Insert lame pun about "camping" here.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was going on an end of year camping trip with The Human Dynamo, KCG and their respective boyfriends, and I revealed that I was dreading it. So much so, in fact, that I emailed the Human Dynamo and told him that unless we could find some other singles to go with us, I didn't think I'd be able to handle it.

Fortunately The Virtuoso decided he'd like to join us, so I wouldn't be alone in my singleness. Then a couple of days beforehand, Mr Singular decided that he'd come down for a couple of days too. I was surprised, and a little trepidatious given that I thought he might be jealous of The Virtuoso, but I couldn't say no, and anyway it would be a good opportunity for him to meet my most important friends.

The rustic cabin we'd hired had three bedrooms. The master bedroom with a big double bed was claimed by The Human Dynamo, since he'd made the booking. The second bedroom with twin beds was claimed by KCG, who wasted no time in pushing the twins together to form a double. Mr Singular and I went into the tiny third bedroom, which had two sets of bunkbeds. Lastly The Virtuoso was banished to the living room, since his elephantine snoring would make it impossible for anyone else in the same room to sleep.

In the days prior to the trip I'd taken a vociferous position, only half jokingly, that there wasn't to be any sex on this trip. The walls were too thin, the mental pictures too gross, and my equanimity too fragile. KCG agreed, since he's far too shy to handle the thought of anyone overhearing his sexual exploits. The Human Dynamo just laughed at me and said that he would do whatever he wanted.

And so naturally, on the first night that we were both there, I had sex with Mr Singular.

It wasn't easy, in the lower bunk of a single bunk bed, while attempting to do it in near silence. But we managed. There was no penetration, given the space and noise constraints, but he rimmed me and I blew him until he came. And since there were no snide comments from The Human Dynamo or his boyfriend (who were in the adjoining room) the next morning, presumably no one was any the wiser.

The next evening we simply lay together while I stroked him, getting him so hard that his cock seemed about to burst out of its skin. I don't count that as sex, but he apparently did.

As for the other two couples... on the first morning I went bushwalking with The Human Dynamos, but the KCGs claimed they wanted to sleep in. We pretended that we believed them and made sure we had a nice and much longer than necessary walk.

Then on the third night, as we were preparing for dinner, I asked KCG where The Human Dynamo was.

"I think he's in the shower." KCG said.

"Oh, I though that was his boyfriend."

"No, I think he's in their room taking a nap."

I glanced into their room through the crack in the door, "No, there's no one in there."

KCG looked at me, I looked at him, our eyes widened, and we burst into scandalised giggles. Well, The Human Dynamo did warn me that he'd do whatever he wanted.

Because there should be the occasional post that isn't depressing.

I love a big, hot, dumb man.

failure with a small 'f'. Because capitals are for winners.

On Sunday afternoon I went to a summer outdoor concert with The Human Dynamo and KCG and their respective boyfriends.

It did not go well.

I have a new mantra that I am reciting to myself whenever I get mired in believing that I need a man in my life to make me happy - "I am responsible for my own happiness". No man will make me happy. Happiness comes from within.

Despite the fact that I recited it in my mind every minute or two, as we sat on the grass and watched a local band, I still struggled. This was actually the first time that the five of us had been together without anyone else, and without the distraction of other people, the dead weight of my failure was palpable. There's The Human Dynamo and his boyfriend whispering asides to each other. There's KCG and his boyfriend sharing a Coke. And here's me, trying not to swallow my beer too fast because it would leave me with nothing to do.

The music wasn't very good, so halfway through I told them I was going Christmas shopping. I left, reciting my mantra as if my life depended on it, and got a couple of things at some nearby stores. When The Human Dynamo texted me that the concert was over and they'd retired to a local pub, I wandered over there.

On the way to the concert earlier that day I had learnt that The Human Dynamo's boyfriend met the parents last week. It all went well, and another milestone of their developing relationship had been passed. When I got to the pub, I learnt that KCG and his boyfriend are meeting each other's parents over Christmas. So, isn't that cute? My best gay friends are racing neck and neck down the romantic path towards Happily Ever After, and they had so much advice and encouragement to share with each other.

