Lennard van Ree

Guy #135 – The best sex. Yet.

The last time I had sex with Guy #135 I whispered “I love you” seconds before coming. It felt strange to say the L-word for a change, but above anything else I knew I meant it, even after coming. That almost never happens.

What I loved most about Guy #135 was his wisdom. I’ve never seen him radiate anything but Zen. Though about ten years younger than me, I often felt my own cynicism came off as immature by comparison. Guy #135 was as much a boyfriend as he was a spiritual guide.

On top of that he was also one of the most beautiful Guys I ever met in my life. He looked what you’d expect Adam of Adam and Steve fame to look like, beauty in its most natural incarnation, or doable to the highest degree as I thought the night we met.

His online selfies had been strangely obscure. Had my home been at the center of a lustrous gay life, I might not have even met up with Guy #135. Instead my home was a little tropical paradise. Guy #135 lived an island away and was visiting mine for a week. Not wanting to forego the possibility of sex with a possibly good looking Guy in a place with so few, we met up on his penultimate night there.

I instantly regretted spending the better half of a week not making an effort to set a date, only because his selfies had been so obscure. It would be the first of many times Guy #135 confronted me with my shallowness. Regardless, at the onset of our date I set out to become Steve, even if it was just for one night.

As the night progressed I came to realize two things: Guy #135 was what you would call an old soul and he was into me. He was by no means the slutty type, but for some reason he apparently agreed with me our connection was a special one. I knew I was Steve by the time the two of us were sitting on my porch, praising each other’s beauty as Adam and Steve would.

By the time we woke up together Guy #135 had become someone I care for, even after coming.

We met up a few weeks later, when again he visited my island, only this time he spent all nights with me, all three of them. It was on one such night we fell asleep in each other’s arms and woke up in the exact same position precisely eight hours later. We were Adam and Steve alright.

Guy #135 was not one to be jealous, but he did seem at odds with the way I lived my sex life, going from one meaningless hook-up to the next. I tried to talk my way out of it by saying I was always open to the possibility of a commitment, except of course no commitment ever felt worthy enough to forego anonymous sex on a parking lot, among other things. Guy #135 quickly uncovered it was in fact my own lack of self esteem that deemed every connection disposable. Indeed, part of me couldn’t help but feel unworthy of Guy #135.

We hardly kept in touch when he wasn’t on my island. I guess it felt off chatting with such a profoundly moral boyfriend while at the same time Grindring those closer to home. Life went on and it wasn’t until the day after I broke up with Guy #144 that I learned Adam was back in town.

We spent a few nights on a little private beach no one else could come. It was a place from which one could often see shooting stars in the night sky. I don’t remember if the two of us saw one that night, but for the sake of the story: There was weed.
“We go well together,” Guy #135 told me. I knew I wasn’t ready to commit myself to someone, but it felt good to realize a relationship with #135 might actually be a good idea at some point. I remember looking at him and silently agreeing how well we were going together. It was the night I said “I love you”. It was also the last time I ever saw him.

Our last Whatsapp conversation took place a few months after the night of the best sex ever (up until that point that is). I had just started 168Guys.com and Guy #135 expressed surprise at my number of sexual experiences. He’d always known there were plenty. He just never realized there were that plenty. He wanted to know his number and what his ‘Sex Score’ would be. I said it would be a 10. (It has been for a long time.)

I guess part of me always assumed Guy #135 should maybe hope for another Steve, one with more self esteem and abs to show for it, a Steve less shallow than I am.

Even though nothing ever materialized between Guy #135 and me, he’s always been a very pleasant memory, someone I enjoy missing from time to time. It’s nice to know there’s at least one person I can be Steve with, or me in my most natural incarnation, shallow as a pond, afraid to swim where my feet can’t touch the ground, yet somehow seaworthy enough for Guy #135.

Guy #135 – The best sex ever…

By the time we woke up together Guy #135 had become someone I care for, even after coming.

Our last Whatsapp conversation took place a few months after the night of the best sex ever. I had just started 168Guys.com and Guy #135 expressed surprise at my number of sexual experiences. He’d always known there were plenty. He just never realized there were that plenty. He wanted to know his number and what his ‘Sex Score’ would be. I said it would be a 10.

I guess part of me always assumed Guy #135 should maybe hope for another Steve, one with more self esteem and abs to show for it, a Steve less shallow than I am.

dscn3815

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ±2 years
FORMAT: Wholly non committal highly intermittent relationship
SEX SCORE (0 = Cat videos <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 10

Want to read the full story? Click here to start with Guy #1!

Guy #134 – Shame…

Guy #134 made me realize something.

Car sex is depressing, if not depressingly impractical.

Though I would go on to have pleasurable car sex with Guy #139 a while later, I do believe the idea of car sex sprouted from a lack of options. Sometimes finding a bed to have sex on can be a logistical nightmare. Sometimes a car ends up being the closest thing to a motel room. Sometimes dating is just sad that way.

Guy #134 nor I were capable of hosting a private sex fest. We did discuss the possibility of a motel, but as my date was lamenting his financial situation I realized he was driving toward this one remote parking spot I knew of. Being in a frugal mood as well, I accepted it.

The two of us had sent each other pictures of our naked selves. In anticipation of our date I had imagined us doing the usual fun stuff, like kissing and undressing each other, discovering our nakedness through foreplay. Instead, within seconds of engine shutdown Guy #134 treated me to a hasty French kiss that quickly went south and ended up at third base, where it stayed for the remainder of our date.

While Guy #134 definitely deserves credit for being good at his job, I was mostly occupied with staring out the window, carefully monitoring the movement of distant silhouettes of people and other cars, unable to fully shake the sadness of my situation.

Toward the end of our little parking lot extravaganza I saw two people passing within 50 feet of our car. I could swear one of them was looking straight at me, pushing down Guy #134’s head to make sure it didn’t appear in and out of view all the time.

Guy #139 and I would later have sex in a car at broad daylight and it truly was a little paradise by the dashboard light. Guy #139 was so hot and friendly and handsome and ribbed and on all counts the most beautiful Guy I ever had sex with up till now, I didn’t mind getting caught with him. Guy #134 to me was so much more unremarkable in so many ways the thought of people seeing me with him filled me with shame. It’s not that Guy #134 wasn’t cute. He simply wasn’t special enough for me to take risks for. Preceded by 133 other Guys, a lesbian and a stripper, Guy #134 just didn’t have it in him to excite me the way he might have had he been a two digit number.

Guy #134 and I reached peak shame on our ride home, when post orgasmic sobriety filled the car. I wasn’t raised to get blowjobs from unremarkable strangers in their cars, so I couldn’t help but resent myself a little. One might even say I felt like a cheap whore. I have no idea how Guy #134 postured himself from the moment my pants came back on. All I know is the car was eerily silent and our goodbye as uninspired as our first and only kiss had been.

