What do you do when you're not friends with your friends anymore?

One day, I met this guy named Sean. He was a really cool guy to chat with, a little scatterbrained at times, but hey, aren't we all about certain things? Well, our friendship was swiftly developed--we had so much in common at the time. We were both single, fed up with the whole dating scene to the point where we wanted friendships--something that does NOT come easily in the world of the homosexual. To every gay man I make friends with, I make 50 straight friends. That's just the way of things. Needless to say, I don't have many gay friends. Never have. Almost all of my friends are straight women, with a handful of their husbands and boyfriends thrown in for good measure.

Sean was different.

We just...CLICKED. We did tons of stuff together, I hung out at his house and he cooked dinner, then we'd watch movies and sit up laughing and talking for half the night. I met his parents and his aunt and his HOT closeted cousin, LOL. I really felt that special bond of a lasting friendship with this guy. It took several months for all of this to happen, mind you, it was NOT an overnight thing.

Then, one day, toward the end of last summer, Sean met somebody. A guy. A gay guy. Suddenly--he was spending all of his time with him, and they were dating and having sex. The friendship we had spent all summer building? Forgotten about. I was instantly demoted to a random phone call once or twice a week, and then once in a while, they would invite me to do something with the two of them out of pity. I had, once again, become the third wheel. I hate being the third wheel.

So, time passes by, Sean's birthday comes, and I go out of my way to make his day a special one. I buy him a couple of nice albeit small gifts, and I go to his house at night, tie balloons to his door, and leave a card for him that tells him my feelings on the relationship we had developed, and how much I cared for him and appreciated the friendship.

Christmas then came, and I was invited over.

For a pity meal.

I went.

It was not pleasant, but I fake my emotions well. I've had years if not DECADES of practice.

My birthday came at the beginning of February. I guess I should mention that in this time, I had once visited Sean and for SOME reason, he asked me not tell his boyfriend that I had visited that night. Now, I WORK with his boyfriend. We speak to each other almost every day. He KNOWS Sean and I were very good friends.

I made an offhand comment about the last time I'd seen Sean. This apparently instigated a fight between the two of them. Sean called me in a huff, demanding to know why I'd told his boyfriend ON PURPOSE that we'd hung out for a few hours one night, then he hung up on me.

A month went by with no phone call.

He missed my birthday.

I finally decided enough had been enough, so I called him.

He now pretends as though nothing has happened, or changed.

I am not sure what to do, because I have never been able to maintain a friendship with any gay man over they years. I had hoped, though, that Sean was someone special, and that petty things like that could be overlooked.

Maybe I was wrong.

Sean and his boyfriend went on vacation last week. I bumped into Sean right before they left to get on an airplane. He looked at me, touched my arm and I think he wanted me to hug him. All I could mutter to him was, "have a nice trip", and I walked away.

That brings us to...now.

Was I wrong to not really acknowledge his attempt at looking for friendship? He really kinda hurt my feelings by not even calling me on my birthday because he was upset over a stupid little thing that I apologized for weeks beforehand.

I don't know what to do. I never do in situations like these, which is one of the primary reasons I am still alone.

What do you think?

SG

Letter to no one that I'll never send

Dear _____,

I know that we have been friends for a very long time. In fact, over the course of time, I've come to think of you as my best friend. We shared good times and bad, went to movies, went to dinner, and cried on each others shoulders when our pets died. I was there for your brothers graduation, and you were there when my grandmother passed away.

You know that in my life, I have never held anyone as close to my heart as I do you. I have never been in love. Never valued romance. I want people who hold hands in kiss in public to be hurt. I sleep alone every night, wondering where he is, why he hasn't found me yet, or if he even truly exists.

This may come at the most inopportune time for you---but you have allowed me to experience something I never have before. Over time, I have fallen in love with you. It is a new sensation for me---one that makes me truly happy, something I have never been in my whole life. Now, the question is, what do I do about it?

I guess that's why I'm writing you this letter. I don't know what to do, and I need for you to tell me. It's been so long since I've cared for anyone as I do you, and I need your help. I need you to tell me that you feel the same way, or I need you to tell me that you are happy being my best friend, and we'll leave it at that. But can we leave it at that? Will you be able to accept my feelings for you? I know that if you say you don't feel the same way for me I will gladly be your friend and let my other feelings subside.

Is it worth the risk?

I think it is.

Now I need to know what you think.

Yours, always.

Superficiality of the sexes

You all know me. I love a good challenge. I, from time to time, log onto gay.com to chat with local men in the area. Now, when I say "local", that actually means I go to the two chat rooms that are within 50 miles of where I live--one is Kalamazoo, MI, and the other is South Bend, Indiana, as those are my only options. What, no Stevensville room, with our smashing 1,300 resident population?

Anyway, I have my profile set there, and I have used the site on and off for a better part of the last seven years.

