Long Distance Lovin'

In New York every relationship feels like long distance. Potential dates are spread among the boroughs and hectic schedules keep you from seeing each other more than a couple times a week, if you’re lucky. In the interim you’re relegated to chatting online, texting, or maybe late night phone calls so it’s easy to feel like you’re dating remotely. Those familiar with online dating websites know that there are constantly new prospects to consider not to mention that any event or evening out with friends could bring another potential mate to your attention, creating an endless cycle of fits and starts. And with new people constantly coming in and out of the city it’s not unreasonable to assume your next crush may even hail from somewhere far beyond the city’s seemingly endless boundaries.

Our generation came of age with the Internet readily available as the easiest resource to find someone to daydream about, to meet to satisfy our hormonal urges, or to possibly become our first or next great love. Though our identities or pictures are rarely if ever hidden from our online paramours, it was still easy to feel that while we are chatting with someone not too far from home they were still as mysterious to us in real life as the characters exchanging emails in You’ve Got Mail.

Adding to the long distance relationships we form with someone close by, in the early days and even now it is common to develop connections with guys who not only live on the other side of the country or world with the hopes we may someday meet. In high school I regularly kept up with boys in Chicago, Canada, and Lord knows where else in North America. In college, a wealth of gay and girlfriends from all over the place who wanted to set me up with their BFF got me involved with an even greater number of long distance lovers, some of whom I met briefly or continued sporadic and convenient affairs, others whom faded into obscurity without us ever crossing paths.


But throughout my young adulthood there have been some guys I’ve met from afar that made me feel like no matter the physical distance our connection and intimate conversations could surmount the distance. Some fizzled upon on eventual meeting, others linger and have cycled back over the years, even as we both have hopped from college to career in different locales. Nevertheless the idea or actualization of a genuine and exclusive long distance relationship has never quite come to pass.

Falling for a guy that may never play an immediate role in your life in the foreseeable future is a trap we fall into when our own prospects at home seem to be less than inviting. The distance makes it easier to make leaps and bounds in our feelings for them since they are not around to notice flaws, insecurities, or fall victim to realistic priorities. We talk to them when it’s convenient or carry on romantic conversations while actually out with friends or even other dates. We give them remote access to our hearts, and they come to feel like a security blanket for the disappointments of real life dating.

What we have to keep in mind is no matter what they divulge, we are never getting the whole picture. We may see countless photos of them online, learn all their favorite movies and music, but still not witness their emotions at actually experiencing them. We think we are falling in love with our Romeo cruelly separated not by the will of our parents, but by geography. Nevertheless we do it time and time again usually resulting in a gradual decline of communication or an abrupt dismissal of what we thought was blossoming.

So though we may pass the time putting an emotional down payment on something we think will be worth the investment, we are often left with nothing but phantom memories of how a stranger briefly made us feel special. Though dating in New York can be a fool’s errand most of the time, at least we share the environment where a relationship may grow. It’s not unheard of for lives to be changed by relocating or extreme circumstances, but our faraway Romeos are more likely meet a tragic end than a Sleepless in Seattle happy ending. It may we wiser to wait until we’ve actually felt their kiss before we let their xoxo’s count as affection. Love may come from the heart, but it begins with the head, and well, the loins.

Appeared Originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 7/16/09

Training for Love

A couple weeks ago I decided I’d be attending my friend’s birthday pool party in Ft. Lauderdale. The problem was the party was exactly a month away and my half naked body had not seen the light of day in more than a year. Those of you that know me know that skin tone was not my concern, my flabby torso on the other hand was very much so. At the perfect juncture of approaching Pride and Mother Nature’s decision to begin easing up on the rain (kinda) I began a new diet and exercise regimen that I hoped would take me from saggy to svelte in the few weeks I had.

I should probably mention that being in a bathing suit was not my only motivation for weight loss and toning. Since I’m going to FL with my best friend and his boyfriend, they also invited one of their friends to come along as well. (Un)fortunately for me said friend has nothing to be ashamed of when he takes off his shirt, and I didn’t want to spend probably my most significant getaway this summer feeling like the fat kid at camp. It may sound superficial, but then again what isn’t when we’re talking about gays and the W in Ft. Lauderdale?

