A little bit of a rant about love and other shit...

[xboxfan34]

One of the main themes of being gay in my book is self-discovery of who you truly are....Right now, I'm beginning to deduce why exactly I'm having such a hard time fitting in, why I'm too afraid to get involved in the gay community and trying to surround myself with hot guys...I feel like I'm too afraid to fall in love...

Every time I feel the emotion of love towards another man, it always ends in a broken heart.

The latest example was this. Last week, it was a nice day after my class was over and I was about to wait for the bus to take me home. Among the people waiting to go on the bus was this man with an absolutely adorable and friendly dog with him. A bunch of students were commenting about how adorable the dog was, and his owner was incredibly gracious to his audience...and through listening to him, I found out that the dog was a service animal and the guy was a veteran suffering from anxiety attacks stemming from PTSD after serving in the military.

After thanking him for his service, me and this guy really hit it off. Despite what he was going through, this man was incredibly sociable, nice, and caring. I did not expect that a hardened American soldier could be so loving and caring to other people...He was actually getting on the same transfer bus as me, so at my next destination, we just sat there and bullshat for hours about a variety of different topics....fitness, music, shit that's going on in our lives....When we started talking about country music, I had commented on the fact that one of my friends from college loves country music and is a wannabe southern belle meanwhile she is one of the most adamant supporters of gay rights I have ever seen...She wasn't the only one...The guy, who was at first worried might be homophobic due to the fact that he had sort of this southern twang to his voice, is actually a supporter of gay rights and has several LGBT friends and I think someone in his family was gay, but I can't really remember. I just remember thinking "holy shit, this is awesome." deep down inside....I was also a little leery to open up about my depression, seeing as how he was in the military and I'm just some civilian, I expected him to say that I had no right to be depressed...Nope, wasn't the deal. He was very supportive and understanding. When I got on the bus with him to go home, I decided to give him my cell number, figuring that this was just too good of an opportunity for a new friend to pass up. He took it, told me that he'll text me, and before I got off the bus, I told him that it was very nice to meet him and we said our goodbyes to each other.....

And that was the last I ever saw and heard from him....Because of his friendliness towards me, I don't think it was anything personal...In fact, I assume he probably accidentally threw the piece of paper away and forgot about it.

The feeling of being heartbroken didn't really set in until I basically realized that I made a fatal mistake, a mistake that I've basically been trying to prevent. I said that I wanted to be this guy's long term friend, but this feeling deep down inside of me fell in love with this guy...and I must admit, this is the first time I truly liked a person for his personality more than anything. He was just, an awesome human being...He was an extremely nice and loving person and I wish him all the best in life.....

Anyway, back to the point of this sobstory...after being slighted so many times by the emotion of love...I think I'm beginning to develop a fear of it. I think I'm becoming afraid to love another person

 

[Craiger]

Hey xboxfan... I understand your feelings as I have had a similar experience. Hang in there, he may get back to you yet.

Craiger

 

[TX-Beau]

OK, so here's the thing, if you only ever associate with straight/unavailable/closeted guys, you will always lose. These kinds of guys can't give you anything.

Lots of gay men use this fact to avoid having to really put themselves out there and take a risk.

Look at what you've done in your post, you went from meeting a stranger on a bus, to having a broken heart in a few hours flat. That is a huge red flag - and it's not plausible. Your post reads like a romance novel and I can't help wondering how much of that you made up in your head.

Lots of gay men do that also, to avoid putting themselves out there and taking a risk.

You will never get what you want until you put yourself in a position to meet GAY men. Straight men will never love you, no matter how cute their dogs are.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

I think there's a certain lack of self worth on your part where you think you can only be happy if someone else loves you. You also seem to fall "in love" with anyone whom gives you the least bit of friendly attention. This isn't really LOVE. This is fantasy, obsession, infatuation, desperation, clingy behaviors lacking in any real adult-like social construct of a friendship or relationship.

You're kind of spiking... you avoid any kind of relationship so you don't risk getting hurt. Then you meet someone friendly on a bus who smiles and gives you attention and then all of a sudden the damn breaks and you think you're in love... until you realize he's not interested, and then you sink into a depression again, starting the whole cycle all over again.

