GAY GUYS AND OVER 30 CRISIS

 Hi Project,

I have read so many of the things you have posted in the forum, your and others’ things, that I seem to understand your way of reasoning. I especially liked real stories. I understand that there is also a need to catalog, but the human world is that of individuals and not that of categories. I especially liked the “non-standard” stories as you call them, even if, I tell you frankly, stories of that kind have never happened to me, and are certainly exceptions rather far from becoming the rule.

There is a problem that I often think about these days and it is the loss of affective values as we age, I’m not talking about old age, in which you perhaps may lose sexuality or the urgency of sexuality, but I think that anyway affectivity remains. I’m referring to the thirty years old or better to the first years after thirty which for me are the most complicated age in the life of other guys, in which affectivity fades to the advantage of sexuality. I’m 40 years old now and honestly, when I was around the age of 30 and immediately afterwards I didn’t go through a cooling of affectivity because my affectivity has always been very slowed down by education and a thousand objective impossibilities. In the guys I have known very closely, however, I have practically always seen the crisis of affectivity after the age of thirty. Generally they reproach me for not giving space to sexuality and for “chatting too much” but also for being depressed, for putting people in a bad mood, depressing them and extinguishing their enthusiasm, especially sexual, with too melancholy speeches. The guys I have been with, after the initial period of falling in love, didn’t try to build a solid relationship with me, on the contrary they tended to move away whenever the emotional dimension became or risked becoming prevalent. There was a recurring situation that systematically put me in crisis and that is the fact that when a guy was depressed, angry, frustrated and so on, not for reasons dependent on me but for other reasons, he used to tell me: “What a terrible shit day today!” and this was always both the starting and the ending of the conversation, that is, guys didn’t allow me to enter the world of their frustrations and private melancholies. I would have liked a real dialogue and instead the whole discourse either referred strictly to sex and only to that or it became so academic and theoretical up to losing any interest. I had a sexual intimacy with those guys, but only that, as for the rest they were closed worlds in which I wasn’t allowed to enter. I really loved some of these guys, because there had been also periods when we were not just a couple of strangers who meet to have sex and that’s it, but then, after the honeymoon, the emotional distancing began, not the sexual one, which was generally much slower. I have always thought I could be much more attractive on an emotional level than on a sexual one and instead for those guys it was exactly the opposite. I asked myself many times what they could find in me and I never understood it. But if you not only have sex with a guy but you realize that he cares, not about you, but about having sex with you, what is the value of the sex we have together? Sometimes, and I emphasize this, only a few times, I have felt used. Let’s understand each other well: it was okay for me to have sex with those guys, but I couldn’t stand it all ending there, and instead it always happened like this. We used to sleep together but we weren’t even friends, because you talk to a friend and listen to him while we used to go on just to perform sexually. Maybe they were afraid of emotional bonds? Maybe they had been emotionally badly scalded sometimes. I remember a guy I had seen one afternoon and after we had done what we had to do, when I asked him to stay with me a little longer but, note well, after sex, he replied that he couldn’t because he had to go out with friends. But why do you come and have sex with me if then going out with friends is more important than being with me? But obviously I couldn’t ask him such a question. Many times I have tried to put myself in those guys’ shoes and I seemed to understand that deep down they may have their motivations, because they are not stupid, but in the end I realize that my interest in those guys has gone away too, fading over the years. At first I used to see them as central figures in my life, I repeat, in the phase of falling in love and honeymoon, then things changed and I too began to distance, not that I didn’t care anymore, but that interest strong, that physical need of the early days had vanished. Before we used to meet very often, they called me and I called them, then I stopped calling them and they continued, but they didn’t even ask me how I was, they used to go immediately to the concrete proposal: “I’ll come to you and then we have to (omissis) What do you say?” So, Project, let’s also assume that these guys after the honeymoon are tired of my affection and continue to look for me only for sex, which doesn’t upset me at all, because little by little you get used to everything, but, I wonder, will they ever fall in love seriously, that is, permanently, with someone? They are not kids, they are adults and no longer very young. It’s true that we are all very different and that there are no general rules, but by dint of devaluing affectivity we end up being alone and nothing is built. You will tell me that they have devalued my affectivity and maybe they have taken a terrible crush on other guys, and it could also be true, but I haven’t lost sight of these guys at all and I can tell you that they don’t seem at all like guys happy with themselves. Don’t tie yourself up too much! Ok, I’m fine with this thought that in the end belongs to me too, I can understand it but sooner or later we must also start to put some fixed points. A guy once gave me a serious talk and opened my eyes to something that I have always greatly underestimated because I used to take it for granted, that guy told me that I was lucky but I shouldn’t allow myself to judge others, because if one wins a lottery he must not allow himself to judge those who have not won it. I have often thought that many of my basic certainties are such because they have never measured themselves against reality. Basically, I use very abstract arguments because I have always found myself on the side of the guy who is neglected at emotional level. In theory I complain about this thing but in the end it suits me and if some guys became fond of me as I was fond of them, in the end I would be the one who runs away. So: flash in the pan! All the reasoning in smoke! In fact I don’t mind that somehow they drift away and that in any case there remains a sexual interest for a long time, in theory it seems silly to me but in practice it has its logic: the fundamental thing is to save one’s freedom! Everyone wants a companion, but they want him how and when they want him, if he’s not according to their model, they look for another one that is closer to their model and above all they want a partner when they want him, because on many occasions he becomes a brake, a bond, a weight to carry around that takes away your freedom. If it’s cold, everyone wants a blanket at the campsite in the evening, but during the day they don’t want to carry their rucksacks. It is understandable but inconsistent. I will never understand the meaning of sex only for sex and yet until now I have found only that. In the thirty-year-olds I met, I saw the tendency towards widening the horizon of possible relationships, but not that towards deepening them. I have often wondered why, despite everything, the sexual interest didn’t fail. It’s clear that, if you spread sexual interest over several people, out of necessity contacts must thin out, however, why don’t they completely disappear? And here I have an answer. My thirty-year-olds gave terrible judgments about their mates with whom they had had stories ended badly  and I talk about judgments about people and I think that with those people they ceased all contacts even those of sex, while about me they said that I was depressed, boring, that I used to extinguish their enthusiasm, but they didn’t have a negative opinion and somehow things went on and then they also told me that I was hypocritical because they said I dodged the talk about sex and even sexual innuendo but anyhow I liked sex a lot, and in a way it is true. But with a hypocrite who first acts as a depressed moralist and then tells you yes, you can also have sex, while with someone who shows you all the enthusiasm and then, when you need something, doesn’t even listen to you and disconnects your phone, well, it is obvious that things are different. I have never said no, or only very few times, also because my thirties were honest with me and never made fun of me. In a way I was lucky. Some of these sporadic relationships of only sex still exist, they are sporadic relationships, it is true, apparently very elementary, that after all I have said, for me should be meaningless, yet they are human contacts that I feel are important. They are marginal in the sense that they certainly don’t invade my whole life, they have nothing extraordinary, yet they have a human dimension that has its own dignity. One said to me: “I come to you when I’m worse off, I come to have sex but I know that if something pushes me towards melancholy and I don’t feel like having sex you won’t send me to hell and perhaps it will even better for you. You are available, for others it’s either sex or it doesn’t make sense, for you it’s different.” He asked me if I pitied him, if I felt sorry for him and such! I replied that he made me feel an infinite tenderness, because he seemed to me a lost soul looking for a quite harbor. He smiled at me and all ended there. Many years have passed and I still see this guy now but at very long intervals, of a month or even two, and I’m glad when he remembers me. When he arrives, he always asks me if I’m in love with someone, he means with other guys, I flash to him my best smile as to say that there are no other guys, and he smiles in turn, and that strikes me a lot. I let him do whatever he likes better, I want him to feel completely comfortable. There are very few words between us. He expects me to never tell him no, but he also adjusts to me and asks me only for things that are good for me too. It is he who leads the sexual game but he does it with respect, with delicacy. These things seem silly but qualify the person. I would like the relationship with this guy, whom I think about with tenderness quite often, to become I don’t say stable but just a little more stable and frequent. Deep down, I know that it won’t happen. It would be enough for me to go on like this, maybe seeing each other once a month or every two months, and instead I’m afraid of losing him permanently. I would like to have a place in his life, the place he wants, as marginal as he wants, but I wish he wouldn’t forget me. I know he needs more and this is not a problem, or rather it wouldn’t be if he didn’t end up forgetting about me. Is it a fallback solution? Am I wasting my time on totally stupid fantasies? Maybe so, but in the end, this relationship has stood the test of time, it’s a light, fragile thing, apparently made of only sex, but perhaps not only. I don’t know what to think, Project, I haven’t looked for another guy, because he somehow exists in my life, he is not a meteor that explodes and disappears, you know that sooner or later you’ll see him again, or at least you hope it will be so. At the moment I don’t know if I will see him again but I know I would like it.

