Insecurity

Guy #164 – Attractiveness means nothing. And everything.

Here’s the thing with being attractive: It doesn’t really mean anything. And it means everything.

Attractiveness is a conflict in and of itself.

In many ways I feel I’ve been blessed with my looks, as I generally receive decent amounts of attention from Guys.

At the same time I get rejected all the time. While it’s impossible to dive into the mind of others to acquire their perspective on me, the general assumption is that people who reject me do so because they don’t find me attractive enough to have sex with.

So whenever I go to a place where my merit is measured by my looks I’m a walking conflict, blessed with attention and burdened with the few I don’t get it from.

I should add that, even though I’m a hunter, I am unbelievably bad at picking up Guys. I try to be smooth about it, hitting up Guys as if I’m Joey from FRIENDS. But no matter how hard I try to be a Joey, a Ross or even a Chandler, I always end up a Gunther somehow.

The result is that I mostly depend on people hitting on me to get laid.

And I don’t get hit on very often.

Being a hunter who’s barely hunted himself, I sometimes go through endless nights of futile attempts to get intimate with someone. Sometimes I go for hours without a successful hook-up. Attractiveness means nothing, but after hours of nothingness I generally start to question my looks, thinking that maybe I’ve been overrating myself all these years, that Guys have sex with me out of pity as often as I have pity sex with them. The more unattractive I feel, the more important a feature it becomes.

So when Guy #164 started chasing me down our little gay sauna maze I was at first relieved. Then I took a look at him. Attractiveness means nothing, but it also means everything. In the case of Guy #164 I considered him unattractive enough to reject. Having sex with him, I figured, would only help to lower my market value even more. Even less than wanting to have sex with him, I didn’t want other people to see me having sex with him. Allowing Guy #164 to go down on me would be like having a white trash family exchange their trailer for a mansion. Guy #164 would be the Trump to my White House.

When Guy #164 first reached for my testicles I pushed his hands back and walked away. Guy #164 however persisted, following me and trying to push me against a wall several times. I hated him for it, but at the same time I couldn’t help but enjoy that feeling of being wanted. Gunther doesn’t get to feel like that very often.

So I took a closer look at Guy #164 and decided that, although I don’t have a thing for Guys with beards, at least this beard was kind enough to cover his face.

Guy #164 and I had sex for about ten minutes. He seemed to be enjoying it. I enjoyed the fact at least one person found me attractive.

“Can I have your phone number?” Guy #164 asked me when I interrupted the sex for the sake of not having it anymore.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Please, you’re so beautiful.”
Even though I felt I was way above Guy #164’s league, he was the only one that night to tell me I was pretty. It felt good to hear, while at the same time I resented the compliment for coming from a Guy I couldn’t give it to in return.
“We’ll let fate decide if we ever meet again,” I said, the second time I used that line to distance myself from someone without it having to be a cold hearted rejection.

I walked out on Guy #164, took a shower, and went home quickly.

When I started writing about every Guy I ever had sex with I was very much under the impression love and sex are inseparable. Even Guys that cruise, Guys who frequent places so dark rejection and passion are evenly secluded from the outside, Guys who spend their weekends doing drugs and hunting for mating partners, are in it for love, even if they say it’s just sex.
“Every Guy you see here is looking for love,” I once proclaimed to Guy #168 when I ran into him at the same sauna I met #164.
“Every Guy you see here is looking to love himself,” Guy #168 reasoned, a small but probably just distinction.

I never had sex with Guy #164 because I wanted to love him. Instead, he allowed me to love myself a little. And then, being the wonderful Guy that I am, I resented him for it and walked out on him.

Attractiveness means nothing. And everything.

Guy #163 – Being a dominant kiss-ass…

Being a psychologist who spends a lot of time in places where gays get naked, I see insecurity the way that kid from The Sixth Sense sees dead people: Insecurity is everywhere. It doesn’t know it’s insecure, although in the end it kind of does and for some reason I feel it’s my duty to help those with insecurities face their issues so they may overcome them and move on.

