Dating – Page 6

Guy #26 – Commitment is not a choice…

Gays and monogamy.

Sometimes it seems the two go together like alcohol and a hangover.

Commitment can be a wonderful thing, but it requires a lot of self esteem for it to be wonderful. I don’t think Guy #26 had a lot of that to go around.

I never met the other half of Guy #26, but he painted a picture of a possessive and belittling jerk who physically abused him sometimes.
‘Why do you stay with him?’ I asked. Guy #26 was unable to give me a clear answer.

I guess relationships can be like addictions. They can make you high at first, after which you forever ache to feel as high as you did that very first time.

Any addict will tell you the first high is always the best, though.

Guy #26 seemed very depressed because of his relationship. He knew he loved his boyfriend, but the reasons for this love had dissipated over the years. There probably never had been any real reasons to begin with, just a short spree of intense joy that disappeared the moment Guy #26 committed himself to feeling that high again.

In search of a surrogate he had uploaded a few selfies on Craigslist, where his path crossed with mine.

Apart from discovering my fist fitted into Guy #26’s anus this one time, the sex between us can best be described as lovingly pornographic, or maybe the word is simply passionate. Guy #26 wanted someone who could make him feel loved again. I was willing to give him that feeling on account of his lovable looks and equally attractive sweetness.

As time progressed we would spend less and less time in his house having sex, instead doing stuff such as walking through a park together, sitting on a bench and talking about life, love and what it’s like to be together and lonely at the same time.

Guy #26 had been very happy with his abusive boyfriend in the past. His relationship was now stuck in purgatory, his only solace being the fists of strangers.

Commitment can make you very lonely if done for the wrong reasons.

In countries where people are free to read this blog gay people live in a world where sex has become a product as accessible as a Big Mac.

Sex is not nearly as unhealthy as fast food and the experience will always be a little different. A lot of (gay) people fear commitment because they don’t want to miss out on experience.

The thing is, commitment is the experience. Much like being gay, commitment is not a choice. It flows naturally if you let it.

If you let it.

That’s the scary part. Commitment is not about holding on to something or someone. It’s about letting go and surrendering yourself to this thing called love.

Guy #26 was holding on, while he should have been letting go.

Letting go isn’t easy for anal people, though.

And something tells me Guy #26 was just that. Pretty darn anal.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ± 2 months
FORMAT: 5 secret sex dates that evolved into friendship, followed by passive Facebook friendship
SEX SCORE: (0 = Stuffing a turkey <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9

Guy #22 – My looks matter too…

It can’t be denied some of the guys you find on Craigslist are hot.

Guy #22 was one of those guys.

In fact, he was the hottest guy I had ever been with up till then. And I was already at a point where that meant something.

At first I considered myself lucky. What could possibly go wrong in the presence of sheer beauty?

Well, for starters it didn’t take me long to realize Guy #22 was hotter than I was. I couldn’t help but feel sorry he had to settle for me. I felt unworthy of the sex he agreed upon.

The sex was actually modestly spectacular, for me at least. I’m not sure if Guy #22 was having any fun. I don’t think he enjoyed me as much as I him.

As we were busy performing numerous pleasures on each other’s bodies I found myself constantly in awe of the body I was performing them on. I felt sorry for my own body in return. Guy #22 must have felt my inferiority. Even if he did find me attractive, my own shame must have masked most of what I had to offer.

We followed up the sex with a shower. Again, I was uncomfortable rubbing soap on something I considered too good to be mine. I literally didn’t know how to rub things the right way.

A few days after our 45 minute encounter I talked to Guy #22 on MSN, which people still used back then. I asked if he wanted us to meet up a second time.
‘Not really,’ he said. I was flattered by his honesty, but disappointed at the same time. I wondered if I would ever get another chance to be wanted by so much beauty again. Then again, I was never that wanted. I was granted, at best.

People with good therapists tend to believe looks don’t matter. I have a MSc. in Psychology and I think looks do matter. So either I’m a lousy therapist or looks are an important part of who we become in life. That’s not an ideology. It’s an observation.

Yet I also observed how looks are fluid, how they are mostly an extension of how you feel about yourself. I believe everybody looks as attractive as they feel.

Had I felt more attractive in the presence of Guy #22, he might have wanted me a second time. Still, him granting me access to his beauty made me feel more beautiful. I know, our personalities hardly played a role. At the time I was still caught up in discovering my own personality and lacked the mental capacity to really dive into the minds of people I met through Craigslist.

Had I met Guy #22 today I probably would have tried to get to know him. I would have allowed him to know me. And then the sex might have been really spectacular, and plentiful.
We could have granted each other much more than we did.

I wasted Guy #22 and quite a few hotties after him, simply by referring to them as hotties. Whenever I consider a guy a hottie it’s an expression of insecurities about my own looks. Those insecurities prevented a lot of pleasant sex from becoming phenomenal sex.

Whenever I think back about guys like Guy #22, I often wish I could see them again. I would love to have a conversation with Guy #22, find out what makes him tick.

Then again, his Craigslist ad at the time specifically stated he was an ‘athletic top in search of NSA fun’. He never wanted our relationship to last more than an hour.

Guys often make it difficult to find love in each other.
We’re like people that way.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 45 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE: (0 = Having ‘the Talk’ with your parents <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.2

Guy #21 – Looks matter…

There’s a big difference between a body and a face.

A body can be shaped. A human being can survive on blueberries, bananas, rice and oatmeal. Really, if you don’t mind bidding farewell to pasta and cramming out a hundred sit-ups every day, getting a nice body isn’t that big of an achievement.

A face however is pretty static. No amount of gym hours can change the way you look with your clothes on.

Of course, impulsive little me found that out the hard way.

You can guess where this is going.

Guy #21 had a gorgeous body. By the looks of his abs pasta was poison to him. I would have been attracted to him, were it not for the fact that his face appeared to have been drawn by Picasso.

