i don't think i'm being unreasonable.  i simply have reached an age where i don't like to put up with drama.  I don't think its bullshit, but I don't think its as bad as i've been told it is.  check it out.

two weeks ago, my "boyfriend" of 3 months, james, stopped returning all of my calls.  i'm not sure of the reasons and i frankly don't care.  i don't think anything is so monstrously huge -- a death in the family isn't so severe -- that he couldn't send me even one text to say, "i miss you."  even, "i need a few days alone," would be acceptible.  but when you give me no contact, you give me complete disrespect.  the last words i got from him were, "can we talk some other time? i'm really tired."

one week passed and i heard nothing from him -- not a voicemail, not a text, not a tweet, not peep of any kind.  i sent him a text asking if i was now single.  i figured he would be the best one to state that, and the question would pretty effectively let him know that the health of our relationship was being affected.  he replied with apologies that he had drama in his life and that everyone was getting mad at him for never calling.  well, duh!  i then told him that i had reservations about our relationship because of all of the plans, goals, and transitions he had yet to fulfill in his life, through which i couldn't follow.  i told him also that i wanted to talk this over with him, and he should call me when he was able to talk.  i left the ball in his court.

six more days passed, including a weekend.  still i received not even a text saying that he was thinking of me.  boy did i feel single a this point.  friends who had become very excited for me when james and i started dating were now asking, "how is james?  how are you two doing?"  i had to come up with some kind of answer, but my brain prefers to always tell the truth, so i did.  the looks on their faces confirmed that my gut feeling was correct.  i was being horribly disrespected.

i sent him another text saying that the time to discuss our relationship was long overdue.  was i being at all unclear that our relationship was being poorly affected?  i think not.  and yet two days passed before james sent me a text saying that his life had enough drama to make him want to cry.  how was any of that my problem?  in my book, adults don't let drama ruin their lives, they smack it into place like misbehaving puppies and handle the high priority stuff.

so, i've come to a decision.  being the more experienced relationship navigator of the two of us, it's up to me to handle this in an appropriate manner.  firstly, james' lack of communication is unacceptable.  i don't care what's going on in your life, there is always time to send a text telling someone they are in your thoughts.  not doing so for two weeks is just disrespectful. secondly, it's clear to me that james is not able, likely due to life conditions, to have a relationship right now.  i'm hurt and disappointed with how he's handled himself, but i'm not angry at him.  nonetheless, i will not continue in this relationship because i can't wait around like this.  i hope that we can maintain friendly contact when he is able, but for now, i have to move on.  if he finds his life more stable in the future and feels an overwhelming pull to be with me, he can court me at some future time.  i think i'm being more than fair.

lock up your son's and brothers; stevo is single again.

trace has decided that he's going to never speak to andrew ever again.  he's also decided that he's going to forward to me every text sent to him by andrew, and attach some commentary like "how pathetic is this?"  does he think i'm going to be convinced and convert to the church of trace?  most of these texts are some attempt by andrew to regain trace's friendship.  after hearing trace's version of the events, and watching him express his true paranoia by accusing me of playing him when i asked for details, i decided that andrew should, in fact, never talk to trace again.

when today's forwards came from trace, i decided to make my stance crystal clear and tell him what-for.  i said that andrew was a true friend to him and he's being an ass by not talking to him about it.  i told him that he's the one being the bad friend by so quickly dismissing the bond they had.  i told him that a true friend (and an adult) would go to the person and talk it out.  i also told him that his homophobia frequently insults me, but that i get over it.  nonetheless, we are all done trying so hard with trace.  we are all very nearly ready to accept that he's completely insane.  i blame his jehovah's witness crazy-ass mother who has been warping him since he was a child.

i'm so glad i'm only eccentric and not truly crazy.  i like to be an individual, but i really know when the world around me is going too far.  it's really amazing how many people have no idea what "too far" is.  and once again my blogs have become a sordid episode of the oc.  DAMN.

so much has been happening to me in the last few months.  i've all but stopped most of my blogging.  upon reflection, i've decided that stopping is rubbish.  i love it, it's therapeutic, and i gain clarity by doing it.  nonetheless, i don't want to really dive into everything that's happened to me.  so i'll catch you up with some brief notes.
1. i am no longer a health inspector.  i have been moved to the office of emergency preparedness.  not more pay, but much more interesting work.
2. i started a serious relationship with a guy, james, who is 13 years younger than me, almost to the day.  am i crazy? probably.
3. my ex, justin, wrote me a note professing me as the endless love of his life and claiming that he was cutting ties with me.  that would be nice, but i'm not taking that one to the bank.
4. i just passed one full year with no booze or tobacco.  i've been weight training and have gained almost 20 pounds of lean mass.  i still train in aerial dance on the static trapeze.  i've recently restarted my gaining program to put on more weight.


