Relationships!

I'm so happy for you that you've found your true love. It's an amazing thing.

My boyfriend of two years was my entire world, I was completely and utterly invested in him. But unfortunately last month he broke it off and my whole world came crashing down. I still haven't been the same since. They say time is a healer but I've yet to feel it's affects, it's still hard for me because I think about him every day. It's made me quite depressed ever since.

I hope I find someone else, soon, ha.

Kaycee-

I know I don't know you or the extent of what you're feeling, but what I can say is that there needs to be an effort on your part (which you seem to be making just having the conversation) to move on. Believe me, I completely understand what you're going through. I was in a 10 year long relationship that just withered on the vine. Not because of some growing animosity or mistrust, just faded. We grew apart. The odd thing was, we had been working towards relocating to San Francisco from San Diego for a couple of years. It was sort of our ideal to be in that city to the north (from where we were) but we wanted to do it smart, we had a goal and we worked towards it. As the time came for the move we actively pursued the job market, all seemed well and good. Except it wasn't. Little fissures started to become bigger, again not through any kind of ill feelings but just that the move, when it happened, started to highlight how far we'd grown apart as people. We wanted very different things. The move only put it out there where we could no longer deny it. I loved him (still do to this day on some level) but after we finally unplugged from our life in San Diego, we realized it was over. It was sad in it's lingering silence between us. Painful, not from heated words but the absolute nothing that stood between us. We were cordial, we were friendly, but also we were both quite empty. 

So there I was, in a new city with NO friends, a new job, and no partner that had been my rock for 10 years. I was sad, I was bewildered, but oddly enough, you know what got me through? The small seed that somewhere something kicked in that while I was feeling all of those things I realized I never felt more alive in that everything had an immense intensity to it. Even the desolation of not having someone there was intense. It hurt, it was staggering in the absence but what I did was I made a conscious choice to say to myself, "okay, embrace that... and do something about it." So I forced myself to get involved. I did things that put me out there. Willingly. At first it was utter shit - going through the motions - but in the course of my zombie like amble through each place I'd forced myself into, I found I made a boat load of new friends. I began to see others socially, more out of filling the time of not having someone there. I began to chat up some people online in the area and eventually met the man who I eventually married (been together for 20 years as of this year and married legally since '08). So yeah, I could've given in. I could've tossed in the towel. But you know what I see when I look at your picture, what I read in your gentle and well thought out prose? I see a brilliant light that is struggling to get out. A gem that needs the gentle hand of someone who cares enough to wipe away the pain you've wrapped yourself in. 

He's out there. I swear to you he is. We are usually trapped in our insular worlds, thinking that once something is gone we won't ever have it again. Well, we're right in one sense - we won't have that again, but it doesn't mean we won't have better. It doesn't guarantee that that was the ONLY chance we had at happiness. There are six billion plus on the planet - and if we go with the whole gay thing about we're like 10 percent of the population and then we divide that up between men/women and bi/trans that's still some fairly big numbers of possibilities and potentials out there. Sure they're spread out around the globe, but I'm telling you, he's out there. That's the journey you're on. An Indiana Jones of the heart, so to speak. Try to think of it as the ultimate adventure. I know it's hard. Believe me, I've been there. And I am in no way equating what I went through to lessen your pain or languishing stagnation. But you have to love yourself enough to get back into the game. No one will love you more than you do. You have to love yourself enough to say, "Dammit, I am good enough. That man is out there, and it's up to me to find him." 

Is it luck? Sure... there's some of that. But I firmly believe that there is someone out there for each of us. Just some of us choose to give up the chase, throw the towel in early because of a bad experience. That's only shortchanging yourself. I think your worth far more than that. From your postings I can see you're a thoughtful individual who has not only a great intellect, but I kind heart at its core. That's a fairly winning combination in the gay stratosphere. Believe me, in my many years I have found several with one but not the other. Happens far too much in our world - smart as all hell but no heart to speak of, or a heart of gold that doesn't have the brains to tell everyone to stop taking advantage of them because they're kind. You seem to possess both. That's bloody brilliant in my book. 

But as I've said (or rambled as this entry is waaaay longer than I should expect ANYONE to read), you've got to find it within yourself to put yourself back out there. Go through the motions (it's a start), become involved in the local lgbt center (if your city/town has one) if not, then get involved in some other way that gets you into mixing it up again with others. You'd be surprised how forcing yourself through those first steps back out into the throng of things, while painful and a drudge, ultimately do pay off. 

Life's an adventure... you just gotta want to rise to the challenge and get back in the game. My personal wish for you, after reading your blog and the postings here, that you find the real Mr. Right... even if you have to kiss a few Mr. Right-Now's to find him. Finding your Prince is no easy task, but (and I'll color this with my 20 year relationship where we've never really had an argument or fight - he complements me in every way possible as I aspire to do the same for him after all this time) I'll tell you it's worth it. The search, the strive to find him, when it ultimately happens is over the top amazing. That's when the real adventure begins.