Our paths had crossed on Craigslist, where his faceless body pic was somehow hot enough to make me want to see him. Heaven knows what the hell I was thinking.

I felt sorry for Guy #21. I’d like to believe we live in a world where everybody is equally beautiful on the outside, but the sad reality is that some people are objectively unattractive. Guy #21 probably read the disappointment in my eyes when we first met. I’m sure it was a look he had seen on other faces, perhaps even his own every time he passed a mirror.

Having been a virgin for the first 24 years of my life, I know what it’s like to go through life feeling ugly. For a long time I probably was unattractive. That’s the kind of energy I radiated. It’s the kind of energy Guy #21 radiated.

I had sex with him out of empathy.
It wasn’t great.

Yet it wasn’t awful either. And not just because of his abs. Guy #21 had a warm and loving personality, especially by Craigslist standards. And even though Craigslist was swarming with guys looking for quick fixes, it was obvious Guy #21 was looking for a connection, a bond with someone, something meaningful, however superficial.

Actually, over the years I’ve come to experience there’s no such thing as superficial sex. I just wasn’t aware of that during my date with Guy #21. Had I known Craigslist cashes in on our desire to be loved, I might have summoned up the honesty to tell him he wasn’t my type. I might have told him he should work on believing in his beauty instead of doing sit-ups to increase his sense of self worth.

A face may be static, but a brain isn’t. It took me 168 guys to appreciate how much my brain determines the way I look, 168 and counting.

I hope Guy #21 grew up to be as attractive as I am now.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: Two hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE: (0 = “I did not hit her. It’s not true. It’s bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not. Oh, hi Mark.” <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6

Guy #20 – Going supernova…

Guy #20 marked the first time I ever had sex in Canada. Toronto, to be precise.

All of my previous sexual experiences had taken place either in the closet or in a small country with only one gay club. Now I had arrived in a city big enough to have its very own gay village.

I spent the summer of 2009 in and around Downtown T.O., enjoying the thought of constantly being surrounded by millions, many of whom were gay guys.

It was a time of many firsts. Sexually speaking, I went supernova that summer.

For starters, the summer of 2009 introduced me to the world of Craigslist, where gay men gathered before the rise of Grindr:

“NSA blow”
“Looking for chubby bottoms”
“Reward for your dirt”
“Fun in your hotel room”
“Dad, I need a punishment”
Those were the kind of advertisements I shifted through in search of my Guy #20, who I first came to know as “Athletic Hot Bi Guy”.

Athletic Hot Bi Guy and I got in touch through Craigslist. We exchanged a few pictures, decided we were both doable and then set up a date at his place, a beautiful penthouse in Downtown Toronto overlooking the city skyline. The scenery might actually have been prettier than Guy #20 himself.

My first ever Craigslist date went like clockwork up until the moment I suddenly had to puke. And again. And again. And then once more. And a few more times after that. I lost count eventually.

I had never heard of roofies, or that people sometimes put roofies in other people’s drinks. I do remember thinking my wine had tasted funny that night.

It wasn’t until years after my date with Guy #20 that I finally realized he had pimped up my drink. At the time I figured I had drunk too much, even though one glass of alcohol had never made me sick before.

Apart from feeling unbelievably dizzy, weak and sick, I was very much ashamed of myself. No one likes to puke on a sex date. I was so busy being ashamed of constantly hovering my head above a toilet, I neglected to fully realize how calmly Guy #20 was taking all of it. He didn’t comfort me, nor did he get in any way upset or worried. He just kept sitting on his bed, athletic and hot, waiting for me to feel better.

Of course Guy #20 knew exactly what was going on. He was probably counting himself lucky I didn’t realize I had been such a good bottom because of a roofie.

Naturally, I wish it upon Guy #20 to end up in the Emergency Room with a vacuum cleaner stuck to his parts. The sad thing is he never even needed drugs to get me. Athletic Hot Bi Guy summed him up nicely. He was athletic and hot. That’s usually enough to get me high.

To my surprise, Guy #20 later contacted me to invite me a second time. At the time it highly surprised me all my puking hadn’t been a turn-off, but I guess in his mind it was a fair price for such a good bottom.
I however didn’t feel like being reminded of my shame, so I kindly ignored Guy #20’s invitation.

So, my first sexual experience in a big city ended in a modest drug overdose. Yet at the time I wasn’t aware of that. What impressed me most was how unworldly easy it was to obtain sex in a populated area. To me, Guy #20 marked the beginning of a new era: I had definitively left behind this shy, insecure and dorky figure who couldn’t get a girlfriend. That had been me, barely two years before.

After spending the night at Guy #20’s house, recuperating from what I still thought was bad alcohol, I walked down the streets of Toronto, feeling content and satisfied.

I knew I had a busy summer ahead of me.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: One night
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Windows Vista <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6.5

Guy #17 – Not perfect enough…

I visited a gay sauna recently.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept: A gay sauna is a facility where guys have sex with anonymous strangers in dimly lit conditions.

The first guy to hit on me was a chubby guy with a funny accent.
“Hi, you pretty boy,” he said as he sat down next to me and laid his arm around my neck.
“Thank you,” I said, as I pushed his arm back where it came from.
“Where you from?”
“I live in the Caribbean.”
“Ah, Asia.”
“Not quite.”
Silently, we sat next to each other for a moment. Not wanting to be impolite, I stretched our conversation somewhat: “Where are you from?”
“Eritrea.”
“Wow. What’s it like being gay over there?”
“I’m no gay. I have wife and kids. I’m bi.”
“So does your wife know you go to gay saunas?”
“No, she not know. I’m no gay. Only once a year I come here and fuck boy. You boy.”
I wished my Eritrean bisexual acquaintance good luck on his quest for a boy that was not me.