What do you think about Project?

p.s.: obviously do what you want with the email. I would like to know if any of the guys have had similar experiences.

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gay-guys-and-over-30-crisis

GAY GUYS LOOKING ONLY FOR SEX

 Hi Project,

I recently discovered Gay Project and in the panorama of gay content sites on the network it seems unique to me and if I had met it about ten years ago I think I would have avoided getting involved in many useless problems which, on the other hand, have conditioned me a lot. Reading the forum in the sex section and in the couples section, I found stories not far from experiences that I have also lived and this confirmed me in the idea of not being a rare exception. I’m 32 years old, luckily for me I can still undertake quite well the passage of time and I show less than my years. Currently, at least in a sense, I’m single, partly by choice and partly because my ex-boyfriends, let’s call them so, after a few months, get tired and needed something else. I understood this and didn’t even try to hold them back. I’ve lived a free life since I was twenty, I left home as soon as I could because I couldn’t stand the daily contact with my parents anymore and I needed to live my life. At the beginning I went through periods of strong disarray, bordering on depression, I thought that no one would ever fall in love with me and this seemed to me like a tragedy, today, objectively, at least looking from the outside, nothing has changed, it no longer seems to me like a tragedy and I stopped looking for a guy, at least in the sense that is usually given to this expression. I haven’t stopped looking for sex, because I think it’s impossible to stop, but I put aside the idea of making my sanity depend on a single guy, but by reading the following you will understand what I mean. 

Up to the age of 24-25 my couple experiences were devastating, perhaps also because I dreamed a lot and I felt very frustrated and disappointed, I had in my head several models and preconceptions that conditioned me. At the age of 25 I met a guy, whom I will call James here, who in a sense, little by little, made me change my way of thinking. The beginning, with him, was only physical. I was attracted to him and tried to repeat with him the same script I had used with the other guys: close couple, eternal love blah blah, but he didn’t let me do so from the first attempt. James was different from the other guys, he didn’t play a role, he was very disenchanted, a bit the opposite of me. He dismantled all my traditional vision of couple life setting right from the start and told me brutally, but seriously: “I like having sex with you, but I don’t know you, for the moment I like it but it’s just sex, I don’t know if I’ll fall in love with you, it could happen, but at the moment it isn’t.” For what I was then such a speech was destructive and I started to feel bad almost immediately, but I liked him a lot and I followed my sexual instinct, putting aside my emotional frustrations. 

In sex James was very direct, he didn’t say stupid things. It may have been just sex, as he used to say, but he liked me, he wanted me and I must say that I understood only with him what it means to make love with a guy. On a sexual level, things worked very well between us, the understanding was practically perfect, we used to think the same things and at the same moments. I have never had a guy interested in totally uninhibited sex and far from any acting like him, at least from that point of view I lacked nothing, but there was a but, he told me that in any case he felt free to go with other guys too and he really did, but they weren’t betrayals or things done in secret, he also used  to talk to me about his guys and I felt terrible. He once said to me: “I’m like that, if this doesn’t suit you, you are free to leave.” These expressions at first sounded aggressive, as if he wanted to control or dominate me, but then I realized that it wasn’t like that. He was looking for me a lot, he had the attitude of a seducer towards me, or at least it seemed so to me, he enhanced my sexual performances and this way he gratified me, but he always said that for him it was “only sex”, and I don’t hide from you that for this expression I hated him, even if hating James was practically impossible. He almost didn’t want me to fall in love with him sentimentally, sex didn’t frighten him but he couldn’t stand the entanglements that he considered sticky, he used to say that when you understand each other you don’t need words. He used to say “you understand each other”, not “you love each other” because he systematically avoided the affective plan. 

