Dating – Page 2

Guy #162 – The perfect relationship for when you don’t know how to have them…

I suppose Guy #162 was the perfect Guy in many ways. We never talked, we never committed, we never expected anything from each other, but each time we met we had the kind of sex that reminded me how fun living can be.

Guy #162 and I only spoke with each other the night we met. He was a gorgeous Colombian twink and I have blond hair and blue eyes. Gravity did the rest.
The conversation was mostly a formality, but it lasted a good hour nonetheless, probably because I felt shy in the presence of such a beautiful Guy. I guess I wanted to give him the impression I wasn’t just in it because of his looks, despite the fact I wanted him because of his looks.

Looks aside, Guy #162 was a very friendly person who spoke English as a second language. His English was better than my Spanish, but in terms of complexity our conversation could just as easily have taken place on Sesame Street.
He spoke a little about missing his Colombian family and even got a bit emotional when he opened up about the worst thing that had ever happened to him: the death of his dog. I had buried my mother a few years before and spent my days tending to my stepdad who was currently knocking on heaven’s door. I couldn’t care less about a dead dog, but I was affected by Guy #162’s sadness, plus I really wanted to get to the sex part we had both agreed upon the instant we first glanced at each other.

So I empathized and got physical, two things that are really just one and the same when it’s sex you’re after. The kissing soon followed.

I enjoyed having sex with Guy #162 and he enjoyed me in return. After we were done we each went our seperate ways, only to run into each other a few weeks later. This time we skipped the talking and went straight to lovemaking. It was even better than the first time.

For a while we would run into each other occasionally and each time we did we ended up having sex. It was the perfect relationship for someone who, like me, is very inept at having them. Our conversation never exceeded Cookie Monster’s vocabulary and we gorged on each other as if we were made of oatmeal. The great thing was that, in those gorging moments, Guy #162 and I completely understood each other. Whatever we were feeling – lust mostly – it was completely mutual.

Sex with a beautiful person, in all its simplicity, is nothing short of a treat. I dare say it’s the kind of treat every Guy is looking for when they go out hunting.

Whenever Guy #162 and I would run into each other, we both instantly knew something sexual would sprout from it. We never made any effort to meet. We just did, our local gay scene being small enough for us to bump into each other every so often.

After we bumped each other the fifth or sixth time, I decided to up the fun a little by giving Guy #162 my phone number.
“App me sometime,” I said.

I haven’t seen or heard from him since.

Guy #152 and #153 – Gay dating and the true meaning of the word ‘No’…

As is to be expected from a gay Guy over 30, rejection is an integral part of my daily routine. After all, most 20 year olds believe there was a time I roamed the Earth with dinosaurs.
I rarely initiate a conversation with anyone on Grindr, but when I do it’s usually with someone younger and in my opinion cuter than me. Sometimes I am successful. Other times not so much.

I do however maintain one very simple rejection policy: If a Guy ignores me or tells me he’s not into me, I will not hit up that same person again. Ever. I simply don’t enjoy rejection enough to make a habit of it, which is hard enough as it is when you’re a gay Guy over 30.

Equipped with a reasonably good looking body and a not at all unattractive face by dinosaur standards, I spend quite some time rejecting people as well. Most Guys that hit me up are old enough to have experienced the last ice age. Some are even over 40!

My policy for rejecting is akin to the one for rejection. When I have no interest in someone, I either ignore them completely or, if they’ve taken the effort to say something nice, I tell them politely, with a smiley to ease the pain. This too I do only once.

And that’s where things get interesting. And irritating.

For reasons I often wonder about the gay scene is riddled with Guys who don’t take No for an answer. In fact, it seems perfectly normal for people of all ages to keep sending me the same opening line, the same dick pic, the same ass pic and the same grainy face pic over and over and over again. My dating apps are filled with hundreds of unread messages.

It baffles me why someone would set himself up for rejection at regular intervals. No means no, does it not?

Well…

One night, as I was aching for some fun in a gay sauna, someone reached for my testicles. Up till that moment it had been a slow night for me. I had seen some Guys I fancied, but all of them had avoided me as one would a T-Rex. Still, the Guy currently grabbing my testicles was by no means the kind of prey I had given up my night’s sleep for, so I pushed his hand back the way it came and proceeded walking as if I had somewhere else to be.
To my annoyance, said testicle grabber went in pursuit of me and it wasn’t long before he started touching me again. When I turned around to say something about it I was greeted by a friendly, slightly desperate, but nevertheless inviting smile, and I started thinking: Maybe I should lower my ridiculously high standards. Maybe this Guy is the universe’s way of telling me I need to learn how to settle. Granted, the string of rejections that had preceded our encounter no doubt fueled my lenient attitude, as I empathized with this Guy and his not exactly pretty face but not at all half bad body that could have been less gross were it not for its random snippets of chest hair.