The second guy was clearly on drugs.
“Do you think my hair looks scruffy?” he asked.
“You mean curly?”
“No, I know it’s curly. It’s supposed to be curly. It just feels scruffy. Really scruffy.”
“I don’t think anyone will notice in this light.”
“How about my teeth?”
“What about your teeth?”
“Is there plaque on my teeth?”
The guy showed me his smoker’s teeth. I told him his teeth looked fine, though he reminded me I really ought to quit smoking.

The third guy had a job at airport security. He told me he sent off passengers for flight MH 17 last year, the one that got shot down over the Ukraine.
“There was this one man who arrived at the gate late, afraid he had missed his flight. I helped him get on board. I remember his relief for having made it.”
“It must be unreal to realize you saw so many people that were just hours away from their deaths.”
“Yes, it was. I needed some time to cope with it. So, are you a bottom?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant at this point.”

It’s nights like these that make me miss people like Guy #17.

Guy #17 could have been the real thing.

I believe every body goes through life aching for and because of that real thing. A gay sauna is a place where intimacy meets up with lust, the way a symphony orchestra could accompany a rock band. It’s a place where people can find love with minimal amounts of hurt. It’s also a place where people get high on poppers, XTC and roofies, or just plain weed in my case. I believe we take those drugs because they obliterate the hurt that comes with love, in each and every sense of the word.

Guy #17 was a nerd, living proof of the fact that the brain is by far the sexiest organ. Seriously, I get really turned on by a guy who can have a conversation about quantum physics during sex.
We ended up dating for a few months. I mostly remember how much I felt at home whenever we simply lay in bed together, against each other, not saying anything, exhausted from all the physics we’d done.

I think Guy #17 fell in love with me somewhat. I on the other hand wasn’t ready for that. I knew there was still so much I wanted to explore. If love were to find its way to me, I figured, it would have to be perfect in each and every way. And Guy #17 wasn’t perfect. For example, this one time he got a little drunk and I didn’t really like him that way.
So there was that.

Of course, the only place I ever met the perfect guy was at a gay sauna. And Guy #106 was only perfect because he never called me back, and because I was high at the time.

Guy #17 and I never broke up. We simply stopped seeing each other. I wasn’t ready to commit myself to someone with imperfections. The distance flowed naturally from there on out.

Still, in the dark corridors of a gay sauna, where complete strangers engage in a battle of lust, love, rejection and ostensible perfection, it’s easy to miss a guy who could explain relativity to me when it mattered the most: during sex.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 7 years and counting
FORMAT: A few months of dating, followed by friendship (mostly on Facebook) that lasts till this day
SEX SCORE (0 = A Twilight movie marathon <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.5

Guy #11 – The hunter…

The first and only time I drank so much alcohol it made me vomit was the night I kissed Guy #11. I don’t think he knew. The kissing happened after the vomiting, in case he’s reading this and wondering.

At the time I cruised our local gay scene on a weekly basis. It consisted of about thirty guys, a handful of women and one dress queen.

With ever increasing proficiency I was mastering the art of picking up total strangers for the purpose of having sex.
The local gay scene was small, but it wasn’t static. People would often pop in and out of the closet, so every Friday night I would see a few unfamiliar faces. Plus the gay scene expanded as time progressed.

Still, some nights were slower than others. This one in particular ended with me and a friend of mine leaning against the bar, staring at a depressingly empty dance floor. We had both come for the hunt but had failed to score some prey.

Perhaps I should apologize for initiating the first kiss, so shortly after I had vomited. Then again, if it wasn’t for all the alcohol, Guy #11 would never have gotten to have sex with me. I had become good at sensing when a guy was into me. It never crossed my mind Guy #11 would object the idea of us kissing. And he didn’t, because we ended up doing a whole lot more than just kissing. He should probably count himself lucky I vomited before and not during.

I never really intended to have sex with this friend. But after I had dropped him off at his house I had somehow found an excuse to park my car and somehow ended up on my friend’s porch, where I somehow ended up kissing him. I wasn’t really sure why I did that. I guess a hunter doesn’t like to go home empty handed.

Fortunately, Guy #11 and I pretty much shared the same sexual lifestyle at the time, so the one-time sex didn’t make things awkward between us.

Him reading about the vomiting might.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 7 years and counting
FORMAT: Friendship interspersed with one drunken instance of sex on a porch
SEX SCORE: (0 = Seeing ALIEN for the first time <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

Guy #10 – Why I’ve been such a bad kisser for so long…

Our lips are basically a part of our body that’s turned inside-out. That’s what makes kissing so intimate: It’s when our insides touch, connect and shake tongues.

In my experience it’s not uncommon for sex dates to not feature any kissing, for the same reason Julia Roberts refused to kiss Richard Gere throughout Pretty Woman: Kissing a complete stranger mimics the intimacy I believe all human beings both crave and fear. Kissing is a slippery slope.

Personally, I’m a big fan of kissing. Sex is infinitely better when lip-to-lip action is on the menu.

Except in the case of Guy #10.
Not all lips are created equal.

It would be unfair to say Guy #10 was a bad kisser. It’s just that his labial anatomy had completely failed him. That much became clear the moment our lips touched.

From a distance Guy #10’s lips appeared completely ordinary. Only upon first contact did I discover he lacked the capability to move his lips in any meaningful way. They were just there, stiff and motionless, tight and cold, lifeless and dry.

I’m not judging Guy #10. I for one have quite a few incurable genetic setbacks myself: I can’t blink my eyes separately, I can’t make my ears move, I can’t curl up my tongue, I can’t whistle, I can’t get my jaw to make that clicking sound, I can’t separate my ring finger from my middle finger like Dr. Spock. The list of my innate fallacies is endless.

However, lipwise I’m pretty well endowed and to me, kissing is a dichotomous variable. Either you kiss or you don’t.

Except of course in the case of Guy #10.

I imagine kissing a blow-up doll most closely resembles the touch of Guy #10’s lips. I could sense he was trying to keep up with mine, but he didn’t stand a chance. His lips were like a sphinx cat fencing off a T-Rex.
Guy #143 once told me I kiss too fiercely. I think my aggressive kissing philosophy has been a contributing factor in losing many guys over the years. Sometimes I wish I had known before Guy #143 straight out told me my kissing was a bit too much “in his face”. Guy #10 could have benefitted from that.