They say it’s good to have a goal in mind when you begin a new diet and/or and work out plan. I didn’t have any specific goals beyond looking hotter, so I try to focus on just following the online programs I’m using and making a conscious effort to improve the health of my diet and shape of my body. Since this is quite vague, it helps that I at least have a deadline to meet. In the mean time all this exercise in the last couple weeks has given me a lot of time to think. Athletes prepare for competitions, actors rehearse for plays, and our education helps prepare us for life and careers. So what is supposed to prepare us for relationships?

I suppose that dates are like try outs, if we make the team or cast we may be asked to rehearse or practice again and again until the final whistle blows or the curtain falls, but in my experience the game is usually over before it begins. Though going on many dates can make each subsequent one easier, it in no way guarantees a higher rate of success. Like in acting, if the role of significant other is not right for us, no amount of rehearsing will make the show a success. So how are we supposed to train?

Well in my superficial mind I decided years ago that every New Years I wouldn’t make a resolution (a practice I’ve since broken) but I’d merely resolve to be a better version of myself. The superficial part was that I thought by working from the outside in, improving my appearance, which would lead to improved confidence, was the way to do so. Somewhere along the way I forgot about this theory and decided that my body was static and if someone was going to love me they would have to except me as is. And though that seemed fine for a while, I think there comes a time when we all hit a wall with ourselves when we realize that it’s not that we aren’t meeting the right guys, or that all the good ones are taken; sometimes a little effort needs to be taken on our part.

So we put ourselves out there. We create a profile online, check out the options and see what’s available. After almost two years and a carousel of first and sometimes second dates I realized the answer: not much. So what do we do? I believe the key is honestly appraising our assets and then deciding the areas that need improvement. Join a gym, take up a new hobby, or commit to reading more, so that you have even more to offer a potential mate.

This may sound like an instructional video for women only going to college to get their MRS. degree, but since we’re dealing with the same sex, we don’t have gender inequality to hide behind. It may sound cynical to diagnose singleness or even unhappiness as a result of our lack of or willingness to improve ourselves, but what I thought years ago is still true. The better we feel about ourselves, in any aspect of our life, the more our confidence grows, which is undeniably more attractive to potential suitors. And if you’re only doing it for yourself, that’s great, you may still find love or at least a hot roll in the hay, even if only for a long weekend.

Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 7/11/09

Queen of Pop?

In the wake of Michael Jackson’s death there’s been an abundance of specials, marathons, and shows devoted to his musical career. In watching these it is clear that though his immense talent is undeniable it is absurd that anyone ever believed he was straight. With a voice that rivals Minnie Mouse and dance moves more astonishingly fluid than a Cirque de Soleil performance on acid, how he ever elicited hordes, nay entire populations, of screaming female fans seems almost unfathomable. Riddled with accusations of child molestation, absurd marriages to rock n’ roll royalty, and surrogate children of suspicious background, his personal life made little case for heterosexuality. But yet to the bitter end the King of Pop never came out as a queen.

It’s not uncommon for popular musicians and actors of dubious sexuality to be adored by female fans. Of just the ones to be confirmed you need to only look at Clay Aiken, Lance Bass, Ricky Martin (well soon to be confirmed), Jordan Knight, Rock Hudson, and Neal Patrick Harris, just to name a few. Though they range from the ridiculously obvious to the bit more surprising, they all at least at one time had a legion of followers that would vehemently defend their sexuality. As I once argued with my best friend during a heated debate over Anderson Cooper, does this insistence that they are straight reinforce homophobia and the heteronormative assumptions it fosters, or are we merely reluctant to label someone’s private preference?

As gay men we get a lot of flack for telling our straight (girl)friends that certain celebrities are gay. They assume we want all of the hot guys to be on our team, leaving them with the chubby sidekicks. Though I find this reaction to be understandable, I think it plays perfectly into the homophobia perpetuated by the mainstream media. Though it kills me to say it, if blogs like Perez Hilton or Gawker hadn’t come along, the media would still be so frightened by litigation they would continue to avoid raising the question of someone’s sexuality, a task that had only been left to the disreputable tabloids.

Many will argue that stars are entitled to their privacy and should not be coerced to come out, and I agree. But I also think that their silence only serves to hold us back, rather than move us forward. Online we can speculate about stars, anonymous commenters indiscreetly share their stories, and as a community we at least confirm amongst ourselves whom is one of us. The power of the Internet to answer these questions is largely responsible for the strides we have made in the last decade.