No one likes to reject someone. Rejecting the same person twice is even harder. And my ego wasn’t going strong that night.

So I listened to my frail ego, which I often mistake for the universe trying to tell me stuff. The Guy I had rejected before now became Guy #152. I don’t really remember what we did exactly, except that it was brief and heartless, and in many ways still a form of rejection. Afterward, Guy #152 asked for my phone number, to which I said I wasn’t sure if we’d be seeing each other again. He pointed out the odds of us seeing each other again would be bigger if he had my phone number. To settle the issue of us ever seeing each other again, I gave Guy #152 a kiss on the cheek and told him we’d let fate decide if and when we’d meet again. The universe hasn’t brought us together since.

Feeling regret over the fact I had committed pity sex because I once again mistook my ego for the universe I found myself in a steam room later that night, where Guy #153 came out of nowhere and pushed his penis into my mouth. I angrily pushed him away and turned my head down, a rejection as obvious as they come.
Still, Guy #153 was undeterred, almost as if he could see my insecurities and subsequent lack of defenses. As if me rejecting him hadn’t just happened he donaldtrumped his way to my lips once more and stuck his penis in between them with a sense of entitlement that would have gotten me mad on any other day, but when I looked up to take a look at the Guy I was now more or less giving it to, I saw that his face might have been somewhat attractive had it not been for his beard. Maybe the universe was talking to me again. After all, why else would I be aroused by Guy #153’s dominance?

The arousal lasted for about five seconds, after which I realized I was only susceptible to dominance because I so happened to lack a backbone. The very thing that turned me on I now resented, so I pushed back Guy #153 a second time and said: “You’re welcome,” referring to the 5 second blowjob I had just given him. Guy #153 laughed, this time accepting the rejection, and went on his way.

No means no, but a lot of gay Guys continue making endless efforts to turn a no into a yes of sorts. I guess it makes sense: When sex becomes a commodity, most people set up camp in the gray area, whether they’re rejected or the one doing the rejecting.

Counting on people’s lack of self esteem seems to be a genuine hunting strategy, online and elsewhere. That’s why I have hundreds of unread Grindr messages that keep piling up, because people anticipate the day my ego renders me defenseless.

Defenseless, or older than 40. Whichever comes first.

Guy #149 – The most forgettable of them all…

Do you really remember all the people you ever had sex with?

It’s a question I get asked a lot. While I try to be 100% sure this blog tells the story of every Guy I ever had sex with, I may have forgotten one or two of my dates over the years.

When I started 168guys.com I drew up a list of all the dates I could remember. That exercise joggled my memory and for a few months my daily routine would be routinely interrupted by the sudden memory flash of a Guy I had sex with once, which I would follow up on by assigning that Guy a number in the overall chronology of my sex life. The end result became an Excel sheet that powers this blog. Although one of my more recent dates, the memory of Guy #149 was one of the last to pop up in my head, one of the last to be added to said sheet.

That means I came very close to forgetting Guy #149 altogether.

Which means it’s not exactly easy writing the story of us two. I barely remember him as a person. I suppose the most memorable thing about Guy #149 was how forgettable he was. Of all my dates so far, he came closest to not becoming a memory.

I don’t mean to be derogative by the way. I’m sure there are Guys I dated who don’t remember me. When you live a life where sex is a commodity, forgetting about a person whose anus you inserted becomes as easy as forgetting what you had for dinner a week ago. This may be hard to grasp for people who never paid much attention to other people’s anuses, but those that do it on a daily basis will agree with me: The more sex you have, the more spectacular it has to be for it to become a memory.

So was there anything wrong with Guy #149?

Not at all. He was a very nice and reasonably cute Asian twink who lived in a crappy apartment with a very small bed. Him being from China or Vietnam or Thailand, we no doubt worked our way up to foreplay by talking about the strains and stresses of settling in an unknown country, the upside of living in a place where being gay is not an issue, the downside of missing a family that wouldn’t be entirely on board with the whole gay thing and then at some point the conversation must have dissolved into kissing somehow, probably because I initiated it. Mind you, aside from his tiny bed I don’t actually remember any of this happening, but I can only assume things went down this way.

The kissing flowed into sex on a bed clearly not designed to withstand any, but I can’t remember it bothering me much. Guy #149 was friendly, attractive and he had an anus. It was exactly what I had bargained for, nothing less, but nothing more either.