Apart from his lips being small and cold, perhaps the main reason Guy #10 couldn’t keep up was because he wasn’t looking for any intimacy. I was, even though I wasn’t aware of it at the time. The two of us got along really nicely, had done some pleasant conversational stuff and the sex just flowed naturally from thereon out. I must have felt some sort of connection. I kissed him to seal that connection. He kissed me because it was obligatory foreplay.

We didn’t kiss long. The rest of our date went like clockwork. It would be our only date, though. It was nice to regularly run into Guy #10 at our local gay bar for a while. We shared a nice memory but didn’t feel the need to expand on that. We had both erased ourselves from our to do-lists. I think I could have made him hungry for more if I hadn’t gorged on him so much. Then again, that’s why I wasn’t hungry for more in the first place.

Sadly, it would take me a very long time to realize not everyone likes to be kissed by a T-Rex.

I kissed too eagerly for years at an end. I never consciously entered the gay scene in search of love or something sappy. It took me years to finally learn it’s always been exactly that what’s driven me: Love, or something sappy. I must have unconsciously expressed that feeling in my kissing technique.

Unfortunately, Guy #10’s lips were the opposite of sappy.

I apologize for wreaking havoc on his inside-out.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ± 4 years
FORMAT: One-time sex date, followed by a few years of politely greeting each other at random encounters
SEX SCORE (0 = kissing a frog that doesn’t turn into a prince <–> 10 = the best sex ever): 6.5

Guy #9 – Hot guy. Disgusting roommate.

If you live near the equator and can’t afford a place with air conditioning, insects become like roommates. Guy #9 had one big fat disgusting roommate.

It’s not so much that the sex with Guy #9 was bad. It was the cockroach that kept crawling over his floor that kept me from really enjoying it. Privileged white guys such as me don’t like being confronted with poverty, especially not during sex.

For any Scandinavians out there, a cockroach is arguably evolution at its freakiest. They’re like miniature versions of that thing from ALIEN.

I dare anyone to keep up the sexual tension in the presence of a pulsating cockroach that may or may not fly, mere feet away. It can be done. It just requires a lot of concentration, perseverance and guts.

But most of all I felt pity as me and Guy #9 were having sex. He actually lives here! is what went through my mind. What I considered a dump was what Guy #9 referred to as ‘home’. It was his closet in each and every sense of the word.
I was uncomfortably humbled by the way my host did his best to make me feel at home, offering me a seat on his stretcher as if it was a chair. He must have known I was used to houses where the living room, bedroom, washroom and kitchen aren’t all the same tiny-ass room.

I felt nervous throughout our entire date. Afterward, he didn’t offer me to stay the night while I was glad he hadn’t asked me to. Looking back, I think Guy #9 and I came from two completely different worlds. In a way I appreciated how nothing but sexual chemistry had brought the two of us together.
But the experience must have been a bit surreal for the both of us. I guess we both felt alien.

I was most uncomfortable the moments I couldn’t see where that cockroach had gone. ALIEN was scary precisely because it got so little screen time. The cockroach followed a similar tactic.

Guy #9 was a very sweet, slightly timid and cute student. I have no idea what he studied, but he did strike me as ambitious. I hope life has given him the means to afford some decent IKEA. At least.

RELATIONSHIP SUMMARY:

LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = having to read about cockroaches <–> 10 = the best sex ever): 5

Guy #8 – Caught in translation…

The story of Guy #8 began when the two of us bumped into each other one night under the fluorescent light of a dirty washroom filled with penetrant club music and the sound of a guy peeing into a urinal that had somehow gotten stuffed with toilet paper.

Don’t expect a love story.

Our washroom hook-up wasn’t the first time we had seen each other. In the weeks leading up to our meeting I had caught Guy #8 staring at me while pretending not to. The washroom was simply the first time our personal spaces intertwined.
Knowing any obligatory chitchat would only postpone the thing we both so obviously wanted, we started kissing each other. The room must have been engulfed in the smell of pee that lay scattered on the floor. Fortunately, sexual arousal has a way of dampening reality.

It wasn’t until Guy #8 and I got back on the dance floor that I found out he spoke French and nothing but French. This would prove to be an obstacle in our relationship, as he labeled ‘us’ next morning when we woke up in his bed.

The sex had been lovely, intimate, passionate and fun. Sex without words is actually very enjoyable. The lack of a workable vocabulary forced us to go at it intuitively, like animals if you will. We had but our bodies to communicate with each other. That’s hot.

Yet in my mind I was convinced sex was the only thing I was after. Odd as it may sound, I still considered myself to be bisexual. My closeted self still envisioned me having a life with regular vaginal intercourse that would one day produce the offspring to make my mother oh so happy. Sex with a guy was one thing, but I couldn’t fathom being attached to one, certainly not one I had met in a washroom.

As it turned out Guy #8 was expecting a love story. He wanted me to be his copain.
“Mais je ne parle pas Français,” I countered. It’s pretty much the only French I know, but in this case I thought I had provided a solid argument for my case.

Regardless, my rejection must have gotten lost in translation, because it didn’t take long for Guy #8 to start calling me numerous times a day. The one time I did pick up he started being angry at me in French. Lacking any words to contribute, I simply hang up. I ignored Guy #8 for a full week, during which he continued sending me indecipherable French text messages and leaving missed calls.

Since the local gay scene counted less people than the island from LOST, Guy #8 and I ran into each other again the following Friday. I continued my previously successful tactic of completely ignoring my newly acquired stalker. This proved difficult, as he continuously stared at me like a Nazi from a Tarantino-movie.