Our home being a small Caribbean island, Guy #134 and I ran into each other several times over the next few years. We would always shake hands, but never engage in conversation, not even when we turned out to have mutual friends and at one point even a mutual ex. My guess is Guy #134 had felt my shame as well. It had made our date awkward and unrewarding and it had consumed our entire relationship.

Shame.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 years
FORMAT: One time car date followed by occasional obligatory handshake
SEX SCORE (0 = A Sigmund Freud action figure <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 3

Guy #133 – On the beach…

When you live on a tropical island and use Grindr to meet up with Guys, it’s all but impossible to avoid having sex on a beach at some point.

Beaches can get dark and quiet at night.
So when Guy #133 and I met up at his hotel lobby, we went out for a walk and soon found ourselves at a small lagoon with a view of distant cruise ships decorating the horizon and the ocean oozing our date like a Norah Jones album.

I don’t remember much about Guy #133. He was a shoe salesman, only the type of shoes he sold went for $2000 a pair. He showed me pictures of shoes covered in diamonds. I imagined he must have sold many shoes to Hollywood stars, but he told me most of his customers were “hoodies” wanting to add some bling to their wardrobe, so I quipped Guy #133 was a bit like Al Bundy. He had no idea who or what Al Bundy was, though he did later proclaim himself a fan of Modern Family.

In short, Guy #133 and I had nothing in common. I was a 90s kid. He was whatever they call kids who didn’t grow up to the tune of a dial-up modem.

Our conversation was pleasant, but equally meaningless. I was scanning my half of the horizon to see if the coast was clear. He was doing his part.

Sure enough, the more I learned about life as a shoe salesman, the more isolated we became, until it was just us and the sea.

Usually I don’t enjoy the risk of getting caught, but this time the scenery was so lovely I deemed it completely in my right as a human being to enjoy nature the way it was intended, all the way to third base.

In hopes of covering all bases I brought Guy #133 to my place, where the absence of nature dissolved what little common ground we had into a lame hand job. Worse yet, when I dropped my date off at his hotel later, my car broke down. Not wanting to hear another word about shoes I assured Guy #133 I was in complete control of my vehicle. The two of us waved each other goodbye through a cloud of smoke that sprouted from my car’s radiator as I popped the hood. The hesitation with which Guy #133 walked away suggested he felt obliged to stick out my car trouble with me. I however insisted he’d leave. We had gone from blowjobs in the Garden of Eden to discussing shoes in my bedroom to resuscitating a 1982 Mazda on a Hilton parking lot. It was clear to me Guy #133 and I had no future to speak of.

It must have been about 3 AM, hours away from the nearest tow truck. It would take the better half of a day and about $100 to get possession of a working car again, all of it because I so much wanted to do a Guy who spoke of shoes on a beach, someone who didn’t even get my Al Bundy joke.

I should not have transposed our date from the beach to my bedroom. I was fine talking about shoes at a lagoon. Most Guys could probably spice up Keynesian economics there. Our date was great as long as we had the beach to remind ourselves how awesome it would be to have sex there. It did not imply the sex would be awesome elsewhere.

Guy #133 flew back to his home country a few days later. I could tell, because he had disappeared from Grindr. I realized I would have no way of ever getting back in touch with him again, for one very simple reason: I had already forgotten his name.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 hours
FORMAT: Overvalidated sex date
SEC SCORE (0 = A date with Al Bundy <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.8

Guy #132 – The marine.

A question I get asked on a daily basis is whether I’m top or bottom. At times it’s the first thing that comes up in conversation.

I’m sure some kind of Kindsey-scale could be attributed to the top-bottom continuum, but the truth is it’s impossible to predict who ends up on top. It all depends on who you’re with.

Guy #132 was with the navy.

He looked the part.

Guy #132 radiated a boyish manliness that, combined with his perky smile, made you wonder how they managed to even keep Don’t ask don’t tell going for that long.

Being a marine, my date had seen places, things, events even. He was the kind of Guy you’d want to be with when your car breaks down in the middle of the desert. In porn, he would have been the John McTame to my Nakatomi building. He had this sturdy clumsiness about him that befitted a Guy harvesting a primitive sex drive, someone who could let himself be owned by his own instinct.

One could say I dug Guy #132’s sexual energy as he offered me a glass of water. He wasn’t even that attractive. He didn’t need to be, which somehow made him even more attractive. We engaged in one of those conversations we both knew was only a formality standing in between us and the bedroom and I was comfortable in the knowledge he would take charge and be the first to put away his drink to kiss me.

He did, which made it all the more surprising he quickly turned out to be a total bottom.

It’s not that I don’t know what to do with the body of a marine, but part of me couldn’t shake the thought You’re a soldier. Conquer me!

It was hardly a punishment to own a marine for a night, but I did feel like the sex hadn’t lived up to its image.

We met up on two occasions. On our second date he withheld the formalities altogether and went straight to sex. He knew exactly what he wanted, how he wanted it and what he needed to do to get it. It had this manly pragmatism to it that empowered enough potential to own a harem, yet again, when push came to shove, I had to push.

Seeing that much surrender embedded in the sexuality of this army person it was comforting to know Don’t ask don’t tell isn’t a thing anymore. In that sense I can proudly argue I did my part making my country combat ready. Twice. On two occasions.

I lost interest in Guy #132 the moment he brought up the subject of fisting. I guess I’m not that much of a patriot.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x 90 minutes
FORMAT: Sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Patriotism <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #131 – The ring beard…

Blessed with everything but a plan or even the slightest idea of what I wanted to do with my life, I moved to the island of Curaçao in October of 2013.

For a few years I lived in this tiny country, cocooned from the outside world by its climate, the beaches, the rum, the air conditioning and the fact I was one of only a few white Guys on Grindr.

On the downside, I was also one of the few Guys actually on Curaçao. On bad days the bottom 50 Guys appearing on my Grindr screen were literally an ocean away from me, stuck in Venezuela or Colombia.

With a population of just 150,000 people, Curaçao had no gay life to speak of. It was friendly to gays, but by no means hospitable, or facilitating for that matter.

Discouraged by the lack of doable Guys in my vicinity I decided to be polite when Guy #131 hit me up online, saying he liked my selfies. I didn’t consider it much of a compliment. In this corner of the Earth I was one of the few online people who even had selfies.

Still, it was nice talking to a gay Guy again. That hadn’t happened in weeks. Guy #131’s job consisted of writing copy for gay porn sites. It struck me as the easiest job in the world, getting paid to write about sex. When I shifted through some of the sites Guy #131 referred me to I was appalled by the number of mistakes and errors there were to be found in his copywriting efforts. I instantly knew I would be so much better at this job than Guy #131 was.