This expression: “it’s just sex” has been somehow my obsession for the past six years. But I have to be honest, told like this the story seems very reductive: he is the cynical and insensitive tyrant and I the victim subjugated by sex, but things were actually very different and much more complicated. There were a lot of cynical and overly rational attitudes on his part, but there were others as well that seemed to go in an entirely different direction. Despite his behaviors, he was not a sex hunter, he was free in his behavior, he had had many guys, he was a bit cynical in these things, that’s true, but he didn’t think only of himself, he wasn’t aggressive or vindictive, when we had some conflict he had no problem giving in first and sometimes he felt seriously hurt, but he would never try to hurt you, perhaps he may disappear, if he thinks he’s not welcome. He never tried to force anyone to do anything, he didn’t use emotional blackmail of any kind and above all, when he went away because he had met another guy, he didn’t disappear for too long periods and then, despite appearances, he was very vulnerable on the emotional level and perhaps his being cynical, at least in appearance, was a method of defense. 

Every time he entered a new story I used to feel terrible because I was terrified of losing him permanently, but things never went that way. Let’s say that some of his ex-boyfriends left the scene precisely because he considered them unreliable, with others he maintained non-superficial contacts. I want to specify that when I say that he considered certain guys untrustworthy I’m not referring to the fact that they only had sex with him or anything like that, these things were practically indifferent to him, for him the unreliability consisted in not speaking clearly, telling lies, having two faces, saying one thing and doing another. He just couldn’t stand these things and on the other hand he didn’t do them. With ex-boyfriends that he considered reliable people he also had sex episodically, always underlying that “it was just sex” but it seemed to me that a much more complex relationship was created with those guys, let’s say something like a true friendship even with a little sex .He behaved like that to me too. From him I learned the meaning of sexuality. 

At the beginning, when he said to me: “I’m with you only for sex”, I considered the expression in a reductive way, then I realized that saying “only for sex” was not actually an understatement. Sex for him was also, and I would say above all, a way to be accepted without preclusions.  I understood that sometimes he really needed to have sex with me, it was a very important end liberating form of communication. Sometimes after sex he would have moments of deep melancholy and he would cry in front of me, other times when we happened to meet, he seemed very cynical and aggressive but if he could live sex in a liberating way in the end he was better. 

As time went by, I understood more and more clearly that saying “it’s just sex” wasn’t an understatement at all. With the expression “only sex” he wanted to exclude all the ritualism, the sweet platitudes and the small hypocrisies of which are often studded the so-called love stories. The distinction between love and sex made no sense to him, for him sexual attraction was the trigger of a sexual story, precisely in the sense of “sexual story”, of course, but also of prudently affective story. In a sense, he overturned the common order of things: for many it starts with friendship and then ends with sex, for him it starts with sex and then it becomes possible to understand whether or not it is also possible to build a relationship of friendship. He often told me something that I struggled to understand and that is that at the basis of true friendship, that is, of trusting one another, there is always a strong mutual sexual attraction, which is a necessary condition, but obviously not sufficient, to build a friendship. For him, friendship was more than sex, or rather it was almost another step forward towards a more complete sexuality, a level no more sublimated but deeper, that is, with a deeper level of interpersonal communication. A friend to him was one he could trust 100% and that trust had to be mutual. He had no ritual friendships, he never remembered birthdays or anything like that, he never gave gifts, not to save that money he didn’t have anyway, but to avoid entering the dimension of the ritual, of what one does because it must be done. 

For him, a friend is someone who doesn’t say no, if you go to visit him because you need to have sex with him at one in the morning. This is sex, of course, but it is certainly not “just sex” in the reductive sense of the term. He also has another characteristic that I have always liked a lot and that gives a further meaning to his way of saying: “it’s just sex”. He connects sex “exclusively” to a dimension of instinctive attraction, sex for him mustn’t be polluted by anything else, i.e. it must be “just sex!” because “only sex” means real sex, not mixed with interests of any other kind, and ultimately real sex is the premise of serious friendship. He told me something else that at first irritated me a lot: “if someone doesn’t welcome you into his bed when you need it, he’s not a friend because for him rules matter more than you.” Today I’m starting to think he was right. 

Over time we see each other less and therefore we have less sex and now, in the virus period, we talk  from time to time on the phone, but not very often, when it happens, however, the phone calls are very long. He finally asks me if I got aroused and it actually happens every time. Lately he told me that he has many “friends”, but as for “true friends”, that is, those with whom he can speak freely, he has only three. A few years ago, this speech would have made me feel bad because I would have read it only as a clear sign that for him I was not the only one, neither as a friend nor as a sex partner, since, for him, friendship also includes sexual availability, but today this doesn’t really put me in crisis anymore. 

For more than a year now we have not seen each other “only” to have sex but “also” to talk and to talk in such a serious way that I have never found anything similar in different situations and with anyone else. At the beginning I used to feel a clear difference between his way of seeing sex and personal relationships and mine, then little by little the differences began to fade, little by little we built a common ground, yielding a little to each other’s principles. He is now much less cynical and is also starting to talk about sex as an expression of affectivity and I have ended up putting aside the idea of couple, not because I think there is something wrong, but because I don’t see it suitable for me, I mean for us, me and James. We have found our balance, which is not the classic balance of a couple, but it works between us. So I feel better, I feel much more at ease and somehow, I don’t know whether to say that I feel loved, but I certainly feel much more respected and understood. 

Lately it also happened to me to call him because I felt the need to have sex with him, he just told me: “I’ll wait for you, come as soon as you can.” It was only five words but it was easy to understand that James was glad that I had asked him it. I went up to his house, he let me in, he undressed, while I did the same, then he lay down on the bed and opened his arms and we hugged naked. I stayed with him all night. In the morning when I woke up I asked him: “Is it just sex?” He smiled at me and ruffled my hair. Please note, Project, this is not the beginning, of a perhaps late classic couple story, it is just “a moment” of our relationship, which must be taken for what it is. Saying this I realize that it is as if this time it is me the one who says that “it’s just sex”, even if it’s certainly not “just sex”. In reality I knew very well that after that episode I wouldn’t have seen him perhaps for four or six weeks in a row, I was aware of it and I didn’t want and shouldn’t delude myself. The relationship between James and me would certainly not have ended, and in fact it has not ended, but it would never have been a classic relationship. 

