Be sure to comment and subscribe at my YouTube Channel:
http://youtube.com/ABenjaminIrby

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Forever Is Over"
by The Saturdays
from the album "Wordshaker"
==========

After being told by enough of you all to get my ass back on YouTube I finally decided to just jump in and do it. And besides, I find that this is a better way to communicate with you all faster and verbally answer your advice letters and emails. Of course I'm gonna always write but I'm start throwing a few of these in the mix as well. To help me get back into the groove of things I have my special guest fellow blogger Jared Shuler along with me.

Please be advised that this video is a little, well, for lack of a better term... ghetto. Hey, I'm rusty at this, it's been a while but you know for the most part I believe in first run, no do overs.

So here ya go. Enjoy.

Be sure to comment and subscribe at my YouTube Channel:
http://youtube.com/ABenjaminIrby

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Fight For This Love"
by Cheryl Cole
from the album "3 Words"
==========

So from now on all the music reviews I'd normally write and post here, I will post on their website.

Click here to check out my review.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"It's A Wrap"
by Mariah Carey
from the album "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel"
==========

Probably moreso here there than with anything else I've written I put a lot of care into writing that blog post. I wanted to make sure that I didn't come off as self-righteous, arrogant, or condescending. although the HIV negative person, Waterfall had written to me I wanted to take both sides into account. As usual I gave an example from my own life as I'd been in his shoes before, having someone who I was dating tell me that they were positive, post-sex, except my person did it the "right" way (I'll explain the "right" way later). I even went so far as to ask friends of mine who are HIV positive to proofread my response and they were cool with it. Judging from you, the readers, your subsequent responses I pretty much thought I was doing aight. That is until I received the response below which I decided to take the time to reply back to in it's own blog post. Here it is:

Morning, y'all.

I'm sorry, but I have to step in here, and speak up for the guy on the other side. I myself am positive so I definitely think I can impart some insight into what may have been going through the older guy's mind that apparently Adam and the others here have little sympathy for.

I will say that I agree mostly with the opinions stated here, regarding what you should do.

I do want to say, however, that I don't believe that Adam's summative advice is the right way to handle this. I don't think you should just "drop him."

I would tell you to put yourself in his shoes, which I feel a lot of people don't do. As someone with HIV, I COMPLETELY understand his lack of desire to tell you. It is the worst thing to have to tell someone, ESPECIALLY because you have no idea how they may respond. It takes quite a bit of gauging before you decide to let someone know that. While I think Adam is trying to empathize with you, I really don't think he would go around telling people as freely as I believe he expects this man to.

Without going on a huge rant, my advice to you (if you feel like you had a connection with him) is to TALK TO HIM!! I will agree with Adam and the other posters regarding the text. I think that's the most tasteless way to reveal a secret like that, but I completely understand why he may not have told you in person.

I myself TRY not to have sex with my intended suitors without revealing that to them, but the stigma associated with the disease (despite the numbers) is still very much rampant.

I honestly believe that this man really likes you, and I'm sure that's why he even bothered telling you in the first place, and to follow Adam's advice and just drop him because he didn't include it in his self-introduction is trite...and predictable, and only goes to illustrate why HIV+ folks DON'T reveal who they are... because of responses like that.

To conclude, I think a conversation is necessary. You should also definitely go get tested, consider this: if the man didn't care about you, he wouldn't have told you at all.

-S. Austin

Hey S,

Ummm wow, judging from your response here you obviously didn't read my intial response it all. It seems as though you anxiously skimmed through it looking for an opportunity to respond to the contrary. The part of your reply that alarms me most is when you said:

"I honestly believe that this man really likes you, and I'm sure that's why he even bothered telling you in the first place, and to follow Adam's advice and just drop him because he didn't include it in his self-introduction is trite...and predictable, and only goes to illustrate why HIV+ folks DON'T reveal who they are... because of responses like that."