So I accepted Guy #131’s invitation for drinks at his place, hoping to learn how one can get paid writing about sex. It was more of a mission than a date, one that did not start off well: I had just parked my car and slammed the door when I realized my keys were still inside. My car, much like my date, was kind of old. Its lack of electrical windows allowed Guy #131, his landlord and his landlord’s friend to pry one open far enough to get my keys back. It had taken them a good 15 minutes.

Relieved as I was to know I still had a working car at my disposal, it came with a price, namely my diminished amount of self worth: Here I was, in a strange country, where I knew absolutely no one and my first date had to witness me being completely incompetent by locking myself out of my car.

My intention had been to seduce Guy #131 up to the point he would tell me how to get paid writing about stuff people do in gay porn. I had anticipated my charm to be enough to sway him, but our little paradise by the dashboard light had killed my mojo.

Once inside Guy #131 showed me more of his work as he spoke about working in the porn industry. From what I gathered all he ever did was write captions for porn videos. And they were awful. So I asked how one becomes a writer in porn, but no matter how I phrased it, I never got a clear answer. Instead he showed me some more porn videos and started touching me. Determined to get my first job as a paid writer I kissed him when he tried to.

It was in that moment I realized his ring beard was all the hair he had. It’s not that I hadn’t seen his baldness before. I just hadn’t registered it as such. Now that he was about to do a porn routine on me I could only think Guy #131 was kind of weird looking with that silly ring beard, not unattractive, but too weird to be pretty regardless.

There are one or two wholly painless sexual positions where one person can be completely passive. Those were the positions I attained as Guy #131 went down on me. It was the kind of sex where I wished for a magazine to make the time pass quicker.

Afterward, he turned off the porn and started inquiring about my life. I told him about this blog I maintained at the time and how it got over a 100 views on a good day. Even before our date was over I knew I would always regret letting a ring beard this outlandishly peculiar go to second base without giving me a single clue about living off the internet first.

I continued my inquiry for good manner, but in the end all he told me was that someone had asked him to do this job. Basically, Guy #131 got to give oral in exchange for telling me he owed his job to one of the 7 billion people on this planet.

I did end up thanking Guy #131 for helping me out with my car key earlier. Leaving had indeed become my top priority as our date progressed. He contacted me a few times afterward, but I pretended to be one of 7 billion people.

My reason for going on a date with Guy #131 was to get information. I was armed with my charm and well received selfies. Guy #131 met up with me to get laid. He was armed with information.

Even as one of the few white Guys in a little tropical paradise, I suck at playing the game sometimes.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 hours
FORMAT: Drinks with sex involved somehow
SEX SCORE (0 = Being stared at by an octopus <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 2,5

Guy #130 – The Lay After…

My mother and I never spoke much about my private life, though I did manage to reveal bits and pieces of it through our common, often morbid sense of humor. A few weeks before she died I granted her permission to come haunt me whenever she wanted, except for the times I would be having sex with people. My mother promised to honor our agreement.

I was willing to date my grief away shortly before my mother’s passing. It logically followed I went on Grindr a good two weeks after her funeral. The rush of organizing a memorial service was still fresh on my mind, but other than that my life had reached the calm after the storm, if ever there were such a thing.

Guy #130 was a flight attendant who spent half his life in fancy hotels. It was in one such hotel we sat down for coffee. Our Grindr conversation had been about sizes, positions and liquids, but our lobby talk ventured into the personal. I realized my date was deciding whether or not he would take me up to his room. Given the peculiarity of my situation I decided to for once not aim for sex and instead just be myself.

So I told Guy #130 I had buried my mother two weeks earlier. Fortunately, this flight attendant had way more than just a Pan Am-smile. Sometimes telling a stranger about your life is liberating, even more so if that stranger turns out to be a good bottom afterward.

Whatever emotions I had stacked up inside of me, Guy #130 offered me a lengthy release from my worries, but perhaps my favorite moment of our date had transpired before the sex, when Guy #130 suggested we’d go for a drink in his room. The effort to be myself had been such a conscious one it came as a relief to find out it was to be rewarded with sex.
Not only that, Guy #130 didn’t treat sex as he might have chicken or fish: He took me out to dinner afterward and let me spend the night with him. It was a sex date, sure, but I was given the First Class treatment, and again when I met up with Guy #130 about six months later.

What I enjoyed about our dates the most was the total lack of complexity. In terms of getting high, the sex allowed me to enjoy the wonder of flight without any crying babies to kill my moment of Zen.

It would seem my mother honored our agreement.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x one night and morning after
FORMAT: Caring sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Those crying babies on an airplane <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.4

Guys #125, #126, #127, #128 and #129 – Floating…

Baggage.

We all carry it.
And like drug mules bluffing their way through customs, we all lie about what we carry.

It’s not that we have anything necessarily worth hiding, but baggage just happens to be a dish served best in installments. We all carry a vast collection of issues small and big, most of which we hide regardless of how naked we get.
Yet while we aim to hide our baggage from those we position to pass judgment over it, we reach out to people for the very purpose of having them lighten up our load. The phrase get your load off has way more levels than most Guys are willing to admit, because baggage.

In terms of baggage I didn’t reveal, Guys #125 through #129 all had sex with me in the weeks leading up to my mother’s death.

As women with ovarian cancer so often do, they die. My mother was no exception. She spent her last month in a hospital bed in her living room, surrounded by loved ones such as myself, her weakness overpowering her strength bit by bit, day by day, until her final day, when she told me:

I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die. I just want to float.

Looking back I realize I followed a similar philosophy with the Guys I dated in those weeks. It’s natural for parents to die before their children do. It’s natural for parents to be with their children when they die. And I guess it’s natural to want to float when the air of death quite literally fills the room like a cancer.

So I went online, looking for Guys to float with.

I must have told my mother I was going out for a walk, when in reality I went out to meet Guy #125 in his car on a parking lot, where we exchanged oral for a good ten minutes. He had no knowledge of my baggage, nor did I inquire about his. We were just two complete strangers wanting to float for two completely different reasons.
God knows why I agreed to have sex in a car. I hate having sex in cars and I wasn’t even that much into Guy #125. He was simply the most available Guy within walking distance. With Guy #125 I drowned more than I floated.
It felt good to leave him behind and get back to taking care of my mother.

I met Guy #126 on another one of my ‘walks’. It was at his place. To his credit, he got me to climax three times in a row just by using his mouth, a feat unsurpassed by any other Guy since. One could argue he got me floating three times, if ever so briefly.
Apparently my mournful self had gotten Guy #126 to float too somehow, as he kept asking me to come over another time. Before I had met Guy #126 I had been okay with leaving my mother’s side to explore the possibilities a stranger offered. Now that I knew exactly what he had to give me I couldn’t bring myself to favor him over my mother a second time.