I like saying nice things to people. Sure I do it because I want them to like me, but mostly it’s a conscious effort to let people know that insecurities are like birth marks in the sense that everybody has them in places we don’t want them.

In short, I love making Guys with abs feel good about themselves.

Guy #163 had terrific abs. In fact, his entire body was more than could be summed up in one compliment. Also, I quickly noticed how Guy #163 felt insecure about himself. We met up at his place, where the air of arousal got perturbed by his constant restlessness. I offered him a few sips of a joint I had brought, but as it turns out people with ADHD become more like people with ADHD when they slow their brains down. The weed rendered Guy #163 unable to sit still for more than a few seconds.

Although I was in the mood for some conversation as a means to make the sex more interesting, Guy #163 and I soon got physical. I suppose it was the most sensible thing to do. Guy #163 clearly lacked the inner calm to carry a conversation and I was too high to carry it for the both of us.
During sex, Guy #163 remained somewhat frantic, occasionally checking if everything was in place. The only moment I could focus on our sex was when I positioned myself as the dominant factor in our little one-night stand. It was in that moment Guy #163 managed to let go a little and ride his high the way it was intended.

The thing is, I only like being dominant when the other Guy fights it, not when it’s blithely accepted. Being dominant with someone who immediately allows you to is akin to the bad Guy dying at the start of a movie or starting sex with an orgasm: It puts the reward before the effort.

So I did what I figured was the right thing: I started giving compliments, hoping to put Guy #163 at ease and only as I write this down do I realize how odd it must have been for him to be dominated by a kiss-ass.

I praised Guy #163 for his body and hotness. I told him I’d wanted him the moment I first laid eyes on him.

It wasn’t long before the sex was over.

I however wasn’t done upping my date’s ego. Even as he secluded himself to his bathroom to take a shower did I practically yell at him, letting him know how gorgeous he was.

“You should really stop saying how beautiful I am all the time,” Guy #163 said as he returned from his shower.
“Why?” I asked surprised. I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to receive a compliment. I love it when someone tells me I’m beautiful. How could anyone not?
“It takes away the tension,” Guy #163 said.

Oddly enough, I was both surprised and empathetic. Sex without tension indeed is like Will & Grace without Jack & Karen, but do we really need insecurites to create that tension? Do we need doubt to make sex interesting? Guy #163, despite his insecurities, seemed absolutely certain that we do.

I was reluctant to accept the fact my kind words were not well received. At the same time I couldn’t help but agree with Guy #163: Repeatedly saying how beautiful he was didn’t appear to make him feel more beautiful, at least not in the way he wanted to be beautiful.

I guess compliments are like orgasms: They’re more rewarding the harder you work for them. Silly me handing out orgasms for free.

Guy #163 and I would occasionally run into each other after our date, but sex between the two of us never again materialized, nor do I think either one of us wanted it to. My dominant self had killed all the tension by being a kiss-ass.

Shame, because Guy #163 had the most amazing abs.

Guy #150 and #151 – Adam and Steve and some Guy they met on Grindr…

Put simply, the concept of threesomes tends to warp common boundaries people might have for what they consider normal, acceptable or decent. This is true for people who shy away from threesomes as much as it holds up for those that engage in them.

You can’t enjoy a threesome if you’re not sexually confident.

This makes threesomes a bit of a risky game. When there’s two of you, you can focus all your energy on making the other person at ease, comfortable or, if that doesn’t work, high. But when Adam and Steve reel in a Guy from Grindr, attention will have to be divided. As I pointed out before, threesomes always run the risk of being psychological warfare.

In the case of Guy #150 and #151, they were Adam and Steve, two Guys in their sexual prime at the peak of their beauty, and I was this Guy they talked to on Grindr. When they found out they were both chatting with the same person the decision was made to reel me in. Not wanting to miss out on sex with two people whose selfies were well above average, I hastily cycled to their place, knowing all too well there was a very real opportunity one of my dates would consider me an intruder of sorts, that my presence was but a compromise to keep a relationship sexually interesting.