That Highs and Lows roller coaster you're on would be horrible.

 

[xboxfan34]

OK, so here's the thing, if you only ever associate with straight/unavailable/closeted guys, you will always lose. These kinds of guys can't give you anything.

Lots of gay men use this fact to avoid having to really put themselves out there and take a risk.

Look at what you've done in your post, you went from meeting a stranger on a bus, to having a broken heart in a few hours flat. That is a huge red flag - and it's not plausible. Your post reads like a romance novel and I can't help wondering how much of that you made up in your head.

Lots of gay men do that also, to avoid putting themselves out there and taking a risk.

You will never get what you want until you put yourself in a position to meet GAY men. Straight men will never love you, no matter how cute their dogs are.

I made up absolutely none of it. It's all true.

And if you think that my post reads like a romance novel...Well, I have a talent for descriptive speech, or so I've been told....

When it comes to the whole "within hours I had a broken heart" thing, my broken heart really stems more from anger at myself about the whole deal, how I promised myself I wasn't going to make the mistake of falling in love with a straight guy ever again, and then BOOM! I subconsciously do just that. To be honest, I'm a little more hurt at the fact that he never texted me after he said he would, but as I said...I doubt it's anything personal, I personally think he threw away that paper on accident and just forgot about what he said to me.

 

[TX-Beau]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, I wan't saying you invented the scenario, I'm saying you invented the feelings - the story that went along with it.

This was just a guy with a dog on a bus, no more. YOU romanticized the rest of it, you invented that, no one "falls in love" that fast. The sorry fact of it is that we DO choose where we spend our affections, it's NOT beyond your control, and if you won't go spend them with gay men, you will always be disappointed.

Which should tell you something important. You're projecting. Time to be a stand up guy and go roll the dice somewhere there is a gamble. If you know you have no chance, that's nice and safe, and many many many gay men have wasted lives chasing that chimera.

Obsessing over the minutia of something that's never going to happen is only a crutch, and you will never be happy playing that game. It's like rolling dice with no numbers, you never lose, but you also never win.

 

[TX-Beau]

How old are you by the way?

 

[Seasoned]

My guess is that you have spent a lot of time in romantic fantasy while you were coming out to yourself and figuring things out. I'd also guess you're an introvert. There's nothing wrong with either of those things (believe me, I can identify!), but, if true, you have been set up. You'll be in for disappointment because the world doesn't operate they way you'd like it to. However, the ironic thing is, once you find a guy that has reciprocal feelings you will think your original beliefs were correct!

I'm going to suggest a couple of things. Stop thinking in terms of love. While you could fall in love with someone you just meet, you can't be in love with a stranger. If I were you, I'd remind myself of that daily. Strong feelings of attraction and infatuation are there for a reason, but don't confuse that for love. They are there to reinforce your needs and wants so you're able to discern who's worth pursuing and who's not. Attraction, no matter how strong, is not love. Also, stop thinking in terms of needing someone to feel complete. Too many of us get through childhood feeling emotionally abused and we go from that to thinking that someone's love will make everything right with the world. The problem is that oftentimes this is all subconscious and we end up like paper in the wind, tossed around, sometimes in a whirlwind of joy, other times in the gutter of despair.

There can be "a happily ever after," but not in the way we had imagined it. I am thrilled that I found the love of my life, however, there is still the day to day living, which involves, hard work, continuous communication, plenty of miscommunication, misunderstanding, hurt and anger.

Work at being the best you and the happiest you you can be independent of anyone else. Believe me, you don't want someone else making you whole. The best relationships come about when two whole people create a third entity.

Best wishes to you. If you have difficulty making things better on your own, do consider seeing a therapist. That can work wonders. Don't live with self-inflicted pain. Best wishes.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

How old are you by the way?

According to his profile, xboxfan34 is 20 years old.

xboxfan34, you just need to have more experience of life and once you have this things will tend to sort out themselves.
The OP shows you're ready for some kind of romantic connection to another man (or men), but also that you don't know how to handle yourself yet or where and if the other person comes in.