Giving up Dating, Part 2: An Update on the "Forever Stop"

This is a ridiculously long essay, but I feel it is necessary. The essay that this follows up on, The Forever Stop: Giving Up Dating, is the most viewed on this blog, and so in standard "Hollywood" tradition, it makes sense to have a sequel! In this case I hope that you find this to be more than just a trite re-hash of previous themes; perhaps more of a further examination or extension of the original themes. Who knows...this may end up being a trilogy! Read on and enjoy...

There are certain things that one should not "let go of". Fear is a classic example of one such thing. "Let go of fear!" Do you know of anyone who has successfully let go of fear? I don't. I do know many people who have tried to let go of fear, and as a result now suffer not only from fear, but also anxiety and the shame of failure. The idea of "letting go" of our feelings is right on par with the religious expectation that we should strive to never "sin". It sounds good on paper and sells books, but it only generates disaster when applied to real life lived by real humans. With fear, what generally works is leaning into it, as Pema Chodron advises. With fear, "letting go" does not work. It often results in something more like chopping off the hand that is doing the holding. How do I know? Because I know.

But you are welcome to try it out yourself, since my authority no doubt means nothing to you. The next time you feel anxiety or fear, go ahead and try to ignore it, or be happy. Go ahead! Then if you succeed in having it "go away", I will eat my shoe for charity. But I like my shoes very much, so I doubt this will happen. But you are free to try.


However I am not writing about fear in this essay. This essay is about what happens when you choose "letting go" in a situation where it can work. Dating is a classic example of one such situation. With dating, "letting go" can work because it suggests the loosening of one's grip on control, not avoidance or distraction. Control, in this example, often shows up in the way one thinks about dating, and it often goes something like this:

meet, attraction, sex, date, commit

Granted, those categories can be arranged in any possible order--it is not the order that indicates control, but the reliance on categories that yield a consistent low return. On their own, these categories can be quite harmless, but combined together, in any order, they rally their power to steam a train along a rickety track. Time after time I have noticed it in myself and others: if I meet someone and there is attraction so we have sex and if that is good then it means something so we date and if we date then we must at some later date commit.

Or perhaps that was just me.

Regardless, I made the decision at the end of last year to let it go, forever. I made a decision to break up the chain gang of categories and throw them up into the wind to scatter and fall where they may. I let it all go--the story, the expectations, the format, the need, the interest...the control--and I decided that I would just busy myself with living my life.

This essay is my follow up report on that strategy, a year later.

*

Nothing happens unless you do something. While I wouldn't build a scientific theory around this statement, it succeeds in communicating a basic idea. I tell my clients this all the time: If you want change to happen, you have to do something different. Letting go of dating was just one step in my process. Why did I not stop there? Because in my desire to let go, I was not inferring that I was giving up; instead, I was starting a process. There is a difference. I was making room for something different; the nature of this something was more vague than I preferred, but I was willing to start with "something". That something was a desire to re-ignite my creative, playful nature, and to find out how to trigger erotic connectivity.

Why did I want to do this? Primarily, my motivation was the desire to feel something other than a sense of efficiency in my life. Do any of you identify as taskmasters? Well, hello there, I am your leader. Building a business from scratch is a lot different from baking a cake from scratch. My livelihood depends on the results of my efforts. In the process of doing this, I got a bit safe in my emotional life. I am not sure why I felt this was necessary, but it is what I did. Freud used to say that we have a finite amount of energy to direct, but he used to say a lot of crazy things that have no scientific validity. I suppose that I felt that all my energy had to go to business development, or else I was being lazy. I also think that I knew the energy focus would be temporary, until things began to hum. It worked, from a business standpoint, as I now have a mildly supporting fledgling practice that continues to build momentum.

As my business grew, so then did my restlessness for some sacred messiness. I liken it to recovering from a broken limb, when you get the sense that you have progressed far enough to try and "get back to it", as it were. I was surprised by this resurgence, but not disappointed. And since I like to explore my instinctual inclinations, or at least the sober ones, I decided to look for opportunities to pursue this. At this point I will cut to the end of the story and save you the suspense, not because I am a nice guy, but because the opportunities are not what I want to write about. I want to write about the results.