Meanwhile I'm back in the starting stalls, all by myself. At this time last year we were all in roughly the same relationship position. Now, twelve months later, they've moved onward and upward, and I've gone nowhere at all. On the scale of gay relationships, where 1 is a fuckbuddy and 10 is a beloved and committed life partner, they're both already at a 4 or 5 and I'm at... 0.

Yep, that's right. I'm not even on the fucking scale.

I left early and walked back to my car alone, feeling like I'd been kicked in the chest. I was grateful for my mirrored aviators when the tears started to flow.

Here's hoping for mediocrity!

I'm still spending time with Mr Singular, even though we are, as far as I can tell, on break from a realtionship which has never been defined. We've hung out together, and we chat on email every couple of days.

We had dinner at his place last night, then went out to a jazz club. While we were queueing to get in, there was a 20-something bleach blonde gay guy in front of us. When I mentioned to Mr Singular that I'd forgotten to print out our booking number, Bleach Blonde overheard and made a friendly comment. He and I exchanged a few sentences, and then his party went in and I immediately forgot him.

However later at our table Mr Singular opined that he'd been hitting on me.

"Yeah, right", I responded.

"While I was standing right there", Mr Singular continued. "I was just about ready to punch him out!"

I made a noncommital answer, but I thought, Okay, what is this? We're not together. What do you care if another guy allegedly flirts with me? Is it because you're jealous that I was getting attention and not you? Or because he assumed that you weren't important to me? Or because you don't like the idea of me getting attention from someone else?

The more I know about Mr Singular the more I believe that he isn't in the right place for a relationship at the moment. He's filled with hurt and hate, originating in things that happened to him months or years ago. He is trying to find a therapist, although his work schedule requires him to find someone who consults outside normal office hours. Until he does, I'm afraid he's going to be stuck in a rut of impotent anger, blame and corrosive behavior.

I'm very attracted to him. I enjoy spending time with him. But do I actually like him? I don't know. In light of the fulfilling, monogamous relationships that KCG and The Human Dynamo are in, I'm painfully aware that my relationship with Mr Singular is below mediocre. Even if it kinda worked out between us, it would only rise to the level of relationships that KCG and The Human Dynamo have tried and rejected as being inadequate. Let me state that again: if my relationship with Mr Singular worked out, it'd still be a scenario that they'd reject if it happened to them. The best I can hope for... the best I've managed in seven years of trying... is still sub-standard.

On being a 5th wheel.

Now that KCG and the Human Dynamo have serious boyfriends, it's interesting to look at how my relationship with these new men is developing.

It's odd, but I think I have a high opinion of The Human Dynamo's boyfriend thanks to just one thing: he's made an effort to get to know me. Not much of an effort - just a couple of emails - but enough to make me feel as if he recognises that I'm an important part of The Human Dynamo's life and therefore a part of his life that needs to be important. One aspect of being in a successful relationship with someone is getting along with their friends.

By contrast, it seems that every time I talk to KCG's boyfriend, I learn something that makes me feel even worse about myself. I recently asked him, while we were out, to fire up Grindr and see who was nearby, just for our amusement. He gave me the condescending look that he habitually wears, at least around me, and said, "Oh, I deleted my Grindr weeks ago."

I had perhaps half a second of astonishment before I gleaned what he meant. People in fulfilling relationships don't need Grindr. Even so, a 21st century gay man deleting his Grindr profile is like a 1960s swinger throwing his Little Black Book into the trash - you only do it when you've found The One.

Then later, when a passing AIDS activitst gave everyone in our group a free condom, I internally reflected on my pathetic love life, heaved a sigh and said, "Well, at least you'll get to use yours."

He gave me that condescending look again, this time with a little smirk. "No, I won't."

Just like before it took me a moment to catch his meaning. He's been having purely monogamous sex for weeks - the time for condoms is past. Condoms are for players, not faithful partners.

