**This was actually intended to be a comment on Kirk's journal, but it was more than twice as long as the comment thingy would allow, so I'm posting it here. Feel free to comment on this if you like**
Heh, well, for starters, by "manual", I meant mutual masturbation. Getting someone else off with your hands. How guys can deal with hormones and urges without self-masturbation is beyond me. A guy that can honestly say he has not masturbated has superhuman will-power.
Actually, my views on sex are really torn. On one hand, it's something special that is an expression of affection between two people who love eachother. But on the other hand, it's just sex. It's common, natural, and healthy. Maybe that's the hormones/bio major in me talking. But reconciling those two opposing views is something I find really troubling.
In my experience, yes, sex with emotions behind it is vastly better. But by no means was sex without them bad. Sometimes it was good as well, but by no means comparable to the emotional kind.
OH! I just thought of an analogy that a friend of mine told me. I forget who or when, but it just came to me. He talked about how sex with someone you don't know, or sex just for fun is like masturbation. You're doing it just to get yourself off and release tension/urges/etc. And, well, looking back, that's just what emotionless sex has been for me: glorified masturbation. It doesn't spark any special feelings in me. It is merely a release. The release isn't bad by any means, but it is far from the joy that sex could, and is probably supposed to be.
To be totally honest, in the numerous times I've had sex in my past, there have been only two times where it has been with someone I truly felt something for and cared about. Both times were with the same person. I wasn't in love with him, exactly, but it was something that I think could have very well blossomed into love.
So if it was only those two times out of the many, why was I having sex? Looking back, it was probably a combination of various reasons. Some of them were selfish in that I just wanted to get off, and some of them were out of peer pressure, and some were out of a fear of the guy not liking me if I didn't do it. I went through my slut phase where I gave myself to anyone who was willing to take me. I was just so desperate for affection and to be cared about by someone, and I thought the only way people would do that was if I let them have their way with me.
I guess it just boils down to selfish reasons on my own part. I was doing it to benefit myself. Now, wanting to be loved isn't a horrible thing. Not at all. But having sex was the wrong way to go about it. I realize that now. I was never concerned with showing my affection for these other people, just concerned with making them like me enough to stick around so we could get that chance to know eachother. Wow, that's just really sad.
And then there were situations where I withheld sex because I didn't have that emotional connection. I specifically told the guy I was dating that I didn't want to fool around until I felt more strongly for him. Well, a month later, he broke up with me, and then proceeded to tell me the many stories of his sexual escapades that followed. That hurt sooooooo much. That I was trying to change, and the exact thing I feared would happen, did.
As to the friends issue, that really hits home as well. I've been on both sides of that dilemma, so I know it well. Not that it makes me any better able to understand how to deal with it, but at least I have some perspective.
As for turning down friends, that's happened to me quite a bit over the years. In high school, it was girls left and right, which was tricky to deal with until I came out. Guys are quite a bit harder for me to turn down, I guess. I just felt like I owe it to them, I guess? Well, not all the time. One situation in particular stands out. I met this guy named Allen through a mutual friend, and Allen and I really hit it off. It was amazing how well we clicked, and we quickly became really good friends. After a little while, Allen told me that he wanted a more romantic relationship with me, and I wasn't sure what to do. While I found Allen to be a really great friend, and we clicked so well emotionally and mentally, but I just wasn't attracted to him as a boyfriend. It was very difficult for me because I was afraid I was being shallow and a horrible person just because I didn't return his feelings like that. I was just so comfortable as a friend, and couldn't imagine our relationship being improved by taking that any further.
So I hoped that in time, I would fall for him as well, so I told him that I just wanted to take things slow, and that I was working stuff out in my head, and needed time before we made things more serious. I didn't specifically turn him down, but I didn't specifically say yes either. At the time, I felt I was justified, but it wasn't easy on Allen at all. After a few months, he blew up at me, and our friendship hasn't existed to this day. I've talked to him on a couple of occasions, and apologized for leading him on like that, and I explained why I did it, and that I didn't mean any harm to him, but things are still awkward. I saw him again a few weeks ago, and the whole situation came flooding back and I started bawling. I lost a valuable friend because I was confused and didn't know what to do.
But then I've had other more recent situations where a friend has expressed an interest in pursuing a romantic relationship with me, and when I decline, they get snappy and rude, and the relationship falls apart even sooner. So I still don't know what to do. I lose when I give in, I lose when I don't. So, to answer your questions: I don't know how to let them down gently to save the friendship because in my experience, the friendships are always lost. Maybe I'm just not doing it the right way.
So, to answer your questions, yes, I've been in similar situations many times, but I have yet to have any of them actually end positively. I'm not really sure what to tell you there.
I am branded a complete asshole whenever I'm honest with these people. Maybe not by them, but definitely by myself. If I click with someone mentally, then shouldn't the physical take care of itself? Why is it so important to me to date someone I'm attracted to? Granted, I'm a lot less hard on myself when I can say I don't want to date them for personality reasons, but usually people whose personalities don't click with mine never really want to date anyway.
I haven't ever entered into a relationship with the intent for it to be short, but I have entered into a relationship out of desperation, or to end a dry spell. I feel bad about it, and the relationship quickly fell apart.
I guess I'm lucky that being here at Dana means that I don't see gay boys on a regular basis. So anyone that I may have had issues like this with in the past is in Omaha, and I'm not confronted with them every day. But yeah, this is something I still struggle with and am still at a loss for how to handle.
I mentioned that I have been on both sides of the issue, and I have. For two years, I was in love with a friend of mine. Yes, I honestly believe I was in love. It was probably the most amazing emotion I have ever felt. And, well, my friend was not gay. After I told him about my feelings for him, he flat out told me that he wasn't gay and he couldn't return those feelings, but that he really valued me as a friend, and didn't want to lose that. So we continued the friendship, but my feelings for him never went away. They only got stronger as I came to know him better and better.
In the end, I had to distance myself from him, for my own sanity. My big wake up call was when I attempted to commit suicide because of my situation with him, and I spent the next week in an in-patient mental health hostpital. After I got out, we spent less and less time together, and only recently has our friendship started to build back up the level that it was once at.
I needed space from him so that I could get over him. Being around him everyday, laughing and joking with him, only made the gap between the feelings for eachother more apparant to me, and it was unbearable. After being separated to some extent for a year and a half, my wounds have scarred over and healed so they aren't re-opened every time I see him.
So, in applying this experience to the rest of my life, I would have to say that it is best to handle feelings of this nature openly and honestly, like this guy did with me. But by the same token, you can't expect the friendship to be magically fixed right afterwards. The hurt person is going to need some time to themselves to get over it. Being around the other person is only going to make their hurt and their pain even worse.
I honestly have no idea how you've handled your situations, but I would suggest taking a note from my own experiences so that neither you, nor anyone else has to go through that pain.
And, finally, you talk about the past and the present being the same. I agree that someone's past makes up a large part of who they are, but I have also found that two people can share an experience and have that experience shape them in two different ways. Likewise, two different experiences can shape two people in the same way. I would definitely agree to learning about someone's past, but just know that people are all different and can interpret things differently.
Eric 5/16/2005 12:32:00 PM