*

Ain't nothing easy about "relationships", I always like to say. My opinion is supported by the culture, the media, and certainly by the couples who come into my practice struggling with unanticipated difficulties. I have long suspected that the stories we are fed about love are similar to the apple that dooms Sleeping Beauty--enticing but numbing--they lead us into a state of constant unfulfilled desire. I am currently reading a book that talks about how we spend most of our time in relationship with our partner's unlived self, and I see this as the result of a story of relationship that resides nowhere in our lived biological or emotional lives. Not that there is no truth to the story of romance, but it is just one of many ways to be with another, and at some point every couple has to get off the cloud and face the question of "Why am I really with you?"

They say that love can break through walls or build them. Actually, I just said that, but it sounds like something "they" would have said. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the "purpose" of relationship as far as it applies to my work and my personal life. I have come to the conclusion that the "romance story" can only exist within the realm of lack: something must be missing (self-esteem, confidence, purpose, meaning, excitement), and it can only be attained from another. Once the illusion of lack is shattered, romance must assume a new identity. It must naturally move from its status as headliner to supporting player. But then what takes its place at the top? Is there a true purpose for getting together with another? No, not in that sense inferred in the romance stories, but there are reasons that are really very simple and based in evolution. Well, two reasons. One is ancient--we are mammals and we evolved to attach to others in order to survive and nurture our young. The second is modern--it is in relationship that we have a chance to heal emotional trauma. The rest is dressing to the turkey--delicious, but not essential, but since you are having the turkey, why not have the dressing!

As an older man, I have continued to ponder my own reasons for intimate engagement, because they are not the same as they were when I was younger. Not that the previously mentioned reasons no longer apply, but it has become more of an effort to give a shit as I have gotten older. Life is pretty damn good even without romance. But I have been feeling that there could be a benefit to my personal development were I to explore the arena of relationship, so to speak. As I dip my toe in the water once again, I have awakened the pondering, and here is what I have come up with so far in regards to why I would date.

There are three basic reasons I currently identify as draws to relationship in my advanced age:

Ignition: Have you ever just felt blah about life? Sometimes the blahs are on the surface, and they can be responded to with something as simple as a strong cup of coffee or going to a new restaurant; at other times, the blahs are more than skin deep. Sometimes they are pervasive, such that they cast a sheet of dullness over every activity, every thought, every interaction. This is not a good thing, by the way. This level of the blahs warrants immediate action, lest one either succumb to them, or resist them with harmful attempts at stimulation.

During a recent run of the blahs, I resorted to neither remedy; but I knew I wanted to interrupt them. Ignition invites in interruption, but they are equally dependent upon each other, since you can't get to the former without the latter. Why is ignition a draw? Because it feels good to feel good. Ignition dispels the blahs by interrupting them and inviting in excitement, newness, and curiosity, and as the name implies, that is just the start. Ignition can lead to more actions toward relationship, but it can just as well lead to action toward anything. As I see it, there is no downside to ignition because it is not an end in itself, and it works like a charm.

I call ignition a draw to relationship due to the fact that the source of ignition is generally another person or an event tied to another person (both can be interruptions). Ignition, by its nature, assigns meaning to the presence of the other. Meaning is one key ingredient to relationship due to its application to both event and person: an interaction with significance attached to it tends toward relationship; and a person designated as meaningful typically triggers ignition! Ignition increases the sense of meaning, and on and on it can go, the whole process infusing life energy into the trigger and the triggered. This can be especially powerful when one is older, when one's "motor" tends to stall more often.

Companionship: This is an option that is settled into by many couples who have been together for a long time, but it is also an option that is the first choice for some older folks, who don't have the energy or interest in romantic love. I get it--it is wonderful to have someone around as you get older--just not too close! Studies have shown that "loneliness", which is different than solitude, is one factor that can lead to an early death, so a relationship chosen for companionship can be helpful in that regard.

I have a couple of friends who are dear companions. I have even discussed the idea of marriage with them, but truth be told, they are holding out for romantic love. That is fine. For me, I like the idea of having someone around who I like and trust, but am not obligated to entertain or fill all their emotional needs. I think it can keep one sane. I know that there are those who will argue that getting older does not mean that you can't have romance, and I would agree, but I do have an issue with the idea that you must not stop wanting romance. Why, in god's name, would I want the same things I wanted when I was 25, or 35? There are basic needs, which rarely change, and surface needs, which are age, culture, and development dependent. Being "in love" satisfied a need when I was young that I no longer have today. Companionship can fill in the blanks very nicely.

