Excessive phyiscal contact from a staight guy?

[p700granat]

But you ultimately know that know matter how much you and your furry friend like each other, there's never going to be romance.

Yes, I know very well that there's never going to be romance. I never really expected any romance between us, at least consciously.

Is that a crush or is it just a close friendship?

It used to be a crush + friendship. Now I would call it the residuals of a crush + friendship. I wouldn't even consider it a close friendship. For someone to be my close friend, I need to know that I can completely trust him, count on him in times of hardship, and share with him any feeling - all taking years to develop. Thus I have only four people who I consider close friend so far, and my furry friend doesn't meet any of the criteria. In some sense he it's more like playmate than a friend: he simply posseses certain qualities, which I tried to identify in my last post, that make it particularly enjoyable and relaxing to hangout with.

The more you get to know a person, the more you will either destroy the crush or turn it into budding love. It takes time. It sounds like you are out of time, unless one of you wants to move. Chatting online won't resolve the crush.

I think I know him fairly well, and as you said, such knowledge did help destroying the crush. What I had been struggling with, especially the last week, is to get him out of my head asap so I could make 100% of myself available to my BF this (past) weekend. I have no intention to make any move that would "further" what's between me and my furry friend.

How important is the relationship with your bf? Is it worth losing? (And isn't he on JUB, or am I thinking of someone else?!)

It's extremely important. Certainly more important than anything with the furry. I would do anything I realisticly can to avoid losing him. As I mentioned before, I think it's extremely difficult to find someone who I connect with so deeply, and it was very lucky for us to have found each other, esp. considering neither of us was out when we got to know each other. And yes, he's on JUB.


Anyway, I had a wonderful weekend with my BF. We spent plenty of time both inside the hotel room , and outside touring the city. We went to the Asian Art Museum, had dinner in a nice restuarant on the waterfront for his 22nd birthday, went to the Rodeo Beach on Marin Headlands, and enjoyed the sunset walking down Marina. San Francisco was nice enough to give us a rare, completely fog-free day on Sunday. Particularly, despite accidents that could have caused some major setbacks (he left a bag full of important items at home and my debit somehow refused to work), our two days in SF were almost as good as it be. The only thing that might be a bit regrettable is we didn't have time to visit Castro.

And it turned out my lingering feelings about the furry friend didn't cause any issue: I have been very frank with my BF about those feelings, and at various points in the city I recounted to him the interesting things said/done by the furry friend at those places earlier this summer. He in turn told me new & old stories between him and his old group friends, including a few on whom he had some degree of crush. We shared all of them in laughs. It wouldn't be like that without the level of understanding and trust between us. If anything, distance seemed to the only major issue for us, but we had some frank discussions about it and I hope we could work it out. And as a JUB member, my BF will probably post here at some point if he disagrees with my assesement.

 

[ejbonk]

It is Time to Come Out of the Closet to your furry friend,and let him know you have a BF and end this silliness.

You do not have to out your BF,just yourself to him. It may be just what you need to get him out of your system.
I would not mention the crush thing to him. He appears to have very immature issues about that stuff.

It is Your choice to do it in front of his female roommate or not. I feel doing it in front of her will make sure that nothing is mis-understood.

Besides,You have nothing to lose,and everything to gain. Coming Out is very Enpowering.

 

[p700granat]

Besides,You have nothing to lose,and everything to gain. Coming Out is very Enpowering.

That would be pointless. Right now I'm just waiting for the ripples to disappear by itself - coming out to him would be throwing a big piece of rock into the pound: absolutely nothing to gain. And besides, even when I do come out to a few more people, he's not close to the top of that list. "Empowering"? Sorry but I don't buy political mumble jumble like that. What additional power does it give me?

Anyway, I'm not expecting anything new to happen to me on relationships/emotions in the forseeable future, so hopefully there won't be any updates for a while: no news is good news.

 

[Lube]

"Empowering"? Sorry but I don't buy political mumble jumble like that. What additional power does it give me?