When I had to go to the washroom he creepily followed me there, bringing us full circle. Once again we met in a place where there was no chance of escaping each other’s presence, or the smell of pee. To the best of my capabilities, I explained Guy #8 that I did not want to be his copain. I believe I came up with Je ne veux pas coucher avec toi, ce soir, ou any other soir.

Fortunately, most stalkers are weak like cactuses in the Arctic: They die from lack of attention. It wasn’t long before Guy #8 stopped calling me and started leaving me alone, although he would give a few angry stares every time we saw each other again, which was on most Friday nights.

Guy #8 was the first guy I ever topped. (If you don’t know what that means, you’re probably not gay.) I had enjoyed being the dominant factor in our short ‘relationship’. I had also learned that intense sex can be caused by intense people, such as French stalkers.

In terms of playing the field, Guy #8 was an easy kill. I knew he was into me. Plus he had major dependency issues as it turned out. He had given me a sense of power I had never felt before.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility.
Who would have thought the moral of a superhero movie applies to guys you meet in a public washroom?

Guy #8 taught me it does.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ± 1 year
FORMAT: One-time sex date, followed by two week stalking spree, followed by months of angry stares of ever decreasing intensity
SEX SCORE (0 = forever not knowing if Glenn from The Walking Dead is alive or not and 10 = the best sex ever): 8

Guy #7 – Like Oliver Twist at an all-you-can-eat buffet…

Imagine living in a country with only one gay nightclub, anonomously cornered between a gas station and the country’s only Pizza Hut. And you’re pretty much the only white guy there.
You’ll find that of all the people you meet, the vast majority wants to have sex with you.

To me this place was heaven.

After years and years of utter sexlessness I had finally landed in a spot where I was considered hot and doable.

I was like Oliver Twist at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The problem with all-you-can-eat buffets is that they can unleash one’s greediness. That in turn can lead to bad decision making, like that time I had sex with Guy #7.

When Guy #7 first came up to me, he laid his arm on my waist, pushed his body against mine and gave me one of the friendliest smiles I had seen that night. I remember he had somewhat of a nice body. And he acted nice. He made a point of constantly saying how attractive I was. It was nice to hear someone say it. I didn’t quite consider myself attractive yet, but it was comforting to know someone did.

As the night progressed I sucked up all of Guy #7’s compliments like an insatiable narcissist. My narcissism had unleashed my greediness. I was so flattered a total stranger had come up to me to ask for sex that I neglected to take a good look at this stranger’s face.

That happened the next day, when he came by my house to have the sex we had agreed upon the night before.

When I saw Guy #7 in the bright and unforgiving sunlight and without any alcohol to make him look less like a cartoon character, I realized that of all the guys I could have picked, I chose poorly. It was like accidentally picking something you don’t like at an eatfest establishment.

Any rational being would let a waiter take care of his rejects. But I was Oliver Twist, not known for ever turning down a meal.

Besides, if my sex life were a menu, I only considered Guy #7 an appetizer. It didn’t take long to work through it. We mostly just kissed, naked unfortunately. He was seemingly enjoying it and I was busy accepting the lesson I was being taught: That if I want sex to actually be enjoyable, I had to become picky in choosing guys I have sex with.

Guy#7 was nice enough to teach me what it’s like to get screwed by your own narcissism.

In that sense he had wetted my appetite.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ±4 years
FORMAT: One-time sex date, followed by running into each other every Friday night for a few years at an end, during which we always acted friendly and amicable to each other
SEX SCORE (0 = drinking a blue cheese smoothie and 10 = the best sex ever): 2

Guy #5 – Grabbing myself by the balls…

December 25, 2007 was the only Christmas I ever spent alone.

You see, after having sex with a lesbian and four guys I met over the phone, I got my MSc. in Psychology and moved from the Netherlands, Europe to Suriname, South America.

I went from slowly tentacling my sexuality in a safe and familiar environment to being a socially phobic recluse in what I still considered to be a banana republic.

Throwing myself into such a lonely adventure has proven to be one of the best decisions I ever made, though. It forced me to grab myself by the balls once again to get me to overcome my fears.

After spending a year in hiding I finally made the decision I needed to have sex again. After a full year without any sex my virginity started growing back on me.
However, anonymous phone dating services were not a thing in Suriname as they were back in the Netherlands. I had to think of something different, something more daring.

I had to go out.

Religiously determined to go home with a guy, I dragged myself to the country’s only gay night club. I went alone. It petrified me, to stand at a bar in a place with people, all of whom could watch me, observe me, judge me and make fun of how desperately I was trying to look attractive. I could actually see people watching me. In banana republics with only one gay nightclub, no new face goes unnoticed, especially not a white one. They say social phobia only plays out in your head, but in this case I just knew: These people are watching me.

I’ll admit I had some confidence issues at the time. I wasn’t even sure what I was really expecting to happen. How do hook-ups usually happen? How do people go from being total strangers to ending up in each other’s arms naked in the time span of just a few hours? I had no idea. But I did know one thing: I was going to go home with a guy. I just had to.

That was the night I met Guy #5.

When he walked in and saw me standing at the bar, he immediately walked up to me to say ‘hi’. His familiarity almost made me think we’d already met before, not at all unlikely in a country the size of Suriname. In fact, I even entered the conversation under the assumption I was talking to an acquaintance of sorts.

I would later find out Guy #5 has the innate quality to make others feel at home. By that time I had already decided the answer to the question Do I see myself doing do this guy tonight? was ‘yes’.

I don’t think I ever had a nightclub hook-up as smooth and easy as the one I had with Guy #5. One thing became clear right away: He wanted me and I was going to let him. I had a lot of fun going down that road together. It would be the first time I ever kissed a guy on a dance floor.

Apart from getting me back in touch with my sexuality, Guy #5 became a good friend who also got me in touch with other people. He gave me a social life in my new environment. Like I said, he’s good at making others feel at home. Sex with someone who makes you feel like that is never a bad thing.

Guy #5 taught me that.