If you’re a Guy from Birma or Japan or South Korea who had sex with me not too long ago, someone with a small bed and a crappy apartment, please don’t take offense. The fact you’re forgettable says nothing about you and everything about the way I treat people.

Guy #149, if you’re reading this: Thank you for a lovely evening. If you ever ordered a pizza, you know that feeling you get after a hard day’s work, when you turn on the TV and let a slice go down on you as you numb off to reruns of Friends or How I met your mother or Family Guy. Life is good when you got pizza, but we don’t remember every pizza we’ve ever eaten. Guy #149, the fact you even made it to this blog is a testament to your cuteness.

Although truth be told I might have forgotten about you were it not for that tiny ass bed.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: One night
FORMAT: One night stand
SEX SCORE (0 = Microsoft Excel <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7,5

Guy #148 – Three out of three…

If planet Earth houses 7 billion people, it’s safe to say a few hundred million of those people are Guys who enjoy mating with other Guys.

On the other hand, of all the hundreds of millions of gay Guys this planet has to offer, frustratingly few of them set up camp on remote tropical paradises.

Life in the Caribbean was nice, but after spending a total of seven years under the sun I was drawn back to a gayer place: Home. I had spent some time in the Netherlands over the years, dating Guys here and there, but I had never settled there as a gay person. The last time I truly lived in my home country had been nearly ten years prior, around the time I ‘clumsied’ around with Guys #1 through #4.

So I moved back home and went online, only to discover something: Local gay scenes are often small, libido driven hamlets where everybody knows your name if not your selfie. Though known for its lustrous gay life, most people I met in Amsterdam were already a friend of a Facebook friend.

Guy #148 was no exception.

The first time I learned of Guy #148’s existence was when Guy #108 befriended me. Going over Guy #108’s wall I saw many pictures of him with two other guys. One of those Guys would later become Guy #130 and the other one was Guy #148.

So when Guy #148 and I got in touch online I already knew two of his best friends. That feeling people supposedly have when they get to yell Bingo, that’s the feeling I was chasing when I suggested the two of us meet up for a drink.

While I showed interest in Guy #148 during our date, I don’t remember a single thing we talked about. I do remember him showing some reluctance in getting physical. That worried me a little. If you’ve done two out three stooges it just seems silly to not get horizontal with the third.

So I got tactical.

I entertained my date by means of doing interesting conversation stuff, asking questions, making him feel at home, validated…until the time had come no more trains were leaving Amsterdam.
‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘we’ve been talking for so long, I lost track of time. I don’t mean to intrude, but I kind of need a place to sleep.’

And so Guy #148 offered me to spend the night in his bed, where we exchanged mildly satisfying sexual favors for about fifteen minutes before going to sleep.

Bingo. Three out of three.

Things weren’t exactly romantic when we woke up next morning. I saw little reason to continue treating Guy #148 as if I found him interesting, and on some level he must have felt he was no more than a score card.

We parted ways way before breakfast and never spoke to each other again. We didn’t even become Facebook friends.

It’s not that I didn’t find Guy #148 interesting. I remember he was. I know for a fact I really enjoyed our conversation. I just hadn’t flown back home to have a conversation. I had flown back to consume the gay scene I had left behind nearly ten years earlier. Guy #148 was simply the first familiar face on a long list of semi-familiar faces, friends of familiar faces and the occasional actual new face.

While I never considered my years in the Caribbean a waste of time, I was now ready to finally enjoy gay life to the full, which, considering I already had sex with 147 Guys, seems like a bit of a spoiled attitude, which it was, which is probably why Guy #148 didn’t bother to make me breakfast.

Come to think of it, ever since I moved back to the Netherlands I probably consumed more Guys than breakfasts.

At the time of Guy #148 I didn’t know it, but I still had so much to learn.

Lucky for me there are a few hundred million Gay guys on the planet.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: One night
FORMAT: One night stand, but mostly just a sleepover
SEX SCORE (0 = The concept of Facebook friends <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7

Guy #147 – Pretty woman…

I first saw Pretty Woman a full decade before I became sexually active. I particularly remember that scene where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts go down on a grand piano. Famously, this sex scene lacked any kissing, for Hollywood hookers don’t kiss on the mouth lest they get feelings.

Aged 13 and with no real interest in Julia Roberts, most of my empathy went toward the piano, yet I do remember getting Richard Gere’s frustration for not being allowed to kiss his mistress. I guess even at a young age I intuitively felt kissing is an integral part of sex.

