Dude. Even though this seems cruel to me, I'm afraid that if I read too much more, I'm going to start laughing. Let me tell you straight off why I think that is -- you have turned down nearly every idea, complement, or bit of experience than anyone in this thread has offered you. And, you *asked* for them!
"The gay lifestyle." No such thing exists. There are gay people, and they live their lives (we live our lives). Some are very extreme, and plenty of others are not. If you can't clean out the space in your own head to allow space for all kinds of things, no one else will, either.
When I was your age (I'm 44 now) I was pretty closeted. Well, really painfully closeted. I tried to make contact with attractive guys I thought I might be comfortable with, and it never worked. The closest I came was with a guy who was just two years younger than me (we were in our mid-twenties so already that two years really didn't matter), who I thought was cute and attractive, who I thought was a nice guy... but I just couldn't see myself "being with" him. Now, there were other guys like that who were available to me, but there was always something about them that didn't fit, either a little bit or a lot. Looking back, I think I was right about those guys -- they wouldn't have "fit." We *might* have gotten one reasonably good mutual get-off session, followed by uncomfortableness. Honestly, I wasn't ready for them, and I don't think they were ready for me.
OK, so you have high self-esteem. But... you've got fear, too, right? And frustration? What do you know about those things in yourself, really? Do you have any compassion for them there? Would you allow a young man attractive to yourself express compassion for those things in you if he saw them? Would you know how to recognize a young man who was capable of doing that? If you found one, but some other part of him felt "not right," would you be able to tell him that as you parted ways?
One point being: When we're talking boyfriends (or girlfriends or the ever-complicated polyamorous collectives), I think it's useful to consider that a "relationship" is not something you "have" like you own a car or a guitar, a relationship is something you make with somebody else. How's your skilz on that?
Not too long ago I looked at some pics of myself from when I was in college, I was so f8*n' amazed, because I was so sure I was below average, and looking at that guy, it was like, "if he walked up to me right now, I'd probably lose my breath." It can be so hard to figure out how we might appear to others.
blah, blah, blah. Yeah. The stories about the way you have been treated by some "older guys" make me really angry. That some guy who's got a relationship with one of your friends would offer you computer memory for fooling around is... disappointing is just about the mildest word I can come up with, although stronger ones are more attractive. I suspect we share a value about what the "best" context for fooling around is. I'm afraid that I think guys like that are dime-a-dozen common. But there are lots of good guys out there, too.
The "crotch-in-the-face" thing I've got a hard time picturing the context for, but that also seems to me like a situation that would leave me furiously angry. One thing I can remember that happened to me once when I was 24. I was tending bar (a job that really wasn't "me," I eventually figured out) at a restaurant. The only guy at the bar was a regular customer who I understood (from gossip from other patrons) was gay. I am sure that he had sensed that I was homo-oriented and sort of curious about who he was and what was up. This was a guy in his late '50s who had been married and had kids, but left his family when he came out. He was a professional guy in a related area to what I was going to school in at the time. I think he was making up for lost time.
Like I said, I was curious about him (and like I said I think he sensed this) although I didn't really particularly like him. At the time, like you, I wasn't into older guys (even now I'm not really into older guys although I've met a couple, who for a time, made me take exception). I don't think that I ever for an instant gave him any indication that I was interested in *him*, like "in a date" interested. And this one afternoon when he was the only other guy in the room, he is all the sudden showing these "come hither" eyes and telling me, "I'd like to go out to dinner with *you,* T."
I felt pretty trapped behind the bar. In the actual whole wide world, it was a pretty harmless come-on. But like I said, I don't think I'd asked for it, and I didn't welcome it -- and it wasn't something I knew how to counter or walk away from, because he was a customer.
So I think the crotch-in-the-face thing would have made me truly angry.
OK enough thanks for giving me a topic to react to! ;-) Even if I felt a little like laughing at you when I started I can feel your pain. Here's some advice, though: When you get enough $ stowed by, find a real certified therapeutic massage person, and get a good total body massage. Your body deserves the favor.
pax
Tygre