Relationship summary:

Length: 7 years and counting
Format: On and off sex, followed by friendship that lasts till this day
Sex score (0 making out with an accordion and 10 being the best sex ever): 7,5

Girl #1 – The perfect daughter-in-law

Between the ages of 16 and 24, my life consisted of falling for girls I imagined could bear the grandchildren that would make my mother so happy. I got rejected every time. For some reason I always gravitated toward the friend zone as if it was a black hole from which there was no escape.

Except this one time.

I had already experimented with four different guys the month before. This had boosted my self esteem up to the point I was no longer afraid of people with vaginas. It was during this time that I met a girl at this improv class we both attended. We got to know each other and for the first time in my life, a girl didn’t show any interest in my friend zone. The three months I dated her were among the happiest of my life.

Finally, after 24 years, I was able to say I had a girlfriend. And not just anyone. This chick would have made the perfect daughter-in-law! She was funny, smart, sophisticated, witty, creative and independent. It’s not so much that I really wanted her to be the mother of my kids. I was simply thrilled by the fact I had managed to get the kind of girlfriend I had been picturing all those years. It was literally a dream come true.

Even the sex was good. It was intimate, passionate and very loving. And I turned out to be right about vaginas being way more comfortable than anuses. Though I can’t say I ever really got how a vagina works exactly. Of course I was immensely grateful I was finally allowed to come near one, but I could never quite figure out what makes it tick. I did my best and I believe I may have even been successful in some cases.

But I never fully allowed the female anatomy to get through to me. Whenever we had sex, there was a voice in my head that repeatedly said Look at me, I’m having straight sex! I’m actually doing IT with a girl. It created a distance between myself and the sex I was having. I guess on some level I already knew I had been chasing the wrong dream all those years. Girl #1 must have known it too, as she broke up with me after three months.

It was okay, though. For the first time I had met a girl that didn’t reject me. Looking back, that’s probably all I really wanted; someone to make me believe I’m not the Elephant Man. These days I’m thankful for every girl that ever turned me down. They were right to pull me into their friend zone, but at the time all those rejections were quite a burden to carry. Girl #1 shed me of it, at least for a while.

Of all the girlfriends I could have ever had, Girl #1 was probably the one I needed the most. She knew about my previous ‘experiments’ with guys. She probably also figured I was gay. She allowed me to gently let go of this heterosexual mirage I had been chasing for so long. Now, after 24 years, I had finally crossed it off my to do-list.

I guess Girl #1 gave me the confidence to start exploring more of the gay scene, weird as that may sound.

And while I can’t imagine ever having sex with a girl again, I’m glad to know what it’s like. If Girl #1 had allowed me to chase my dream of pleasing my mother with the announcement of her first grandchild, she would have made the straight lifestyle very, very bearable for me. At the time Girl #1 was the best sex I ever had.
Of course back then I didn’t know yet an anus can be comfy too if used properly.

I know for a fact I’m not the best sex Girl #1 has ever had. She’s been living together with her girlfriend for years now. I very much hope she’s a happy lesbian.

Thank you.

Relationship summary

Length: ± 3 Months
Format: Loving heterosexual relationship including meet-up with each other’s parents
Sex score (0 being the walk to Mordor and 10 being the best sex ever): 7

Guy #4 – Thirty seconds of horror…

If you start exploring the world of gay sex, you can’t avoid that moment when a guy starts taking an interest in your anus.

During my previous sexual escapades, I had managed to avoid any anal contact. Guy #4 however wanted to do that thing that gay sex is commonly known for. Even scarier, he wanted to do it to me.

The thing is, while I knew most gay guys like anal sex, the concept never played a role in my secret fantasies my ‘straight self’ felt guilty for having. For a long time I had convinced myself I couldn’t be gay because I had no interest in sodomy. Even in my gay head a vagina seemed way more comfortable, for everyone involved.

Yet I also knew I enjoyed exploring my own sexuality. At 24 years of age it was a much needed exercise. All in all I met four different guys through a paid phone service. The fourth one was by far the nicest, most honest and most experienced. He would be the one to finish this chapter and… well, take my virginity. For real.

Not to offend any gay rights movement, but unless you’re a turkey, an asshole is not made to insert things. It just isn’t. Just because you can, doesn’t mean that’s its function. As I was being definitively devirginilized, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could enjoy anal sex. I tried to ache my way through it for about half a minute and then suggested we’d retreat to doing other stuff.

Guy #4 didn’t mind. And apart from those thirty seconds of horror I actually had a really good time with him. He would become the first person I ever spent a night with.

In retrospect, spending the night with someone was much more relevant than those thirty seconds. Still, for the first time I found myself empathizing with people who consider anal sex a good idea. To inflict joy and pain simultaneously creates an extremely intimate tension. And seeing as relationships are basically about inflicting joy and pain, it did seem natural something like that is reflected in the sex.
But I guess I wasn’t ready to embrace any of that, not yet anyway.

Next morning my sex date woke me up by putting his arm around me. I had never woken up like that, so at first I was surprised, followed by pleasantly surprised. It was nice to be awakened by such a nice gesture.
Guy #4 didn’t rank too high on attractiveness. Nevertheless he was the best sex I had ever had, up till then that is.
Unlike my previous guys, Guy #4 was out of the closet. He seemed okay with being gay. That sense of comfort must have reflected itself in the sex, save for those thirty seconds of course.

But I did feel conflicted. In my head I was still just a bicurious guy doing other guys to get at least some sex. It was supposed to be just about sex, not intimacy. I couldn’t get myself to like the fact I was liking this so much.

Also, as we woke up together Guy #4 told me he had completely fallen in love with me. He said it kiddingly, or at least I think he did. I honestly don’t remember how I reacted, but I imagine it must have been distant. His use of the word ‘love’ was probably the main reason I didn’t see him ever again.
That’s a shame, because Guy #4 had just given me the biggest compliment anyone had ever given me, not to mention the best sex I had ever had. I should have given him credit for that.

Thank you, Guy #4.