Cut to me, some twenty years later:

I go on Grindr and find myself a twink less than 100 meters away. He says ‘Hi’ and follows up on that with an ass pic… As if I don’t know what ‘Hi’ means.

Proximity is a deciding factor in many gay relationships. This particular twink sends his location after I say ‘Hi’ back. Getting an ass pic-location combo from a cute twink within shouting distance doesn’t happen every day. Truth be told I’m not really in the mood for sex, but I’m even less in the mood for missing an opportunity to get any.

So when this twink asks for a picture of my penis, I send one, along with an extra body pic to sweeten the deal. He replies by giving me his address. I tell him I’ll be there in five minutes.

Three minutes later I find myself in Guy #147’s living room. He’s as cute as his selfie and I infer I’m no disappointment myself, as I’m shown the way to a bed. I make a clumsy attempt at small talk, asking my date what he does for a living. He answers by asking me to stay away from the window. Across the street is a department store Guy #147 happens to work at and he doesn’t want his colleagues to see him having a sex date.

Foregoing further attempts at being sociable I start touching Guy #147. He touches me back, so naturally I head inbound and kiss Guy #147 on the lips. He pulls back immediately.
“I don’t kiss,” Guy #147 tells me bluntly.
“Okay,” I say, trying to remain calm and cool, but I suppose I do a poor job hiding my disappointment. Sex without kissing is like a salad without dressing, a healthy disappointment that leaves you wanting more even after you’re done.

When someone sends you a picture of their naked ass, this generally means said person wants you to insert your penis into said ass. I always assumed that if you’re okay with the whole anal insertion thing, kissing is an integral part of the deal. After all, I use my penis to get intimate. It never occurred to me some people seek anal pleasure without exposing themselves to the affection that makes the whole exercise worthwhile to me.

Guy #147 and I have sex without kissing. I try to turn up the eroticism by moaning my way through it and by changing position every few minutes, acting as if someone is watching and I need to convince that person the two of us are having a good time. I am of course only trying to convince myself my date is not a complete waste of my time and energy. My gut wants to kiss Guy #147, establish the bond we have, but there’s no bond to celebrate. Proximity brought us together. Closeness not so much.

Having sex with Guy #147 is unfulfilling, hot as he is. Even though I get to own nearly every part of his body, I can’t help but feel rejected. As much of a willing bottom Guy #147 is, my ‘Pretty Woman’ comes off as a prude.

Conversely, I have no way of knowing if Guy #147 is having a good time. Without kissing, touching each other’s face and holding each other’s head our sex is almost entirely mechanical. Whatever feelings my date might have, I’m not privy to them.

About 15 minutes into our relationship I decide I’ve had enough and do the only sensible thing: Coming. I give Guy #147 a minute or so to do the same, but with no lip action at my disposal I feel completely inept and ‘disaroused’, a made-up word that perfectly sums up a made-up connection.

Guy #147 and I get dressed and I leave quickly. He will go on to hit me up online a couple of times over the next few years, and while I politely respond to his messages each time he does, I hold off on meeting up with him a second time.

Sex without kissing. It’s as frustrating as playing a grand piano with your butt. Richard Gere, Julia Roberts and Guy #147 taught me that.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 years and counting
FORMAT: One time sex date followed by highly intermittent online chats that don’t lead anywhere
SEX SCORE (0 = Making out with a grand piano <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 5.5

Guy #145 – Look at me not being shallow!

Sometimes I like to look at human beings as I imagine aliens would. Aliens, in my view, would be unable to rank us based on our attractiveness. Voluptuous lips, muscled legs, dark blue eyes, straight teeth, abs…all of it would look equally random when seen from hundreds of light years away.

The reason I try to take on an alien perspective is simple: I often wish I wasn’t as shallow as I am. I wish I could be happy with someone whose looks don’t turn me on. I wish I had it in me to not consider it a compromise.
In fairness, there have been times I enjoyed being intimate with someone I deemed of a lesser league, but always because I knew the fun would be temporary and wholly non committing.

How liberating it would be to view Guys as aliens would, ranking them on their merits and not their looks.

I guess my relationship with Guy #144 made me long for some liberty, which is why I attained an open mind the moment Guy #145 hit me up online.

Guy #145 was not at all unattractive by alien standards. Yet through my petty human eyes he looked like one of those people you just assume are good at math because why else would the universe have made them so dorky, clumsy and overall off the mark when it comes to outer beauty?
Guy #145 was the kind of Guy whose online attempts at starting a conversation would have been futile solely on account of his looks: I’m not on Grindr to make other people feel good about themselves. I’m there to make me feel good about myself. Entering a conversation with an unattractive person is something I consider a waste of time when it’s my genitals I’m trying to satisfy.