So do we give certain stars an out for coming out? Is the level of their talent and celebrity inversely related to our desire for them to acknowledge their homosexuality? I grew up in Catholic school thinking there was no way that certain fathers of my friends were straight. My friend recently started work for a faith based company and was sure one of her coworkers was a friend of Dorothy before she discovered he was married and quite devout. These are the generations who grew up maybe recognizing themselves in their favorite stars on TV, only to see them auspiciously paired in magazines with their most recent leading lady. A professor of mine was married with children until Billy Crystal’s portrayal on Soap opened his eyes to his true self, and he subsequently came out.

The celebrity culture of silence about sexuality continues to be detrimental to those they should seek to inspire. As generations only now begin to realize the enormous strides our previous brethren have made, it is imperative we provide them with contemporary role models that are both successful and popular so they understand that they are capable of inhabiting any part of society, not only the alternative. Jackson’s talent and contributions to the recording industry will never be diminished, but his personal legacy can only be tarnished by his inability to ever truly express his identity. It may be too late for him, but not for countless others who may need to confront the ‘man in the mirror.’

Appeared originally at http://www.homo-neurotic.com/2009/07/02/the-queen-of-pop/#more-9164 on 5/2/09

Pride is for Love(rs)

The one time we all want to be single is summer time, when beach visits, interns, and general debauchery abounds. But the one thing we neglect to remember is how lonely Pride can be when we’re single.

On one hand we’re glad the gay population of our city and half the Eastern seaboard turns out to celebrate. On the other hand we wish we had a man on our arm to show off.

I never thought this particularly applied to me, having spent, pretty much every Pride alone (most notably the year I marched with my parents in Indianapolis for PFLAG). But returning to my college town this year for Pride made me feel like I was missing a plus one. Maybe it was because most of my friends had boyfriends, and I was still single and sassy in the Big Apple. I couldn’t help feel that although I hadn’t always been a visitor I was a bit of an outcast.

Luckily it is a relatively small town and it didn’t take me long to reingratiate myself with the locals. By the end of the second night I had connected with a long lost crush of the past. What I thought was going to be an innocuous evening of catching up with friends and forsaking my liver ended up with an unlikely find: a boyfriend for Pride. It is beyond an exaggeration to call him “my boyfriend,” but it felt like he was mine for the duration of the weekend — all 16 hours of it.

It’s funny how much stress we put on ourselves to have a boyfriend on special occasions that we forget Pride is one of those times we feel that our relationships or lack there of are most on display. With so many homos around we so desperately want to fit into the successful relationship category that we are willing to forget that relationships are only a fraction of what we have to be proud about.

As a culture we have set new standards for what love and relationships can be. We have redefined sex, gender, identity, marriage, and countless other binary and biological ideas that have served to limit the expression of our truth in the past. Our Pride is not only about mass entertainment, circuit parties, and rooftop Bloody Marys. It’s about the freedom to be as different or as similar as what society expects.

Maybe it would be nice to have a cute boy for the whole Pride festivities, but if one isn’t available it doesn’t mean we have nothing to be proud about. After all, a temporary love can be gone in a moment, but Pride is something we carry with us all year long.

Appeared originally on homo-neurotic.com on 6/23/09

Nostalgia Romance

It’s to hard imagine what dating was like before the Internet. Since You’ve Got Mail, I’ve pretty much assumed that was the only place in New York one finally found true love. Countless candidates are dismissed immediately and the ones that meet your criteria for appearance and pique your interest, often languish after only a few dates. The entire process seems so clinical, more like looking for a job than a boyfriend, and with the way the job market is nowadays I don’t think any of us want to be reminded of that undertaking. It may not be an original sentiment, but my recent foray into the 60’s world of Revolutionary Road and Mad Men have definitely got me wondering: Whatever happened to romance?

I don’t necessarily mean romance in the vein of flowers and chocolate, horse drawn carriage rides, or long walks on the beach, but the more chivalrous times of tipped hats, honest smiles, held doors, and polite inquiry. We’re so eager to consume every new club, technology, restaurant, YouTube clip, blog, and everything else that comes across our News Feed we don’t take time to really familiarize ourselves with anything anymore. A potential can be dismissed by age, profession, or height in a matter of seconds, so why should we bother delving deeper?

I suppose what I find discouraging about the acceleration of our love lives is that unlike dispensing with a new viral video by closing out the window, much more emotional disappointment goes along with dispensing a potential mate, though we may have put little more thought or effort into bringing them into our lives. Nevertheless, in New York we know there are always more options, another bachelor to review, or another party to cast our net at. We seldom want for entertainment, merely yearn for longer lasting satisfaction.