Looking back on my previous 10 year relationship. Yeah, I miss him. We still talk from time to time - it's pleasant but not the same. I've told him that my wish is to one day sit on a porch in our seventies and he can tell me what happened to him after we parted twenty years ago. He's told me he would love to do that. To have a real heart to heart after all those years apart. We'll see. The odd thing is, I can feel a lingering loss from that relationship, but it pales in comparison to what I have now. So you never really lose the pain, but you'll find it more a curiosity that it's still there after the sands of time have beat upon it as you've moved on. And you will. One way or another, it just happens.

But my wish for you is to find the courage and love within and get back out there. Believe me, that man for you? Yeah, he needs you as much as you need him. And he's just as lost without you - you just don't know it, neither of you do.

I've found a gay artist that I absolutely love, he's a brilliant word and tunesmith (a real modern-day bard) and his name is Jay Brannan. If you've haven't heard of him, check him out. As an older gay man I wish I had someone like him around to give me hope through song. He touches upon all the varied aspects of what we go through as gay men. He's absolutely amazing - a mix of the light and dark in us all. Give a listen to 'Housewife' I think the last lines of that song will give you some perspective on things. 

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I tend to write in a stream of consciousness. I'll try to keep it in check going forward.  All my best (truly). 

Baz

I am only too glad to have helped (even if it was just a little). It's actually one of the reasons I decided to become a writer. My first book deals a bit with what you're going through. It's basically the story of a artistic geek of a boy who thinks he's the only gay kid in his small Northern California town. He sees nothing but danger from the social elite at school to the banality of working at his parents ice cream shop. He thinks his life will be insular and unremarkable. During the summer vacation between his junior and senior year in high school while working at the shop the star quarterback of their (American) varsity football team comes into the store (when no one else is around in the store) and confesses that he not only knows about Elliot (my main character) being gay, he tells Elliot that he's been in love with him for two years and he can't keep it to himself any longer. It mind blowingly throws Elliot's world off kilter.

The only reason I am relaying any of this to you (other than a shameless plug - just kidding) is that I wanted to explore a relationship where the gay kid is the one who keeps questioning the validity of what his jock boyfriend (who never once wavers in his devotion to Elliot) keeps telling him is real. I wanted to turn it around that if, as gay men, we were given what we dreamed of, what we aspired to, what would we do with it? Would we trust it? Or because of some strange internal strife or destructive behavior would we sabotage it. So my lovers have to learn how to work within their burgeoning relationship while dealing with the pressures of being in high school where one of them is in the spotlight everywhere he goes and the other lives in the shadows, dreaming of the light. I wanted, for once, to put the open gay kid in a position to love himself enough to embrace what's being given to him and to cherish it - because something can always come along to upset the precarious balance that is life. And of course, invariably, it does.

Believe it or not, your blog has given me some really great moments to ponder upon. The first book is from Elliot's perspective, the second is from Marco (his jock boyfriend's perspective) and your blog, which I have now happened upon at a very opportune time for me while I am writing the second novel, has really given me something to mentally chew on. So thank you for that. You've given this seasoned gay guy something to think upon as I recall and reminisce about those long ago days of my youth and the jock boyfriend I had for the better part of my senior year (which was the impetus for the story). You've given my Elliot character some new perspectives to play with. So again, thank you. 

All my best, 

B.

please help!!!:bang:
i am 37, straight, female. today i found a text message in my daughters phone where she told a schoolmate that she was bi. It is my impression that bisexuals are equally sexually aroused by men as they are by women. is this true? Physically?
I great portion of my problem with this does not come from an anti-gay place in my mind, its just hard to grasp what makes a girl that likes boys think that she should become sexually active with a girl. It has been my experience that young girls are made to feel like they must be gay if they can tell another girl is attractive. Soooo... I thought i was gay well into my freshman year in college but then i realized that all the other girls were just lying and everyone could tell who was "aesthetically beautiful" (based on social norms.) how can i help her discover her truth and how can i open the door to this conversation without scaring her, since she is obviously keeping secrets from me and does not feel open to tell me. I have tried being very approachable during convo. and i often bring up issues of sexual relations.(for Years). I blame media and society in general. I dont know the right answer but often it seems like being gay is being promoted as just a choice people can make. I want straight kids to grow up without being hustled into being gay just as much as i dont want gay kids gowing up never seeing positive lbgt families or relationships in the media. just so you know i believe some people are born gay, some people become gay due to life experiences and/or choices. I don’t really know a good way to describe my beliefs about bisexuals so i wont try. please tell me what you think i should do and/or definitely not do.