Rattling the bars of my prison

[hanshansen]

I hope this isn't going to ramble. It's still dark, I've been awake for hours.

I made several realisations tonight.

1. Far, far too much my mental energy goes into thinking about sex and relationships and how frustrated I am and the dilemmas of my sexuality. I spend hours and hours of my free time, and many of my nights, thinking about this stuff. I'm not spending that time sleeping or thinking about other stuff.

2. I'm one of those unfortunate people who are sexually attracted to sex X and emotionally attracted to sex Y. In my case, sex Y is guys. 'Emotionally attracted' is a horrible way to put it (how can you not have feelings for a whole class of people). What it means is, 'a priori desires intimacy with'. Frankly, that means I might as well be gay. Because it means I don't see myself in a long-term relationship with a girl (if that happens, it'll be with a very special and open-minded girl). And ultimately people want to know what kinds of relationships and lifestyles you'll end up in.

I could construct hypotheses about why I'm like this (trust issues with hetero girls, a strong 'passive' side which doesn't express itself with girls etc.) but I'll just put it out there as a fact.

Hell, my world view is about as gay as it gets. Gay friends of mine have talked about the desire for the 'white picket fence'. I don't know what they're talking about. OK, so a branch of my family owned this country estate before 1945. 7 children, conservative piety, traditions going back hundreds of years, my great-grandmother who by all accounts was a wonderful, wonderful person. That place in the 1920s has provided my family with an ideal of fulfilled family life, and I've shared that view. But I accepted years ago that my own life had very little to do with that, I don't want to recreate it. I hate suburbia. I don't want children. I don't want to 'settle down'. I'm totally happy in my city loft.

I really have no understanding of heterosexual relations. When I read books or see movies at some level I translate. I get really turned on by lesbian sex. I have these really politically incorrect erotic comics where the defences of nubile young women crumble and they discover their feelings for each other in a major way. That's hot for the standard reasons (voyeurism, fantasies of threesomes, hey, it's lesbian sex) but also because the kind of intimate connection these girls are shown to be feeling makes sense to me in a major way.

I enjoy thinking about one-night stands and threesomes and 'fun' sex with girls, but I'm not at all interested in meaningless sex with a guy. But I need and crave that intimacy.

3. I don't think anyone gets this about me. I thought I 'came out' to a number of people. I told my parents I was bi. But they (especially my mother) seem still to think in terms of scenarios where I'm married and have children, though I really don't encourage them. My bi (female) friend, who I feel most comfortable talking to about all of this, has had deep crushes on both guys and girls. I think the other girl who I told I was bi thinks I'm confused and I don't feel comfortable talking to her about this stuff. The gay people I know also don't get it because they aren't interested in girls at all.

What does that all mean? In the ideal case I would set the record straight with people or, if that was too complicated, call myself gay (point 3), feel free to pursue relationships with predominantly guys, since that's where I seem to see more chance of the intimacy I've been missing (point 2), find someone who I clicked with, and end up happier and less conflicted, sleep better, discover huge untapped resources in myself and shoot up the career ladder (point 1).

That's the view I'm looking out on through the bars of my cage.

Here are the bars.

a) I don't want people to think of me as gay. The way I think about beautiful girls is part of who I am, and it also provides a point of contact with my hetero friends which I don't feel like denying.

b) I don't want to give just anybody a look into the ins and outs of my sexuality, relationships, that kind of stuff. For example, I have this colleague who 've discovered I really dislike. One of his best friends is gay, 'coming out' to him should be a breeze. But I don't want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I confided my problems to him. He does not deserve that level of trust.

c) I really have issues with the mechanics of gay sex. The idea of a guy slobbering over my dick grosses me out. So does sodomy.

d) I want to avoid the 'gay community' and its culture as much as I can (the world of Out Games and similar events, camp in-jokes and innuendo, everyone having slept with everyone else, and a whole lot of people acting like queens). I've sampled it, I hated it.

There might be more.

So far I thought I could squeeze through the bars.

I don't need to explain myself. Why do my parents need to know what's going on in my love life? They know I have stuff to sort out. I've started to set boundaries with my colleagues as well. I should feel free to do stuff and let people draw their own conclusions. I've come quite far doing just that. But only so far. At the moment I wouldn't feel free dating lots of strange guys. I definitely wouldn't feel free having them stay over in my apartment.

