike on calling me, the memory quickens by heartbeat, stalls my breath. I remind myself what comes easy, goes easy. He’s popular, he makes heads turn; I’m the jealous type, the hopeless romantic type. When he got the number of the promoter and I raised my eyebrow, he responded, “He’s the promoter. I got his number so we can go out again next year on your birthday.” Cynically, I asked him if he’d be around for that. He sipped his beer and peered over at me, “I’d like to be.” Kiss.

My real problem is that I’m a fourteen-year-old girl. After one date, I’m ready to write our names in hearts all over my proverbial marble notebook. Tragic, I know. I’m the only gay man who looks forward to U-Hauling it. I just get so caught up with infatuation. The sigh at memories of the night before, the skip of your heart when he calls, the pit in your stomach when you see him waiting for you across the street. I take the bait. I believe the lines. I fall fast, hard and, ultimately, when I land, I, like Amy Winehouse, “Wake Up Alone.”

“You had such bad year relationship-wise,” my friend says after I tell her about the gorgeous birthday present, “it looks like your luck is changing for this year.” I believed that line, too, just like I believe him when he says he hasn’t lost interest. Promises to see me this weekend prove empty. Texts go unanswered, phone calls sent straight to voicemail. Final tell-all: Facebook status, “Going to Paradise.” That’s in New Jersey and I live in the city. Looks like we won’t be getting together.

I think I come on too strong. I accept that about myself; it’s the boys who have a hard time with it. I thought my hearts with our names in them where locked in my secret diary. Apparently, they spill out every chance they get. Dwelling, however satisfying right now, doesn’t really help. Shower, shave, and, like Jay-Z, “On to the Next One”—complete with passive-aggressive Facebook status. I said I wasn’t dwelling, I made no mention about maturity.

More Than Just a Pretty Face

That boy’s messages about my sexual prowess, which I do not admit to having, traveled far. On a date with an adorable, mixed sports-lover—a date I thought went well and would lead to many more—he smiled at me and said, “I hear you’re good in bed.” True, I had already fooled around with him the night we met at a gay bar in Washington Heights—a major no-no I keep repeating; never go home with someone you want to see yourself with for more than a month the first time you meet them—and he admitted to me that he thought we’d “have really great sex.” But, imagine my surprise when he shared the semisweet secret that boy from my college days leaked to what seems like the whole island of Manhattan. Calls ended abruptly, texts dried out, his time ran short. Slumped in my couch watching TV dramas, I felt that I could stand no more heart-wrenching dating experiences.

Fearing and anticipating nothing would change and that I would wake up the next morning to watch TV dramas on my couch, I went out for my birthday. Certifiably tipsy from happy hour, I put on a deep V-neck and threw a cardigan over it. Skinny jeans and high-tops complete the look and I hopped on the train, bound for the relatively new party at which my friends were waiting for me. My arrival, late as usual, brought a lukewarm attitude. I wasn’t going to meet anyone. At the bar for a drink, I hit up a sure-fire pick-me-up: the go-go boy. I realize the sleaziness of backing up with some greased up, muscled, straight man at a gay club, but it was my birthday and if I wasn’t going to actually have sex, I might as well spend a few dollars making memories for later solitary activities.

I’m not exactly sure what I was doing when I saw him—talking to my friend from grad school, pinching the nipple of a go-go boy, or searching for the ten dollars I think he stole—but I experienced one of those clichéd scenes from a teen movie. Everything around him moved in real time, but his actions played out in slow motion. The Yankees fitted sat just off the back of his head, his skin shined a pale yellow against the flashing lights in the club, his lips—pursed and pink—stood out against his face, his white thermal clung to his muscles. My eyes whipped toward him as he turned the corner of the bar, his peered down at the floor as he moved past the crowd. My friend caught me staring, “Go for it!” He’ll always urge me to speak to someone he knows has caught my attention. I think he’s my only friend who knows my type. Everyone thinks I like black men. I deny this, flip it, and contest that all the men I like just happen to be black. The gorgeous face that caught my eye seemed out of my league, but my friend knows that’s how I like them. “Well, it’s my birthday,” I shrugged, “And everyone knows the best present is the one you get yourself.”