• The power to openly discuss your love interests
• The power to discuss your personal life (what you did over the weekend or last night)
• The power to stand up for gay rights whenever they are questioned by those around you
• The power to hug and kiss (within reason) your bf in public
• The power to say "This is who I am, and I am not going to cower under your ignorance"

Ejbonk was right: it's totally empowering.

 

[T-Drag]

Hi everyone -

As mentioned in one of my (sadly few) previous posts, I am p700granat's bf. I just wanted to chime in and say that I had an excellent weekend with him in SF and that I feel like our relationship, although (quite) long-distance at the moment, is going very well. Like him, I want to do everything I can to keep this relationship going, since I feel much more strongly connected to him than to any other guy I have been with. I am so glad that I took the trip and got to see him again

Anyway, regarding the furry, I am not sure if it is necessary for my bf to come out to him, especially since they probably won't see other for a long time, if ever again. I only met the furry a few times, but he seemed like nice guy, and I have never been that concerned/worried about my bf's lingering feelings for him. We are very frank and open with each other about such issues, a stance which I believe has allowed to us to keep this relationship going for so many months, even while we have been thousands of miles away from each other.

Anyway, I have to leave now - I would type more if I had the chance. Maybe sometime next week I will start posting more frequently.

-T-Drag

 

[T-Drag]

I feel selfish bumping a thread whose content so directly concerns me, but I am just looking for some advice. I feel now like there is major awkwardness in this relationship. It's not at all on the level of "so awkward that this has to end," but it makes me uncomfortable even still.

We have not seen each other in about two months and so we talk mainly online now. This online dynamic is removed from our real-life dynamic, in that it is often strangely formal. Perhaps this is the product of the obvious lack of physical contact, the sheer distance, and also even our own linguistic backgrounds. Or maybe it's because of the difficulties (sleep deprivation, workload, social isolation) I have been having during my first semester of graduate school.

Because of this divide, I find myself wanting contact with him more often, not only because I want to preserve this relationship, but also because I feel that a guy's bf should be a source of support for him. When we talk online, though, I feel that there is some barrier that I cannot penetrate. I spend so much time trying to make the conversation "interesting" (by talking about current events or what my friends are doing) that the whole exchange begins to feel uneasily clinical and forced.

I think I mentioned this same aspect - the remote or forced quality of our online conversations -, a while ago, in my pleading post back in July. Back then, I expected it to some extent, since I was unclear about our status and we had not talked in over a month. But now, we are together and we have been together for over three months now, yet some strand of this quality persists. I try to talk about my academic or career work, or my meager attempts at socialization in between my assignments, but I feel that none of this is "interesting" enough for my bf when we talk.

Several of my other friends with whom I regularly chat have online personae very different from his, so I guess that this trait is something that I am not accustomed to. I am used to talking about somewhat mundane things at times, or joking, but I feel that I cannot really do that online when we talk. The issue of humor has come up before - maybe it's the IM format or our different cultural/linguistic backgrounds, but it is hard for me to maintain any real relaxed, humorous thread in our exchanges.

This makes me uneasy and makes me feel that the conversation is extremely serious and even businesslike. On a somewhat more awkward note, I find it all but impossible to talk about my emotional state online in our conversations. I have been able to share my feelings - particularly those concerning my bouts with bipolarity throughout my college career - openly with several of my friends online, who have been more than supportive and whose help, I would even argue, prevented me from attempting suicide several years ago. My point is: I know that it is not really pleasant to listen to these feelings expressed and of course I do not expect anyone to have to endure constant recitation of those feelings, to the point of "whining," but I think that a guy ought to feel comfortable sharing such things with his bf when he needs to.

I have maybe brought up this issue once or twice, but it never really took root. I am not even talking about solely negative feelings; similar arguments apply to happy feelings, ambivalent feelings, the whole range, really. Somehow, simply saying that "I am happy" or "I am sad" (simplifications, I know) does not seem to be up to the weirdly formal standards and decorum of our online chats, which have become increasingly frustrating.

