Infatuated with multiple people... need dating tips and life advice

[Stoopid]

Hello all. I've been on JUB since I was 18, now I'm 22. I haven't been posting much, but I do read these threads pretty religiously.

I would greatly appreciate advice and different point of views. For the past month, my life has been going through some changes that I'm not sure how I should handle. Pretty long post! I'll even number each guy so you all can follow and respond to this mess a bit easier...

1). One Friday about four or five weeks ago, I was so stressed and distraught by my new job (that is my dream job, but has been anything but a dream), that I decided to take a day off and spend time at a motel with an escort, we'll call him John. He is a very handsome and beautiful man, but I couldn't enjoy sex with him because so many thoughts were running through my head. Ultimately, I just wanted to lie in bed with him holding my hands. He noticed I was crying uncontrollably, and he asked me what was wrong. I didn't want to answer him.. I just felt extremely lonely, depressed, suicidal. He then opened up to me and told me about his life and the obstacles he had to face. He wanted me to know that I wasn't alone, and that he would be my friend if I needed one. I was overwhelmed that he was so kind and willing to help me. Lately, we've been emailing and sharing our life stories, and we both believe that us meeting was a part of God's plan for him to touch me with his positive outlook on life. He quit escorting and has found a wonderful man of his dreams. While I am happy for him, I am also jealous because I really like him a lot. What should I do? I want to continue keeping in contact with him, but I'm afraid my feelings will spiral out of control again.


2). To counter balance those feelings, I've starting actively seeking guys on the internet. I met someone who I thought was the man of my dreams: a teacher just like me, went to the same college, very smart, gentle, kind, great with kids, and wants to have kids as well. What more could I ask for? Both of us have never been in a relationship. We'll call him Forrest. We were having conversations on IM, facebook, and on phone, and then suddenly he stopped replying to me.. Left him a voice message, tried to IM him, and left him a final message on facebook telling him that I needed to know if he was still interested in talking to me or not. Should I just sit here and hope he decides to talk to me again one day? The ball is in his court. Should I delete him on facebook and everything? It's just so heart breaking for me to find someone with a lot of the qualities that I look for in a man, and then he doesn't respond to me anymore. I keep wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't anymore.

3). The last guy that I really "like" is Jones. I really love his sense of humor and his strong personality. We went on a date a few weeks ago, and he paid for my dinner, which was so nice. I didn't want to hookup, but we went to his hotel (he only comes to my city during weekdays to work) and we fooled a bit in bed without actually having sex. I love how playful and cuddly he is in bed, he didn't want to let me go when I had to leave! Something that could be a problem is that he is always horny and wants to do a lot of extreme sexual things that I'm still warming up to.. I am looking for a relationship, but right now I think he just wants a fuck buddy. Should I directly ask him about this? Or I should I just go with the flow, and hope that one day he will realize he likes me and will want to be in a relationship? I think I will be "hanging out" with him next week.

4). Yes, there's a 4, but nothing too big. We'll call him Alan. From what I can tell from our online conversations, he is very nice and kind, and he feels the same about me. He's a undergrad student, and a bit young.. 18 to be exact, which means he isn't too experienced. Him being 18 kind of irks me, but is it really that big of a deal? We both like video games! I'll probably meet up with him this or next week, I'll keep you all updated.

5). Richard... we both majored in education, and he is basically trying to get the job that I have. Besides that, we have a similar taste in specific types of video games, which is actually pretty rare. I can tell that he has self esteem issues.. to the point where it would be really apparent in our online conversations. I'm not physically or emotionally attracted to him right now, but we haven't met in person for a date yet, which will probably happen soon. I want to say friends is as far as it goes, but should I give him a chance and maybe he'll surprise me?

6). I agreed to go on a date with another guy tomorrow, who I VERY briefly talked to.. He originally wanted to hookup, but I said I was only looking for dates, and so he suggested we go on one. I don't like how he suddenly wanted to go on date without much online dialogue... maybe he wants to save the talking for the date, or maybe he just wants to get in my pants? He is cute, but I don't really know what to expect. He did want to go to a restaurant, so at least it's public and I'll be able to flee if necessary. How does that sound?