I asked myself several times, from a selfish point of view, if “for me” it would have been better to look for another guy or “also” for another guy. I don’t think that in general James would have considered it as a betrayal, he would probably have accepted it as the most normal thing in the world, because he too was used to do such things normally. The real problem would come with the other guy who would find himself involved in things other than the classic couple stories and feel betrayed. However, since I’ve known James, I’ve never fallen in love with other guys. Now he told me that he fell in love with another guy he likes a lot, and he’s devoting himself completely to this guy, but generally James’s stories don’t last long because guys want him all to themselves and don’t accept the fact that you can’t build relationships with him. 

For slightly different reasons, both James and I have difficulty building relationships with guys, their model of emotional life is different from ours, because they are used to saying one thing and living another. Those guys, when James tells them “it’s just sex”, they feel relieved at first, because they think “it’s just sex” for them too, but when they see James telling them he’s fallen in love with someone else, then they realize that for them it’s not really “just sex” and so they begin to feel terrible and to feel betrayed, because they are unable to put aside the idea of exclusivity in order not to lose James. They want to be with James but they think that the kind of relationship is worth more than the person: better a couple relationship with another than a different kind of relationship with him. I understand that you can be perplexed if you hear your partner saying that “it’s just sex” but to be with a guy because with him you can build the kind of relationship you want it means that in the end “it’s not even sex, but convenience and habit.” 

Sometimes I fear that James, despite everything he has said, might actually fall in love with another guy and end up accepting even a standard couple life with that guy. I can guarantee you that if that happens I’d be happy. At first it might be difficult to accept, but in the end I would be happy. I don’t know if in a similar situation he could forget me, frankly I don’t think so. Perhaps the episodic sexual contacts between us, which characterized our relationship, would end completely, but we would still love each other even so, and at least he would have no reason to repeat that “it’s just sex”.

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I receive the following email at 2.25 am on September 1st 2020, with a request for publication. 

Hello Project, I’m the James mentioned in the post “Gay Guys Looking For Sex”. Here I will call Paul the author of that post, who is one of my closest friends. To some this expression may seem trivial and stupid but for me it is not at all. Paul loved me for who I was, he never frowned like so many guys from good families who were looking for a mate they could take home to have their parents’ blessing. If Paul had taken me to his parents I think they would have kicked me if they knew who I was. Paul didn’t ask questions, he didn’t demand conditions of any kind, he was patient, he never posed as a teacher, he was a true friend, and I think few people know what this expression means. There are many aspects of me much worse than what Paul told in the post, indeed, he almost sanctified me, but he also accepted the worst in me, he didn’t run away like so many others. Now I feel much less as a drifter than before, but not because I found eternal love but because I learned a lot from Paul and still have a lot to learn. I have other friends I trust, but with him it’s different, he’s an exceptional man and he knows I really think so. I never understood what he could find in me, because someone like him could have found guys a hundred times better than me, and he had the opportunities to do it but he really cared about me. He had a vision of sex very far from mine but he didn’t run away, he didn’t get scared. He talked about the night he came to me, and said he called me to be with me, but he didn’t say that he did it mainly because we had talked on the phone in the afternoon and he had understood that I was really in a bad situation. I had longed him to come and he called me and came to me and came here so as not to leave me alone with my paranoia, for me seeing him was like seeing the light again. He said that as soon as he arrived we immediately went to bed together but it didn’t happen at all like that, I was confused and he made me a cup of tea, then he cleaned the kitchen and made me some dinner that he had brought from home, because I hadn’t eaten for two days, then he sat next to me and held my hand until I was better, then we also made love but by now dawn was breaking. I have learned to live or rather I’m learning to live a normal life and I thought that I would never succeed, and instead I’m succeeding because there is Paul. I don’t know if he will ever be my boyfriend, these categories seem absurd to me, I owe him a lot and I’m not ashamed to say it. I’m changing my life because Paul didn’t abandon me when anyone else would. I don’t know if I’m in love with him, in the end in love is a word like any other. I just want to tell him that he was the one who made me realize that it’s not just sex. He knows what is between us and on the other hand I think it is impossible to explain it in words.

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gay-guys-looking-only-for-sex

GAY COUPLES AND SEXUAL FANTASIES

Mau85 – Hi Project, how are you? It’s been a while since we talked

 

Project – Fortunately, everything is pretty good here, and you?

 

Mau85 – Here too, and I could say very well indeed today! Do you remember me?

 

Project – yes, I remember the story with your ex, a story which wasn’t actually over because you and your ex kept hearing from each other

 

Mau85 – Yes, he himself, let’s call him Andrew, and do you remember anything else? I don’t want to test your memory, but I have to understand where to resume the story from

 

Project – I remember that Andrew also had other guys and this fact for you was not at all shocking for you

 

Mau85 – shocking certainly not, in short I would have liked to have him all for myself, but he is like this, he also needs something or better someone else, I think I was afraid that they could take him away from me, that is I was afraid that he would stop loving me because he was in love also with other guys, but I couldn’t ask him to leave those guys because he really loved them

 

Project – yes, I remember these things

 

Mau85 – he, however, felt only half satisfied with these guys, not so much from the emotional point of view because after all they respected and loved him, but precisely from the sexual point of view

 

Project – What do you mean? 

 

Mau85 – In the sense that he tried to involve them in his sexual fantasies, which are not really common, but they didn’t listen to him and in the end, for him, sex was a very mechanical thing, because it was he who had to adapt. Actually I don’t even know what he could have said about himself to those guys but I think he’s been quite explicit, as he had been with me, but I don’t know exactly. He tried a lot of times to involve me too in his fantasies, but it wasn’t so easy to me, in the end I pretended not to understand and tried to do what the other guys used to do, that is, I tried to bring him to my own ground, what in the end really happened every time, even if in the end he was only half satisfied. I have to tell you that seeing that after having sex with me he was not really satisfied put me on a lot of melancholy to the point that I tried to thin our meetings because I expected that he would be disappointed anyway. Project, I saw that you didn’t ask me questions to go more deeper and you did well. I just have to tell you that I love Andrew with all my soul, I respect him as a person, he likes sex, has sex with other guys, but I know some of those guys and they are guys who love him.