The first pleasant surprise of the evening came when I met Guy #150 and #151: Both of them were equally cute to me. This meant that, whatever issues they might have with dividing attention, I would be flexible and all too happy to bend myself into the dynamic of their relationship no matter what.

The second pleasant surprise came when I noticed there wasn’t much of a relationship going on. Guy #150 and #151 turned out to be friends and not lovers. They in turn both looked pleasantly surprised by how much I resembled the Guy from my Grindr pictures. Indeed, pleasant surprises were flying all over the place, filling the room with a scent of anticipatory arousal.

Instead of going straight to the sex part, my hosts laid me down on their bed and put on a movie. I don’t remember much of the decision making process that preceded it, but I do recall being pleasantly surprised they put up American Psycho, a movie I had been meaning to see for years.

Unsurprisingly, but not any less pleasant, the movie was as entertaining as Christian Bale was cute. As the three of us lay on bed, we quietly allowed each other to get sucked into the story, cuddling up against each other. What made it fun was the unspoken knowledge our little gathering would evolve into sex well before the end credits.

In fact, Christian Bale was about to butcher one of his friends with an ax when the kissing started.

I don’t remember seeing much of the movie afterward, except that the credits rolled around the time the three of us were done with each other.

It was the best threesome I ever had, not because the sex was spectacular, but because the dynamic had been. Guys #150 and #151 were two ‘pals’ who happened to engage in sex every now and then. Being a stranger from Grindr, I fit right in. What made ‘movie night’ fun was the total lack of issues: No jealousy, no attention deprivation, no insecurities…the only thing hanging in the air was an unspoken sense of horniness, distributed evenly among us. Whatever issues we may have had, they were neatly canalized by all the blood going on in the background.
“You guys are bastards,” Guy #150 said after we were done. The three of us laughed: Guy #151 and I had turned Guy #150 into the designated bottom that night, something I suppose had been a pleasant surprise on his end.

When I started 168guys.com, one of the morals pouring down on each of my stories was the ‘fact’ there is no such thing as just sex, that every act of sex is but an opportunity for unresolved mother issues and past intimacy failures to resurface. While I still believe I got hard by Christian Bale the ax murderer as part of my innate desire to be loved, being loved doesn’t have to be complicated, lasting or even real when you find it on Grindr.

One could argue Guys #150 and #151 were the first to show me there can be such a thing as just sex, simply three Guys getting together and having fun.

Or maybe it had just taken me 150 Guys to become sexually confident.

Naturally, I did not stay in touch with Guy #150 or #151. It was just sex after all.

Also, I have yet to sit down one day and actually watch Christian Bale slaughter some of his friends.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: One feature length movie
FORMAT: Just sex
SEX SCORE (0 = Murder porn <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9.5

Guy #91 – Abs and brains.

People reading this blog probably would’t think of me as the relationship type. The format of my relationships is overtly sexual most of the time.

While I’m open to the possibility of a commitment, the thing I’m actively looking for is a connection in any way, shape or form or position.

I met Guy #168 last weekend, finally rendering the name of this blog valid. He was one of the best connections I ever had, like the best parts of this blog combined into one person. In short, he had abs and brains.

Like Guy #91.

Guy #91 was a pleasant surprise. He had made quite the effort to meet up with me. I believe I ignored him the first couple of times he hit me up online. His profile picture just didn’t quite do it for me. But there are of course days when boredom inspires an open mind. It was on one such day I gave this Guy a shot at becoming my Guy #91.

When he stepped into my car I was greeted by one of the cutest and most seductive smiles I had ever seen. Profile pictures always set you up for disappointment, except this time. Guy #91 was simply one of the most beautiful Guys I had ever seen in any car.

As we drove to my place I could tell he liked the music I was playing. No Guy ever gets my taste in music.