A few days ago, I was tempted to try out a theory, just to see how well I really understood men. You see, gay men are only interested in physical attractiveness in order to start a conversation with a man. You could have the smartest, funniest, most intelligent profile in creation, but if you don't look good, you won't ever get a guy to chat with you for the most part.

This is true of me.

I am not a highly attractive guy, and I know this. I'm just an average joe. Therefore, I get almost no instant messages when I log onto the gay chat. No worries though, I browse through profiles and if a guy that sounds like he might be a nice fella has a decent profile filled out, I message him. Only one out of ten of those guys respond, but over the years, I've made about 7 or 8 really good friends online. Back to my theory.

I went to google and just did an image search of "guys". About 25 pages in, I picked a random picture with no name of a normal enough looking dude:



He's not a bad looking fella, and I just picked him at random. I have no idea who this guy is, nor did I even visit the site.

However, after copying this picture and going back to gay.com, I set up a NEW profile, one in which I used HIS picture and made up a fake name with a little bit of basic information, and I went back to my two chat rooms.

Now, the Kalamazoo room had about 50 chatters logged on. The South Bend room had about 40.

Within 20 minutes, I had received 47 instant messages. 47!!

"Hi there, you look good, want to chat?"
"Nice pic bro, you look hot. Want to chat?"
"Wow, you look amazing. You want to hook up?"
"HOT pic dude, you looking for a date?"
"You are SO cute, want to talk for a while?"
"MMMM, you must be new, because I'd remember someone as hot as you."


There were more, with varying degrees of explicitness.

I didn't answer any of the messages, but I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Gay men are shallow, useless to chat with creatures for the most part.

If I do get instant messages, it's usually from the 60 year old trolls who are looking for a "boy" to use. I even asked a guy one time why he constantly messaged me asking for sex, when he was nearly 50 years old. Now, I'm not really a small minded individual, I will chat with ANYONE, but the sex solicitations get to me, especially from people twice my age. This guys response? He thought I would be desperate for sex because he assumed I didn't get laid much because of how I looked.

Yeah, I don't frequent that site, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that little tale with you all.

Hope all is going well for both my readers here, LOL. I wish I had more to blog about to use this more often.

Oh, and for those of you who know, the answer is NO I am NOT dating anyone, especially one guy inparticular. We have become friends, and he does not know anything more of what I was thinking before. It's going to stay that way too.

Who needs relationships? BAH says me.


SG

Crossroads

So, I recently changed jobs. The new job is awesome. I am happy there, as happy as can be anyway. There are always little annoyances, but those come and go.

I met a terrific guy.

I really enjoy spending time with him.

I forgot how much fun it can be to actually date someone. I'm not sure yet if he feels the same. He calls me all the time though, and some of the things he has said lead me to believe that he is interested in the long term. Short term we are becoming great friends and really getting to know one another. Long term remains to be seen. No rush.

My old roommate is really starting to bother me. I pity her and spend time with her because she has no friends. She is highly jealous of the fact that "S" and I are spending so much time together now. She says she will have to take action if he "cuts into time I spend with her".

I was under the impression that the time in my life was meant for me to do with as I see fit, but she doesn't seem to think that way. She sent me a really nasty text message one day last week that said something to the effect of me not wanting to spend time with her because I've found "better people" and that she didn't have to put up with it.

Another friend sent me a text message that said, "Tell S I said hi, and have fun tonight!"

Which message sounds like it came from a TRUE friend to you?

I've been neglecting updating this, and I feel bad for that, but I have barely been spending any time at home lately, for obvious reasons. S and I are really enjoying one anothers company, and I hope to be spending a lot more time offline in the near future, LOL.

Gotta go---I have things to see and people to do! Or is that the other way around.....??

:~P

Chance be the one, because 144 miles is all the difference in the world

One year ago today, I met a man by the name of Rob that I was really starting to like. Yes, we met online, in a chat room, and we chatted for several weeks. Our IM's quickly turned to voice chats, and our voice chats quickly evolved to phone conversations, and this went on for about a month. As luck would have it, he was planning on doing some shopping one Saturday afternoon, so lo and behold, as soon as I got off work, I drove to a neighboring city to meet him, our first actual "date" as it would be.

We had a fantastic time. Dinner quickly turned into more shopping, more shopping led to a trip to a bowling alley for a few games of friendly spare shooting (he used my ball and nearly did as well as me and he hadn't bowled in 5 years, LOL), and finally, a trip to the casino ended our evening where we shared laughs and I even won $150 on a penny slot machine on my FIRST spin, LOL. We hit a local Starbucks drive thru and got coffee's and hot chocolates all around, then went and parked at the local beach which was thankfully deserted, being as it was the middle of March, LOL, and overlooked a moonlit and crystal clear lake Michigan while sipping on our hot drinks. (It was in the mid 60's already at this point last year, so fret not. We weren't freezing our butts off!)