Nowhere did I ever say that anyone who is HIV positive should include ithat information in their introduction to people, as though they should carry it on business cards and shit. And I certainly didn't say that Waterfall should drop the guy just because he has HIV. What I said in the original post was quite the opposite. I said:

"...And you can't realistically expect someone to tell any and everybody that they have HIV upon first glance. 'Hey I'm Adam, how are you?' 'Great. I'm Tommy and I have HIV.' It just don't work like that. So your reasoning for not dating him shouldn't be based on the fact that he has HIV."

What's trite and predictable is the fact that you came ready to oppose what I'd written when you abviously hadn't read it. You also say:

"I myself am positive so I definitely think I can impart some insight into what may have been going through the older guy's mind that apparently Adam and the others here have little sympathy for."

and

"While I think Adam is trying to empathize with you, I really don't think he would go around telling people as freely as I believe he expects this man to."

In the original post I told a story about someone who I was going to hook up with who ended up revealing to me that he was HIV positive. Regarding that experience I said:

"I mean, think about how hard that must have been for him. In the heat of the moment, we're getting it in (or at least I was about to), for him to stop things, to say that he was positive, to tell a total stranger the most intimate detail of his life. What if I had wiled out and tried to kill him or something? What if I was the errant homo who had decided to tell all his business to everybody? He did me a favor in letting me know his status, but it was really my responsibility to take precautions for my health's sake. I mean, yeah he coulda never told me, but I never asked either. If I had caught HIV from him that day it'd essentially be my fault because I failed to protect myself.

I also had an experience just like what happened to Waterfall with someone who told me that he was HIV positive after we'd had sex. Regarding that experience I said:

"I was right in your shoes a few years ago. Slept with someone on the first day I met them for them to tell me later that they were positive. The difference between my person and your person is that my person took the time to sit me down and tell me in person and didn't have sex with me again until he told me. Because he was so forthright the way he went about telling me, I wasn't mad at all. I wasn't mad because he told me after we hooked up and started seeing each other, not after we started seeing each other for a few weeks and had sex and he sure as hell ain't send me no damn text message...."

That doesn't sound very unsympathetic to the HIV positive person to me, either one of them.

Then you said:

"Without going on a huge rant, my advice to you (if you feel like you had a connection with him) is to TALK TO HIM!! "

and

"To conclude, I think a conversation is necessary... consider this: if the man didn't care about you, he wouldn't have told you at all."

Bullshit. If the nigga could fuck Waterfall in person, he could talk to him in person. Waterfall was not in a one night stand, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am with this guy, they were dating, talking, whatever for a few weeks, seeing each other. This guy says he cared about Waterfall and then he's gonna send him a text message? I mean c'mon now. Being that I was in the same situation as Waterfall makes me even more angry about it. My person gave me enough credit as a decent human being to come to my face and tell me, that's a major part of the reason why I was okay with it. If he had sent me a text message it would've been a different story. The guy obviously didn't want a conversation because if he did he did want a conversation he would have started one and not sent a text message!

As far as the whole if he didn't care he wouldn't have told him thing, that's the smelliest bullshit of all. I think that the only reason why he told Waterfall anything was because his conscience was eating at him and he decided to take the easy and the selfish way out. Think about it, in this technological day and age what's the easiest, quickest way of telling someone something difficult without having to deal with the drama and repercussions behind it? You send it in a text message. If he's mad, if he cries, if he asks you a whole bunch of questions you don't feel like answering, you don't have to deal with it as you can simply stop texting. But in the back of your mind when your conscience starts fucking with you you can always say, 'well at least I told him'. I mean, c'mon you can't see that shit? You don't send news like that via text if you really care about the person you're sending it to, you just don't, that's so disrespectful. It's like breaking up with someone via text, I'm guilty of it. The times I did it I did it not particularly caring about how the other person felt or really wanting to hear what they had to say about it I just wanted things to be over. Notice there are a lot of "I" statements here, further illustrating the selfishness of this act. So once again I must reiterate that the whole if he didn't care he wouldn't have told him thing is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If he really cared he wouldn't have told him that way. In my opinion that person certainly isn't someone that Waterfall should be with and really the other guy shouldn't be with anyone at all right now as he has a lot of things he needs to straighten regarding himself and his status.