Relationship summary

Length: ± 10 hours
Format: A loving sex date
Sex score: (0 being an Oprah moment and 10 being the best sex ever): 5

Guy #3 – In the Oval Office…

When a guy is in a committed relationship with a woman and has sex with another guy on the side, a bedroom becomes a crime scene.

Guy #3 cheated on his girlfriend, with me, in her house and on her bed. I was nervous due to my relative sexual inexperience. Guy #3 was nervous for fear of his girlfriend showing up. He constantly checked his phone. He would freeze every time he heard a noise coming from outside. I could see he was trying to enjoy sex, but his mind was preoccupied with consequences of getting caught.

To Guy #3, it must have been like having sex in the Oval Office.

Still, I wasn’t complaining. Guy #3 was the first guy I found myself somewhat attracted to. He looked like a metrosexual hooligan, if ever there was such a thing. He was manly, simpleminded to the point of stupidity, but he obviously took good care of himself and his body.

He had made the effort to spice up the bedroom with candlelight and music. He even threw a bit of hot wax over my body at one point. It instantly taught me SM is not my thing, but I was glad to add something to my short list of experiences, even hot wax that got impractically messy once it cooled down.
Everything indicated that Guy #3 wanted to enjoy having sex with me. It was a pity he couldn’t allow himself to.

Guy #3 asked me if I liked doing poppers. I had never done poppers before. In fact, at the time I didn’t even know whether poppers were something people smoke, eat or inject.
‘Poppers aren’t really my thing,’ I said, pretending to know what I was talking about.
‘Do you mind if I have some?’ Guy #3 asked.
‘Not at all,’ I said, all too eager to find out what poppers really were.

The reason Guy #3 did poppers soon became apparent, though. To him, it was an amnesiac: Each and every time he vigorously sniffed the contents of this small flask, filling the room with the invasive smell of a freshly cleaned public washroom, Guy #3 forgot about his girlfriend for a good 30 seconds. It was during those 30 seconds that our sex was somewhat hot, save for the air of chemically induced arousal.

After we were finished, Guy #3 did his best to erase all hints of my presence. The sheets were sprayed with air freshener, the floor was meticulously checked for any ‘foreign’ objects, candles were blown out and put back in storage. What struck me was the eagerness Guy #3 had to clean everything up. The thought of his girlfriend must have really scared him.

Guy #3 and I ended up seeing each other on two occasions. Our second date got cut short because a certain girlfriend was about to come home unexpectedly. I guess I should consider myself lucky I was given time to put on my clothes before Guy #3 frantically showed me the door.

Guy #3 did ask me to come over a third time. I didn’t. I felt sorry for Guy #3 and his girlfriend. Although I was exploring the world of gay sex, I still considered myself to be a bicurious straight guy who couldn’t get himself a girlfriend. I wondered what I would be like in a relationship with a girl in terms of fidelity, if I would be anything like Guy #3, leading a closeted double life. To me, it seemed like a lonely prospect.

On the plus side, I finally got to learn what poppers are.

I have Guy #3 to thank for that.

Relationship summary:

Length: 1 x 30 minutes + 1 x 13 minutes and 23 seconds
Format: Sex date
Sex score (0 being phoned by a telemarketer during dinner and 10 being the best sex ever): 3.5

Guy #2 – A much needed shower…

If there’s one thing that sets humans apart from animals, it’s post-orgasmic guilt.

It’s that moment one sobers up in the time span of literally no more than a few heartbeats, when you realize Kleenex can wipe anything but the shame off your body.

You see, when you anonymously meet a guy through a paid phone service and subsequently have sex with a complete stranger once, it’s easy to do it twice.

The act of sex was still mostly a mystery to me, but the act of meeting up a total stranger for the explicit purpose of having sex already felt strangely habitual. It had been about a week since I lost a decent chunk of my virginity. I was proud of having some sexual experience to speak of. That pride must have inspired me to hook up with yet another guy, another unknown whose voice I had heard on a phone box.

I reckon it must sound like a sad concept: Back in 2006 and perhaps still today, thousands of guys look for sex over the phone. It’s the perfect medium to hide yourself. I was hiding too. My first steps into active homosexuality were not something I would tell my mother about. I had confided my one sexual escapade in a few close friends, but to the rest of the world I was still a heterosexual virgin in search of a girl friend.
Phone lines were the perfect tool for closet cases such as myself, and Guy #2.

Guy #2 claimed to be a straight guy who simply wanted to experiment. I advertized myself like that as well. As if to make a point of his heterosexuality, Guy #2 had put up straight porn on his television, no doubt in an attempt to throw a little eroticism into the equation. The porn somehow added to the overall feeling of sadness I was having.

Things started getting a bit weird when I found out that, between Guy #2 and me, I had the most experience. I had kissed a naked guy the week before. Guy #2 claimed to have no sexual experience whatsoever, which I suppose made me the ranking officer on deck.

Needless to say, sex between two people who know so little of each other, so little of themselves and even less of sex itself is pitiful. It was about as coherent as Ashley Simpson lip syncing her way through Saturday Night Live, that’s how inept we both were. It didn’t help I wasn’t at all attracted to Guy #2. The only reason I was doing this awkward routine called sex was the fact I hadn’t had any sex for the first 24 years of my life. I figured I had to start somewhere.

The guy’s name was the same as my dad’s, by the way. It made not thinking of my father difficult. That little hint of incest distracted me more than the straight porn in the background.

It wasn’t long before I just wanted to go home again, to take a shower. My previous sexual encounter had already taught me there’s an easy way to end a gay date quickly: Coming.

Coming can come at a price, though, and that price is post-orgasmic guilt.
Me and Guy #2 both felt it.
‘I think I will like girls better,’ was the first thing Guy #2 said after reaching for his Kleenex. I couldn’t care enough about his thoughts to be offended.