Fair Exchange: This is actually more attractive than it sounds, and truth be told, is the basis for every traditional relationship, whether you admit it or not. The gist of it is that you find a person who has something you want, and you trade them for something they want. End of story! The items on the trade sheet might include sex, company, activity partner, cuddling. This is a specific terms engagement, as both parties agree to the limits of the exchange.

Some of my most successful engagements have been Fair Exchange, where we both know what we want from each other while also knowing what we don't want from each other! These relationships can be short term or long term, and are usually without conflict or fuss. The reason they work so well is that they are devoid of the expectations that conventional relationships come saddled with--instead, both parties get what they want while giving what they have agreed to give. You might scoff, but tell me it doesn't sound appealing!

This type of arrangement can also be known as "lovers", in which the item up for exchange is fairly obvious.

None of the aforementioned is "better" than the other, and in fact, they can be combined into a sort of combo reason.

                                                                                 *

So where does that leave us after this rambling perusal? Well, hopefully in a state of deeper thinking concerning dating and relationships. You know how they say that things are better enjoyed if you are present for the experience? In a similar way, I propose that dating is better if one thinks about why one is doing it. Dating is not just an activity to do so that you have something to publicize on Facebook, or at least not in my book. (Sorry, almost everybody!)  Dating can just be plain old fun; it can also be a powerful form of engagement with the potential to heal emotional trauma. Why not make it both?  This is currently my personal intent around all this nonsense. I like to think of it as a sort of mud run. You are going to get dirty, perhaps filthy, and you will fall down and get burned at times and shocked and scared and wet and bruised and discouraged and insecure, but if you have a certain intent at the start you may get through it with joy attached, experiencing the challenges as worth the price of admission in order to feel that alive.

See what can happen when one decides to stop doing things the old way? You might find that your engine is not quite ready to stop. At least not forever.

The Forever Stop: Giving up Dating

I am not sure what I was thinking, writing an essay this long, but I decided to not divide it into two parts. Instead, it is a five part essay--but please realize that a discussion about dating cannot be done succinctly. That would only confuse and frustrate. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, or a glass of Scotch, and take in my latest perusal. It may be the last of this year...unless it isn't. 

Everyone in Los Angeles has a story or two about dating, even the men.

This is true regardless of age, but when you pass the age of fifty, you often have more than just one story or two. Yet I notice that stories told by men over fifty are somewhat different than those told by women of the same age. Generally, women bemoan the difficulty of finding a man who is interested in them in spite of their age, and how they just want a companion who displays occasional romantic gestures (ladies, I get it!). Men's stories, however, describe the same hope they longed for when they were younger--the desire to get laid and have someone take care of them (shame!). I sometimes suspect that dating, as we know it, was made up by women at some point. This is not a bad thing, except that the purpose of the exercise seems to have gotten a bit muddled. They say that people date to "get to know each other", yet in my observations this task is rarely seen all the way through to an accurate assessment of compatibility.

I strongly suspect that there is no man alive or dead who has ever actually liked the act of dating--if you are one of them, then you are probably just lying to yourself. Historically, men haven't had much of a choice in the matter, have they, since dating has been part of the cultural context since at least Victorian times. Gay men have mostly been spared this dilemma because until recently they could not even date publicly, so they didn't, and would instead cut to the chase. For most men, gay and straight, this approach sounds absolutely ideal; it gets one right to the finish line without having to run the track. It does seem that dating is a heterosexual phenomenon--when two gay men try to do it, it can resemble trying to corral wild wolves into taking a walk on a leash.

Now that the country is on a gay marriage rainbow bandwagon, the pressure is on for gay folks. If society is going to "let us" play their game, then they expect us to follow the same rules they have had to suffer under. While that might be appealing to the younger people coming of age (who still buy into the cultural dating discourse and its sparkly promise), it presents a substantial challenge to those of us who have been ditching traditional dating protocol for twenty or thirty years of our adult lives. What are we supposed to do now, start dating each other? Well, from what I hear, that is exactly what gay people are doing, complete with dinners and chaste kisses on the cheek at the end of the night. Good grief! (Actually, most gay dates, if they have gone well, still end with sex, so we haven't really changed all that much.)