 

Project – from what you told me it was clear that your relationship with Andrew was serious. There are people who can see your story in a completely different way, it is obvious, for what it may be worth! The important thing is what you think of Andrew, because you know him very well, the rest doesn’t worth anything at all.

 

Mau85 – well, I’ve known him for years, you can’t make a traditional couple with him, it’s different, but it’s not a less serious thing. He needs other guys, I don’t, but we love each other anyway. But you already know this and that was not what I wanted to talk to you about, I called you to talk about what happened between me and Andrew on February 29, one Saturday, before this virus affair, when it was still possible to circulate. In short, he calls me and without any preamble he tells me that he is under my house and that he wants to go up. In our language it means that he wants to have sex with me. I have often said no to him, but at that moment I was happy that he had come to me, I had missed him a lot in the last few days. He comes up to my home, you know that I live alone, he tells me he doesn’t have condoms, when he comes to me he always has them, I make a puzzled face, as if to say: so what did you come for? He knows very well that for me the idea of having sex with him without a condom is absolutely inconceivable and so he replies: Ok, we don’t even touch each other, we’ll stay at a distance each in his place two meters away from each other, but you have to come in my fantasies, you have to make me do it for once, at least in fantasy, something that is good for me, ok? I look at him and say ok! Then he adds, but let’s get to the end, please, without changing the subject. I tell him it’s okay and we masturbated in front of each other while I tell him an erotic story of the kind he likes. At first all the situation sounded strange to me, but he seemed very involved and I went on with the story which in the end seemed quite engaging to me too. I make it short. We got to the end more or less together, we were both very tired. Well, it was the first time he wasn’t disappointed, and we hadn’t even touched each other. He told me that I was beginning to understand what he needed and that he appreciated very much the fact that I had not tried to escape the matter and do the usual things, then he told me that he hadn’t brought condoms on purpose. In general, after our sex meetings, as soon as it’s done, he leaves. But on February 29 instead we cooked and dined together and he stayed in my house to sleep. We talked a lot, I saw him calm, not at all frustrated, he joked, he said nonsense, in short it was an incredible evening, before going to sleep “in his room” he told me: “I love you!” and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. Then in the following days we had a lot of work to do and stayed apart for a while without staying in touch even by phone, but it’s not a rare thing between us. We had agreed that we would meet again on March 14 (our meetings are almost always on the weekend), but the government decrees intervened and we could not move from home, neither he nor I, but the experience of February 29 was somehow replicated a couple of times via the web, which is not quite the same, but I realized that I no longer had any resistance against his fantasies and that trying to share his fantasies seemed to me much more spontaneous, that is, we were practically on the same wavelength, there was no need of speeches or preambles of any kind. Once we arrived at the end, however, we continued to talk about a thousand other things, even very far from sex, I felt him loose, relaxed, without melancholy notes. He told me about when he was a child, about “lego” constructions, but also about the long afternoons he spent alone, practically abandoned by his parents, about how he had learned to draw (which he still does now and very well) and how he had learned to play the guitar, sometimes when some melancholy thoughts were about to invade him he chased them away by doing exercises with the guitar. We spent two evenings or rather two nights talking and we felt well in a profound sense, he felt accepted, not exploited, He said to me: you are not my type, but with you I’m fine, I feel really well and I want you too to feel well, I am not in love with you but I love you. This sentence may sound strange but I know it is absolutely true. Now I hope that the restrictions on circulation will be removed as soon as possible, clearly because it would mean that the epidemic is waning, but also because I’m looking forward to see Andrew again, because for me only he exists. These are the facts. What do you think about, Project?

 

Project – You have been happy and he too, this is the better proof that you and  Andrew love each other! There is a reciprocal trust, a very uncommon way to accept one another’s rules and then he didn’t feel rejected in his most intimate fantasies, you made him understand that you didn’t feel conditioned, in short, you have put him at ease. It would be very nice if it was like that even in all the monogamous couples both gay and hetero, if there was this level of sexual availability! But believe me it is very rare. Very often in sex there are real attempts to prevaricate, attempts to impose models without ever adapting to the other

 

Mau85 – But I felt happy and I said to myself that I was a fool when I tried to avoid to consider his need for what it really was without giving him the opportunity to express himself as he wished, when instead I did it I saw him happy, because he didn’t feel rejected. I think that when you make your partner understand what you need and he pretends not to understand and wants to bring you on his way the feeling of frustration must be tremendous, because you bitterly feel that between you and your partner there isn’t any real feeling, that you are considered no more than a body available to the fantasies of others. In short, Project, I’m slowly learning to understand the meaning of many things that a few years ago I would have refused and would have seemed completely absurd to me. I liked without any real reason the classic couple model and I thought that I would never adapt to anything different and instead when Andrew told me that he had fallen in love with another guy but he loved me anyway I accepted this thing and I have never regretted my choice and now I learn that in order to live sexuality well, one must try to leave room for the other, respecting and accepting him. I saw him smile and it was a beautiful thing. If I love him I don’t have to say no to him for more or less stupid reasons. And then the evenings spent talking together were wonderful. I feel that he really loves me.

 

Project – You have come to these conclusions but the vast majority of couples would never get there, simply because there is no real affection, or perhaps there is, but putting first the self-realization, first the selfish note. The things you say would scandalize many people, but anyway they are very true. I remember you saying that Andrew had never deceived you, well, saying this about a guy means rewarding him with the most beautiful compliment one can do. I’m not surprised that you fell in love with Andrew and even less that you never felt the need to find another guy because there is a relationship with Andrew and it is of deep ones, those which are not lost with the years.

 

Mau85 – I knew you would understand. I told a small summary of this story on another gay site and they asked me if I was out of my mind, in the end they left me alone because they thought I was making fun of them! I’m glad to talk to you, I feel encouraged. However, if you want to publish this chat, publish it, maybe it puts someone in crisis! Thank you, Project, Gay Project has given me so much!

Good night.

 

Project – Thanks to you! And a hug to you and Andrew!