I would venture to say that exclaiming to friends, “Want to see my birthday present?” and showing them a post-coital (sidebar: can one call the time after gay sex “post-coital”?) is bad karma. Every time he doesn’t call when he says he would or does something that aggravates me slightly—like text during dinner—I point to my commodified celebration. Even now, as I live out Dorothy Parker’s “A Telephone Call,” staring at my iPhone with anticipation and bidding God to let it ring, I chastise myself for gleefully skipping around the brunch table singing, “Wanna see what I got for my birthday?”

He’s more than just a pretty face—and abs and arms and pecs and . . .umm, yeah . . . We danced the whole time at the club. In celebration of my birthday, he bought me breakfast at 5 am in a diner. After Denver omelets, he whisked me away to my first after-hours club. Sure, the music was that typical gay house-techno beat. And people were coked out, methed out, and e-ed out all around us. But, he took me there and made me feel like I was the only one in the place, the only one who mattered, the only one he wanted to look at. I love to dance, but he lives to dance. I’m not saying that he is one of those wannabes or even desires to be professional. He just feels the beats and rhythms so deeply. Currently, he’s in a shitty situation. He dissolved his business, got a DUI, lives with his unsupportive family, but when he’s dancing, his eyes turn from a dull, persistent knowledge that his life is not where it should be to a playful gleam, drawing you in.

Sunrise at the bar: he stands, leaning on the wood, holding his beer, staring at me. He shifts his weight when I step directly in front of him, unsure of my next move. The blaring house music subsided when I kissed his full lips. He tasted of tenderness and springtime. Response: “Wow!” I never heard that response to a kiss. He said it low and clear, almost a whisper. He told me he didn’t expect the kiss’s softness. I heard a click when our lips touched; it was quick and sharp, but soft and inviting.

A Fine Core of Innocence

Being with my ex for a year and a half changed me. Before him, my longest relationship was with my high school girlfriend, an ironic little factoid for a gay man. Before him, I never bottomed, I never swallowed, I never lived with someone, I never said “I love you.” He had eight years on me, something that grated on my nerves; I had to realize that he had several lives before me and I had college before him. I think he resented my youth. And as mature and well-situated as I was when I graduated with a Master’s degree at twenty-two, he always felt that I didn’t have a clue. He’d lived in different parts of the country, had had three different careers, fell in love, lived with partners, experimented with drugs, experimented with sex, partied until dawn. I couldn’t tell you the difference between weed and oregano. I couldn’t—and still can’t—keep from crying when a man thrusts himself inside me, however gentle. I couldn’t always pick a good restaurant at which we could dine comfortably. For all my learnedness, for all my job security, for all my self-control, I still seemed a child.

While I realize how the ex changed me and how I changed with him, I think much of the personal growth I’ve had has happened after him. I mourned the explosion of our relationship and its casualties quickly. I left him and our brownstone apartment in Harlem on a Friday. I had a new place to live on Sunday. I met a man and went on a date that Wednesday. While I checked his Facebook regularly in February, I began to enjoy my singlehood. I happily weaned myself off the comforts of online dating, moving toward meeting men in real time. I salaciously slipped into two foursomes, stupidly smoked something much more potent than tobacco, stayed out dancing until nearly noon, set dates and hook ups to my liking, sent some boys into my bed and some out of my life.

Still, on the inside, I maintain a fine core of innocence. All I really want, all I’ve ever wanted, is to love and be loved. My twenty-fourth year came with much hardship. My abusive ex-boyfriend toyed with my feelings, my body, and my mind to elevate his own sinking self-esteem. I moved home for two weeks that the A-train monopolized. I found the emotionally stiltedness, the aloofness, and the selfishness of men repulsive. I woke with the sharp sense of sorrow after having been played, ditched, or betrayed by a man I invested so much more in than he ever planned to invest in me.