Then again, time is relative when light years are involved.

So for once I decided to empathize with this Guy #145 and his grainy, sad attempt of a selfie. I figured it must have taken at least some courage to hit me up, knowing all too well the odds of me replying were as slim as he should have been.
And so it happened Guy #145 and I became engaged in conversation. As is so often the case with unattractive people, he was good at having a conversation, putting in the effort hot Guys seldom do.
A few days later I found myself at his place, on his couch, holding a glass of water and observing him as he sat across from me. The thought of having sex with him made me queasy, yet at the same time I couldn’t help but like Guy #145. He had this inner calm over him I myself tend to lack. We spoke about spirituality for well over an hour and found we had a lot in common. Guy #145 was the kind of Guy who, like me, could empathize with aliens in aid of making himself a better person, something not at all common in the gay scene.

At some point during our date I flipped the switch and went into alien mode. I decided I would not let Guy #145’s greasy skin or nigh lack of upper lip turn me off, instead making a conscious effort to focus solely on his personality and the fact I was sharing a room with a wise, generous, friendly and by all galactic standards more than decent Homo sapiens.

I can’t say the sex was satisfying, but I did get to experience a sense of pride, patting myself on the back for not being shallow.
Being so immensely focused on my newfound character depths I neglected to note whether or not Guy #145 had any fun going down on me, but I reckon he did: He invited me over a second time mere days after our first date.

Our second date echoed our first: We talked about philosophy, spirituality, music, life, the shallowness of the gay scene…and then of course we had sex. Yet as much as I tried to look at Guy #145 as if I had traveled light years to be with him, the novelty of not being shallow had worn off. It had taken me one date to prove I have it in me to not be shallow. Now all I really wanted was to celebrate my layered personality with abs.

Long story shallow: After two fun, interesting and rewarding dates with Guy #145, I moved on to #146.

Spoiler alert: #146 had abs.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x 2.5 hours
FORMAT: Sex mixed with philosophical banter
SEX SCORE (0 = Platonic porn <–> 10 The best sex ever): 7.5

Guy #142 – The awkwardness of dating people the normal way…

Old fashioned as it may seem, sometimes you meet people you will have sex with on normal, everyday gatherings such as birthday parties.

Guy #142 and I met one night and ended up eating cake together, which somehow evolved into us exchanging phone numbers.

A few weeks later I found myself having sex with him on his kitchen floor.

The weird thing is, when you meet someone the normal way and then have sex with him, it’s almost as if it means something. If you prefer someone from real life over a stranger from Grindr, you’re inclined to take the other person seriously.

Though neither one of us felt any obligation, we did think of our little dating experiment in terms of the word relationship.

At least, I may have thought that’s what people do with people you meet the normal way, I’m not sure. In fact, I was never quite sure whether we were committing, casual or somehow both.

Guy #142 wasn’t really my kind of attractive. It meant that if I wanted to have something meaningful with him, I would have to make an effort. Had I met him through Grindr I would have dismissed him as just another sex date. Yet our sexual chemistry had evolved all by itself, the way nature intended it. It felt off dismissing something like that.

The two of us could have pleasant conversations, he made the best cocktails and he was someone I could cuddle up with at a time when I was in need of that. Yet the more I drank of his cocktails, the more I came to realize I was in no way willing to make the effort to truly open up to him.

Guy #142 became more distant as time progressed. I suppose he had taken note of how spoiled I can be toward people I don’t consider underwear models.

For a while after we dated Guy #142 wasn’t just my ex but also my hairdresser, which meant we kept seeing each other the normal way, restricting ourselves to normal stuff.

I always enjoyed it when Guy #142 cut my hair. It was intensely relaxing, even more so because he was the kind of hairdresser who explicitly preferred not to talk while he was working, meaning I got a soothing and conversationless head massage that turned me on each time I got one.

And each time Guy #142 cut my hair I would wonder if maybe the thought of having sex with me occurred to him as he was busy making me look prettier. To me, the arousal came as naturally as it had on his kitchen floor. I figured a barber having sex in his shop would make a good blog story one day, but to his credit Guy #142 stayed professional every time. I very much doubt his mind was on sex as much as it was on mine. I guess Guy #142 was way more accustomed to all the normal going on.

The reason he probably didn’t think of having sex with me might very well be that I was the kind of person unable to not think of it. Plus he viewed his job as a craft, an art form of sorts, not the kind of thing one sets the normal aside for.

