So, I'm kinda perplexed. I just took the Happiness survey in the stickies, and while the results weren't too unanticipated, for some reason, they did get me by surprise.
According to the results tabulated after the extensive survey, my satisfaction with my current relationship is borderline between low and normal. It is well below the tabulated average. While I understand the statistics behind surveys and acknowledge that the results are not definitive, it did leave me feeling uneasy. I guess some background is in order here.
I met my bf around 6 months back. He seemed interesting online, so we set up a meeting for the weekend. As he was getting down from the taxi in front of my apartment and I first saw him, I didn't find him too attractive. His hairstyle was an accidental combination of unruly hair and a receding hairline. I called him upstairs, as I had to change from my suit to something casual, and as we were heading out he gently held me in the narrow corridor of my room wanting to kiss me. At this point, I was tired and fairly unattracted. I made a little joke to ease the awkward moment and off we went to the promenade close to my house.
As we were walking down the bridge over the Marina, with 90-ft yatchs docked to the urban pier beneath, it was getting increasingly apparent that Orhan didn't speak very good English. We struggled through dinner as the Asian food was too spicy for him. The conversation, strained though it was, casually led to Turkey. I said that I would like to visit someday, he offered that he would be happy to write me an invitation letter. Not wanting to give the bleakest sign of interest, I turned his offer down saying the visa is no problem for me, and I wouldn't need his invitation.
After dinner, we walk down to the beach. We sit on the sand, under a full moon, with the construction lights of the Atlantis playing with the shadow of the Palm. We talked about random things. About past relationships and future plans. While respecting the distance I wanted, he sprinkled sand on my hand, and as I got comfortable, caressed it gently. The language barrier seemed to matter a little less.
Like an eager date wanting to impress, he told me about the book he has published in Turkey, and the research work he has done for the government. Often, he didn't have the right words in English to describe his accomplishments, but he was making a real effort. After spending 3-4 hour together, I drop him off and don't turn him down when he invites me upstairs. We hug for a long ten minutes, i kiss him on the cheek and promise to return soon, brushing off a nagging ambivalence.
Since I used to live the life of a nomad, traveling between cities every week, spending only weekends at home, I visit Orhan the very next day after a dinner party with friends. When I reach his place, he has the projector set up, waiting to play Juno. Twenty minutes into the movie, I grab him and kiss him deep and hard, withdrawing breathless, and kissing again. This went on for a good hour, until i finally ask him "do you want to fuck?" I run down to the car, get the condoms. He takes his shorts off in a mad rush, and i'm semi-awed semi-shocked at his size. He literally tears my cK off, raises my legs and starts gentle pulsating thrusts...
Sitting in his tub, a couple of hours later, he asks me for my take on relationships. I give him evasive gilb-talk, he presses on, and I tell him that we can date, but its not an exclusive relationship. He takes it in stride, vowing to win me over...
We end up spending every weekend together. Every week, he's at the airport to pick me up. We watch movies together, try out great restaurants. I get comfortable enough to whine and complain to him. We make common friends. He enrolls at a language school, his english starts to improve.
Soon my traveling schedule slows down, and I end up spending more time in Dubai. At this point, he wants to spend every day with me and I can't take it. His english is improving but conversation still takes effort, and I get extremely frustrated at times. I say I need space and I need time by myself. The concept is alien to him from his cultural perspective. We start having occasional arguments in which he says that I don't spend enough time with him, and I counter that we're together 3 nights in a week. Still the relationship leaves me with a mixed feeling. Orhan cares for me with such intensity and such honestly that I find it difficult to walk away from him. At the same time, because of language problems, I can't have the effortless conversations that I so long for. More so, as we get closer.
One day, I wake up in the morning, and he's sitting against the wall, looking visibly unwell. I ask him in mild panic, "What happened?? Are you feeling alright??" He replies "Baby, I need answers." In an unfortunate mix of possessiveness and sleeplessness, while scanning through my iphone photos, he mistook a picture of me with my best friend, as being with my ex-bf. Somewhat fazed, he went on to read my texts to a mutual friend, and there he found a recent reference to my ex-bf, in which I said something like "He still sends my emotions in a tangle"
That morning, 3 months back, we almost broke up. He wanted an explanation about my ex-bf and I was really mad about his invasion of my privacy. We didn't talk the whole day. Later in the evening he sent me texts which started out with slapstick attempts at making-up and then proceeded to get increasing frantic as I continued to ignore him. Late at night, when he couldn't take the silence, he called me up, and with a heavy sobbing voice, said that he wanted to come over and explain. In fact, he was already on the way.
He sat on my bed, said he was really sorry. He says that he's spoken with his friends living abroad (mostly in the US), and he is starting to understand the concept of giving space and alone-time, though the concept is almost alien to him as a Turk. Despite the events of the morning and the ensuing drama, I just want to hold him, and kiss him, make lighthearted fun of his accent, while he teases me about my "space". Kiss and makeup suddenly took new meaning.