I imagine most people know what it’s like to have sex that’s regrettable. I reckon it happens because it’s deceptively easy to lose your sense of worth sometimes. My sense of worth wasn’t in great shape, in large part on account of my near everlasting virginity.

Everything has to start somewhere, or so I figured, foregoing the fact that Guy #2 and I had nothing in common, except for our loneliness and confusion perhaps.

However, I had noticed how Guy #2 had complimented my looks, just like Guy #1 the week before. Sure, it’s the easiest compliment to give on a sex date, but I got the impression they both meant it. Even though the shower was long and cathartic when I got home, I did feel more attractive than usual.
Feeling attractive proved good for my sense of worthiness.

Guy #2 and I did not stay in touch. I guess we both reminded each other too much of our post-orgasmic guilt. It happens on sex dates. If you try something intimate with someone you have absolutely no connection with on any meaningful level, it’s impossible to not feel awkward about it afterward.

Yet somehow, after that much needed shower, I felt more attractive than I had in a long, long time.

I have Guy #2 to thank for that.

Relationship summary

Length: 20 minutes
Format: Introduction to sex
Sex score (0 being groped by a Muppet and 10 being the best sex ever): 1

Guy #1 – If the shoe fits…

The first one is always special, as special as it can be disappointing.

One might say I did Guy #1 out of despair. That’s never a solid ground for any relationship, however casual. But at the time I was already 24 and still a virgin. I avoided seeing The 40 year old virgin because I was afraid it would be too confronting. I was simply very ready to know what having sex was like. That’s why I was willing to compromise.

The reason for my inexperience was ostensibly simple: I had spent years falling hopelessly in love with girls that looked just above average, who grew to like me as a friend and ended up confiding their love life in me, because they so much enjoyed the lack of any sexual energy between us. Those were the kind of girls I envisioned myself with, married, with children, a loving family that goes on holidays together, watches plays, goes to museums and in which I would have heterosexual sex. That’s the kind of dream I was chasing.

It took some years for me to finally realize, accept and embrace the fact that I am in fact gay. Actually, by the time I was on my way to see Guy #1 I convinced myself I was merely being bicurious, having my first sexual experience at age 24. I mean, who wouldn’t try it with a guy by then? For me it was either this or a rubber doll.

The year was 2006. The internet had arrived, but I was too afraid to advertize my sexual quest online, alerting the world of my bicuriosity.
Instead, I assumed a pseudonym and paid fifty Euro cents per minute to listen to voice messages of horny guys. I ended up texting quite a lot with different guys and after a while I had summoned up the courage to go all the way and try to meet up with one.

I had to spend an hour in a train to get to my date. It was a very philosophical journey for me. I was shaking from anxiety and excitement at the same time. I enjoyed how the people sitting around me had no idea who they were facing: Someone who was about to lose his virginity. I couldn’t help but feel proud of what I was doing.

Of course, someone you meet over the phone seldom looks like anything you had in mind. In my case, the disappointment started the moment my date opened his door to greet me: Was I willing to lose my virginity to this unshaven, sweaty and slightly chubby Guy #1?
I quickly noticed something, though: Me and Guy #1 were wearing the exact same pair of shoes. Never before and never since have I ever encountered someone with identical shoes. I guess I felt our sneakers connected the two of us somehow. Perhaps I needed to have sex with an unshaven, sweaty and slightly chubby guy who looks a lot older than he says he is because that’s how I had come to see myself over the years, after a seemingly endless stream of rejections from girls that appreciated my friendship so much. Guy #1 was a reflection of my subconscious.

His apartment was depressingly neat and unimaginative. The view was that of other apartments staring right back at me.
He offered me something to drink. Half a minute later we sat down on his bed and talked. My glass of water was the only thing standing between us and sex. As I drank I spoke of my situation. I explained Guy #1 that this would be my first time with a guy. I said I wanted to explore, not realizing what a sad cliché I was being.

Throughout our date the disappointments kept on coming. His accent was weird and unsexy. I could see he had a lot of chest hair, even though he had texted me otherwise. His breath was slightly bad. He was nothing like any of the guys from my very secret fantasies.
Only the shoes matched. So after finishing my drink I simply asked: ‘How do we do this thing?’

That’s when I received my first kiss. It was one of the most conscious experiences I ever had. Finally, after years and years of wondering if something might be very wrong with me, this guy put his sweaty arms around me, during which he revealed his arm pits were as hairy as the rest, only with longer hair. His rugged cheeks wreaked havoc on mine. The kissing lasted a good 45 minutes. Then we undressed each other. He seemed really into me, but I figured he could easily be pretending, just as I was. I behaved under the assumption the two of us were doing each other a favor by pretending the sex to be extraordinary. It was in fact, just not in a good way.

I had already seen a bit of gay porn here and there, but I knew Guy #1 and I would not be doing any of that stuff. Instead, I finished off by saying I was ready to come, which we then did.

Afterward, I was mostly glad it was over. I was happy to say I was not totally a virgin anymore. That and the fact it was over. Guy #1 offered me another drink. I really wanted to leave, but I asked for another glass of water out of politeness. I didn’t know yet it’s okay for sex dates to be heartless.

As I drank my second glass of water, after the two of us had already put our clothes back on, we talked some more. I’d be lying if I said I remember anything about his life. All I remember are his shoes. It’s probably better that way.

Before I left, Guy #1 said I was always welcome to contact him in case I ever felt like talking to someone about anything. I thought that was very sweet of him. I knew I had no intention of ever meeting or interacting with him ever again, but I genuinely thanked him for his offer.
I felt his loneliness when I left. My guess is he had felt mine too.

The train ride home was equally spiritual. My cheeks hurt like hell, but that didn’t stop me from feeling good about myself for having accomplished my mission of having sex. I wasn’t going to become a 40 year old virgin.

I have Guy #1 to thank for that.

Relationship summary

Length: 1 hour
Format: Introduction to sex
Sex score (0 being a date with Darth Vader and 10 being the best sex ever): 1.5