I have a group of friends which includes my bi friend and at least three gay guys (two of them in a relationship). They aren't camp, they may have their own gay circle but I see them being happy in my circle of friends. I would be totally comfortable in that kind of environment. I met a guy recently (subject of a long other thread) who isn't camp, who has a large, non-gay circle of friends which is totally like the (private sector) people I mix with. So I know you don't have to adapt to weird lifestyles, I know gay guys who aren't part of that lifestyle. But you aren't going to meet them in gay running groups or at gay book launches.

Regarding c), my hope is that I could arrive at some equilibrium with someone I liked enough. But that would take time, the person would have to be patient and accommodating, and like me enough that it wasn't a problem if I developed feelings for him first.

So I could probably get somewhere good without making too many compromises elsewhere. I'm just afraid that these mental barriers will make it a very slow process (e.g. waiting until I meet another friend of the right group of friends) and in the meantime I'll feel unfulfilled, I'll have sleeping problems, my career will stagnate.

I don't know which of the bars is the weakest.

 

[G-Lexington]

You keep saying you don't need to explain yourself.

But you've written an extremely long post explaining yourself.

I think a lot of people think life will be a lot easier once they "understand everything". The thing is, you'll never "understand everything". Surprises keep coming at you.

I hated tofu until it was cooked this particular way.
I had no interest in pro sports until I saw an indoor lacrosse game.
I had a thing for skinny Asian guys until I fell in love with a roundish German guy.

But the thing is - I never sat down and agonized over these things. I didn't feel the need to pull down the "HATES SPORTS" sign, or scribble "EXCEPT LACROSSE" underneath it...because I never put the sign up to begin with. Yeah, if someone had asked previously, I would've said "No, not a fan of contact sports." But I went to the first game anyway - I like trying new things. And I'll be damned, I liked it. I just kept an open mind about all this stuff.

So you don't like gay pride parades or receiving oral. Cool. You don't have to put up a sign. "NO ORAL!" Just don't have it. Maybe a guy will come along, and you'll decide to let him blow you, and it'll be the best thing that every happened to you. Or maybe you'll never have it happen. Either way, fine.

Stop looking for exact labels. There are none. While you're looking to define yourself, or keep people from defining you "incorrectly", you could be out there. Meeting folks. Forming friendships and relationships. And learning more and more.

Lex

 

[byro]

^^^ Well said.

The best way, I've found, to get through and past bars is to remain fluid.

 

[WYSIWYG]

The cage and bars are only of your making. It will be up to you to be more open minded to the possibilities my friend. Lex could not have not said it better...as always!

 

[hanshansen]

While you're looking to define yourself, or keep people from defining you "incorrectly", you could be out there. Meeting folks. Forming friendships and relationships. And learning more and more.

That helps. Just a little.

I might as well continue doing fun and interesting (or potentially fun and interesting) stuff. At least I'll enjoy that.

In my bad moments I seem to regard my life as this inescapable web of implications. If I do X it'll be really likely that (unpleasant) Y happens. It'll be really unlikely that I achieve XX unless I do (unpleasant) YY. Life becomes this really horrible risk-adjusted constrained optimisation exercise.

I don't know exactly what brought this on. I was OK till last night and then it hit me like a brick around 3 am. I felt totally trapped (by my own conflicting desires and fears) and today I've been more depressed than in ages.

I've been spending Easter with my parents, I've had lots of time to (over)-reflect, and I think what was worst was the realisation that my mother has not woken up to my issues and anxieties at all. I'm deeply offended by that. She has basically stuck her head in the sand. As she does in so many ways.

I'll try to focus on what I quoted above. I don't know why I write all these private things on here. I've been assuming that it helps me, but maybe it makes things worse.

And apologies for the really stupid thread title.

 

[G-Lexington]

>>>And apologies for the really stupid thread title.

We all get angsty and artistic at times.

Yeah, you're probably just overthinking things. Just knowing that, of course, probably won't help, but there it is. If your mother's way of dealing with it is to not deal with it, fine. You can't force her into acceptance. Just accept that that's how she's going to be, and move on.

Lex

 

[hanshansen]

Yeah, you're probably just overthinking things. Just knowing that, of course, probably won't help, but there it is. If your mother's way of dealing with it is to not deal with it, fine. You can't force her into acceptance. Just accept that that's how she's going to be, and move on.

Lex

Yeah. And, of course, I can't make my sleeping patterns and my performance in the office conditional on my personal life being perfect, either. Other people don't have that luxury.

I remembered that in the course of a very pleasant 2-hour walk in the woods this afternoon.

Cheers