Still, considering a hairdresser who talks is like a psychiatrist that touches you, it was awesome getting the silent treatment.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ± 1 year
FORMAT: Few weeks of dating followed by four or five haircuts
SEX SCORE (0 = A hairdresser that talks <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #140 and #141 – Letting go of the shallow…

The one thing I remember most from my dates with Guys #140 and #141 is the scenery.

For a while I had the pleasure of living in a house right next to the sea. It even had its own little private beach. The sea in question was the Caribbean Sea, meaning I lived next to what could have been the set for Finding Nemo. Basically, I woke up to the sight of the world’s most generic wallpaper every day.

Having dates in that environment can be fun, even if those dates themselves aren’t that attractive.

Guy #140 was an engineer from Colombia, over at my island to do some engineering stuff and to get off with the locals in his spare time. We sat on my beach, counted the number of ships we saw on the horizon, talked about the mysteries of the cosmos and our macabre interest in plane crashes. I actually had a great time with him as we pondered the final moments of Air France 447. It was awesome to go that deep with a stranger.

Yet as much as I dig deep, I consider looks important too. While it’s definitely hot to discuss the inner workings of a pitot tube with an engineer at night on your own private beach, this particular engineer had belly fat and chest hair.

Still, I found myself in a romantic setup in one of the most romantic places I had ever been, let alone lived. I believe it was me who initiated the first kiss, which ended in my bed somehow.

While Guy #140 surrendered himself to making love to me as passionately as engineers can manage, I couldn’t shake the thought of being in a plane crash. While I thought of it in terms of how lucky I am to be alive, it wasn’t the sort of motivational speech to get me in the mood. Added to that, said sex took place in my bedroom, where the sound of the ocean got replaced by the humming of the air conditioning.

Still, I didn’t feel regret afterward. In fact, part of me couldn’t deny part of me had enjoyed it. I guess sometimes it’s liberating to let go of the shallowness, uneasy as it may feel. If it hadn’t been for that generic wallpaper as my back yard, I probably would have rejected Guy #140.
So there you go. Scenery matters.

Testament to that fact was Guy #141, a tourist from France, also equipped with belly fat and chest hair, but also equally engaging. It actually thrilled me I was capable of maintaining a conversation in French for a full hour, covering topics such as terrorism, freedom of speech or the horror that is blue cheese.
Once again, it was me who initiated foreplay and although it’s never a good idea to have sex with the memory of blue cheese resurfacing as blue cheese would, part of me had nothing but a good time.

Before Guys #140 and #141 there had been Guy #139, the most beautiful Guy I ever shared a bed and a car with. He too had been at my beach. He only spoke Spanish, meaning my mind wasn’t on global warming or the Challenger disaster when I had sex with him.
Now, I had used my secret human powers to connect with someone on a meaningful level, in French even. The resulting sex was almost equally rewarding, even though I would have done Guy #139 over any engineer no matter what the scenery.

Guys #140 and #141 were both intelligent, friendly and charming people who came by to teach me a few simple yet powerful life lessons:

– Scenery matters.
– As do looks.
– And even brains in some cases.

It’s rewarding to let go of the shallow.
It’s also not easy.

Relationship summaries:

Guy #140:
LENGTH: 3 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Beauty and the Beast, when you stop to think about what it entails <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

Guy #141:
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Also, The Little Mermaid was a minor when she hooked up with Prince Eric <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.5

Do what I did. Start with Guy #1.

Guy #139 – So sometimes hot Guys are into me…

When I met Guy #22, he was the most beautiful Guy I’d ever been with.
When I met Guy #81, he was the most beautiful Guy I’d ever been with.
Until I met Guy #106, the most beautiful Guy I’ve ever been with.

Except for Guy #139 that is.

I don’t know what to tell about Guy #139 except for the fact he was the most beautiful Guy I have ever been with up till now. He was a Colombian tourist who visited my home island of Curaçao for a weekend. Although I hardly ever take initiative on Grindr, the sight of his abs compelled me to say ‘Hi’. I couldn’t imagine someone this undeniably gorgeous to take an interest in me, but much to my surprise he said ‘Ola’ back.

Guy #139 spoke Spanish. I did not.
I spoke English. Guy #139 did not.

So when I went to meet Guy #139 at his hotel, our only means of communicating was this phone app he had. I would say something in English and then some distant cousin of Siri would read my words back to him in Spanish and vice versa.

It was frustrating having to articulate and compress all my thoughts into childlike sentences, but at the same time I was probably blessed by our little language barrier: I was so in awe of Guy #139’s beauty I had trouble thinking of sensible things to say. Had we been granted a common language odds are I would have awkwardized our date beyond repair, as I so often do in the presence of beauty.