now for the real meat of my thoughts.
i miss being single.  does this mean that i should be; that this new guy i'm seeing hasn't captured my heart?  not necessarily.  i'm going to admit my dysfunction and say that i miss casual sex.  let me tell you straight -- having sex with strangers is a kick because they always say appreciative things that my ego loves.  unfortunately, they also get up and jet as soon as they climax, which tends to leave me feeling a bit empty.  james is good in bed, but he isn't as physically affectionate as i'd like.  he's young and needs experience, but i wish he'd use his hands more than he does.  we are gong to have a talk aobut our sexual needs.  it's a conversation we've already begun. 

i know i have feelings for him, but i'm afraid they aren't enough to maintain something for a very long term.  he would be a great summer romance though.

last night i was putting in some late hours at work. when my phone goes off while working, i usually don't even look at it.  i have to stay focused; i'm apt to lose track of my thoughts.  i glanced at my phone anyway and i saw that it was dave.  woah! i didn't expect to hear from him during exam week.  i took half a minute to talk to him.  he asked me to call him back when my work was done.  so i did.

he wanted to meet.  any time he asks, i say yes.  i can't seem to get enough of him.

he was at my house within 15 minutes.  he asked me for a cup of water, which he has never done before.  i don't know how it occurred, but we stood in the kitchen for 20 minutes while he shared the next few moths of his life and what he was planning and facing.  he's never bothered to talk about himself before.  he's never opened up to me about the non-gay life.  he's always wanted to keep them separate so one wouldn't cause problems in the other.  to me, dave looks a good bit like prince william and eventually i just got tired of looking at how sexy he was without touching him, so i forced the both of us to the shower, his favorite place for us to begin sex.  while preparing for the shower, he produced a little christmas bag that he told me was conveniently located at the checkout counter where he bought tonight's toy.  the toy was a bottle of lube!  what made this lube so significant was that it was latex safe AND designed to stay slick in water without washing off.  this guy surprises me sometimes.  just when my brain wants to put him in the "straight guy" mold, he shows me how much he really enjoys gay sex.  the last time we were together, we tried intercourse in the shower (a fantasy of his), but our lube was not staying viable in the wet environment.  this time he was obviously determined to fulfil this fantasy.

once the hot water had run out, we retired to the bedroom.  neither of us seemed very sexual at that point, so we just layed around touching each other and doing some great making out.  he offered to give me a back massage, which i didn't turn down.  over the course of the next 3 hours, we talked and laughed.  i told him how odd my family was, having made my alternative sexuality quite middle-american, while he bemoaned that he wished he could be out to his own family.

i got three other surprises last night from him.  the first was during a discussion of my new training program.  the short of it is that i expect to look really good by swimsuit season.  at the mention of that, he told me i should come to his new midtown atlanta apartment and swim with him.  this surprised me because it showed that dave is integrating his secret gay world and his public straight world.  i didn't think dave had any interest in ever doing that.  second, he told me that i was a really nice guy.  displays of liking, no matter how innocent, never came from him before, for fear that i may run with it too far and start believing that he may have feelings that he really doesn't.  but last night he was brave enough to pay me an actual compliment that wasn't motivated by lust, though i'm not going to make more of it than it is.  his progress is in baby steps.  third, he told me during one particular heated moment that he loves doing whatever i need of him to please me.  that one took me off guard.  dave is a very humble and sacrificing guy, but i never expected him to offer up his own body to whatever this guy, who lays no claims to his heart, may want to experience.  did i say baby steps?  after that one i started asking myself if dave has feelings or just fetishes.

given his life transitions and new schedule, i likely won't see dave for a few months.  i have an email address for him and his cell number, so i'll stay in touch and let him figure out what he can handle.  but i feel pretty sure that dave will be going through some pretty big gay growth spurts in the next year.

back in the 80's, some big gay photographer published one of those big gay coffee table books full of nude male pictures.  such books were very popular in the 80's and it was okay that he did this because it was done with taste -- no obvious pornographic intent.  yeah, i'm not quite convinced either.  what made his particular book so sought after was the fact that it revealed to the world a committed polygamous relationship.  three men, coincidentally all as gorgeous as apollo himself, were in a committed relationship together, which was portrayed in this book as so darn beautiful that any sense of taboo was immediately dismissed by the viewer.  the point is that it every gay man on the planet began to wonder if he could land such wedded bliss.  "you mean i don't have to have settle for one hot boyfriend, i can actually have two?!"  let's just say that the wave of couples "seeking a third" were endless.  monogamy died.