What is heard about less often is when someone decides to stop dating completely--not to nurse a broken heart or to sow their oats--but a cold, hard, forever stop. It seems there is an assumption that, if you are single and over the age of 18, you must either keep at the pursuit of love until the day you die, or at the most let aging or illness force you into retirement. Who in the world would make a conscious choice to quit, especially when you still have a few laps around the track?

Well, I am an over-fifty year old gay man, and I have decided to forever stop dating.

***
In show business, they always say that it is best to "go out on top", and yet somehow this rarely happens. Lucile Ball continued to work in television long past the time when she was getting good show scripts. Joan Crawford insisted on acting in movies even when Hollywood did not want her anymore (of course she needed the paycheck, poor thing!). To this day, Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up occasionally in "action" films, even though his face and body are sadly deteriorated from his 80's heyday. I have always admired the character played by Ruth Gordon in "Harold and Maude", because she made a decision to end her life on her 80th birthday, before time and age took too much of a toll on her body and mind. Now that is taking control of things!

I would like to go out on top, or at least as close to the top as I may get.

Dating, for gay men, tends to be either a joke or a nightmare, and seldom does it land in anywhere near the middle of the two. As I said earlier, when I was much younger I never engaged in anything like gay dating--just gay sex. For me, that would sometimes lead to something resembling a relationship (what I called it at the time). Truth be told, the relationships I had in my twenties were little more than gay sex, but with names attached. But damned if I didn't think I was in love. It sure felt like love, or how I thought love should feel. What it was, actually, was immediate infatuation with a healthy side of attachment injury. Fun!

Over the years I have tried my hand at any number of approaches to dating. None of them were complete failures, but many were jokes, and a few were nightmares. But then I am not really sure what would qualify as success, either. How do I define success unless I know why I am dating? In my youth, the goal was simple: I wanted to fall in love and be loved in return. FOREVER. I didn't care how it happened, I just wanted it to happen. Today, as a couples therapist, I see men and women all the time who set out for that same destination only to find themselves arriving instead at resentment, boredom, and disappointment. Is true love no more than a big shiny car with a broken steering wheel? What the hell is true love anyway? Why in the world would I want to date at this point in my life?

***
One time, in a therapy group composed of gay men, I had just finished ranting on the shitty men of my love life, and one of the group members said to me, in response to my complaints, "What if it's you, and not them?" I looked at him incredulously, wondering how he could dare say something so insensitive and cruel. How could it be me? I wanted love so badly--why would I possibly do anything to send it away? Since that time, I confess that I have sent many loving men away, and I find myself wondering, in the dark of the night, with the sound of my youth crumbling to the floor, "What if it is me, and not them?"

Today, I have come to the conclusion that it is me, and, well, it isn't. Both participants in a relationship are responsible for how it turns out, and I am willing to own my part. But I am not always difficult and demanding, I was just drawn to react that way, in certain circumstances, through early life experiences. It is a bittersweet dilemma that I find myself in, because even though today I am aware of having more choices in my dating behavior, I have recently concluded that nobody is good enough for me anyway. Nobody. You were right after all, Mom! Nobody will ever have my back the way I have had it all these years. Nobody could ever take my side, heal my pain, celebrate my joy, or let me enjoy solitude as well as I can. Life has forced me to become the best I could ever be for others, but more importantly, I have become the best I could ever be for myself. Nobody could possibly ever live up to my own expectations of myself, or of them.

So that is why I am giving up dating, because it is an activity with no finish line. I just cannot settle on a reason to continue doing it. People who date and get married are celebrated as if they are they have achieved the only interpersonal goal worthy of celebration, but what about when someone does a great job nurturing themselves, or having an alternative type of relationship? Like Carrie Bradshaw once said, why don't people celebrate when you get through life successfully on your own? I do not need someone to take my side, heal my pain, celebrate my joy, or leave me alone when I need solitude. I do not need what I can give myself. I don't.

But...

What would be nice is someone to stand by my side, hold my pain, share my joy, and respect my need for solitude on occasion, to change things up. I just suspect that I would not find that person through the act of dating...as I know it. I may not find that person by dating at all. How might I find that person then, assuming that this desire even becomes something I want to pursue? First, I must tell you the truth about dating, and why it is a terrible way to get to know someone and find out if there is relationship compatibility. You are free to disagree with what I am about to say, but that does not mean that I am not right.