Guy #91 was smart, funny and easy to talk to. We had no trouble getting on each other’s wavelengths and enjoying the view from there.

So where’s the conflict in this story?

Guy #91 quickly fell into my is this too good to be true?-category. That was the one thought I couldn’t get out of my head. Hitting abs and brains is like winning the lottery for me. Hitting abs and brains and my taste in music is like being struck by lightning twice in one day.

We spent a few hours together, during which we talked, laughed, got high and had sex. And while it was one of my best days as a human being ever, I couldn’t help but question my luck. The sheer beauty of what was lying in my bed was all but completely apparent, but I couldn’t submit to it.

Somehow I still had trouble accepting pleasure. Instead of wondering if this Guy was worthy of me, which is what I usually did during sex, I wondered if I was worthy of him.

When I have sex with people I consider less attractive I can pretend I don’t have issues with worthiness. Abs and brains render me more naked somehow.

Although Guy #91 stayed in touch over Facebook for a few years, we never saw each other again. The first time I had rejected him out of a sense of superiority. Now I was rejecting him out of shyness.

It’s not easy being a narcissist.

Guy #91 made repeated efforts to get back into my bed, but I kept him and his drop dead gorgeous smile at a distance, where my self esteem didn’t have to look at it.

Guy #91 and I eventually lost touch (though I’ve taken up the habit of liking his Instagram photos lately). We now live an ocean apart and I don’t have a car anymore, so chances of us meeting up anytime soon are slim.

Still, being with Guy #168 last weekend made me realize something:

Sometime after Guy #91 I started accepting pleasure.

Life is more fun when you’re not afraid of beauty.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 4 years
FORMAT: One time sexual date followed by Facebook friendship, followed by mutual Instagram validation
SEX SCORE (0 = US elections <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9.5

Guy #89 – Divide and conquer…

When I lived in Suriname, South America I wasn’t the only white Guy in town.

I befriended a Guy who was like me in many ways: He was a hunter, attracted to Latinos as I was, he made sure sex played an important role in his life, he used sex to cope with his insecurity, he was educated, around my age and enjoyed the perks of being white.

One night the two of us found ourselves on a somewhat discouragingly empty dance floor in our country’s only gay nightclub. He asked me to point to a Guy I considered attractive. We had met each other only recently and were curious for each other’s taste. And of course we wanted to know whether we would be playing the field as colleagues or as competitors.

After pointing at some Asian I asked my newfound friend who he considered a good catch. He pointed at Guy #10. Guy #10 and I had done each other a few years prior.
“I’ve done him,” I bragged. It absolutely thrilled me to be able to say I already had sex with the Guy my white companion singled out.
I could see the twinkle in my friend’s eyes. It meant he was now officially out to conquer Guy #10 as I had, because I had. I decided to let him.
“Do you want me to introduce you two?” I asked.
My friend gladly accepted my offer, so I stepped up to Guy #10 and told him I had a friend who wanted him. Guy #10 was happy to see me again and even happier to find out my friend was the other white Guy.

I didn’t throw Guy #10 in the arms of my white friend because I’m such a nice person. While I was fine with him going over goods I’d damaged years before, I wanted my friend to see how skilled I was at catching prey.

Guy #10 was also with a friend, a shy fellow I decided would make a fine Guy #89.

Divide and conquer. That’s basically what I did that night. I gave a buddy some leftover Guy from a few years back and then proceeded to conquer Guy #89 right in front of him.

I was marking my territory.

I have this intense look that works really well on insecure 20 year olds, so I went with that. Within minutes, Guy #89 and I were all over each other’s faces. From the corner of my eyes I could see the admiration on my friend’s white face. If this was the jungle, I was Shere Khan.

Nothing was particularly special about Guy #89. His looks were sort of okay, I didn’t pay attention to his personality and his looks were sort of okay. All that mattered was that I had asserted my dominance over all the other white Guys, all one of them.