now, i believe in monogamy.  personally, i only want one guy.  hell, i have a hard enough time finding just one.  but to this day, i still ask myself to how many candidates my heart could possibly give love at the same time.  part of the reason i ask myself this is that there are many men in my life that already have a small piece of me.  if any one of them knew exactly what to do to get the majority share, the rest would fall into tha abyss.

neal
for the last six years, neal has retained my fascination.  of anyone else i know, he is the most like me, but is also better.  he is an improved version of me.  he is all at once intelligent, creative, and complex without being pretentious.  to top it all off, he is remarkably handsome.  when he and i first met, i was already coupled with a boyfriend.  yet during that first meeting, i felt something for him that was very deep and very old.  this made any proximity to him scare me, though we ran in the same circles.  when we both left our undergrad programs, we went our separate ways.  after six years, i typed his name on a whim into a networking site and found that he was actually living 90 minutes from me.  i reestablished communication and found that his current life was horribly destructive and distorted.  the neal i knew seemed gone, but i was unwilling to concede.  i have been maintaining a correspondence with him for the last year and refuse to let that one drift into obscurity.  i'm not waiting for him to respond to my afections, but if he ever gets ready to reciprocate, all others will have some serious competition.

cory
i first met cory a couple of years ago while i was visitng my parents.  there was little else to do so i used the internet to connect to people in my area.  cory and i decided to meet publically after chatting and we had a good time talking over dessert.  he was a somewhat pudgy and fuzzy bear with a wining smile and a super personality.  i maintained a very limited exchange with cory after that first meeting.  more recently, i found him online and say that he was living in atlanta, so i decided to look him up, at which point i found that cory had lost some weight and was now ten times more attractive than ever.  he had become a 6'2" broad shouldered army soldier who made his fatigues and beret look completely smoking hot.  he looked so good that i decided he was out of my league.  after some innocent hanging out, i tried some experimental flirting.  to my surprise, it was reciprocated.  i admitted that i felt something for him, though i was unsure of its true nature or intensity.  he said he had some interest too and so we started going out, as well as sharing some great sex.  recently cory revealed that the army would be sending him to virginia beach in a few months.  the emotions i feel for cory are present, but i fear they are not sufficient enough to warrant following him through his new life.  if he were stayng in atlanta a while longer, i could very much enjoy making a man like cory my main squeeze.

blake
possessing the best physical features of his native american heritage, blake was a 20 year old twink with a smile that could make angels sigh.  we first met a year ago on a personals site with the intention of sharing some sexual play.  i saw him twice before he drifted back into his own world.  just before he did, i found myself going ga-ga for a guy nearly half my age.  i dwelled on his laugh and his smile.  despite knowing him for only two weeks, i wanted to buy him a birthday present.  but some voice inside my head told me i was being foolish by feeling so much for a boy so young and with so many future paths to take.  a year later, he and i chat occasionally via the computer.  he has a boyfriend that is cute and successful, but now and then we go hang out, just to shop or have a quick meal.  and his smile still stops my heart.  i find myself wanting to say whatever goofiness of which i can think to make that smile happen over and over. 

dave
when i first met dave online, he gave me a different name.  i used that other name for a good two months before i found out from his cell phone voice mail that he was giving me a hookup name.  dave and i first met as contractual playmates.  that means we only come together to have sex and nothing else.  dave is very deep in the closet and wants no one on earth to know he is attracted to other men.  he has built an amazing resume in a wealthy career path that will undoubtedly make him rich.  but it also means that dave has to live in a box built by someone else.  dave will forever be fulfilling others' expectations, rather than his own.  when he and i are together, i find that i can't stop looking at him.  i can't take my hands off of his skin.  i can't stop kissing him.  i will do whatever i can to hear him moan because even the sound of him sets off the bells in my head.  i've told him i have a crush on him, but that i understand he is not datable and i expect nothing from him.  more recently, dave has begun opening up.  he is talking more about himself and what he thinks about some things.  he has also started reciprocating some of the romantic talk that i've been laying on him for so long.  i've asked dave if he has ever considered a relationship that was completely private, and he told me he has but doesn't want to be responsible for doing that to anyone.  he is graduating in a couple of weeks and will move to atlanta.  i have asked him if i can continue to see him after he gets to atlanta, and he has agreed.  i'll be very curious to see how dave's sexual security awakens once he is in an environment that is more his own control.

so these are the men in my life that i love to be around and very likely could love forever.  interestingly, none of them are relationship material.  neal is unavailable because of his presently destructive life, cory because he is moving away very soon, blake because he is already coupled, and dave because he is closeted.  the question i ask myself daily is, "why do i spend so much love on men who can't love me back?"