***
Dating, as it has been done for the last 100 years, is fraught with pitfalls, primarily because it inspires expectation.

The expectation centers around the perfectly reasonable hope that we will find our date attractive and emotionally compatible, but those two desires can conflict with each other in the early stages, causing our rationality to jump the track. The result can be inaccurate evaluation of compatibility based on high sexual attraction, OR the dismissal of compatibility due to lack of initial attraction. Neither case is helpful in our goal to form a good relationship. So what do we do?

Before the onset of Internet dating in the mid-90's, a portion of heterosexual couples met at work. By 2005 that number had decreased, with the Internet eventually taking over as the place where a lot of couples met. Studies go on to indicate that the divorce rate increased during the same time period that incidents of partnering with someone at work decreased. The significance of this fact is that there is a major difference between meeting someone at work, and meeting someone online. That difference, in my opinion, is expectation. In a work setting, romance can come slowly as one gets to know another. There may not even be a physical attraction at first; it may appear and grow as one gets to know another casually without the expectation of romance. Even if there is a strong attraction, we generally proceed with more patience because of the shared work environment. At work, we get a chance to see others in "regular" situations, both good  and bad, and we get to observe a variety of their responses! This way of getting to know someone does not guarantee a happy union, but it does lend more strength to the possibility of that outcome.

Conversely, online dating provides the space to prepare our best faces and responses in an ideal presentation framework. Compatibility decisions are usually made based on sexual attraction and romantic behavior. This is not a bad thing altogether, but it does make it harder to know what someone is going to be like in the long run. I could write much more about these differences, but the take-away is that we have a better chance to determine compatibility when we are around a person a lot, over time, in regular and romantic circumstances, without the high expectations of romantic dating. Most experts agree that at least a year is a good amount of time to get past the honeymoon stage and get a glimpse of who someone will be on a daily basis.

For gay men, this presents a unique challenge, since our regular work circumstances tend to be primarily populated by heterosexuals (and closeted homosexuals)--not the most fertile dating ground! However, gay men do not need to work around other gay men to experience the growth of feelings over time--any work situation can give one the opportunity to notice the effect that prolonged exposure has on the way we think about someone. But if a gay man is looking for romantic relationship, then somewhere, somehow, there must be another gay man involved in the process, and therein lies the challenge.


***
For me, it is difficult because I no longer use dating profiles to find dates. That is because I am done with being attracted to a profile more than the person behind it. I am done with presenting myself as a commodity to be approved or disapproved, based on a photo and a paragraph. I live in a city where most people know how to write good copy (including me), but know less about how to live it. So I see online profiles as an expendable middle man that gets in the way of the authentic experience of a person. I know they serve as introductions, but if that is misleading, and more effort is put into glossy introductions than a quality first act, then what is the point.

So I am not going to do that anymore. That is the cold, hard, stop. I will not date that way anymore, I am giving it up. What I will be doing instead is still up for discussion, but I do know that it involves real time, real life interactions and in-person chemistry. Maybe. I don't even know if it is that important to me anymore--to date someone or to be in a relationship. I am different now than I was when I was in my 20's; then, I thought that a relationship would give me what I needed. Now I think a relationship could give me what I prefer--but what is that? I described some of it above, but if I am going to date or consider a relationship in order to obtain these things, it is going to start in a completely different way than what has come before. I am giving up the cultural norm of dating. I am stopping that, forever. For me, it has never yielded a satisfactory emotional outcome, only the physical equivalent of farmer's market fruit: sweet and satisfying when consumed right away, but rotten a few days later.