Ok, I know this all sounds like a hot-mess-shitstorm of a cluster fuck, but I don't really have anyone to talk to and get advice. I'm still closeted to my family, but that's a whole nother topic for a another thread along with dozens of other problems that I need help with. The logic behind all of this is that I won't be too attached/infatuated/obsessed to one guy, which was I was in college.. and it was painful and pointless. Now, I just find myself being obsessed with guys number 1-3 at different hours of the day. That's kind of better, right? Am I doing the right thing...?

Thanks x 1000!

 

[bw92116]

I'm sure you'll get a lot of good advice from the regulars on this forum. I'll just throw in my $.02 worth...

It's a waste of time to be attached/infatuated/obsessed with any guy. It serves no purpose. To escape the mental torture of obsessing over a guy, you have to redirect your focus from him to you. And it's a waste of time to chase or pursue a guy. Let them chase you. It's so much easier on your part. And that's how men are wired - to be the hunter.

Try to let go of all of these guys, or at least mentally give them very long tethers. Men do what they want to do, not what you want them to do. If they want to communicate with you, they will. If they want to spend time with you, they will. Let them do some of the effort, you can't do it all and you shouldn't do it all.

At the very least, work on letting go of all expectations. Don't put too much importance on any one guy. I have a feeling you have assigned enormous importance to each one of these guys, and I think that's misplaced. In reality none of them are really all that important.

Figure out what your own internal issues are, and work on those. Not knowing you, I can't say what they are. The person to best determine what your own issues are is you. If you decide these issues overwhelm you and you can't deal with them on your own, then seek professional help for them or at least attend support groups for those issues.

Instead of spending your time and mental energy analyzing these guys and their relationships to you, I'd rather see you spending your time and mental energy analyzing yourself, your life and your own happiness.

Your happiness must be created by you, not by anyone else, and you have the power to create your own happiness. Make your life how you want it to be and make yourself happy. That's much more important than any of these guys #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. You can't let your happiness depend on what someone else says or does.

Basically I'd just quit thinking about #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and start thinking about you, and what you want your life to be, and start doing whatever you need to do to make that happen.

 

[Seasoned]

You've received some excellent advice. As I read your post I was struck by two things, the mental energy you've expended and the fact you're in the closet. These two things go hand in hand and I'll explain why. Closeted people are more prone to the fantasy of finding their one true love because it alleviates fear having a life partner to see you through scary times. What's happening is that you are forcing the love issue ahead of the getting to know a person issue. The idea isn't to meet someone and make yourself and him into partners, but to meet someone or several someones and see what developes spontaneously. Life shouldn't be about forcing puzzle pieces to fit, but accepting that some puzzles don't get finished and the puzzle that is you takes a lifetime to finish.

You want to postpone the issue of coming out, but that's a serious roadblock to being open to meeting guys in everyday life situations. There's nothing wrong with meeting guys online, but only if you allow nature to take it's course rather than trying to mentally force something that's not there. Compromising yourself for the sake of a relationship is more about need than love.

I wish you well on your quest and hope, now that you're an adult you'll take your rightful place alongside out gay friends. Good luck to you.

 

[bw92116]

Wow that is awesome Seasoned. But then I've come to expect nothing less than brilliant replies from you on this type of thread. The last 2 sentences of your first paragraph should be etched in stone.

 

[Rolyo85]

I would say that the coming out and its related issues (whatever those are) is at the core of your confusion re guy obsessions. We tend to fixate on guys when we are closeted, in order to externalize our problems and make them someone else's responsibility. It's not a conscious thought process, but that's how it works.

It's much easier to know what you want when you're not in conflict with yourself.

 

[KaraBulut]

In just reading through your post, it seems that you're looking for something. And that for whatever reason, you're looking for someone when you should probably be looking inward and dealing with some of the issues that are making you unhappy.

To put in bluntly, you won't find you in someone else's pants.

This might be a good time to get into counseling to try to deal with some of these issues. Not only will you be happier, you'll also make a better partner when you do find the person that you're looking for.

 

[Stoopid]

Yikes.. it's really hard for me to look back at this post and the responses...

Well, the good news is that I've given up on most of these guys... for the few remaining, I would like to just be friends.

You all are right... I place a higher importance on these guys than I should, when they probably don't think as much of me. I am trying to work on loving myself, but sometimes I feel like I'm too weak. But I'm getting stronger! Thanks.