Including The Tick Incident, I've met KCG's boyfriend exactly three times. If he has fine qualities - other than being young, rich and hardbodied (I gave him a friendly hug goodbye the last time I saw him, and it was like embracing an oak tree) - he hasn't thought it necessary to share them with me.

This was all much easier to deal with when I seemed to be on the cusp of having a boyfriend of my own. As it is, I actually find myself dreading the end of year camping trip that The Human Dynamo is organising. It will be KCG and his boyfriend, and the Human Dynamo and his boyfriend, and me and... nobody. Being a 5th wheel is almost as bad as being a 3rd wheel.

Ich war der Führer in einem früheren Leben

Tonight I was supposed to be on my first date with Guy Two. Indeed, by this point, if all had gone well, we should have been naked, sweaty and deep in the throes of things that are a lot more fun than Angry Birds.

But around four hours before our date he texted me to cancel.

Sorry GTR I won't be able to make our date tonight. I'm away on leave in Germany for a while and will be back in mid January so will call u to make a new time. Thanks. Guy Two

Typical. The date I'm most looking forward to, the one that seems to have the best potential, cancels a few hours beforehand, by text, with no explanation.

I wasn't going to beg for an explanation, or express my frustration. I simply texted back:

Shame. I was really looking forward to it. Oh well, enjoy your vacation!

A few minutes later:

Same here buddy I have just moved into a new house and I have three days to get everything unpacked before going to Europe. Promise to meet u for a date when I'm back in late January.

Pfft. Whatever. Still, I texted back:

I'll hold you to that :-)

I won't, of course. If he doesn't contact me in January I'll shrug and chalk it up to karma (since judging from my history of utter romantic failure, obviously I was Hitler in previous life). You can't let these things get to you, even when you find that your evening consists of eating leftovers and playing computer games, when you'd planned on eating out and playing entirely different games.

Is this how normal people feel about every date?

Last night I had a first date with the man I classed as "Guy Four" in my last post, who has slipped into my December dating schedule almost surreptitiously. Now I think I'll call him OON, for Out Of Nowhere, because it feels as if he just popped up without any sort of preamble.

He's a few years older than me but blessed with good genes. Neither good nor bad looking, neither fat nor thin, neither rich nor poor. However he was friendly, confident, intelligent and just wonderfully, refreshingly NORMAL. When we talked I got no sense of haunted vulnerability or bitchy condescension or dysfunctional attitudes. I was just talking to a pleasant, interesting man. We had drinks at a cool bar I'd never been to before, then dinner at an inexpensive Vietnamese restaurant with wonderful food.

We parted with a handshake and an agreement to have dinner again. I don't have a burning desire for him and as far as I could tell he didn't have a burning desire for me... but we seemed to like each other so why not do this again? It's all so relaxed and civilised.

The loneliness of the long-distance fucker

After a reasonably long IM conversation on Sunday night, Guy One decided to drive up from his regional city to have dinner with me last night. I protested, but he said it was no big deal, and it seemed like a good way of establishing whether we were really interested in each other before we'd built up unrealistic mental images. We met at the coffee house at which I conduct a lot of my first dates.

He wasn't as attractive as he appeared in his photos, but then who does? Overall he was nice, but perhaps a little odd. Over the course of a couple of hours of conversation, I found out about his body image issues, his dysfunctional relationship with his ex, his frankly bizarre phobia about a common food group, and the fact that he has so enough sugar in his coffee to send a normal person into hypoglycemic shock. But he was intelligent enough to hold a conversation, and not unattractive, so we segued from coffee into dinner, and then from dinner into a walk.

It's a nearly nine hour round trip from his regional city to my capital one, and after all of our flirtatious banter over the last few days it seemed churlish to just have dinner with him and then send him off to find a hotel. So I invited him to spend the night with me. After all, it's been five weeks or so since my last sexual encounter, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. He followed me back to my place and after a Diet Coke we got down to it.