There have been great sparks of romance between me and other men this past year. Right after I left my ex, I met a passionate Dominican with a beautiful Hamilton Heights apartment. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, but the fiery passion fizzled. The out of work Jamaican actor fell for me, but I lost my desires for him as his once stable and successful career began to peter out. High hopes heightened my faith with a middle school teacher I met. Sadly, when a week of unanswered texts and unreturned phone calls followed a month of dating, I got the “Sorry, I’ve met someone who fits more of what I’m looking for.” In other words, he met someone just as good looking, equally as steamy in bed, almost as intelligent, but not quite as outspoken. Summer sizzled and my love life froze. The boy who always looks good in pictures snubbed me. I’m loosely attached to his circle of friends, so when I confronted him, stating that we are both looking for same thing, he shied away, finally admitting that he couldn’t date someone who has had sexual relations with so many of his friends. There goes my college philandering biting me in the ass. The circle of well-educated gay men is small, so when I sleep with two, one of whom is unable to shut his mouth for any tactful amount of time, it seems as if I fucked them all.

Twenty-Six Cents

Last night, in my usual procrastinating fashion, I decided to be the responsible young adult and do my budget for these first two weeks of November. Since my birthday, I’ve spent so much time recovering well sacrificed sleep and working ungodly hours that I haven’t kept up to date with my spending—ignorance is bliss, my checking account, like a fat woman eating ice cream, is not in good shape. For a good eleven months now, I’ve been allocating zilch for my savings account. “Life must change,” I declared to myself. At twenty-five, I now need to save for a house, a vacation, a rainy day, a whatever . . . When I logged into my formerly active savings account, the last vestige of my former relationship hit me—“AandR House Fund.”

Twenty-six cents never felt so costly. I stared at my computer screen, unblinking. Suddenly, I ducked and peered out all the windows. Could he see me? I felt conscious and vulnerable. The sensitive topic of my finances compounded itself with the harshness of our break up this past January. I’m very slow to act on logistical and administrative details. I still pay $92 for my gym membership when I get a teacher discount I still haven’t employed. Some unknown amount charges itself to my Amex every month for “credit protection.” My certification is passed due and I haven’t taken all the steps to make sure I’ll still receive a pay check next September. All of these have simple solutions, yet I let them drag out because I’m strangely frightened of the paperwork. “AandR House Fund” and its unwanted nostalgic power falls into the administrivia that I hadn’t found the time to change.

My own personal savings account acquired twenty-six cents right before I dialed the bank—thank God for 24-hour banking—to dissolve the account. I wonder if they sent an email to him to let him know that I dissolved the account. This prompted a quick look at his picture on Facebook. He unfriended me and all of my friends after our break up—petty in my opinion—and set his profile to private sometime after I stopped checking it on a regular basis. Checking his online “dating” account, the same one where I am ashamed to say we met, often yields more information. In May, the last time I saw him, he wore a hat because he was trying to grow out his hair. When I checked the account last, he had his hair in twists, which made him look like the Afrocentric Hellraiser. This seemed appropriate as my most potent memories are of the hell he raised in my life. This last check up showed older pictures. I suddenly refused to care, became the responsible twenty-something-year-old, and set up my savings account.

I waffle on whether or not I miss him. As a person, I can confidently say that he has few redeeming qualities. I’m not being bitter: he has a temper, a strong inclination toward manipulating others, selfish tendencies. I guess I possess these qualities, too. The things you resent in others are the things you dislike most about yourself. But, his jaded pessimism drained the life out of me. His bouts of depression proved too much to handle for an individual without the ability to prescribe psychotropic drugs.

Yet, in spite of this, I still wear pairs of his underwear—cute Paul Frank, glow-in-the-dark boxers—that wound up in my suitcase when I moved out of our apartment. Noticing that he did not wish me a happy birthday also brought ambivalent feelings. “Good,” I thought, “he’s over me and will stop trying to contact me.” He made three dates to see me, which I accepted. The last came too close to the instances of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse that caused me to leave hurriedly in the middle of the night one Friday last January. In spite of everything, I thought the meeting a success; I told him he needed help of the professional kind, which I’m sure he didn’t seek out. I finally stood up for myself in a way that a year and a half with him taught me not to. So when he made a fourth date in August, I declined, letting him know that every time I see him, I’m reminded of why I told him I never wanted to see him again.