Guy #127 and #128 I ran into in a sauna, where we had sex that cuddled its way into a conversation. Guy #127 studied something, Guy #128 had a job at the airport. I evaded talking about myself altogether. Blowjobs can do that.

I actually ran into Guy #127 a little over a month later, after my mother had passed. He was excited to see me, but despite his raging cuteness I felt incapable of giving him any more attention. In the time between our two encounters he no doubt studied some more, whereas I had buried my mother. It wasn’t the kind of baggage I could ask a faint acquaintance such as Guy #127 to carry, nor was it the kind I was comfortable sharing. Some loads are just too heavy to be carried by strangers, no matter how good their blowjobs are.

Guy #129 would go down in history as the last Guy I ever had sex with before my mother died. He was a physiotherapist whose massages were unexpectedly disappointing. The sex itself was moderately okay, were it not for the fact my mind was constantly split between two places: The here and now, which consisted of Guy #129 and me going it at like rabbits, and the there and now, which consisted of my mother fighting a battle not even God could win.
During sex and before the massage I may have floated a little, but my baggage no doubt weighed me down considerably.

Guy #129 was kind enough to let me spend the night at his place. Sadly though, he only had one pair of sheets barely big enough to cover his own body, let alone mine. I spent the night under a tiny blanket that felt more like a towel, shivering and thinking about all the times my mother inquired about my love life, all the times she expressed her wish for me to find someone to be happy with, someone to live, die and float with. Shivering my way through the night I couldn’t help but feel I had disappointed her somehow.

There was another Guy, someone who could have been #130. We agreed to meet up on a Thursday, but on the morning of our date my mother told me: “I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die. I just want to float.”
So instead of venturing out on yet another sexual conquest me and my family gathered to say one final goodbye to my mother. I told my date-to-be I couldn’t make it because I had a “family thing I really needed to be at”, quite possibly the whitest lie I ever told anyone.
I never contacted this Guy again, nor did he contact me. I can only imagine he too had baggage he didn’t feel like sharing.

These days I still see Guy #125 on Grindr every so often, always less than a mile away from me. Occasionally I ignore Guy #126 when we pass each other at the local train station and Guy #127 recently dug my pictures on Tinder, though no conversation will ever sprout from any of it: There’s too much baggage for casual sex and too much sex for casual baggage. Blowjobs can do that.

I quietly assume Guys #125 through #129 were in it for the floating as much as I was, albeit it for completely different and forever unknown reasons. Dates are exciting because of what we don’t say to each other and sex, by its very nature, is both the best and the worst way to lighten up our load.

The ferryman

Oh, the traveler moving on the land, behold I give you, I give you the traveling man
And he’s very heavy laden with the questions in his burden
Lo, and I give you the traveling man
He has crossed the mountains, he has forded streams
He has spent a long time surviving on his dreams
Many times he’s tried to lighten up his heavy load
But his compromises fail him and he ends back on the road

Oh the traveler he is weary, the traveling man he is tired.
For the road is never ending. In his fear he has cried aloud for a savior
And in vain for a teacher, someone to lighten up the load
And he’s heard the sounds of war in a gentle shower of rain
And the whisperings of despair that he could not explain
The reason for his journey, or the reason it began
Or was there any reason for the traveling man

At last he reached a river so beautiful and wide
But the current was so strong he could not reach the other side
And the weary traveling man looked for a ferryman, strong enough to row against the tide
And the ferryman was old but he moved the boat so well
Or did the river move the boat? The traveler could not tell
Said the ferryman: “You’re weary and the answers that you seek
Are in the singing river, listen humbly it will speak.”

Oh, the traveler closed his eyes and he listened and he heard
Only the river murmuring and the beating of his heart
Then he heard the river laughing, and he heard the river crying
And in it was the beauty and the sadness of the world
And he heard the sounds of dying, but he heard the sounds of birth
And slowly his ears heard all the sounds of earth
The sounds blended together and they became a whole
And the rhythm was his heartbeat to the music in his soul

Relationship summaries:

Guy #125
LENGTH: A good 10 minutes
FORMAT: Car park fondlefest
SEX SCORE (0 = Lifetime movies <–>10 = The best sex ever): 3

Guy #126
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Lifetime movies about cancer <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7

Guy #127
LENGTH: 1 hour + 2 minute conversation a month later
FORMAT: Sex date + awkward meet-up
SEX SCORE (0 = Lifetime movies about cancer where the hero lives <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #128
LENGTH: 30 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Lifetime movies about cancer where the hero dies <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #129
LENGTH: One night
FORMAT: One-night stand
SEX SCORE (0 = “The Fault in Our Stars” <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

Guy #124 – Let the dolphin speak…

Sometimes Guys on Grindr fail to get the message: That he’s just not that into you.

A good friend of mine introduced me to the perfect emoji for silencing people who fail to realize when the relationship, whatever it was, has run its course. It’s the dolphin.

These days, whenever I used up every available polite way of saying let us not be part of each other’s lives and the only thing I have left is to bluntly tell this person I’m not that into him, I send a dolphin:

A dolphin is friendly, playful and well spirited. It means I wish the other person well on his journeys.
It also means the conversation is over.

No healthy person enjoys rejecting others. It’s why we go about it ever so gently. The result is an internet full of people who mistake attention for interest.

Guy #124 was old enough to be dating but too young to have even a slight grasp of the complexity of the game.

About fifteen minutes into our dance floor hook-up Guy #124 told me he had wanted me the moment he first laid eyes on me. For me Guy #124 was only my third or fourth choice of all the Guys there. He was young and inexperienced. I was at #124 and had every intention of making it to at least #125 in the near future.

The reason I ended up having sex with Guy #124 is that he was the key to experiencing a tiny part of the local gay scene I had never experienced before: Hook-up motels, where you park your car behind a curtain and have sex in the garage. The country we were in just so happened to be the place where secretive gay sex was very common, so when Guy #124 suggested we’d go there one day, I was curious enough to try.

What I remember most is the motel cleaning lady, the only person in the world who got to look the customer in the eyes, a bearer of secrets if ever I’ve seen one. The sex itself was more or less okay. We could hear the cleaning lady vacuuming throughout.

As we were cooling down in the garage, Guy #124 occasionally asked me to ‘say something’, apparently lamenting the fact I wasn’t as cheerful as I had been on a dance floor. I didn’t say anything. I just couldn’t be bothered.

Yet for some reason Guys like #124 can find in depressing motel room dates the start of something beautiful. And they’re sweet and inexperienced, so you don’t want to be the first to break their heart, so you go easy on them, and you reply when they start texting you the very next day.