I don’t know where Guy #10 and his second white friend ended up that night, but from what I understood they’ve had some good times together. Guy #89 and I ended up in my car, on the parking lot. We continued kissing and meddled with each other’s genitals for good measure, but by this time I wasn’t into it anymore. My audience had left the scene. Guy #89, still impressed from the look I’d given him before, was starting to irritate me. Making out on a parking lot with a stranger doesn’t really do it for me.

I guess Guy #89 became dispensable the moment I was the only white Guy again. We never made it off the parking lot. Not together at least.

Still I went home feeling satisfied. I was fine living in a small country with a small gay scene. I was also fine not being the only white Guy in that scene. Our country was big enough for two delicacies.

I never spoke to Guy #89 again, but my friendship with the white one lasts to this day. I even arranged him a date with Guy #16 once.

I guess I don’t just play the field. I aim to rule it.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 1 hour
FORMAT: Dirty dancing followed by pitiful car sex
SEX SCORE (0 = Chihuahuas <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 4.5

Guy #80 – All about the abs…

Guy #80 had killer abs. In fact, his entire body was a cover of Men’s Health.

His penis was as Asian as the rest of him though.

Also, Guy #80 struck me as one of the loneliest individuals I’ve ever come across.

The two of us first met each other at an all male twink orgy one night in Amsterdam. He stood at the bar, quite obviously trying to hide his shyness behind his drink. Being the hunter that I am I temporarily rid him of his insecurity by semi-accidentally touching him. Touch became fun and eventually we exchanged phone numbers. It took me about four texts to get invited to his place.

I kind of enjoyed Guy #80’s loneliness. Or rather I appreciated how his loneliness worked for me.

Usually when Guys are lonely they get clingy, obsessive and mistake sex for the start of a commitment that lasts well into retirement. Guy #80 didn’t do any of that. Instead he made sure he looked good as a means to get people to stay with him.
His house was quite literally covered with magazines about fitness, health and ways to stay in shape after 25. Abs were his obsession. He even did sit-ups in my presence a few times. I think they were part of his obsessive compulsive disorder: I have to do 40 crunches an hour or else the universe will implode.

When I complimented Guy #80 on his body he shrug it off, saying he was fat. I told him I was the fat one. I really was. I recently had a mono infection and had spent four months in bed, eating junk food, watching entire seasons of 24 in a day and eating more chocolate. Still Guy #80 had less qualms with my body than his own.

Which made the sex modestly awesome, save for that Asian penis.

Guy #80 was into me. He made me feel as hot as he was. The difference between the two of us was that when he complimented my penis, I didn’t shrug it off. To Guy #80 the mere fact he was with someone lifted his spirits. His enthusiasm in turn lifted anything I had to offer.

Usually Kleenex signal the end of a sex date, but Guy #80 really wanted me to stay the night. I was happy to oblige him.

Of course I felt sorry for Guy #80 and his low self esteem. Apart from the many, many fitness magazines his house was void of anything personal. It was neat and clean and always prepared for visitors, but I could tell I was one of the few people to have been inside.

In a way Guy #80 reminded me of my former self. I used to be an expert in hiding behind drinks, desperately holding on to your glass even when there’s nothing but ice left. When I first started having sex with Guys I weighed my own imperfections far, far more than I did those of my fellow maters. I often find it’s the most beautiful people who think the least of themselves. It takes time and Guys to embrace your own beauty despite your belief in its absence. It takes time and Guys to let go of doing 40 crunches an hour to prevent the universe from imploding in on you.

Me and Guy #80 spent two nights together, about two years apart. Not long after our last date his Facebook status changed to in a relationship. Not long after that his Facebook wall started showing signs of a social life.

I’m happy Guy #80 outgrew his Asian penis.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 1 x 1 hour + 2 x 12 hours
FORMAT: Orgy hook-up followed by loving sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Sudoku’s <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.5

Guy #52 – LOST…

Wisconsin gets dark at night.