Gone are the days when it was cool to light up a cigarette in bed after a particularly amazing orgasm. Now it would be considered uncouth, insulting, and unhygienic to do so. Isn’t there something so glamorous about the careless abandon previous generations had for the health and their appetite for pleasure? It may seem wholesome, because they met their dates after exchanging glances at the malt shop, and waited until several dates had passed before they even considered climbing into the backseat of a car. But our dating isn’t sexier or more efficient because it’s faster; it’s less exciting because it’s routine.

We rely on mass transit to get around and tend to date people from all over the city, but why does that preclude the courtesy of being picked up from one’s home? How can the allure of being invited upstairs be properly stoked if we aren’t teased with the possibility? Instead we choose neutral locations in popular neighborhoods so neither party is inconvenienced and we’re left to dart our eyes wildly around the room until our date arrives. Then it is obvious to everyone that you had met online and are now going to probably rehash what you already know about each other.

At the end of the date a gentle kiss, or even touch of the hand was once enough to sustain one’s interest until subsequent dates. The promise of more made the excitement more palpable. Now, if you don’t have sex within the first couple weeks you’re likely to never hear from the person again and if you do you’ve maybe got a 50/50 shot things will continue. Again, I know this may not be original, but the commodification of sex has reduced us to nothing but round-the-clock consumers, ultimately dissatisfied shoppers looking for the best bang for our buck. Figuratively speaking of course.

I know that the Internet opened up a wealth of opportunity for me in all aspects of my life, especially to meet guys as a teenager when bars and other venues were not available. But sometimes I wish that in this particular area of our lives we could slow it down a bit. Get to know someone before deciding they aren’t right for you, or at least as long as the sparks flicker. No harm no foul if it doesn’t work out, but it’s better than constantly second-guessing why so many first dates have remained only that. If that book and show have taught me anything it’s that you can learn a lot about yourself from the one you love, and you owe it to yourself to take time finding the one that’s right. The definition of romantic may be unrealistic, but then again what ideal isn’t?

Appeared Originally on homo-neurotic.com on 6/10/09

Mama's Boy

All gay men have complicated relationships with their mothers. Though all parent-child relationships can stray towards the disordered, that of a mother and her gay son is particularly special. Some of us count our mothers as one of our closest friends and confidantes, others despise their moms as a cruel and intolerant Joan Crawford type and the very thought of family gatherings makes their blood run cold. Growing up we may identify more closely with our mothers than we care to admit, or like wayward and resentful daughters, we do our best to eschew any semblance of relation or attachment. In either case, this central relationship in our lives figures prominently in shaping the men we become, for better or worse.

Growing up I was driven only by an intense desire to please and impress. Overachieving at everything except sports, I wanted to prove my worth and importance to not only the world, but to my parents. Subconsciously, I felt that my sexuality would be such a profound disappointment that I wanted to make up for it in some way. Good grades, extra-curriculars, and a college scholarship seemed to be my only means of doing so. It was only after I had come out, which completely failed to surprise any member of my family or society at large, that I even began to engage in any behavior that they may disapprove of.

But I know my story is not shared by all of us. There are plenty of gays who feel and felt that they had nothing to prove to their parents and relentlessly pursued their dreams and desires regardless of how their family may think or feel. And they are not wrong for doing so. Our parents gave us the gift of life and hopefully provide us with love and support through our childhood and adolescence but that doesn’t mean we owe them our unending gratitude. Having children was also their fulfillment of adolescent dreams or marriage vows, and the resulting lives they produced are given the freedom to use it however they please.

So why do gays have such polarized feelings about their mothers? Do we emulate them and hope to follow in their footsteps? Do we pity them and wish they could have been elevated above the role of doting housewife and mother, no matter what career success they may also have achieved? Or do we resent their biological ability to create life with their partner and thus recognize they created a flawed human being that is faced with more challenges then they themselves knew?

I’d like to think there was an easy answer to all these questions and that countless hours and dollars hadn’t been wasted on the couches of therapists’ offices in that pursuit, but that’d be a lie. The truth is that our feelings range so widely from love and gratitude to resentment and pity, it’s impossible to define just how significant this relationship has played in our lives. Like our fathers we are men capable of producing life, providing for ourselves and a family, and remaining sexually virile well into retirement. But we can’t perform all the same functions of our mothers, though we may adopt many of them in our relationships. Fundamentally, we will never measure up to what they contributed to our families.