You reply without offering any real input for the conversation to go on, yet the other Guy just keeps asking questions, or gives you that one remark that gets under your skin just enough to respond, thinking the conversation will die out eventually like a flame in the vacuum of space.

I should have flippered Guy #124. I should have sent him the dolphin, letting him know I have nothing against him and that I think he’s sweet and reasonably apt at having sex, but that the relationship has ended, because reasons.

The dolphin is the definitive lid on social awkwardness. It’s the most humane way of saying:

True to form I never reply to a single message from a person I’ve flippered. If a dolphin can’t show them I’m just not that into them, I don’t know what will.

Guy #124 ended up being quite offended when I eventually stopped replying to his text messages. He would not have been had I sent him a dolphin. That would have left him in a gentle but confused state of wonder.

I think ‘flippering’ could be this year’s planking.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 weeks
FORMAT: 2 hopeless sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = A Hannibal Lecter dinner party <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

Guy #123 – The reason I’m on Grindr…

These days it says the following on my Grindr profile:

I will have sex with you if you can tell me what happened ‘before’ the Big Bang.

It’s an easy promise. Not even Stephen Hawking knows the answer, but it’s a nice invitation for Guys to get intellectual with me. I still judge people by their selfies, but I ache to be turned on by their brains.

Although the first I ever saw of Guy #123 was a picture of him in a swimsuit, he wasn’t the kind of underwear model I had come online for. Still, we somehow became engaged in an exciting conversation.

It happens sometimes. You start talking to someone, an actual dialogue erupts and it’s just nice to let it run its course. Sometimes the conversation dissolves almost the moment it started and sometimes you go from discussing youth traumas to cosmic inflation to Bach to trashing the Lord of the Rings-franchise to being invited over for dinner at his place.

Despite the absence of any sexual chemistry I found Guy #123 interesting enough to get to know in person. I had made it clear I had no sexual interest in him, which he was totally fine with.

Yet we soon ended up doing more than just having dinner and talking about each other’s lives. We’d spend entire nights watching The Lord of the Rings, after which Guy #123 admitted it indeed made no sense Frodo wouldn’t use those eagles from the get go. Or we’d lie on a couch and listen to music together. It’s difficult not to establish connection when you feel someone’s heartbeat to the tune of Beethoven’s 5^th Piano Concerto.

Our fourth meet-up as friends was a bit of a goodbye. I was to go abroad for a while and wasn’t sure when I would be seeing Guy #123 again. He had become a dear friend I would miss.
So what started off as an innocent backrub quickly turned me on somehow, and since I was the one doing the rubbing I considered it an excellent opportunity to show some initiative. The kissing soon followed. The bed is where things ended.

It was unexpectedly great to have sex with Guy #123. I had reached a point where I could no longer relate to my previous self, who had rejected him over a photo.

Afterward, Guy #123 told me he he’d always known we would end up having sex at some point. The only thing he had to do to make it happen was not tell me. His brain had figured that out.

I’m not on Grindr to find sex. I’m not on there to find relationships. I’m certainly not on there to forge anything platonic. I’m on Grindr to find Guys like Guy #123, Guys who can give me the intimacy of a relationship with the commitment of a friendship, Guys who know my weaknesses well enough to understand I’m not the type to maintain a serious commitment, Guys who know my strengths to appreciate how much I have to give if they just let me, Guys who can even use the word ‘love’ without it having to define a relationship, Guys who get that relationships define themselves, Guys I can cuddle up with, cook for, sleep with and wake up next to.

Actually, Guy #123 and I only woke up together on a handful of occasions. Like most people with a good working brain he was a very sensitive person. Oftentimes I’d meet him while he was busy being hopelessly in love with someone he couldn’t be with, making it difficult for him to get truly intimate with someone.

I’m the type of person who looks for intimacy everywhere when I’m hopelessly in love. Guy #123 was the kind who’d deprive himself of it. Still, we often met on the middle ground and exchanged a lot of hugs there. One could argue it was in one of those hugs that Guy #123 inspired me to start writing.

His brains have proven to be an enormous turn on for me.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 4 years and counting
FORMAT: Loving friendship
SEX SCORE (0 = Anything Gollum <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9

Guy #122 – The spoiled brat…

Like most men never subjected to radiation poisoning I have hair growing out of my body at various places. While I make the effort to keep my chest Bieberesque by shaving it regularly, sometimes a single hair dodges my razor blade and remains sticking out of my body, as desolate as a man standing in the Sahara.

Guy #122 didn’t like chest hair either. That much became apparent when he noticed that one hair a few inches south of my right nipple. Even though we had been engaged in doing naked stuff for a good half hour already, Guy #122 stopped what he was doing and shifted all his attention to that one single bit of hair.

“Can you shave it off?” Guy #122 asked.
“No, I’m having sex,” I said.
It’s not like that one little hair got in the way of anything, but Guy #122 insisted. Again I refused to shave myself, proud as I was to stand up for myself for a change.

That’s when my date proceeded by trying to pull my hair out of my chest. The pain was intense and came without warning. I half heartedly yelled at Guy #122 and scolded him for hurting me, while at the same time laughing about how ridiculous sex with strangers can be sometimes.

The laughter stopped when Guy #122 pulled on my hair again, once again sending shock waves through my entire body. It was the first and to date only time I’ve ever been furious at someone during sex.

At the same time I had been enjoying the sex with this Guy. He was cute and good at it. I didn’t want the sex to stop because of that one tiny hair. Yet much to my surprise and anger Guy #122 kept making attempts at pulling it out. Thankfully I managed to stop him each time he tried, but my defenses came at the expense of my libido. After his fourth or fifth attempt I was so pissed off I turned Guy #122 on his stomach and had my way with him. He seemed to enjoy it, which pissed me off even more. I couldn’t stand being with someone so spoiled, so determined to get his way, so used to getting his way.

Putting on a T-shirt was my first act of business after I was done teaching Guy #122 a lesson. Finally, me and my hair were safe from the clutches of this spoiled maniac who now wanted to cuddle up with me. I however wanted him gone, out of my house, preferably out of my solar system.

Guy #122 hit me up online a few days later. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact our date had angered me to no end. We may have sent a few messages back and forth, but it wasn’t long before I ghosted him. I simply couldn’t stand someone as spoiled as Guy #122.

He would hit me up again many, many times over the course of the next year or so, until eventually I blocked him. Just looking at his picture reminded me of his claws, obsessively trying to pull out that one tiny hair of mine.

I doubt Guy #122 ever realized what the reason for my rejection was. He probably confused my anger for lust, while the lust had merely been a disguise for my anger. Still, I feel good about not giving him his way. He needed it badly.