His kissing, when tender and tentative, was quite good. When he got more ardent it wasn't. It didn't help that his stubble abraded my lips and nose worse than usual, such that I currently look like Rudolph the Red Nosed Drag Queen. He also sucked on my neck so hard that there's a huge purple bruise there now. If I were a woman I could cover all of these things up with cosmetics, but instead I had to go to work looking like I'd been sandpapered and then smacked with a broomstick.

The sex was okay, but he's versatile rather than a natural top and it showed. He was also married for several years, and it showed too. At one point in the proceedings, as he was humping away in a missionary position frottage act, I thought, "This would be awesome if I were a woman with a vagina."

Credit where it's due; he did make me come, which almost never happens. In fact he managed it twice. The downside of this was that I experienced first hand the hormone drain that turns a horny lover dismissive within the space of a few minutes. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming in its intensity. I went from "Well, this is all very nice" to "Ugh, I'm trapped in a bed with this guy for the next eight hours! How do I get out of this!?" For half an hour I felt absoltutely wretched, so much so that I wondered if I was experiencing the first flutters of a panic attack. I had to literally fight the urge to roll over and keep my back to him.

But it wasn't like that when I spent the night with Mr Singular. Perhaps because I didn't come? Or perhaps because I felt a sense of connection with him that I decidedly didn't feel with Guy One?

This morning Guy One got back in his car and drove back to his regional city. He's already texted me twice, and I've responded in a friendly but noncommital fashion. Frankly I don't care if I never communicate with him again, but he seemed enamoured. From what I understand, he has a lonely life in this distant little city, with no lover and few friends, and that sort of loneliness can do strange things to a man's sense of proportion.

A whole wide world of marginal interest.

So, an update on The Three Guys mentioned in my last post:

Guy One - we IM'd last night, and he sent me some larger pictures of himself. He's tall and slim and defined, and he looks a lot better when he smiles. The flirtatious banter was getting quite pronounced, especially after he sent me the X-rated pictures. After all this if I actually meet him and find that there's something really I don't like, or he meets me and feels something similar, it's going to be a dreadful disappointment. We'll catch up if he's in the city over the next few weeks, although the sturm und drang of Christmas tends to overwhelm everyone's schedules at this time of year. I've even tossed around the idea of driving out to his city for a couple of days during the holidays, but I don't want to seem too eager or desperate.

Guy Two - I spoke to him on the phone last night, and even over the phone it felt as if there was a crackle of sexual energy between us. At this risk of sounding like a giggly schoolgirl, he has an amazing aura of potency. We've agreed to go out to dinner next Thursday, and, providing we don't hate each other on sight, it's been pretty much agreed that we'll head back to his place afterwards.

He may turn out to be a bit of a find. It would appear that the only reason why he's unclaimed is that he's more closeted than I am - add up the facts that he's rich, accomplished, intelligent, well-presented and rather sexy and under most circumstances you'd expect him to have either a harem of hot younger boyfriends or a life partner just as successful as him. Additionally for most of his life he's classed himself as bisexual, which actually has a couple of benefits: he's very masculine and he's used to treating dates with a certain deference and charm that women expect. With gay guys it's usually a matter of "Hey, you wanna hook up sometime?", whereas with him it was, "Do you want to go out with me for dinner?" Even though sex has been on the table (as it were) since the very begining, there's still a sense of something more romantic going on.

Of course it could be that once we've slept together he'll lose all interest, but he's already offered to take me out to his weekender sometime, so he is at least glancing at the future.

Guy Three - I offered him four different days for going out for a drink. He was busy on all of them. The odd thing is that he keeps encouraging me, rather than just giving brusque responses that would indicate his loss of interest. I wish he'd either make some space for me in his schedule or just abandon the pretense of interest.

And, as a bonus...

Guy Four - He's a bit meh, but we're meeting for a drink next Wednesday. He's older and not terribly attractive, but hey, he could have a killer sense of humour and a keen insightful mind. I guess I'll find out. And unlike some people at least he's willing to actually meet me.