I do wonder why this happens

Every once in a while I come across a blog written by a gay man whose situation seems to mirror my own. Never precisely, of course, but close enough for me to empathize with his issues. There’s a handful of them now that I read regularly. Unfortunately, however, one of them has been slowly but steadily losing its appeal.

The problem is that the blogger in question seems to be getting gayer by the day. I don’t mean that he’s getting a lot of man on man action. I mean that it’s become almost literally impossible to tell if he’s really a gay man or just a straight guy doing an offensively over the top caricature of a gay man. He’s evolving into a walking amalgam of every poof joke ever to flounce its way across the stage of a footy club end of year revue.

He’s become the sort of guy who I imagine flaps his hands a lot when he speaks. You know the type: “Darling (flap), I just (flap) got home from seeing the new Almodovar film and I was soooo (flap) bored I just thought I’d die (flap, roll eyes for effect, check frosted tips in mirror).

Picture a younger Jeannie Little with testicles and you’re pretty much there.

It’s a shame, because a few months ago he had interesting things to say, moments of serious reflection on his life and ideas that demonstrated a lively intelligence. And now it’s all “lovely” and “fabulous” and “soooo cute”, as trite and shallow as a soap starlet’s first pop song.

Why has this happened? I suppose that either he’s coming out of his shell and becoming the flappy, shrieky queen he was always meant to be, or he’s under the impression that to be a proper gay man he has to act like a cross between Samantha Jones and a terminally insecure 14 year old girl. The first option is tragic; the second option is worse.

I’ll probably still keep reading his blog… just to see if the flapping girly-man persona ever subsides and allows the real man to show himself again.

The curse of divergent drives

Last night I drove up to BN2's place after work for dinner. I was hoping that over the course of the evening we would have a chance to talk about our relationship, discerning where each of us wanted to go and how quickly each of us thought we should go there. Once dinner was over I was hoping that there would be an opportunity to suggest that maybe it would be wise to slow down a bit, to concentrate on friendship for a while and see if anything more profound naturally evolved from that.

Instead I just had sex with him. Twice.

I don't think my brain and my hormones are quite on the same page.

I'm never satisfied, or so it would seem

You may think that the lack of posting over the last couple of weeks is due to reasons of romance. Perhaps you have a mental picture of BN2 and me skipping hand in hand in slow motion through a field of daisies, possibly while The Turtles' 'So Happy Together' plays in the background.

Sorry to burst your conceptual bubble, but no. We're still dating, but I've been finding the pace of things a little too fast and I've been prodding the brakes. BN2 is a spontaneous, impulsive kind of guy, and if we were moving at his pace we'd have met each other's parents and be picking out china patterns for our bridal registery by now. Not because we're made for each other, but I think we both feel the need to have a lover beside us. I just see it because I'm a more cautious and analytical person than he is.

While I like BN2 and find him reasonably attractive, he's not The One. I'm prepared to keep seeing him in case he becomes The One, but I'm already fairly sure that he won't.

This was brought home to me on Saturday night, when I was hanging out at my place with some friends, including this guy. At one point he was in the kitchen making himself a snack while I lounged on the couch, watching him prepare the food, and I had a sudden daydream about what life together would be like... just the ordinary domestic routines given significance by doing them with a man you love. Not that I love my snack-making friend, but I think I could if he was a) not straight and b) reciprocated.

I don't think the same about BN2, sadly. We'll just have to see what happens.

Sleep deprivation at midnight... and 2am... and 7am...

After much begging, pleading and demanding from BN2, I spent the entire night with him on Friday. It's the first time I've ever done it, and it was an oddly mixed experience.

I'm a big fan of body contact and gentle caresses, but not, as it turns out, when I'm trying to sleep. He wanted to spoon me and while I appreciate that in theory, in practice it made me feel claustrophobic. He also tended to migrate to the middle of his queen-sized bed, so if I wanted my own space I had to balance perilously on the edge of the mattress. In addition neither of us is used to sleeping with someone else in the bed, so any little movement from either of us would wake the other one up.

Ironically as a result we just had a hell of a lot of sex. Let's face it, if you've got insomnia, getting dirty with the hot naked man in your bed beats counting sheep or drinking a glass of warm milk any day.

TISM

I rolled up for my third date with BN2 at his house on an estate in the north of the city. The suburb seemed pretty ordinary until I turned into his street, at which point the houses suddenly doubled in size and grandeur. When I found his place it turned out to be an elegant Italian-style villa, with french doors, terra cotta tiled floors and a honking great indoor swimming pool.