Being the hazel eyed slightly toned latino twink that he was, Guy #52 was my kind of hot in each and every way. I simply had to meet up with him and make my dream of having sex with him come true. He hadn’t shown that much enthusiasm for our date, so when I convinced him to let me come over I did not play hard to get. I persuaded him to give me his address and said I would be there in half an hour. I instinctively felt it would be my only window of opportunity with this Guy.

That was his reply to my See you in 30 minutes!:). He was just barely okay with me showing up at his doorstep. I had to move quickly. I opened up Google maps and discovered that Wisconsin is kind of big.

Big and dark.

Being the expert navigator that I am and lacking a printer, I drew out the roads I was supposed to take on a piece of paper. I figured I was enough of a left-brain thinker to make that work.

It was about 45 minutes later when I first called Guy #52 to tell him I’d be there in five minutes.

Realizing that Guy #52 was barely k with me being there in 30, I started getting desperate around 60.

I really did my best to find his house, but every turn drove me further off the map I had drawn. I ended up on busy highways headed to Chicago and tiny country roads that led to places like ‘Prairie du Suc’ or ‘Sauk city’.

When I called Guy #52 for the third time he tried to guide me in like an airliner being flown by a stewardess. As the conversation continued, so did my anxiety. Guy #52 sounded irritated when he told me he had never heard of the places I was driving through. I said I was sorry. Twice.
I was losing him.

I decided to follow road signs that got me into Downtown Madison and work my way out from there.

I took me another 45 minutes to get back to the point I first got lost. I was running out of fuel and not carrying any money. My phone credit was close to zero. It was now or never.

I called Guy #52.
‘I can see your car,’ was the first thing he said.
I wanted to reply, but my phone ran out of juice that very moment. All I knew was that Guy #52 had seen me. For the first time in a long time I felt hope.

Then I saw someone flickering his lights in an apartment building a block away. My gut told me it had to be him.

To my relief it was.

His place looked familiar. I had already driven by it one and a half hour earlier.

Even though Wisconsin was frozen, I stepped out of my car sweating. I literally had to catch my breath. From driving.

I can’t say Guy #52 and I hit it off well.

He was as gorgeous as his selfies and his k turned out to mean way more than ‘just okay’. But we both had lived through 2 hours of my ineptness as a navigator. Our relationship was based on irritability and ineptitude.

The sex was pretty good, but not what it could have been either. I was mostly relieved I got to have any. I was so busy being thankful for the gift that I almost neglected enjoying the gift itself.
Guy #52 also felt relief. I think the sex made him let go of his irritability.

However, it was already late and both of us had lives the next day. Guy #52 told me he was busy moving to Milwaukee, wanting to try his luck there. I jokingly said I know where Milwaukee is on the map. Guy #52 did not laugh. Maybe it was too soon for jokes about my ineptitude.

Fifteen minutes was a really short time for being with Guy #52. I avidly wished it could have been longer, but I think our key traits, irritability and ineptitude, resurfaced after we both had our relief.

I never saw Guy #52 again.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 hours and 15 minutes
FORMAT: Searching for each other, followed by 15 minutes of sex
SEX SCORE (0 = The taste of Donald Trump’s hair <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Six weeks of celibacy…

If you leave home for a long time, home will not change much during your absence.

You will.

When I entered the living room of my mother’s house for the first time in two and a half years, it was filled with family, friends and former colleagues. My mother had thrown me a surprise party to welcome me.

Before I left my home country of the Netherlands I was a shy, sexually insecure and inexperienced closet case. It was nice seeing familiar faces again, but I felt off, wondering if these people still had any connection to the real me. I had found something resembling love two nights prior. I had done my last porn shoot the night before that one. Yet I felt surrounded by company that expected nothing but obligatory chitchat from me.