I do pay more attention to lone hairs sticking out of my chest these days. In that sense I’m giving Guy #122 exactly what he wanted.

Damn, he’s irritating.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = “Quid Quo Pro, doctor” <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7

Guy #121 – The dorminant one…

Dominance.

When it comes to sex, some people like to dominate. Others like to be dominated.

Guy #121 was dominant. He said so many times. He first made mention of it in our online conversation. He brought it up again over coffee. When we were at his place he once again asked if I was okay with him being so dominant.

Granted, Guy #121 pulled my hair a bit during sex and held down my arms for good measure. Not wanting to shatter his image, I was kind enough not to move my arms as he put on his condom.

The truth is Guy #121 was about as dominant as Pinocchio was a real boy. It didn’t help that I was about a foot taller, a difference that was reflected in our respective dick sizes as well. Him dominating me made about as much sense as David asking Goliath out for a date.

In short, Guy #121 was an adorable little Asian boy who wanted to be the Terminator. I granted him the illusion for a good five minutes, after which he cuddled up against me and remained in ‘dorminant-mode’ for the remainder of the evening.

The two of us met up on two occasions. Coffee tasted good in the company of Guy #121. He was smart-ish and sensitive. I empathized with him and his latte as he spoke of missing his home country. The way his lips stuck to the warm carton of his Starbucks cup suggested he had been deprived of labial action for quite some time. Guy #121 was like many of the Asian immigrants I dated: Lonely, shy and with a pinch of social awkwardness thrown in.

It was only during sex that Guy #121 let go of his inhibitions. I don’t think I’ve ever been dominated by anyone clumsier than him, but I did enjoy letting him believe he was in control of me. Sometimes accepting awkwardness is the only gift we have to give to someone.

A third date never happened. Guy #121 would visit my online dating profile every so often, but he never hit me up again, nor did I take note of his digital footprints.
I guess we both felt the sex had been an oddity of sorts, like Pinocchio getting tested for STD’s. There was nothing inherently wrong about the two of us having sex, but it was difficult to take it seriously.

I will never know whatever made Guy #121 think he was a dominant Guy. Well, except that maybe it was me who made him think that, me and perhaps all the other Guys who were patient enough not to move their hands whenever he struggled to put on a condom.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x 2 hours
FORMAT: Coffee and sex
SEX SCORE (0 = A date with Goliath <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6.5

Guy #120 – Like a virgin…

I remember the first time I ever stepped into a gay bar. What terrified me most were the stares. Everywhere I looked people were staring at me and no matter how hard I tried to read the minds behind the stares, I stalled at considering the possibility people found me unattractive, dorky or badly dressed.

It took me a while before I realized the meaning of a stare in a nightclub:
– A short stare means I’m trying to determine if I want to have sex with you or not.
– Any stare two seconds or longer means I want you.

Understandably, not knowing this made my first steps into gay nightlife scary and uncomfortable at times. At the time I didn’t know I was being stared at for reasons I wanted to be stared at, except of course for all the times I dressed dorky.

Guy #120 was relatively new to this whole homosexuality thing. Everything about him radiated insecurity, the way he intermittently avoided then actively ached for eye contact, the way his soft-spoken voice trembled as he reached the end of his sentences and the way he clung to the glass of water I had given him. He reminded me of myself back when I was on my first date with a Guy and while I wasn’t the first Guy for Guy #120, I definitely was one of his first. I could tell, because Guy #120 was completely oblivious to how unbelievably good looking he was.

I mean, there’s hot and then there’s Guy #120.

Guy #120 was hot in the most generic way possible, meaning everything about his body and face was just about perfect. I didn’t get to see much of the person hiding behind the shyness, but at the very least Guy #120 was generically friendly, polite and well mannered. Long before he had finished his glass of water did I realize the two of us would not be having any interesting conversations and that we would not be establishing a meaningful connection. Guy #120 came to get sex and I was all too happy to oblige him.

The sex itself was rather disappointing though. It was great lying in bed with someone that could have been a model from one of my favorite porn movies, but beautiful as he was, Guy #120 was like a stewardess struggling to get a plane off the ground in terms of adequacy. Well mannered and friendly, sure, but nothing to get me high as I expected from such a beautiful Guy.

I imagine the sex was equally displeasing for Guy #120, who came suspiciously quick, probably as an excuse to leave.

A few years later I saw Guy #120 again as his beautiful face appeared on Grindr. I hit him up, asking how he was doing. He said he was doing fine. “Haven’t we met before?” I asked. “No,” was his answer. I left it at that.

Guy #120 wasn’t green anymore. He had been around long enough to know his league, long enough to know I wasn’t in it.

Good for him.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 30 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = People with nomophobia <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6

Guy #119 – A vacation from my vanity…

As a gay Guy who frequents places where I face the scrutiny and judgment of other gay Guys, I try to take care of my body. I eat healthy, I even pack a few bananas every week, I run, I go for walks, I hardly ever drink alcohol, I reluctantly do push-ups, I plank until I fold and I quit smoking as often as I can.

The result is a body that, when photographed in a certain light and subsequently filtered in a tantalizing hue, is reasonably hot to look at.

It took me years to become reasonably hot. Being reasonably good looking is a lot of work. The reason I make the effort is because I like my sex to be with Guys that are reasonably hot as well.

Actually, what I’m really aiming for are Guys who I think are hotter than I am, so they can give me the feeling I am in fact more than reasonably good looking. So whenever I have sex with a Guy I deem hotter than myself, I do my best to be the Guy from my selfies, rather than just being me.

Of course, sometimes it’s nice not to look for the hot one, but to be the hot one.

In terms of narcissism Guy #119 gave me the day off. Twice.

Sex can be comfortable when you know you’re the hot one. It takes off the pressure.
Guy #119 had a cute face, but his body reminded me of Elvis in his final days. It wasn’t a pleasant surprise, but I know what it’s like to be chubby and I know how easy it is to live your hotness away.
That’s why I didn’t reject Guy #119 when he turned out to be way fatter than his antiquated Grindr selfies. Instead I viewed him as a little vacation from my vanity: To be with a Guy without having to hold my breath for my tiny abs to show.

Granted, there were moments when I got a little uncomfortable by the amount of fat that crawled its way over and against and around my body, but Guy #119’s cute smile made up for a lot, as did his personality.

I guess Guy #119 marked the first time in my life I had sex with someone I deemed unattractive without it being pity sex. Although maybe I did have sex out of pity, pity for my future fat self.

Guy #119 gave me hope that all people, even fat people, can have sex with people who are reasonably good looking, meaning that no matter what happens to me and my looks, I can always count on my brains to get me laid.

Guy # 119 had used his brains to get me horizontal. Being insecure about the way I look, it was nice to be seduced by brains.