We sat at the beach for a few hours talking, and around 1 in the morning, it was finally time for us to part ways. I drove him back to his car, and before getting out, we chatted a little more, trying to decide when we wanted to get together again. "As soon as possible," was all I could think, but I kept my emotions to myself---for that single moment. He remained in my car for a moment, and we looked at each other. "Rob," I said, "If you don't get into your car right now, I'm just going to kiss you."

"Hmm," he said as he thought about it. "I think I'd prefer it if you kissed me."

Well, from there, I won't get into the steamy details, short of saying that there was definite electricity there, a kind of spark that I hadn't felt for a really really long time.

Fast forward a few months, after another date and countless continuing phone calls, when I'm really starting to feel like this could be the guy for me. I even spent an entire weekend with him at his house. He took me out to dinner one night, cooked dinner for me another night---it was a heavenly weekend, and to those of you reading this, at this point, you should remember when I blogged about the exotic asian and korean produce---that was during the weekend that I spent with Rob.

But, as it is, a 144 mile distance separates us. He lives halfway down the state of Indiana, and I am the southwest corner of Michigan. Not a great distance, no. A drive I made in 2 hours, sure. But bad weather and adverse conditions for both of us, IE, crazy work schedules on my part, and Rob not having a car for a while on his part---drove us apart.

It happens. Friends drift apart--especially friends made online. I felt a real connection to this man though--one that I had not felt in a long time. We had even talked briefly about my moving to Lafayette with him---finding a job in one of the vast arrays of produce departments in the 75,000 population town, compared to Stevensville vast population of about 2,000, LOL. Things never panned out. We did not get a chance to talk at all through the holidays, save for a christmas card shared on both our parts. I finally broke down and called him about a week before VD last month, just to hear his voice. It had been so long since we'd spoken---I don't know why I waited so long, actually. I guess I just thought that the distance between us may have split up our blossoming friendship as well.

I wasn't really correct. We spent over 4 hours on the phone that night, catching up on one anothers' lives and just talking about how much we missed one another and wished things had worked out differently for us both.

Now, on this, the one year later point of the first time we met in person, I find myself really missing him a lot. I wish I could see him, hug him, and tell him how much he meant to me. How much he still does mean to me. I think about him almost every day. But--now that so much time has passed--I am afraid to tell him these things. I am afraid to open up to him. I am afraid of the always inevitable shoot down that comes whenever I have feelings for a guy.

Does anyone else miss the days when we were kids and all you had to do was pass a note over to Jonny or Suzie that said "Do you want to go steady? Circle one. Yes or no." LOL---because I sure do!

It's too complicated now. And the distance doesn't help matters any. Is 2 hours enough to separate a man from the man he could possibly say is the one? Would he feel the same? These are questions I am terrified to ask, and therefore, don't know if I ever will. Could I live with myself if I let him go? Could he?

At present------I just don't know what to do.

Picking up the spare......egg

I've been pretty adamant over the last several years about not wanting to ever have kids. No need to worry about that during a relationship, haha. Not without some kind of miracle anyway. But the thought has always lingered in the back of my mind. What if, by some miracle chance happening, I ever did have a long term relationship with a man who wanted a family? I know there are tons of options out there, first and foremost being adoption for a two dad family. This decision would not come lightly. I MIGHT be willing to think about it, for the man that I loved.

Here's the thing.

I don't have a female friend who would want to have a child, if the adoption thing didn't pan out and we wanted to have a kid of our own. Would he? Perhaps. But the point is, even if fatherhood ever did become a need in my life, I don't have a woman in my life who would be my spare egg. I used to think that my friend Andrea and I would make great choices for male and female..uh...parts...to mix and match and boom, there's our kid! But now, she's married and has children of her own. That is no longer a viable option, as I'm sure she'd have no interest in being inseminated with my sperm at this point in her life.

There is probably one other woman that I might consider asking, but she already has two kids of her own too, and I highly doubt that she'd be willing to go through it all again.

So, that's it. Even if I ever did do a complete 180 in my life, settle down and live happily ever after with the man of my dreams---well---maybe HIS dreams at the very least---there would be no chance of us having a child of our own.

I guess it doesn't really matter. Because---ECK---a kid! What the hell am I even thinking about this for?

I'd better stop before I make myself lose consciousness, hehehe.

My newest obsession

I've gotten pretty tired of the mostly useless television here in the USA, so I have been searching abroad. I found this little gem of a show called Torchwood. It's shades of Quantum Leap, The X-Files, and the ass kicking of Alias. Our captain jumps from place to place to stop bad things from happening (or cause them as the case may be) and he tends to fall in love along the way. What's so noteworthy about this show, you ask? Well, our Captain is gay! Check out this scene from my favorite episode so far.....