So perhaps that’s where the complications begin. Unable to see ourselves as the same man our father is or was, and unable to ever to fill the role of our mother completely, we are stuck somewhere in the middle. Whether our parents express their disappointment or don’t feel it at all about our sexuality, we can’t help but feel like we somehow burdened them with our biological difference.

My mother turned 60 yesterday and me and my three siblings and their spouses and kids all spent the holiday weekend together to celebrate. Politics aside they all love and support me and will someday be thrilled to be guests at my destination wedding, but they also acknowledge that I enjoy a special privilege. I can stay up late drinking with the boys and go out shopping with the girls when it’s the other group’s turn to watch the kids. I am privy to conversations that wouldn’t occur if a member of the opposite sex was around, and charged with making peace among upset parties.

We gathered to celebrate our mother, a woman who I came out to six years ago in a Ruby Tuesday’s parking lot, and has loved and supported me every day of my life, and now serves on the PFLAG executive committee in Indianapolis, IN. But in a lot of ways I felt like it was a celebration for me as well. After a brief anxiety attack on Monday over the work that awaited me in New York, I sat in my mom’s car by myself. Fingering her keys I noticed she still carried the key chain with a guitar pick attached I’d given her when her purse had been stolen a few years ago. Bright orange and flimsy plastic, it doesn’t go well with her silver cross and multitude of frequent shopper cards. I knew then that though I was far away from her, I was never out of mind. I may not have been the son she expected to have, but I wasn’t for a second, one she didn’t want.

Appeared originally on homo-neurotic.com on 5/27/09

Open Relationships

It wasn’t so long ago that we knew how to define our relationship status as something other than single, in a relationship, in an open relationship, engaged, married, or “it’s complicated.” We used to, and still do before we come to one of the aforementioned ‘definitive’ conclusions, use all manner of descriptions to label what we are so hesitant to label. In college, when these statuses emerged as the common denominator for defining our love lives, some interesting trends emerged. Many of us were proudly single, a few were in relationships, with or without the other party named, no one was married (even if their status stated otherwise). Complicated relationships were rarely labeled as such, and “it’s complicated” was used for comedic effect. The rarest status of all was the open relationship.

So imagine my surprise recently when the boy I invited over for wine and conversation confessed that his lack of an online relationship status was that he was in a true blue open relationship. It didn’t take me long to empathize that this would be an awkward situation to publicize.

At a time when gay marriage is now legal in five states and New York is teetering on the edge of becoming the sixth, it seems that gay monogamy and commitment is more in our face than ever. Many would say, THANK GOD. For decades the rest of society assumed that we were promiscuous whores who spent our evenings in bathhouses and public parks exchanging sex, drugs, and makeup tips. Of course we have the ongoing AIDS crisis to remind us that promiscuity doesn’t pay, but it is also our fervent desire to assimilate and be viewed as a normal part of society that has us rushing to the altar and subsequently, the opposite sides of our Queen-sized beds.

Homosexuals have a proud tradition of blurring relationship lines and negotiating sexual boundaries. With divorce rates steady at 50% there have been numerous articles published recently chronicling heterosexual couples who have experimented with straying spouses for the sake of their union. In these studies, gay couples are cited as trendsetters for these types of open relationships. In the absence of state or church-defined unions, we created our own rules of acceptablity in the context of our partnerships and have benefited by reaping the fruits of these understandings. Gay relationships that allowed for partners to indulge with others from time to time were more likely to stand the test of time.

Though it’s incredible that I know gay couples who will be able to truthfully change their status to married in the coming months, I question whether these traditional models are a step forward. We should have the right to marry, but must we exercise it? And if we do enter into these state-sanctioned unions will we continue to blur the lines, or will the legal ramifications be a deterrent?

I feel privileged to live at a time when all the Facebook relationship statuses will become reality, but I feel nervous that perhaps we are losing part of our identity in the process. The fag– hag-marriages and open relationships seem fewer and fewer and boys are even changing their last names online (not in jest, but for real).

It’s refreshing to think that there are still gay men who think that an open relationship, with every bit of adoration and commitment of a partnership, is the most honest way to express the way the feel about each other. It’s not just about sex, but allowing each other the freedom to explore. Then again, many don’t care to list this online, and that absence speaks louder than words. Maybe it’s time I add single to my profile again, lest anyone think I’m taken. But in New York especially, would it be more accurate if we all admitted “it’s complicated?” Because it certainly is.

Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 5/18/09