Thereon, he never insisted to meet, never probed about things I was uncomfortable sharing. The more space he gave me, the more I wanted to share with him. He was always there for me in whatever way I needed him, sometimes sacrificing things that were clearly of value to him-just to see me happy. For me, it would seem, he would gladly take on the world-and not regret it.
Last month, we visited Turkey together on a 10-day vacation. As it turned out, I did need the visa, and he did give me the invitation letter. We stay with his mom in Istanbul, and while he is not out to his family, he introduces me to everyone. His sister even arranged an unforgettable Turkish breakfast for me (the food!!!). While we don't speak the same language, i feel like a member of the family. His mom even jokes that she's always had a white son, and now she had a black one too.
We sleep cuddled in the tiny one bed in which he used to sleep as a teen, and it feels better than most 5-stars I've been at.
So here is my dilemma. The trajectory that my relationship has so far taken is very different from the gay relationships that I'm familiar with. For me, gay relationships start in a burst of intense physical attraction. With Orhan, it wasn't so. While I find him attractive, he isn't strictly my type. I like pretty boys, i.e. twink-types in their mid-to-late twenties. Orhan, while in that age range, has more masculine features. Also initially, the language problem, while not debilitating, was quite severe. Six months down the line, both of these matter a lot less. His English has gotten much better, and I've started to find his masculinity very attractive.
In a lot of other ways, we are very complementary. He's carefree, i'm ultra-type-A. I introduced him to the habit of staying at home and working (all the time), while he introduced me to the joys of long drives and walking around the city. I used to spend my days working and reading 18 hours a day, now we watch movies, we cook, we eat out, we laze at the beach, we cuddle for hours and we have incredible sex. I'm starting to discover work-life balance, and it feels great. But....
But, when the survey asks me questions like "How closely do you associated your identity with the identity of your bf" or "If you were to live your life over, would you want to spend you life with the same person" or more incisively "Do you ever think of your perfect match still being out there?" Then my answers are not the same as they would be if I was deeply infatuated, or in a rapturous state of love. And that disturbs me.
It disturbs me because Orhan makes me happy, and I want this relationship to work. Both of us acknowledge that there are some underlying and are working to resolve these. Just because our relationship did not start with a bang, is it doomed to wither and fail?
-CB
ps. Sorry for the long post. Writing it was cathartic.
According to the results tabulated after the extensive survey, my satisfaction with my current relationship is borderline between low and normal. It is well below the tabulated average. While I understand the statistics behind surveys and acknowledge that the results are not definitive, it did leave me feeling uneasy. I guess some background is in order here.
I met my bf around 6 months back. He seemed interesting online, so we set up a meeting for the weekend. As he was getting down from the taxi in front of my apartment and I first saw him, I didn't find him too attractive. His hairstyle was an accidental combination of unruly hair and a receding hairline. I called him upstairs, as I had to change from my suit to something casual, and as we were heading out he gently held me in the narrow corridor of my room wanting to kiss me. At this point, I was tired and fairly unattracted. I made a little joke to ease the awkward moment and off we went to the promenade close to my house.
As we were walking down the bridge over the Marina, with 90-ft yatchs docked to the urban pier beneath, it was getting increasingly apparent that Orhan didn't speak very good English. We struggled through dinner as the Asian food was too spicy for him. The conversation, strained though it was, casually led to Turkey. I said that I would like to visit someday, he offered that he would be happy to write me an invitation letter. Not wanting to give the bleakest sign of interest, I turned his offer down saying the visa is no problem for me, and I wouldn't need his invitation.
After dinner, we walk down to the beach. We sit on the sand, under a full moon, with the construction lights of the Atlantis playing with the shadow of the Palm. We talked about random things. About past relationships and future plans. While respecting the distance I wanted, he sprinkled sand on my hand, and as I got comfortable, caressed it gently. The language barrier seemed to matter a little less.
Like an eager date wanting to impress, he told me about the book he has published in Turkey, and the research work he has done for the government. Often, he didn't have the right words in English to describe his accomplishments, but he was making a real effort. After spending 3-4 hour together, I drop him off and don't turn him down when he invites me upstairs. We hug for a long ten minutes, i kiss him on the cheek and promise to return soon, brushing off a nagging ambivalence.
Since I used to live the life of a nomad, traveling between cities every week, spending only weekends at home, I visit Orhan the very next day after a dinner party with friends. When I reach his place, he has the projector set up, waiting to play Juno. Twenty minutes into the movie, I grab him and kiss him deep and hard, withdrawing breathless, and kissing again. This went on for a good hour, until i finally ask him "do you want to fuck?" I run down to the car, get the condoms. He takes his shorts off in a mad rush, and i'm semi-awed semi-shocked at his size. He literally tears my cK off, raises my legs and starts gentle pulsating thrusts...
