Thursday, October 02, 2008

FRANK and JEN
GET ME IN TROUBLE AGAIN...


Frank
over at "Out of the Ashes" [click here] just seems bound and determined to get me into trouble. He has an oh-so-innocent way of asking the hard questions that "we" try oh-so-studiously to ignore. Here's the latest:
Okay... I'm a 50-year-old guy. Some twinks out there hear this and immediately would describe me as an "old troll". [OK, who said "old troll"?] Honestly I understand that. After all, I'm not a gym bunny. I don't have a bubble butt. I don't have porn star looks.

But, in all honesty, I seem to be able to hold my own. There have been many handsome men who have floated through my life... and my bed. However, there is a certain caliber of flaky gay guy out there that I have never been quite able to understand. Let me explain:

I have made a number of friends online, and they talk about the importance of friendship. But what amuses me most is that if there is no kind of attraction--some of them prefer the term chemistry--then there will be no friendship.

NONE.

NADA.


I have said to some guys, "Oh, I get it. You only have friends that you want to sleep with!" They become indignant, but it's true. Why is it so in the gay world? I just don't know.

Recently I made what I thought was a good potential friendship with a well known personality in some circles. Sadly, when it became evident several years ago that he was in fact gay and he lost his family, he also lost his livelihood... and friends.

Through a various chain of events, he came into my sphere and I began a correspondence with him. He bared his heart to me. (Since I was not a fan of his, and had been unfamiliar with him in his heyday, I made it clear that I was not starstruck and that I wanted nothing from him, other than friendship.)

So, as a sign of trust and friendship, and because I knew what he looked like, I thought it would a nice touch to send a picture of me with my kids. This way it would make me seem more real, more human, and he could know that I was a genuine friend. Boy, was I surprised. The picture must have scared him to death because I've not heard from him since I sent the picture.
What this reminds me of most strongly is the strange responses I got to my posted profiles on the internet. I did everything short of clanging a bell and shouting "Unclean! Unclean!" to make it clear that I was not interested in "connecting" with anyone right away--I was indeed looking for what everyone said they were looking for: a friendship or friendships, and if they eventually led somewhere else, that was OK, too. The catch is that no one else means it. It's a fig-leaf over "Won't put out on first date." And no one took my disclaimer seriously. I got burned over and over by people who more or less explicitly said, "OK, one meal event went well enough--next time let's go to bed."

After a while, I got so desperate to meet a gay guy who would keep his hands out of my pants for the time being, just be a friend and let it go at that, that I was practically waving a red flag to avoid misunderstandings on the issue. By the time I finally met the Goat, I must have seemed on the verge of mental collapse, since all I could do was issue disclaimers and check to see if they had been heard. Now that I can look back at "all that" with something resembling perspective, I am sort of amazed that we ever got past it.

Then there is this little tidbit posted by Jen over at Kids of Queers:
Now there is a new group of people who are contracting AIDS/HIV in staggering numbers: men who have sex with men or MSM... [Actually, contrary to what Jen seems to believe, this is the OLD group; "MSM" covers not just those on the "down low," but every man, gay, bi, married, confused, whatever, who has sex with other men--GMHC says it's "a term created to include MSM who do not identify as gay or bisexual." Avoids drawing distinctions. But it makes the statistics even worse than Jen supposes.)

"The male-to-male sexual contact transmission category represented 72 percent of new infections among males, including 81 percent of new infections among whites, 63 percent among blacks, and 72 percent among Hispanics..." the report reads.
These men are going to deny themselves to death. I suppose that since they don't consider themselves gay they don't think they will ever contract HIV. I don't know where these guys have been for the last 25 years but they certainly haven't been paying attention.
That about says it. It ties in all too neatly with Frank's earlier debate partner. These are the questions that ought to be trying our souls, and what are we doing? Castigating any person or organization that declares AIDS a gay disease. Yet we are ready to give up any realistic chance of federal recognition of our partners' rights in order to get a few states to give us the "M" word: give me a @#$%-ing break.

Hang in there, my friends.
The five of you are keeping me semi-sane.
C

3 comments:

  1. When I first started to come out, I just wanted another gay person to talk to and maybe hang out with. I placed ads on different sites and clearly said I was looking for friendship only, not sex or hook-ups, in six months time I received one reply.

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  2. I'll do what I can, dude, but then you probably shouldn't count somebody as crazy as me in that five.

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  3. I have had sort of the oposit problem!I am young...and hot( I hear them say)..lol
    I am not loking for sex and I have a boyfriend...but men keep hitting on me...never taking no for an ansver! And all I realy want is to befriend som gays that have more experience in life and love than we have :(

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