I am not angry by any means, but I feel at a distance; I am worried that either the relationship is suffering from the distance, or even that I am making much too big a deal out of this (due to my mental state during the pressure of grad school recently). I feel that we neither talk often enough nor in a manner that I find comfortable. Were we together in person, things would be different. But I have no idea when we will see each other again or even what I will be like by that time. Maybe by then I will have come out from under the myriad pressures I feel right now and the borderline depression I have been feeling.

I know that this is an extremely long post and I do not even expect most of you to read it, but I feel like I needed to get this out of my system, somehow.

-T-Drag

 

[swarley]

Welcome to the world of long distance relationships where things usually fade after a while. This is why long distance relationships usually don't work. The question is... why do you chat with him online and not talk to him over the phone especially if your online chats are suffering. Long distance relationships take work and I get the impression from the fact that you haven't seen him in 2 months and the fact that you only talk online that you both aren't doing that much work to keep things afloat so maybe you should just let the relationship sink.

 

[KaraBulut]

but I feel at a distance; I am worried that either the relationship is suffering from the distance, or even that I am making much too big a deal out of this (due to my mental state during the pressure of grad school recently). I feel that we neither talk often enough nor in a manner that I find comfortable. Were we together in person, things would be different. But I have no idea when we will see each other again or even what I will be like by that time. Maybe by then I will have come out from under the myriad pressures I feel right now and the borderline depression I have been feeling.

There are an obvious issue and a non-so-obvious issue here...

The obvious issue is the long distance relationship. It is tough to maintain a LDR- especially at your age when your life is changing so quickly. It's next to impossible to maintain when you don't see each other on a regular basis.

The less obvious issue is that the two of you can't talk about this and come to some sort of decision about whether you are continuing your relationship. Lack of communication in a relationship is another factor that can kill a relationship.

The two of you need to talk and you need to make a decision about whether you're continuing your relationship and if so, what sacrifices the two of you are willing to make to be together.

While this is one of my favorite threads and I enjoy reading the progression of what has happened, I'm going to repeat the frequent advice of another well-trusted JUBer-

Talk to him.

Not us.

Him.

 

[p700granat]

Just wanted to post a quick reply before I head out and clarify a few things: first, we do talk on the phone, perhaps about half as frequently as we talk online. During the weeks when he had no internet access, we talked a lot on the phone, and even when he does, I would sometimes call him on my way home (I walk home everyday). In fact last month is the first time I am over my minutes since I got my cell phone, and >90% are between the two of us. Combined we talk about 2~5 times a week on most weeks, and on average about 1 hour each time if we talk on the phone, or 2~4 hours each time if we chat online, going late into the night.

Talk to him.

Not us.

Him.

He did talk to me. We talked about the exact same problem last night before we ended our chat. We are both getting tired at that point, and I said I'll think about it and talk to him again about it next time. We talk about all kinds things including any issue that may affect our relationship, and including certain very touchy issue that might be taboo to even married couples. We both agreed that we should let each other know as early as possible on such issues and I should say so far this has been working out pretty well. So the one hand I was a little surprised that he posted here, while on the other hand I am glad he did because I saw certain things in his post that I is not apparent during our chat, and some advice from JUB is always valuable. In fact there have been times when we considered posting on JUB for advice on our relationship.

Anyway, I'll come back tonight to see what other people think, and yes, I will talk to him again about it, on the phone.

 

[T-Drag]

Welcome to the world of long distance relationships where things usually fade after a while. This is why long distance relationships usually don't work. The question is... why do you chat with him online and not talk to him over the phone especially if your online chats are suffering. Long distance relationships take work and I get the impression from the fact that you haven't seen him in 2 months and the fact that you only talk online that you both aren't doing that much work to keep things afloat so maybe you should just let the relationship sink.

We are talking via phone, as he said above me, and when we saw each other 2 months ago, it was the first time in 3 months. It was a coast to coast trip for me, so I do believe that we are going to great measures to keep this alive. Putting "that much work" into it is not an issue. At this point, I cannot really leave school and he cannot leave his job. We are doing what we can.

Despite all the efforts, maybe it is the effects of long-distance that are causing this awkwardness. If that's the case, there is really not much I can do about it, except wait until the next opportunity that we have to meet face-to-face and chat via phone/messenger in the interim.