When you frequent places where gay Guys go to scrutinize and pass judgment over other gay Guys, it’s good to be reminded how sexy personality can be. Guy #119 definitely was one of the hottest Guys I ever dated.

Shame about the fat though.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x 1 hour
FORMAT: Sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Toilet Elvis <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.3

Guy #118 – Dating alone together…

Sex is like food. Whether it’s caviar, a Happy Meal or anything in between, sex is something to look forward to. But unless it’s masturbation sex is not a dish you eat alone. Eating together can be very rewarding, provided both parties can agree on what’s for dinner.

Guy #118 and I had met online, where he had pictures of him wearing leather outfits for the world to see. Leather ain’t my thing, but it lets me know when a Guy is aching for sex and nothing but sex. So when I met Guy #118 at his place he took me to his bedroom, sat me down on his bed, offered me an obligatory glass of water which I refused and then proceeded to let me have his way with him.

At the time I mostly had sex to avoid thinking about being a telemarketer without any goals to speak of. I avoided conversations about my life the way Stephen Hawking avoids escalators. After all, I wasn’t living. I was telemarketing, the last thing anyone would want to think of during sex.

So when Guy #118 hit me up a few weeks later I was all too happy to meet up with him once more and forget about living for a short while, except this time Guy #118 suggested we’d meet up for a drink first.

That ticked me off somewhat. I’m not keen on spending money on drinks if it’s sex I’m after, not in the least because I don’t enjoy having to scream over loud music in aid of keeping a conversation going with someone I only want to get inside of. Still, Guy #118 being very cute I deemed it an acceptable investment.

Naturally, Guy #118 asked me about my life as we were having drinks. I complained about being a telemarketer whilst trying to maintain a sense of pride befitting the top I was to him. It was difficult to keep that up, especially when Guy #118 wanted another round of drinks. Small talk has a tendency to become torture after a while, especially in the case of Guy #118, who himself had little to say.
“Shall we go to your place?” I asked after he finally finished his second drink. It wasn’t subtle, but then again, the only reason our paths had ever crossed was because the internet had pictures of him wearing leather. Subtlety was never supposed to be part of our relationship.
“Yeah, about that…” Guy #118 replied as my heart sank.
My date went on to explain his housemate was also home that night, meaning we couldn’t exactly have sex there.
I did not stick around for a third drink, instead going home, sexually frustrated like a rabbit in a cage full of mice.

Looking back, I don’t remember what on Earth convinced me to meet up with Guy #118 a third time. Once again he had asked to meet up for a drink. I guess I really wanted to believe Guy #118 was in it for the sex.
What struck me about our third date was how much attention Guy #118 had paid during our second. He remembered everything I had told him about myself. I on the other hand had totally forgotten what his job was, what part of Asia he was from, or what his name was.

Guy #118 wanted to be friends. I wanted to not think about telemarketing. He wanted a McCaviar. I wanted to eat my misery away.

A fourth date never materialized.

A few months ago Guy #118 got back in touch with me. He wanted to meet up again, only this time he suggested we’d get together and have fun on XTC and roofies. I guess he’d given up on friendship and gotten back to being his leather self again.

It’s not that I have anything against drugs, but I don’t think Guy #118 and I were ever meant to be on the same page together.

Like I said: A fourth date never materialized.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ±2 months
FORMAT: Sex date followed by failed attempt at friendship followed by failed attempt at sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Telemarketing <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.7

Guys #114, #115, #116 and #117 – The most dangerous drug of all…

Drugs will forever be a part of our lives, whether it’s nicotine, weed, alcohol, cocaine, XTC, roofies, poppers, ketamine, speed or the most dangerous drug of all: Intimacy.

The high Intimacy provides is unrivaled by any substance, but like all drugs, Intimacy is only fun by the token of its risk: Dosage is key and I for one suck at dosing Intimacy. Go easy on the Intimacy and you can’t help but crave a little extra. Go overboard and you OD on your own misery.
Added to this, Intimacy is the one drug you can’t dose by yourself. At the very least it requires two people to get it right. Achieving a successful high on Intimacy is like walking toward each other on a high wire and exchanging a hug without plunging to your death.

On the surface dating is about finding ways to fit genitals into other people and the gay scene is unbelievably facilitating in that respect. Scratch the surface however and you quickly find people hiding behind their genitals, people like Guy #114, #115, #116 and #117, people whose genitals led their tepid quest for Intimacy.

Guys #114 through #117 all had one thing in common: I had nothing to offer them except my body. It’s not that I didn’t like them or that I didn’t find them attractive. I simply had no Intimacy to give. Not everybody you meet is someone you want to cuddle on a high wire. At the same time everyone – and I do mean everyone – is constantly on alert for someone willing to do Intimacy together. We say we’re not in it for the feelings the same way people read Playboy for the articles: We lie.

The result is a scene where everybody tries to maintain his balance and when sex becomes a commodity, people tend to plummet.

Guy #114 was a kindergarten teacher. I taught him a lesson by laying him down on my countertop for a good five minutes. It was fun, but all the while I couldn’t help but imagine this slutty piece of human standing in front of a dozen toddlers singing songs about Old MacDonald and his farm. Sure, kindergarten teachers can be greedy bottoms as much as anyone, but I’m not the type who enjoys thinking about toddlers during sex.

Guy #115 was a reclusive Asian who for reasons I will never understand neglected to shave his armpits. They were sweaty and disgusting. He contacted me many times after our first and only date, but his armpits were sweaty and disgusting.

Guy #116 had a gorgeous body featuring an interesting skin condition. He assured me it wasn’t contagious, but I wasn’t quite comfortable going to fifth base with someone who needed Vaseline literally everywhere but his fifth base. Still, when his skin condition indeed turned out to be benign, I met up with him a few more times, until he became irritated I couldn’t meet up with him every week. Irritation soon led to anger, to which I tend not to respond.

Guy #117 was unremarkably cute. The sex was unremarkably pleasant. He wanted to meet up another time, but I deemed him too unremarkable. The end.

If Guys #114 through #117 would ever ask me why I held off on seeing them again, I would tell them I was just in it for the sex, but it would of course be a lie. I lie as often as I’m lied to. We all know we lie, but it’s not like we have a choice: Intimacy is a dangerous drug. We all crave it as much as we fear it and when we find it all the strength in the world isn’t enough to prevent us from getting addicted to it. I didn’t reject Guys #114 through #117 because the sex was bad or because there was anything fundamentally wrong with them. They simply couldn’t give me the high I was looking for and I let them plummet the moment I realized they looked for it in me.

I’m an addict, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in search of my fix. It’s what I do to people. It’s what people do to me. One day I might find an addict like me, someone equally bad at dosing Intimacy. It will be awesome, mind blowing, overwhelming and possibly life shattering.