So I chitchatted my way through my surprise party. I truly appreciated everybody for showing up and for taking an interest in me being home, but they couldn’t mask the truth I felt:

Part of the insecurity I felt all my life expressed itself by doing what I thought was expected of me. Home used to be a place where I did nothing but meet people’s expectations. For a long time I figured I was expected to start a family, get a decent job, get my opinions from the morning paper and generally be the most unimaginative sad stereotype I could be.

Anal sex changed all that.

And now the time had come to tell my mother.

In the weeks following my return I had been searching for a job. Most of the jobs I applied for would take me abroad again. My mother wanted to know if there was anything pushing me away from the Netherlands, if I wanted to live the remainder of my life out of a suitcase, if I ever thought about settling down with a woman.
I told my mother it would not be a woman.

Being an only child, I could tell my mother was a bit disappointed to learn she’d never be a grandmother. Apart from that she was never stupid or blind. She had suspected my gayness for a long time. She wanted to know if there was anything pushing me away from the Netherlands, if I wanted to live the remainder of my life out of a suitcase, if I ever thought about settling down with a man. And with that my homosexuality had found itself a home in the realm of our issues.

I spent about six weeks in my home country. In that time I struck up some online conversations with Guys here and there, but I didn’t go on any dates.
I felt too alien to get naked with anyone.

It did feel good being back though. It made me realize that, had I never left, I might very well have ended up as some dopey suburban husband who secretly loathed his wife for not having a penis. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, or anyone’s wife.

Had I known then what I know now I would have dropped everything and pursued a writing career.

However, my confidence had grown in the field of sexuality and sexuality alone. Careerwise, I still figured doing something in an office was the fuel my talents needed. It would take a lot more Guys for me to figure out where my real talents lie.

My time in the Netherlands was cut short on account of a job I found, a job that required me to spend a few months in the United States, alone, in a hotel room.

My celibacy ended the moment I landed in Wisconsin.

Guy #46 – The massage…

A good massage is quite literally like a trip to heaven, a place of infinite bliss and carelessness.
A good massage makes you forget about your worries and your imperfections.
I could probably enjoy a plane crash if someone gave me a good backrub all the way down.

If I ever strike up a serious relationship with a Guy, I would like for him to be good at giving massages. It would make loving him considerably easier.

For a long time I denied myself the pleasure of getting massages. I was too self conscious.

Here’s why:

As you can see I drew a little circle on my back. It marks the spot where my T-shirt bulges slightly.

For the first 27 years of my life I had this strange little growth on my back. It was about the size of a pea. Although small compared to the rest of my body I resented it. It made me feel unattractive whenever a Guy was within visual range of my useless mutation.

Many times I tried cutting it off with a peeler. Operating on my own back in front of a mirror with a kitchen knife is not exactly Nobel Prize material. For starters I never bothered to think of sedation. I got my back to bleed this one time, but my growth remained. It had literally made its home on the one place my arms couldn’t reach.

So massages were never really my thing, knowing it would reveal my pea for the world to see.

Guy #46 insisted however.

Guy #46 understood that sex is infinitely more pleasurable when there’s personality involved. So although the format of our date was well established in advance, we did have a very good time getting to know each other, making ourselves comfortable and learning to embrace each other’s energy.

I was already completely at ease by the time Guy #46 pulled off my shirt and started to massage me. Before I could turn around to hide my cubic centimeter of bodily shame he said: ‘Oh look, you have a little thing there. How cute!’

It took me a few moments to absorb that. In my opinion Guy #46 was saying something like Oh, you listen to ‘N Sync. You have such good taste in music!
I explained how I had come to dislike my little growth, but Guy #46 maintained it didn’t bother him at all.

As luck would have it I was already in a fairly deep stage of relaxation when Guy #46 complimented me on my imperfection. Added to that he was good at giving massages.

For the first time in my life I surrendered my body completely, pea and all.

I’m sure the sex we had afterward was phenomenal. I don’t remember much of it. Me and my consciousness had drifted to another dimension. I don’t even remember what we did exactly. All I do remember is the feeling of letting go.