In a gay men's group that I am currently in, one group member said that he was planning to stop working so hard at trying to get dates, and instead just "live his life". That sounds like a good plan. Funny things can happen on the way to the Forum, and that is just what I intend to explore. I am done with dating. Time to just live my life and pay attention to who I bump into in the process.

having patience with berkeley

in the dating world (for those of you who are no longer in it, or perhaps have never been in it), it is a good idea to not come to any conclusions about someone you are seeing too quickly in the process. unless the date is an absolute disaster (and generally you know that within the first 30 minutes so there is still a chance to salvage the evening), it is always a good idea to schedule at least one more meeting before deciding whether or not to pursue the person further. i back up this statement with my own experience with dating, as well as my knowledge about how the attraction and attachment processes work in human beings. i have found that first dates, which for the purposes of this blog are defined as meetings in which sex is NOT the only activity, are most often about determining safety, first, and desirability, second. once we decide (usually within the first 30 minutes--see info on "disaster dates" above) that we are in no danger of being killed and eaten by our date, we can then move on to determining desirability. desirability is related to, but by no means attached to: personality, values, and beliefs. desirability is that elusive quality that belies common activity interests and shared film tastes. it is that quality that is often triggered by the subtlest of physical qualities--the length of eyelashes or the curve of an ankle--despite our possible disinterest in the whole. and yet, unfortunately, desirability's elusive nature means that we often don't become aware of it on the first date. it may be hiding behind awkwardness or shyness, it may be buried under the embarrassment of a dropped appetizer or a booger in the nose, it may be overwhelmed by neediness or sexual arousal. it may just choose to not fucking show itself. and...when that is the case, we will often conclude that, though pleasant, this person does not justify a second meeting.

this, i say to you, is a mistake, and i am advising you to avoid this at all cost.

second dates have a tendency to reveal subtlety and nuance; allowing space to explore the combined effects of personality, looks, and chemistry. it is during the second date that we often notice what was hiding or overshadowed during the first date. in my experience, i have agreed to second dates with guys who have been agreeable, if not outstanding first dates, and have been happily surprised with the discovery that i sort of really like this person.

the same goes, as it were, for cities.



my recent visit to berkeley did not leave me experiencing "love at first sight". i had a hotel in downtown, and i was amazed by the number of homeless teens and mentally ill i had to walk through to get from the bart station to my hotel on bancroft. i thought, could this be berkeley? the city that surrounds a great university? it seemed much more like seattle with the number of homeless on the street. i wondered to myself: how could there be such a concentration of homeless this close to one of the premiere institutions of higher learning in the nation? could they all be just students, and not really homeless people? granted, not all of downtown berkeley was like this--there is an area north on shattuck known as the food district that was quite nice, but i think that i was expecting all of downtown to be more upscale like this area.

during the visit, my best bud and i toured the university grounds and loved the mix of historic and new buildings, landmarks, old tree groves, as well as the shirtless (male) students lounging in the springtime sunshine. but there were so many young folks that i figured that an older guy like me would be pretty invisible here--i was literally overwhelmed by youth.



after two days in berkeley, i came to the conclusion, despite the absolutely fantastic coffee that is available on nearly any block, that i could not live there.

then an odd thing happened. i walked a mile or two away from downtown to an area known as rockridge. it was here that i was meeting my friend zamiera for some coffee (at cole's) to catch up on each other.
she has been living in the area (from los angeles) for a year now, and like me, she is an mft intern getting her hours. well, as i walked the streets further out from the university on my way to the coffee shop, i discovered all kinds of beauty--tree lined residential streets with carefully preserved victorian homes; quaint storefronts, and old movie theaters with marquees advertising a single film.

as i walked these beautiful streets, i realized that this was more the type of setting i had imagined when i thought of berkeley. there were people walking dogs and tons of bike riders, and despite the occasional person who looked at me as though i were going to attack them, i began to enjoy myself and feel glad that i had agreed to meet zamiera here in rockridge instead of downtown. once she arrived, we each ordered a coffee (brewed individually!) and two poached eggs on sourdough toast, and then we talked about her job and her experience in this city; and what she told me is that east bay, like los angeles, is full of money (parts of oakland and the area around my hotel withstanding).


but unlike los angeles, people in east bay spend their money on food, coffee, wine, and cheese, as opposed to cars, clothes, and plastic surgery. wow. i could see it all around me--a dearth of bmws, mercedes, and prada bags. instead i saw lots of bikes, regular clothing, and flat shoes. hmph. i also saw LOTS of restaurants and coffee houses. could it be that in east bay people value quality of life rather than quantity? zamiera confirmed this to be so. i became more interested. this morning in rockridge, and my subsequent walk through the telegraph/temescal area, left me with a changed mind about the living possibilities here for me. the east bay could be the place where i would not be out of place at all as a gay intellectual, a bike rider, and a man of a certain age.