Now S, I can go on all day talking about how wrong and misinformed your reply was but that's not what's important. The one thing you said that was important was the fact that we do need to have a conversation about this, we all do. So many of us are engaging in sex, knowingly and unknowingly infecting and being infected with all kinds of things, not just HIV, every day and no one is talking about it and what good is that gonna do?

To be honest, in writing this whole thing I had reservations about even telling my stories. For a moment I feared what telling my experiences with sexual partners who were HIV positive might make people think of me. But then I thought about the fact that CDC numbers are saying that almost half of us (black gay men) already have the virus, a good portion of us not even knowing it. That brought me to the realization that my silence wouldn't help anyone and if so many of us have the virus then I can't be the first one to have experienced what I've experienced. Although, I'm HIV negative today, who's to say that I haven't been with or will be with someone else who's positive? If I were I would want that person to feel like they could be open and honest and be able to tell me. Hopefully answering letters like this, sharing my stories and having these conversations can help us all be a little open, open to tell, open to listen, open to accept and open to take proper precautions.

As far as the "right" way to sit down and tell someone that you have HIV is concerned, there really is no right or wrong way. As a person who has had a partner tell me that they were HIV positive I feel that the only wrong way is not to be honest about it, although being honest about it via text message doesn't go over too well either. HIV ain't easy and neither is love, but if you say you love and/or care about somebody sometimes you are gonna have to tell them things that may hurt their feelings or make them mad or just things that they just simply don't wanna hear, but that's love. You'd have to have confidence that their love/care for you goes beyond what you're going to reveal to them. In a perfect world we could say that an HIV positive person just shouldn't have sex with anyone until they've divulged their status to every partner they ever get with and that HIV negative people should always ask every partner they are with what their HIV status is right away to avoid any problems later. Is that ideal, yes, realistic, no, the world is far from perfect. If you have HIV and you get with somebody on a long term basis most likely you are going to eventually have to tell them, better sooner than much later and there's just no getting around that. That is what it is. On the other hand for those of us who are negative there's only but so mad we can get about the answer to a question that we never bothered to ask.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"I Want To Know What Love is"
by Mariah Carey
from the album "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel"
==========

So from now on all the music reviews I'd normally write and post here, I will post on their website.

Click here to check out my review.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Million Dollar Bill"
by Whitney Houston
from the album "I Look To You"
==========

So from now on all the music reviews I'd normally write and post here, I will post on their website.

Click here to check out my review.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Lazy"
by LaToya Luckett
from the album "Lady Love"
==========

Enjoy.

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email. And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.
==========

Dear Adam,

I met a guy about three weeks ago. He is really cool older guy, we communicate well, we share the same hobbies, my future goals are ones that he's already accomplished, I had a good connection with him. So we had sex.

A couple of days ago, five days after we had sex, he sent me a text message saying that he had "something to tell me". I was worried, I figured that he was going to tell me that he had a boyfriend because the boy is fucking fine.

So I was in the mall just looking at my phone like 'come on boy just tell me you already got a man' but he hit me with "I'm HIV positive" I wanted to breakdown and cry in that mall, but I'm not one for causing a scene. We had protected anal and unprotected oral sex.

I asked him why didn't he tell me this in person or when we first met. He said that he didn't know if I would be a one night stand, but he sees that what we have will last so he decided to tell me. Adam I am really confused. Should I try to be in a relationship with this guy? He didn't lie to me, I just assumed he was negative. I am dumb and foolish and should have known better, but right now I am LOST.

Signed,
Waterfall

Dear Waterfall,

The part of your letter that sticks out most to me is the second to last sentence where you said "He didn't lie to me, I just assumed he was negative." With that I'm going to get the public service announcement part of my reply out of the way first. See, there my dear Waterfall is where you went wrong. When out here having sex and what not we must always assume that everyone is positive and protect ourselves accordingly. People, o people, my people, my people, my people every time you lay down with someone there is the possibility of that person being positive. What we're the last statistics, that like 46% of gay black men are positive (correct me if I'm wrong), that's almost half. That's almost like saying any time two gay black men are in a room, there's a pretty good chance that one of us is positive. And that's yet another reason why you should treat everyone you sleep with as though they were positive.