___________

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RISKS OF COMIG OUT WITH PARENTS

Dear Project,
I don’t know if you remember me, a few years have passed, but I still remember the strange effect that made me talk to you, because I realized that I didn’t know gay reality at all and that I had an infinite series of fears, practically almost all nonsense, and I didn’t realize what could be the real problems of being with a guy, then I was 25 (good times!), now I’m 31 and I must say that things have changed a lot. I don’t know if you remember, Project, but a few months after our first conversations, I sent you a picture with a dedication on msn, a picture that represented me and the one whom I was hoping, even with a thousand uncertainties, was my boyfriend. Well … we’ve been together for 5 years now, and we live together. Now I’m not a boy anymore but I see my dream come true, Project, I feel loved. Do you remember the night you were talking to me on the chat? When bad thoughts passed through my mind? You told me that my life could have made another guy’s happiness and it seemed impossible to me, but that’s exactly what happened.

I met Luke in a chat, not in an erotic chat, but in a chat where they talked about architecture. There was talk not only of architecture but also about how a young architect can look for and even find work. At that time I was not working yet, neither was he. In his answers I saw the tendency to leave space, to make me talk, he was never impositive or aggressive, but was conversational without falling in the banal. We continued to talk in that chat for several days, then we discovered that we lived in the same city and we decided to meet up to try to plan together the search for a job. When I saw him I was electrocuted, he was a beautiful guy. We spent the whole day together and it was just fine! We only talked about job opportunities and we decided to give ourselves to do as much as possible to look for work together because economic independence was our first desire. I didn’t know anything about him then.

He has come to my house many times, he met my parents and I met his, obviously we were just two friends looking for a job together but the atmosphere was very positive. At his house, in his room there were many photos of a girl and it was like a stab to me: Luke was beautiful but obviously he was straight! My mood collapsed from one minute to the next. He noticed it and immediately told me: “It’s my brother’s girlfriend!” And in saying so he smiled at me. I thought that his smile was his way to come out with me and I also answered him with a smile and a breath of relief. When we said goodbye, beyond the usual handshake there was also a hug that I didn’t expect and it was not a formality. Since then our relationship took a different way.

You know, Project, you always say that the real problem is knowing if the other is gay, but if he is, the problem remains to understand how he thinks, what he thinks, how he sees the situation, and it takes time to understand it. Note, Project, that we never declared ourselves explicitly and that starting a speech beyond work was really difficult. Then one evening, after going to get a pizza, we stopped to talk in the car. He asked me: “Do you think it would work?” I had no doubts about the interpretation of that phrase and I replied: “We have to do everything to make it work …” He told me: “All right! Then I start.” He told me about himself without reserve and told me that he felt happy next to me and that he thought of me a thousand times a day. I took his hand and kissed it. It started like this. I skip the details you can imagine. I was really good, sexual transport was very strong. His way of experiencing sex was practically identical to mine: enthusiasm, but also prudence: doing the test, absolute mutual loyalty and lots of cuddles. I always wanted to be with him, when the time came to part from him I felt really halved. When I saw him smile, in his eyes I saw heaven. He had beautiful, warm hands and when he was holding mine he inspired me so much trust. And then he was not neurotic like me, he was quiet and close to him I began to overcome all my neuroses.

But there was a huge problem: we could go and make love in my parents’ country cottage, especially in winter, because no one ever went there, it was cold, but we knew how to warm up: a double duvet and we didn’t need anything else, it was fine but we often wondered what our parents would say if they understood how things really were. In practice we did everything in secret. For all the rest, we met each other, either, at his house or at mime, but we had to be careful to talk only about work. Another underlying fear was related to the fact that one of us could find work in another city, because such a thing would have been shocking. We were looking for work hoping not to find it. And we even arrived to present ourselves together for job interviews, saying that we were very close and used to working together, even if it is not easy for two architects to be hired to work together.

After about six months of “cohabitation” we got a job offer for a six-month contract in Kazakhstan, which seemed very strange, but the proposal came from an important multinational for which we had already held job interviews, we thought about it a little and then we accepted. Our families were very worried, but the fact of going there together led us to accept. After two days we were on the plane. The work was in Astana, a very special city, without western-style buildings, but with huge neighborhoods made of small houses with small gardens, very well kept, even if the city is almost in the middle of the desert. We have been housed in a villa, with three bedrooms and a bathroom, with a delightful little garden. People were also a pleasant discovery for us, but our dialogue with the locals could only take place in English, and on the other hand any contact with our superiors (Canadians) was only in English. In Astana we were really good and our relationship become deeper. We have worked together and a lot but we got also great satisfaction.

After the six months in Astana, they told us that we would spend another six months in Vancouver to oversee the construction of a port building, of course we accepted. The city is incredibly multiethnic and between the mountains and the ocean it is spectacular, we have happened there in summer, a very mild summer, similar to the springs of southern Europe. We had an apartment with a wonderful view. In Vancouver, however, we experienced that our English was very rudimentary and we tried to improve it with a group of local friends, including a gay couple, but of gays over 60, something that is rare to see in Europe. In Canada, the work didn’t have the relaxed rhythms it had in Astana, and several times we had to work even at night to keep up with the demands of the construction sites. We have worked, we have gained well but the nostalgia of Italy was very strong. By the way, work had distracted us from our basic problem: “what to say to our parents and how to say it”. For our parents we were in effect only two work colleagues.

A month before departure from Vancouver our superiors let us know that they would send us back to Italy to Milan, which is far from our home, but it is still in Italy. The second of September we arrived in Milan, also this time they placed us in the same apartment, which however was not even the shadow of the one in Vancouver and had not the eastern grace of that of Astana. Once settled, we decided it was time to speak clearly with our families. We didn’t know what to expect or even if it was the case to speak first with my parents and then with his, or to create an opportunity to make a single speech that would be good for everyone, but we were determined.

We set a lunch at my house for September 6th. The day arrives, we do the usual compliments, then Luke immediately enters the topic: “Listen to me a little … so we got to know each other better by working together for a year and we understood that we want to spend our life together, because we love each other and it seemed right to let you know.” In our opinion, the most was done, but the reaction to the words of Luke was disconcerting. My father pretended not to have understood, just like that, Project, while he had understood very well, he made a perplexed face, followed by a strange smile. Luke preferred to immediately eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding: “We are gay … and we love each other.” His father and mother did not say anything, they were almost paralyzed and did not know what to say. It was evident that a completely unexpected atomic bomb had fallen on them. My mother tried to lighten the situation but in the wrong way: “Now it can be a difficult moment but then things can get settled …” Luke immediately stopped her: “There’s nothing to settle …”. The most radical silence fell, interrupted only by banalities, like “Now let’s think about eating … we’ll think about other problems later, a solution will be found …” Luke also tried to avoid misunderstandings: “Solution?” My father started the wrong way again: “These are things that can happen, maybe these are moments of fatigue …” Luke looked at me in a very questioning way and said to me: “What do we do?” I answered with one word: “Let’s go!” We got up from the table and left without saying goodbye, and on the other hand our parents didn’t even try to hold us back.