Guy #139 and I walked down a beach until we reached the outer edge of the hotel’s wifi network, where Spanish Siri rendered our conversation dead. Forced to head back, Guy #139 suggested we’d get together in my car.

And so Guy #139 and I had sex in my car in broad daylight on a parking lot where ‘hotel_guest’ got one bar, just enough to ask my Colombian twink underwear model to join me on the back seat. I usually don’t like car sex, but Guy #139 being so incredibly good looking my libido allowed me to let go of my inhibitions. I didn’t care whether we’d be seen, get caught or even disturbed.

What I did care about was whether or not I was enjoying Guy #139 to the full. Though I wholeheartedly embraced the Naughty, I really wanted to embrace Guy #139, something that proved difficult in a 1982 Mazda.

Earlier, Siri’s cousin had informed me my date would also be available later that night, for a full few hours, meaning I could pick him up, take him to my place, get high to the sound of the ocean, embrace the most beautiful Guy I ever had sex with and then drop him off again.
To increase my chances of seeing Guy #139 a second time I stopped when he started showing signs of coming. I wanted him close, but not over the edge just yet. Except for sexual chemistry there was no language in which I could adequately express how much I wanted him at my place later that night. But perhaps more importantly, I wanted something to look forward to as well. And in another stroke of pure luck, neither one of us had condoms at hand, meaning our car date would leave something to be desired no matter what.

I suppose it’s a good thing Guy #139 had no access to my thoughts.

I’d like to think of Guy #139 as a little present the universe threw in my path, just a quick reminder that yes, sometimes even beautiful Guys are attracted to me. This one in particular was all too eager to come to my place that night, where we got high and then had sex in which I embraced the living daylights out of him. We hugged a lot too. And then I dropped him off at his hotel, knowing all too well the chances of me ever owning Guy #139 again were slimmer than the plot of Jurassic Park actually happening.

In a way I was relieved I’d never be seeing Guy #139 again, beautiful as he was. I couldn’t help but feel I had enjoyed him to the full, meaning every other attempt at having a conversation would just be pushing it, not to mention make things awkward.

I’m pretty sure he’s the most beautiful thing ever to have found itself inside of that 1982 Mazda though.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 1 x 1 hour + 1 x 3 hours
FORMAT: Sex date + a better sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Philately <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9.9

Guy #138 – The hotness that is clinical depression…

A few years ago my father died. I never dealt with it very well. Sometimes I wonder if I myself want to live at all.

Those were the words Guy #138 spoke toward the end of our date, mere seconds before getting in his car and driving off.

More often than not, a sex date is the kind of thing you don’t want lasting too long. When the physical relationship has played its part, the usual lack of remaining chemistry makes you want to bail out, to get back to your own life, away from any naked strangers.
Guy #138 was a notable exception in that respect.

Sometimes clinical depression looks good on a Guy. Before he spoke of his suicidal tendencies Guy #138 had been another good looking human being that had Grindred his way to my back yard, where I had the pleasure of doing him for a good few minutes. It was fun, sure, but our relationship was expressed entirely in movements, cold, concise and deliberate movements typical of a sex date: The silent walk toward the spot we’d be having sex, the somewhat obligatory crotch grabbing, the three stages of foreplay (kissing, handwork and oral), followed by an uneasy intermission needed to get condom and lube in place, followed by doing that thing Guy #138 had in mind back when he said ‘Hi’ on Grindr.

Afterward, Guy #138 and I both lit up a cigarette as we walked back to his car. Our dialogue was brief and in many ways compulsory as our movements had been, yet a few sentences into our conversation he told me about the death of his father and his own subsequent depression.

Sometimes orgasms are but a prelude to social awkwardness and self pity, but I guess they also have a tendency to lower our defenses. Sometimes the relationship stops being one of movements after those movements have climaxed.
Suddenly, seconds before he would drive off, Guy #138 became interesting, his perpetual sadness adding a welcome dimension to his already well defined abs.

Guy #138 had somewhere else to be though. He never intended to spend more than 15 minutes with me. It was only in that final minute I became frustrated by the agreed upon format of our relationship. I wanted to know more of Guy #138. I wanted to hear his story, perhaps even cuddle up with him and let him ponder ways to kill himself.

For the record, I wasn’t being morbid. I was being empathetic.
Okay, I was being morbidly empathetic, but still, I wanted nothing more than to share my good intentions with Guy #138. More specifically, I had glimpsed someone I could connect with, which is what I have in mind each time I say ‘Hi’ on Grindr.