now here's the thing, and it is a big thing. though the east bay may have just jumped over portland, oregon, to the top of my consideration list, that does not guarantee that i would actually be happy there. it is possible that i could be happy, or at least as happy as i am now (pretty happy), in east bay, or in portland, or in austin, or in scotland (thanks darren!), or even in (god forbid) southeast florida (sorry, lara). when it comes to moving, there is really only one way to find out if happiness is to be found in a city: move there. and it is here, readers, that i circle back to the connection with dating, and ultimately (finally!), the point of this whole long post. with moving, and dating, we can get all the information that we can find in order to help us decide about commiting, but even with all the information in the world, we just never know. at some point, we just have to decide, we just have to commit to going there. fortunately we have the ability to change our minds, but before we can change our minds we have to make up our minds. of course, for me it is a lot easier to change my mind about dating someone than it is to change it about moving, but the concept still applies. i could pretty much live anywhere, but i just need to decide on one place. one. and if that second look generates more interest, then the challenge for me is to give it a chance before moving on to the next possibility. the answer is not in berkeley anymore than it is in any one of the men i am dating. the answer lies in who i decide to be in that city/with that person, combined with the interactive affect upon me by said city/person.

east bay, i am glad i took a second look. i'll be seein' ya.

becoming regular

i have the feeling that nobody comes to los angeles because they think they are "regular". i know that i didn't. i came here (in 1991) to be a fucking star. i might have been too, if i had known the business better. i believe i had the talent, and that is just an honest assessment. i certainly spent enough years and money in san diego taking classes in dance, voice, and acting. if i didn't learn something, then i had no right to call myself a performer.

anyway, the point is that i did not think i was regular. nobody in l.a. does, i suspect. it is certainly interesting to me that nearly 20 years later, regular is exactly what i am trying to be...to an extent. i think that maybe i am trying to be regular in the same way that stars are when they show photos of them in In Touch magazine with captions like "they get their own coffee", or "they feed the parking meters". in other words, i am not regular, i am just trying to be. i am too smart to ever be regular. i can say that and not be conceited because my intelligence is something i was born with--not my accomplishment at all. what i have done with it is my accomplishment, but we are not talking about that here. i was just born smart--lucky me. meaning that, since most of the world is, uh, not smart, i have very little chance of fitting in with those regular folks.

so what the hell do i mean by "trying to be regular"? well, what i mean is that i am tired of feeling like i am special. believe me, not regular and special often go together, and that is where the problems usually lie. because if you think that you are special just because you are not regular, then you are guilty of arrogance. and yet the twist is that because i was not regular from a young age, i was then treated like i was special. follow?

the problem is that special does not work very well in the adult world, mostly because nobody gives a shit. but the reason why special really does not work in the adult world is because in reality, nobody is special. it is just a state of mind. we are all, in fact, regular, but with different talents and abilities. this is what i mean when i say i want to become regular.

god, where am i going with this post.

i am looking for a place where i can just feel regular, as in not special. i want this experience because as time goes by, i have been getting closer to regular, and i like it. fuck, i love it. regular is messy, but it is engaged. regular is unpredictable, but it is surprising. regular is uncontrolled, but it is electrifying. in other words, regular is alive. on the other hand, special is isolating. just like los angeles. here, since everyone wants to be special, there is the mixed message going on that we want to be adored but not approached. is that just here? ugh. please, please approach me.

where can i be regular? where, as knucklecrack writes in his blog (i would link if i knew how!), can gay men be regular? i don't think it is here in los angeles, though god knows i try.

i was recently in the miami/ft. lauderdale area for vacation, and i was able to be pretty regular there, but i was also somewhat invisible because i didn't have money or boobs, two things that attract attention, at least in miami. ft. lauderdale seemed different to me, easier to be regular. the guys were regular, you know?

i met a couple of guys while i was in ft. lauderdale, and the nicest things that they said to me was that they would want to date me if i lived there. that was just the nicest thing to say. i don't live there though, and i don't think i could live there. i am not a big fan of mosquitos, though they seem to be crazy about me. but the fact that these guys wanted to date me, well, that made me feel, kind of, well, regular. you know?