WARNING: This is a long rant which you may or may not care to read but it doesn't matter to me because I'm only venting.
Near the start of the school year, I came up with a concept of "tagging" and "crashing" that I wrote in a poem (I don't have the poem with me right now or else I'd type it out).
What I realized was that I try, and have been trying since I came out when I was 14, really hard to find someone special, someone who I could possibly see myself with, and it never leads to anywhere. And the more it doesn't work out, the more I think about it and the more it makes me sad.
I'm not a bad person; I don't think I'm horribly unattractive; I type pretty much all my sentences out grammatically and I really am a sweet, romantic guy, despite now being jaded.
I used to be a member on several online gay dating sites where I would send off messages to people who I thought were decent people (ie. not people who use naked pictures as a profile picture or have the "cock" or "fuck" somewhere mentioned in their profile description) who had intelligently typed descriptions of themselves and what they were looking for. And for the most part, people didn't reply. I often wondered why that was.
I try to hang my tag of frazzled hope onto people and but they don't want it, and I end up with it in my hand again.
When you try over and over again to reach out to someone and all they offer you is their back, it gets you down after a while.
There are those who crash into each other and hang on, who find each other somehow, some way.
The other day, I was downtown in a coffee shop and I spotted two cute guys talking at a table. I assumed they were both gay (my lack of gaydar told me so) and thought...
"Those two will never have to use the internet to find someone."
And it's true. There are some people who know enough gay folks around town or have friends who know other friends who know other gay guys to meet that dating is never really hard for them. Aren't they lucky.
I've read in stories, fiction and true stories, of the similar guys. Ones who are super closeted in high school and have the hot jock give him a kiss in the locker room; ones who have sleepovers with other guys and "discover" things; hell, I've had a friend tell me he saw this "really hot guy" at a business meeting. They went out for drinks after where the hot guy proceeded to ask my friend out on a date, which astounded my friend because of hot guy's apparent hotness.
And after hearing and reading all these stories, I think,
"Huh. Nothing remotely close to that has ever happened to me."
I came out when I was 14 years old. Sure, it was only to my friends at first, but when I graduated, I'm sure more than a handful of people knew. Still, nothing happened for me. Nobody came up to me and said, "So you're gay? Me too..."
No, none of that.
People don't notice me. That's what I've noticed. I'll be staring at a cute guy on the bus who won't even see me. I go out and perform music; I go out and make films; I'm on lots of gay dating sites (used to be on more, but only 2 or 3 now). And still I feel alone.
One of my friends always tells me to keep trying, that if I don't, I won't be any closer to finding Prince Charming. And yeah, he's got a point, but at the same time, how can I simply ignore guys who I thought were genuine people, ignoring me? I can't let that go so easily.
This friend set up an account for me on Plenty of Fish. He told me lots of his friends got messages from other guys and it was where he met his current boyfriend. I didn't think too much of it -- after all, what did the other sites bring me? A couple of friends and a relationship that was doomed before it even began.
After he created the account for me, I did what I usually do; browse and send to semi-interesting people. I think I end up typing a bit too much at times, which may put people off, but I can't help it. Also, sometimes my humor is off-beat-ish and people might find it weird. Not my fault though.
Anyway, out of 6 guys that I've sent messages to, one responded, and he's not even in Vancouver. And I know they've read my messages too. My friend says not many people respond to him either, that it's normal.
At times, I feel like it's a racial thing why I can't seem get people to respond. I'll message white guys and majority of them don't respond. I don't know why. If they're not into me, I understand that. But if they don't want to take the time to get to know me simply because of all the connotations there are with being Asian/Chinese (there are a lot of Asians in Vancouver, for those who don't know, and with that, comes many different types of Asians) like English not being their first language or automatically assuming they're some sort of "Honger"... and if that's the case, then that makes me sad. I'll message other Asians and majority of the time, they'll respond.
One of my other friends tells me that those guys aren't worth my time. But in a way, I'm not worth their time if they don't even want to get to know me.
If people aren't interested, I'd rather they tell me than say nothing. Apparently being friends with me isn't worth it either.
I did, however, get 3 messages from other guys. One was from a 41 year old guy who was "newly coming out" and was "looking for a smooth Asian boy" -- I think I groaned out loud when I read this. Hooray for being fetishized.
Another one who responded was a 55 year old named was Allen. That's all he said. I realize some Asian guys are into older, caucasians but not all. It gets really disheartening when the only guys that message you are ones who only like you for being young and a certain race. Sigh.
The last one was actually around my age for once and we had talked on another site once. We exchanged a few messages but nothing more.
There are days when I get really sad thinking about all this and sometimes I cry. I don't know what to do.
Maybe I've just had no luck. Maybe I should word my messages differently (ie. dumb myself down or something)
But maybe it's just meant to be. Maybe I'm supposed to be lonely like this.
Aaron
PS. Sorry for such a long post if, anyone actually managed to finish this.