The feeling of bitterness was very unpleasant, we both realized that the relationship with our families was over. Fortunately we were economically independent and we were working permanently in Milan, so the relations with our parents were in fact already very reduced. We immediately returned to Milan, our parents did not even make a phone call for a whole week, then my mother called me to ask: “How are you?” I noticed immediately that that “you” was referred just to me, she had only asked how I was and had not asked anything about Luke like she was used to do before, because by now Luke was like the devil who had taken his son away from her. I answered her. “We’re fine! (underlining the “we”) And how are you?” The embarrassment was evident, after a few minutes of banality the call was over. In the evening Luke’s mother called him and the script was virtually identical. We were not shocked by this thing, after all “maybe” we expected it. Up to this point our story may seem like the story of a double family failure. Two gay guys who would have all the credentials to feel fulfilled, are on the contrary frozen by relationships with their homophobic families that end up radically disappointing their expectations, but in reality things have gone differently. My father sent me the e-mail that I transcribe here below:

“Hello, your mother and I realized that we behaved very badly with you (Leo and Luke) and this makes us deeply uncomfortable. Luke’s parents share this unease with us, we talked about it together several times and we realized that we had everything wrong. We cannot be without our guys, we are living days of bitterness, but I can swear that we understand that we have to change our attitude altogether. We were not in the least prepared to face a similar situation. If you and Luke agree, we could maybe come to Milan for a weekend, so we can stay a little together. And then, what can we do to get a little clearer ideas? Because we tried to search for news on the internet, but orienting ourselves is very difficult. We await your response by mail and we hope so much that it is positive.”

I read the email to Luke and we agreed the answer.

“Hello, I spoke with Luke and if you agree we can meet not the next Sunday, because we have work commitments, but the following Saturday and Sunday. To get a little clearer ideas you can read the Gay Project Forum, it is very easy to find it on Google and you could also talk with Project, with whom I had spoken several times, he is a very good person and knows the gay world from the inside. As for our relationships, well, we are very happy with your email. Now we must try to rebuild everything without hiding anything and without pretending anything. Problems, sometimes, exist only in our imagination. Common sense is needed, it is true, but we are not naive and our choices have been made with good reasoning.

We embrace you strongly.

Leo and Luke”

The recovery of relationships with our parents on the basis of clarity, was not so easy, but on both sides there was a willingness to understand each other and, after about a year, things really became normal. By now our parents consider us as a couple and have overcome all or almost all their resistance and their complexes.

Project, I told you my story and I would like to see it on the forum because I would like to tell all the guys who see their future gray, that for a gay guy life can be beautiful and that finding a serious partner is not at all an impossible thing, even if the difficulties are certainly not lacking. I’m attaching in my skype contact, I would like to talk with you again, maybe to meet you at the beginning of the summer.

We embrace you!

Leo and Luke

__________

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GAY LOVE WITHOUT GAY COUPLE

Dear Project,
I got to talk to you several times via msn but I think you cannot easily remember me without a more precise reference. Twenty-eight y. o. madly in love with a guy twenty-three with whom I believed to have built a great relationship, then I was abandoned by this guy last summer but in a way that I could not explain, I talked to you for a whole night in the month of September (Nick name: sad). I called you because I needed to get out but talking to you instead gave me a strange feeling, I realized that your way of reasoning and seeing things was extremely different from mine or maybe different from how I had tried to figure out my relationship with that guy.
The thing that struck me most was your vision of couple’s life. I have kept logs of conversations:

Sad wrote: Hello Project, are you busy?

Project wrote: Hello Sad, nice to meet you!

Sad wrote: Maybe you remember, I had written at the end of June, twenty-eight y. o. madly in love with a twenty-three, (he and I had been together in the mountains for Christmas)…

Project wrote: Ah yes … and he had lost his wallet at the hotel and they had given it back to him?

Sad wrote: yes yes exactly! Just that!

Project wrote: Yes, I remember now! A good story, a story that struck me very much. And now, how are you now?

Sad wrote: now I’m single again, the story is over!

Project wrote: but what happened? It seemed that everything was fine…

Sad wrote: he behaved with me in an unworthy manner, treated me with no respect, I had tried to do everything for him and make sure he was okay but he left me as if I were worth nothing to him

Project wrote: but now he’s with another guy?

Sad wrote: no, I do not think

Project wrote: so why is gone?

Sad wrote: I do not know, I did not understand, he told me that he felt too tight, that he did not feel able to make choices, I asked him to meet me but he said no and there was nothing I could do to make him change his opinion, then we just had a fight badly and I sent him to hell and I also think that he took it very badly, but with me, if you want to do something serious it is fine but, if you are just dithering even over fundamental choices, it does not sit well with me at all. It is as if he had used me when he needed me and then had only just left me when I was most in need of him. I thought that at least between us there was a strong relationship, I thought I could rely on him but things were different.

Project wrote: but when it happened?

Sad wrote: more or less a month and a half ago

Project wrote: and after you broke up did you meet again or he disappeared altogether?

Sad wrote: yes he called me, he seemed to want to go back, he told me he loved me but when I asked him if he wanted to go back with me he told me that he did not feel so and that he had not called for it but to know how I was and then I lost my temper and told him to go to hell.

Project wrote: and that was it?

Sad wrote: no, sometimes we also talked on msn but I cannot be on a roller coaster this way, I cannot be exposed to his mood swings, because he basically does not want to be with me and this seems clear to me, I need stability and to him this is not good, that is, the stability seems to him to be a way to give up other things, like if he was closing himself in a trap, and so things cannot go on. I know he is younger than me and maybe he wants to have his experiences but at some point he must also make a clear choice, the fact that now he is alone depends only on him and I do not give a damn, I cannot ruin my life running after him and after everything that comes to his mind. He has a vision of things too different from mine

Project wrote: but is it really true that you do not care about?