Sitting in his tub, a couple of hours later, he asks me for my take on relationships. I give him evasive gilb-talk, he presses on, and I tell him that we can date, but its not an exclusive relationship. He takes it in stride, vowing to win me over...
We end up spending every weekend together. Every week, he's at the airport to pick me up. We watch movies together, try out great restaurants. I get comfortable enough to whine and complain to him. We make common friends. He enrolls at a language school, his english starts to improve.
Soon my traveling schedule slows down, and I end up spending more time in Dubai. At this point, he wants to spend every day with me and I can't take it. His english is improving but conversation still takes effort, and I get extremely frustrated at times. I say I need space and I need time by myself. The concept is alien to him from his cultural perspective. We start having occasional arguments in which he says that I don't spend enough time with him, and I counter that we're together 3 nights in a week. Still the relationship leaves me with a mixed feeling. Orhan cares for me with such intensity and such honestly that I find it difficult to walk away from him. At the same time, because of language problems, I can't have the effortless conversations that I so long for. More so, as we get closer.
One day, I wake up in the morning, and he's sitting against the wall, looking visibly unwell. I ask him in mild panic, "What happened?? Are you feeling alright??" He replies "Baby, I need answers." In an unfortunate mix of possessiveness and sleeplessness, while scanning through my iphone photos, he mistook a picture of me with my best friend, as being with my ex-bf. Somewhat fazed, he went on to read my texts to a mutual friend, and there he found a recent reference to my ex-bf, in which I said something like "He still sends my emotions in a tangle"
That morning, 3 months back, we almost broke up. He wanted an explanation about my ex-bf and I was really mad about his invasion of my privacy. We didn't talk the whole day. Later in the evening he sent me texts which started out with slapstick attempts at making-up and then proceeded to get increasing frantic as I continued to ignore him. Late at night, when he couldn't take the silence, he called me up, and with a heavy sobbing voice, said that he wanted to come over and explain. In fact, he was already on the way.
He sat on my bed, said he was really sorry. He says that he's spoken with his friends living abroad (mostly in the US), and he is starting to understand the concept of giving space and alone-time, though the concept is almost alien to him as a Turk. Despite the events of the morning and the ensuing drama, I just want to hold him, and kiss him, make lighthearted fun of his accent, while he teases me about my "space". Kiss and makeup suddenly took new meaning.
Thereon, he never insisted to meet, never probed about things I was uncomfortable sharing. The more space he gave me, the more I wanted to share with him. He was always there for me in whatever way I needed him, sometimes sacrificing things that were clearly of value to him-just to see me happy. For me, it would seem, he would gladly take on the world-and not regret it.
Last month, we visited Turkey together on a 10-day vacation. As it turned out, I did need the visa, and he did give me the invitation letter. We stay with his mom in Istanbul, and while he is not out to his family, he introduces me to everyone. His sister even arranged an unforgettable Turkish breakfast for me (the food!!!). While we don't speak the same language, i feel like a member of the family. His mom even jokes that she's always had a white son, and now she had a black one too.
We sleep cuddled in the tiny one bed in which he used to sleep as a teen, and it feels better than most 5-stars I've been at.So here is my dilemma. The trajectory that my relationship has so far taken is very different from the gay relationships that I'm familiar with. For me, gay relationships start in a burst of intense physical attraction. With Orhan, it wasn't so. While I find him attractive, he isn't strictly my type. I like pretty boys, i.e. twink-types in their mid-to-late twenties. Orhan, while in that age range, has more masculine features. Also initially, the language problem, while not debilitating, was quite severe. Six months down the line, both of these matter a lot less. His English has gotten much better, and I've started to find his masculinity very attractive.
In a lot of other ways, we are very complementary. He's carefree, i'm ultra-type-A. I introduced him to the habit of staying at home and working (all the time), while he introduced me to the joys of long drives and walking around the city. I used to spend my days working and reading 18 hours a day, now we watch movies, we cook, we eat out, we laze at the beach, we cuddle for hours and we have incredible sex. I'm starting to discover work-life balance, and it feels great. But....
But, when the survey asks me questions like "How closely do you associated your identity with the identity of your bf" or "If you were to live your life over, would you want to spend you life with the same person" or more incisively "Do you ever think of your perfect match still being out there?" Then my answers are not the same as they would be if I was deeply infatuated, or in a rapturous state of love. And that disturbs me.
It disturbs me because Orhan makes me happy, and I want this relationship to work. Both of us acknowledge that there are some underlying and are working to resolve these. Just because our relationship did not start with a bang, is it doomed to wither and fail?
-CB
ps. Sorry for the long post. Writing it was cathartic.