I think it was the feeling I had been chasing since Guy #1.

Guy #46 and I ended up having two dates. I got rubbed to heaven and back both times. I would have gone back for more, were it not for the fact I was weeks away from moving back to my home country.

As for my inoperable little stump, I had my doctor remove it about half a year later. He laughed when I told him I had tried to operate on myself.

I’m glad the doctor found a cure for my mutation, but strangely enough I never enjoyed a massage as much as I did those nights with Guy #46. Maybe he was that good.

Or maybe I’ve gotten used to letting go since then.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 x 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Operating on yourself with a peeler <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9.2

Guy #32 and #33 – Stroke that ego…

There’s one very simple moral to every story here on 168guys.com: Love and sex are inseparable. If you’re looking for sex you’re looking for love.

While quite a few gay people told me they enjoy reading this blog, some have trouble accepting its message.

When I look around it’s as if people want to live in a world where love and sex can live apart.

Which is why gay saunas exist. They help maintain the illusion that sex can be a commodity.

Granted, we don’t have sex with total strangers because we want to love total strangers. We have sex with total strangers because we want to love ourselves, if only for a short while.

Gay guys visit gay saunas because we are lured by our egos.

I’m not judging by the way.

There’s nothing wrong with having someone stroke your ego every so often. It’s what it’s there for.

We say it’s just sex, so we may pretend hurt is off the menu.

But when you go to a place where people wear towels instead of clothes you expose your needy ego to the elements it craves the most. That can be a risky game.

I met Guy #32 in a whirlpool. As is so often the case in whirlpools, words were never part of our relationship. We looked at each other, got within lip range and started kissing.

Guy #32 was very cute in my opinion. My ego started salivating like a Pavlovian dog when he touched me at places my ego likes to be touched the most.

Guy #32 was also just the beginning, because a minute or so into our relationship, Guy #33 came out of nowhere and slid himself and his gorgeous body into the whirlpool. He sat down right next to me.

I found myself right smack in the middle of two beautiful naked guys that either kissed me, touched me or both. Sure it was just about sex, but I couldn’t help but feel like being one of the cool kids. I had never felt like a cool kid before.

I was finally at a place where my own sexuality had matured to the point reality was on par with my fantasies. My ego opened up and settled in for the trip to heaven.

That’s when Guy #32 and #33 got up and walked away, leaving me alone in my whirlpool.

They didn’t say anything. They just left. Together.

At first I figured I had fallen victim to a simple communication error, something easily remedied. So I got up and followed Guy #32 and #33. I found them making out in a steam room. As soon as they noticed my presence they got up and walked away.

It wasn’t a communication hiccup. It was a cold hearted rejection. Guy #32 and #33 wanted something that didn’t involve me. That was unfortunate, as I had just exposed my bare ego on the assumption I was one of the cool kids.

Maybe I was too sensitive to be satisfying my sexuality through sex instead of love. Maybe I should never have gone to gay saunas. Being shunned from a threesome hurts. I can’t pretend it didn’t. It may very well have been the first moment I ever realized there is no such thing as just sex.

At the time I didn’t quite understand why I felt hurt. My previous sexual encounters had already made me feel attractive and cute. I knew I had no reason for feeling insecure, but no rationalization could keep me from feeling the way I did: Like an unattractive and undoable outsider.

It felt like being a virgin again. It reminded me of that time I was convinced no one would ever see the beauty in me.

Gay saunas is where the umbilical cord between love and sex is stretched to its limit. But no matter how thin the cord is stretched, it never breaks.

It took me a good half hour to get over Guy #32 and #33. I allowed both to become a part of my past when I ran into Guy #34 later that night, but that’s another story.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 1-2 minutes
FORMAT: Foreplay followed up by exclusion
SEX SCORE BEFORE REJECTION (0 = What Hitler felt like when he was rejected from art school <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9
SEX SCORE AFTER REJECTION: N/A (sadly)

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 #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