I accidentally ran into Guy #138 about a year later. Our date had taken place in obscurity. This time we met in a crowded and brightly lit place. Good intentions aside, I didn’t recognize Guy #138 when he stood before me and rather enthusiastically said ‘Hi’. He needed to remind me who he was. I tried to make up for my apparent ambivalence by texting him, asking if he would be willing to meet up with me again sometime.
I haven’t seen or heard from him since.

For what it’s worth, I hope Guy #138 is doing better these days, and I guess I would like to run into him again someday and actually be aware it is him. I’d like to know more than just his moves.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 15 minutes + 2 minute awkward encounter
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Clowns <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #136 and #137 – The ones who inspired this blog…

It’s not always easy not being the relationship type, especially when there are very few gay people around.

In fact, living on a small Caribbean island most of my Grindr conversations were with tourists and the occasional flight attendant. My window of opportunity for getting dates was often small. There have been many, many gorgeous Colombian Guys who dug my mirror selfies to the point they regretted not being able to leave their family to go hump me for a few hours. I regretted it too, and it wasn’t long before I became somewhat sexually frustrated.

So when I picked up Guy #136 from his hostel one night it was mostly because he was free and willing, not because his selfies had been stellar. We ended up having sex next to a pile of two-by-fours on an abandoned construction site with a view of the ocean. It was ridiculously bad, awkward and as a result even a tad gross. Guy #136 came off as a clumsy hump of nerves, part overly excited to have some fun, part hopelessly inept at doing so.

It felt off doing this primitive sex ritual with such premeditation and routine. Guy #136 and I both knew our relationship would be measured in minutes and that we should probably just ignore the other in case we’d ever pass each other on the street again (which is what I did when I ran into Guy #125 at the gym a few days ago).
Even though I wasn’t the relationship type, it had always been the connection with someone that made sex something worth chasing. It made me wonder what on Earth I had been chasing the moment I decided to pick up Guy #136.

The same question popped up in my head when I visited Guy #137 in his vacation bungalow a few sexually dry weeks later. Guy #137 matched #136 in clumsiness, but this time I realized it was me who was causing it. I remember feeling misplaced, simply because I wasn’t having any fun. I was living a sad derogative of an unrealistic fantasy. I halfheartedly forced myself to feign arousal so that Guy #137 might not notice how much of a disappointment he was to me, but I suppose I was unable to mask the disappointment I felt toward myself. I have no way of knowing what Guy #137 felt in my presence, but I’m pretty sure we both felt relief when I left. Our date had transpired quicker than a Judge Judy court session.

It reminded me of my first date with a Guy, nearly ten years prior. I remembered the excitement of getting my first kiss from someone, followed some Guys later by my first good kiss. The more sex you have, the more difficult it can become to experience the thrill of it. More and more it becomes a matter of who you do it with and when you lack suitable ‘who’s’, you go for cheap thrills, in the case of Guy #137 a bungalow bedspring that squeaked its way through our ten minute date as if it was the soundtrack to our relationship.

So what was it I was chasing? And why was there this Grindr to facilitate other people chasing it? Construction site sex with a stranger by its very nature is a compromise on many levels. Stranger yet, unless people generally have lower standards than I do (and I highly doubt that’s the case), a lot of us appease to our limited options by default. It’s as if many of us consider ourselves lucky to have weird sex at all.

How did that happen?

After I got home from my quickie with Guy #137 I got high and recalled the first time I had sex with someone. I was struck by how the excitement of my first date contrasted with the sheer ambivalence of my time with Guys like #136 or #137, or #134, #131 and #124 through #129, to name but a very few.

I wondered if perhaps the story of my often clumsy but occasionally spectacular sex life could be fun for people to read, perhaps even helpful. The internet has a lot of sex, but it does a poor job picturing the social maze that accompanies it.

The thought of writing about my sex life for the world to see brought back the excitement my date with Guy #1 had been about. As with then, part of me hesitated to move forward. Then again, what better way to give at least some meaning to dates like the ones with #136 and #137 than to have people laugh about them?

I started writing the day I met and said farewell to Guy #137.

Guess there was something worth chasing there after all.

Relationship summaries:

Guy #136:
LENGTH: 20 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Having to spell out your name to get a Starbucks coffee <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 2.5

Guy #137:
LENGTH: 8.25 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Making ‘Tall’ the new ‘Small’ <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 2

Get the full story. Start with Guy #1 here.

Guy #135 – The best sex ever…

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. 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.

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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.

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 #135 – The best sex. Yet.

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 (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.

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

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