Sad wrote: however I cannot tolerate the fact that I have been treated with no respect, let’s face it, Project, now I’m really bad, for me it’s a failure, I need stability, if he doesn’t care at all, I will try to find another guy so that it could be something stable, quiet, with him it would not be so in any case, what do you think about, Project?

Project wrote: are you sure that he wants to break the relationship??

Sad wrote: No, but now I want to close the matter, I cannot go on like this! I’m tired, Project, and I’m disappointed, I had overrated him, I thought that he really cared and instead he proved to be selfish. When he needed me I was there all the time but when I needed him, he didn’t care at all

Project wrote: things you told me long ago about this guy were very positive, just at the level of person, and I’m sorry if, I tell you, but at that time I had the impression that you had a very rigid way of seeing things.

Sad wrote: what is it?

Project wrote: wait, I’ll try to explain, you had in mind a model of close couple and probably the mentality of this guy is not compatible with that model. When you are in love with a person, there is always the risk of actually seeing only some aspects and to complete other aspects according to our desires, but falling really in love means to love a guy for what he is, that is love him even in the aspects that we cannot understand, that usually have deep motivations and are not stupid attitudes, it is possible that couple’s life is not good for him, or not good as you imagine it in the sense of close couple

Sad wrote: it means that he really does not love me! Because he is not willing to give up anything for me

Project wrote: no! Do not say so, really love each other does not mean having to give up something necessarily neither to accept a model of close couple; it’s a whole different thing. I think you could find yourself choosing between the model of close couple and this guy. I would not give for granted that you should give up on this guy and even that the story is over, maybe it’s over the possibility of living with him a story in the way you imagined it and on the other hand does not make sense to think that one must adapt to another, it is possible to find a balance for both but if I have to say what I think, I do not think the story is really over and anyway you do not seem really disappointed.

Sad wrote: I don’t know what to tell you, Project, but now at least for a while, I don’t want any more to know anything about him, then what it means to love one another if you do not feel comfortable as a couple?
Project wrote: I do not know, it’s all to be verified; sometimes we pretend that people adapt to our models, but people and not our models are the absolute value. It is true that this argument should also apply from his point of view, but I think he too may have felt very uncomfortable. Maybe he thought he was accepted as he really was, with all his uncertainties, his contradictions and his need for freedom and not as a guy who had to adapt to what his partner wanted, I will say, however, not to keep rigid positions with him. A relationship doesn’t exist when there is no affection, not when things don’t go according to our plans and here I don’t think that there is no affection and even love.

Sad wrote: well … basically I love him, but it is too difficult for me, no, Project, for me this is not good. I need a minimum of security.

This was our conversation of September and since then many things have happened, I tried to be with other guys, but practically it was impossible because I always had him in mind. Our contacts were not interrupted, he called me several times and was talking to me very seriously, but never wanted to get back together not to deceive me, he said, not to let me think that things could come back as before. He treated me with respect and affection, what I did not expect, even if he did not want to go back to a couple’s relationship with me as before. I do not know if he is in love with another guy, but I don’t think so. With me he is very clear, as he always has been, never good statements and positions always very clear, we have also met in person and more than a single time.

Undoubtedly when I see him I’m taken back to the idea of living with him as a couple, and sometimes it was difficult to accept that it would not happen. He tells me that he needs freedom, to try to live his life, whatever it could be, but that he loves me and I begin to think that it is true, indeed I do. Sometimes we hug and this causes me a strange feeling but it’s a positive felling, I feel that I have not lost him; however, certainly I have to resize my dreams. It’s a bit as you said, Project, I find myself deciding between this guy and the kind of life that I had imagined with him. It still seems very difficult to me to accept that he could be free and could love me even though he fell in love with another guy.

This summer it seemed to me quite inconceivable, now I find it difficult to accept but I do not see it as an absurd hypothesis. In fact, if a guy loves another guy and therefore he doesn’t love you at all because he only thinks of the other guy, then certainly you cannot maintain any relationship, but if the guy could as well continue to love you, even though he is in love with another guy, it would make sense to say that it is better to send everything to hell? I really don’t know, Project.

Evidently, they put us in mind behavior models according to which love must be exclusive, i.e. either with me or with another, but perhaps these models are complications that are not needed at all to love one another. Maybe now it seems to me that I could adapt because in fact now he has not another guy, probably if he had one I could not accept it. In practice, I hope to be everything for him, so he would not need anything else and I would find my peace of mind, in practice a bit as before. That is, now, even if he went away from me, he is still in love with me because really there is not anyone else. Or maybe it could work well even if he really was in love whit another guy? I really don’t know.

With me he was always sincere and I feel that we are really good together. Probably I’m not really everything for him, I’m not enough for him but not in the sense that he devalues me but in the sense that he also needs other things that I cannot give him, I cannot because maybe they are things that I do not understand or just because he also needs affection of others.

In recent times I have the impression that he wants to be close to me, that he cares what I say and what I think and especially that he cares to show me that he loves me but avoiding deluding me. But how can I, Project, to think that maybe we go back together, because it probably will happen, or at least somehow will happen, but how do I then think that he might even have another guy? I’m not saying he could not love me, because I do not think this will happen, but how could I accept not to be everything for him anyway? This thing upsets me. Project, and if, after accepting such a thing, I were worse? And if maybe I’m the one who deceives him because I’m not able to comply with his rules and then I expect it to be business as usual? I think I can find another guy, but it is not what I want.

When I tried to approach other guys I expected from them his reactions, his answers, and instead I found myself in front of quite different things, things from which I was barely involved, in practice I was not involved at all because I thought those guys were not like him. When he’s around I feel his presence very strong and it is not a matter of sex, even arguing with him is another thing. He never tells me I’m right when he thinks that I’m wrong and discussing with him it’s a true discussion, both of us at the same level. After all he has not kept pace but loved me anyway and I have no doubt, but he loved me in his own way. I do not know if we would be back together, it’s probably something else that does not involve the classical concept of couple.

Project, do you understand in what kind of problems I’m involved? It is a situation that previously I would never have accepted for any reason, I would have rejected on principle, but I do not want to be without that guy, certainly the situation in these terms will make me live in anxiety, and I think that the sense of uncertainty will be unavoidable in the future. You really think that it’s possible to find stability this way? That I can be happy even so?

If you want you can publish this e-mail.

_______

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http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=113