I want it to be today, but I hope the day never comes.

“Ballad of the sad young men”

Sing a song of sad young men, glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again, kiss your dreams goodbye

All the sad young men, sitting in the bars
Knowing neon lights, and missing all the stars

All the sad young men, drifting through the town
Drinking up the night, trying not to drown

All the sad young men, singing in the cold
Trying to forget, that they’re growing old

All the sad young men, choking on their youth
Trying to be brave, running from the truth

Autumn turns the leaves to gold, slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old, that’s the cruelest part

All the sad young men, seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold, for just a little while

Tired little girl, does the best she can
Trying to be gay, for a sad young man

While a grimy moon, watches from above
All the sad young men, who play at making love

Misbegotten moon shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light guide them home again
All the sad, sad, sad, young men

(Frances Landesman)

Relationship summaries:

Guy #114
LENGTH: 15 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Darth Vader <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

GUY #115
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Jabba the Hut <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6.5

GUY #116
LENGTH: 2 months
FORMAT: Occasional bootie call on speed dial
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Yoda <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.2

GUY #117
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to George Lucas <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #113 – The one I told my mother about…

My mother and I never talked about my love life. We maintained a silently agreed upon don’t ask don’t tell policy, which meant I ran off every time the subject of love and sex appeared on the horizon.

Guy #113 would go down in history as the only Guy I ever told my mother about:
“Mom, I may have met someone who I guess you could maybe call my boyfriend,” I said one day, after which my mother gave me a nice warm hug and told me she was very happy for me. She looked relieved, possibly because the last time she saw her son find love was when I was dating Girl #1, some six years prior.

A few days after informing my mother of the wonderful news, Guy #113 broke up with me. I never told my mother. Rather I stopped mentioning my boyfriend, until she quietly understood he was not to be brought up in conversation ever again.

Guy #113 had been a nice surprise. We dated each other for a few weeks during the 2012 holiday season. Our first date consisted of a conversation that lasted twice as long as it felt. On our second date we just got high and ended up in bed together.
The two of us had a lot in common, our sense of humor, the way we looked at things and people and the fact we both agreed Annafrid was the better ABBA singer.

Yet even though our personalities matched, our lives didn’t. Guy #113 had a successful career, a nice Amsterdam apartment and his life was in order. I on the other hand was a struggling telemarketer that lived with his mother, incapable of planning more than a few days ahead.

Having never had a serious relationship with someone I never gave much thought to the concept. To me relationships were like Ebola: It only happened to other people. I had heard some Oprahesque clichés about getting your own stuff in order before committing to anyone or anything, but I had been so busy exploring my sexuality I neglected Oprah for the glory of my libido. I never even thought of committing myself to Guy #113. It was just good fun to experience true intimacy with someone for a change, to experience a relationship that didn’t end by putting my clothes back on.

What I considered a relationship probably was more of an escape. When I was with Guy #113 I didn’t have to think about telemarketing, what to do with my life or how to deal with my mother’s baldness. What I did focus on was how nice it was to wake up next to someone who’d make me breakfast in exchange for oral. Commitmentwise, that was as close as I’d ever gotten with someone.

Guy #113 had goals based on life. I had goals based on a lack thereof. A few weeks into our relationship he sat me down and told me things would not be working out between us. It hurt a little, but mostly because I knew my libido had to search for breakfast elsewhere. When Guy #113 broke up with me, I couldn’t help but agree with him. In fact, my primary concern was that I had just told my mother about him.

The word relationship can have many definitions. To me Guy #113 became a relationship the moment my mother learned of his existence. I suppose it´s safe to say Guy #113 didn’t use his mother as a measure of intimacy.

Of course Guy #113 agreed to remain friends and of course this friendship bled out faster than you can say Grindr.

I guess love, much like my mother´s cancer, struck a few years ahead of its time.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 weeks
FORMAT: Going steady but not that steady
SEX SCORE (0 = Making out with a stormtrooper <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.5

Guy #112 – Gayspeak.

Social awkwardness is like quicksand: The more you fight it, the more you drown.

I drowned the night I met and did Guy #112. I believe we both did, but I will never know for sure. Communication between Guy #112 and me was so bad I can’t even say if he loathed or loved me.

Our online conversation had been cold and curt, our language one of abbreviations:

– top/bot?
– vers
– u host?
– y
– stats
– 6’1” 155 7.5”
– nice!
– thnx
– 10 min
– k

When Guy #112 and I met up he turned out to be shy, very shy, like embryo at an abortion clinic-shy.

Gayspeak definitely has an Orwellian ring to it, the way it doesn’t allow for any feelings. Only when you meet someone in real life do you get to find out what kind of person hides behind the Gayspeak, which in this case turned out to be a socially phobic mute.

Guy #112 took my coat, sat me down on his couch and followed up on that by not saying anything.
The worst thing was he was visibly uncomfortable, his eyes constantly on the lookout for a place to rest, his body repeatedly changing posture and nothing but uneasiness spread on his face.
I didn’t know what to make of it: Was he mesmerized by my beauty or repulsed by my narcissism? I had no clue.
“So what kind of work do you do?” I asked.
Guy #112 seemed both relieved a conversation had started and at the same time distressed because he had to think of words to say.
“Bank,” was his answer.

It took Guy #112 another few seconds of everlasting silence before he leaned over and reached for my head with his lips. Not knowing what else to do I reached back. Our heads collided mid-couch. It was one of the worst kisses I ever had. His lips were void of any warmth, body or soul. The fact he kissed suggested he was into me. The way he kissed made me wonder he was straight.

The more we kissed, the more I felt the desire to move on, to do anything but linger in this perpetual gray area of consent. I guess undressing someone in a realm of ambiguity can be fun and exciting, but in this case the only thing I felt was Guy #112’s shyness and/or mortal fear: I might as well have been undressing a captured bird.

As Guy #112 and I celebrated our bond by exploring each other’s nakedness it amazed me how Gayspeak had been the prelude to a gathering such as ours. I imagine Guy #112 got to see as little of my personality as I did of his. All we did get to see were our bodies clumsily partnering up to create the act of sex.

I don’t remember how we ended, but it can’t have been climactic. To my recollection the word ‘Bank’ marked the last time Guy #112 and I spoke with each other. What I do remember is wanting to leave as quickly as I could, which I did. The fact I don’t remember any details is probably a testament to how awkward things had been.

The funny thing about Gayspeak is that you know for sure it will lead to sex, but never who you’ll be having it with. It’s literally a computer generated language programmed to facilitate horniness. Sometimes it’s a great way to make friends.

Other times it’s a great way to remind yourself it’s okay to stay inside and watch porn.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 20 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance on quicksand <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 2.5

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