Whoa, I thought to myself. I am so out of my socio-economic league.

But BN2 carries his urbanity and privilege very lightly: there are garbage collectors who are more pretentious. He made me a drink and showed me around the place, then we sat and talked while we listened to jazz. Whenever the opportunity arose, as I walked past him or leaned over to reach my drink, he would run his fingers across my arm or my shoulder or my hip, and if I was especially close, he would catch my lips with his.

When we sat down to eat, it turned out that on top of his many other qualities he’s also a sensational cook. He made a delicious French chicken dish with asparagus, served with the last bottle of his favourite merlot. We talked some more, then tidied up the dishes.

“So, do you want to watch a movie?” he asked.

“No, I do not want to watch a movie,” I said, and I grabbed him before he could even think about picking the DVD up off the kitchen counter.

Memorable moments of the next four hours included;

* The way he threw me onto his bed with a lusty growl the moment we got up to his bedroom.

* Lying naked together, exploring each other’s skin, with the glass doors to the balcony open letting the cool, evanescent night breeze slip over us.

* Getting the little salty tang of pre-cum as I sucked his cock, and hearing his gentle moans.

* The way his body tensed up excitedly when I wrapped my legs around his waist.

* The little jolts of pain that came with him thrusting inside me, made so much easier to bear by the way he whispered and gasped and cried out my name.

* Lying in each other’s arms in the darkness, clean and dry after our shower, his hand stroking across my shoulders, so warm and soft.

* Looking down on his handsome, contented face as I reclined across his chest, tracing its outline with the back of my fingers.

However all good things come to an end. Even though he wanted me to stay the night, I had a full day ahead of me and I needed to go home. But it was so hard to leave – every time I said goodnight he enfolded me in his arms and kissed me, then nuzzled against my neck with a warm hum or a deep, satisfied chuckle.

I have a terrifying feeling that some time in the future I am going to fall for this hot, sweet, intelligent, easygoing man like a ton of bricks. And after so many years of safe, secure singleness, I don’t think I will handle that kind of vulnerability well.

In which I let him twist for a bit

Tonight I went on a second date with Bachelor Number 2 (or BN2 for short). We had a couple of drinks at the pub, then walked up the street to a little Japanese restaurant staffed by delicate Japanese girls as uniformly sweet and perky as a gang of Hello Kitties. Then we walked back down the street to a café for a cup of coffee, and followed that with a late night stroll through the park. It was around midnight when we got back to our cars, and this time when he kissed me goodnight it wasn’t just a quick touch of the lips. It was long, slow and deep, with us cradling each other’s heads in our hands.

The most memorable part of the evening for me, however, occurred as we were standing in the queue to get into the restaurant. That was when he asked me to come for dinner at his house tomorrow night, and I noticed that he was nervously twisting the paper bag around the neck of the wine bottle he was carrying, almost to the point of tearing it.

He’s so cute when he’s nervous. How could I refuse?

When it's rainin' men, it pours... Part II

I met Bachelor Number Two at an oceanside cafe, and had a bit of trouble recognising him since he looked nothing like his photos. This is not, however, to say that he didn't look good. As is always the case it took us a little while to get comfortable with each other, both being too busy analysing this new person to put too much thought into sparkling conversation. But once we'd found a place to have dinner and got ourselves seated, we found we had a lot of common interests. It's not often that I meet someone who makes me feel like an unsophisticated rube, but this guy had travelled more than Henry Kissinger, read everything worth reading, followed his career through all sorts of high profile institutions and mixed with all of the most important power gays in the country. Now this may make him sound like a preening gasbag, but all of this experience just came out in the natural course of conversation, and he mentioned it as humbly and inconsequentially as if he was mentioning what kind of vacuum cleaner he owned. He was also the very antithesis of a girly man... not a leather-clad macho man, but just deeply, refreshingly ordinary. I could never imagine him flouncing, or shrieking, or getting hysterical over the announcement of a 50% sale at Dolce & Gabbana. He was just a man, and I like that.

After dinner we went for a long walk along the beach, then repaired for coffee at another cafe. We finished up around 10.30, he walked me back to my car, and I in turn gave him a lift to his car. As he gave me a quick kiss and got out of my car, he invited me to a party he was having in a couple of weeks, and added:

"But I'd really like to see you again before then."

And I thought, Cool!

"And it'd be great if you could come to the party, and if you wanted to bring someone that'd be fine."

And I thought, Er... okay.

"Or you could just come by yourself, which would be even better."

And I thought, Hee hee... nice save! And you know what? I think I respected him more for that recovery than I did for anything else he'd said all evening.