In response to the last sentence of your letter you are not dumb, nor foolish, you just never opened yourself to the possibility that this fine man could be positive. Nothing to go beating yourself up over. Basically, we pretty much have all made that judgment error, myself included (I even wrote a blog post about it). The moral of the story is to always always, always, always protect yourself.

As far as what you did sexually with him is concerned, I'm no doctor, I'm no medical expert, you should definitely consult with one and be tested but, more than likely you're okay. HIV out of all the other STD's and STI's isn't the easiest thing to catch. You used a condom for the anal which lowers your chances drastically, I can't say it's foolproof, but you're probably good. The oral, you're probably good on that as well, especially if no one was swallowing anything. From my knowledge, and remember I'm no expert, catching HIV from giving/receiving some head (I'm not sure who did what but I pretty much have already figured it out) is pretty unlikely as saliva is not the best carrier of the virus. If no one had any cuts anywhere and no one came in anyone's mouth you're probably okay. But of course you should go and get tested.

Now to the deeper issue at hand, should you try to build a relationship with this guy? Some would say no, absolutely not, some would say sure, at least you got into the game knowing he's positive and you'll definitely take all the proper precautions. But your question seems to be how could he not tell you that he had HIV and if he could omit that truth what else could he hide or lie about?

I say before you can make a decision about his character you need to put yourself in his place and then ask yourself a few questions. I know quite a few people who are HIV positive, from what I see, they all are reasonably healthy and live regular lives, working, going out, socializing and dating, some of them don't even have to take medicine. One thing I often wondered about as an HIV negative person about people who are positive is when, how, or do they ever tell the person(s) that they are dating that they are positive. I mean, that's very sensitive information and you just can't go blabbing that shit to any ol' errant homo that comes along.

Let's take my example from the blog post I linked you to a few paragraphs ago (if you didn't read it, click here). To summarize, I met a guy, he was cute, we go back to his place, I go to fuck him with no condom, he stops me and says, wait, no, I'm positive. I mean, think about how hard that must have been for him. In the heat of the moment, we're getting it in (or at least I was about to), for him to stop things, to say that he was positive, to tell a total stranger the most intimate detail of his life. What if I had wiled out and tried to kill him or something? What if I was the errant homo who had decided to tell all his business to everybody?

He did me a favor in letting me know his status, but it was really my responsibility to take precautions for my health's sake. I mean, yeah he coulda never told me, but I never asked either. I was just so anxious to get it in right then that I didn't think to protect my health in the long run. I never asked him whether he had HIV because I didn't think he had it. He was so young and fine and he looked so good that I never opened myself to the possibility of this fine man being positive. Sound familiar? If I had caught HIV from him that day it'd essentially be my fault because I failed to protect myself. I couldn't blame him because he never lied to me. How could I blame someone for never answering a question that I never bothered to ask? And you can't realistically expect someone to tell any and everybody that they have HIV upon first glance. 'Hey I'm Adam, how are you?' 'Great. I'm Tommy and I have HIV.' It just don't work like that. So your reasoning for not dating him shouldn't be based on the fact that he has HIV.

That was the basic answer to your question. Now I could be very politically correct about it and end things here, capping it off by saying 'just listen to your heart' or some bullshit like that. But something tells me that you sent me this letter because you wanted really know what I thought, what I would do if I were in your situation. The real shit.

I'd dump his ass, I'ma tell you why. It's not because he has HIV, no, no, not that. It's because he waited so long to tell you he had HIV. According to your letter, y'all were kicking it a few weeks before y'all even had sex. Now on some one night stand shit, hey, that is what it is, that's every man for himself tryna get his nutt, wham, bam, slam, never see you again, no questions asked. I get that. But y'all we're talking and dating and what not, even if it was for a few weeks, he had the opportunity to say something, something before y'all did it. Knowing the people I know who are positive, one of the biggest struggles they have is trying to avoid sex until they are ready to tell the person they are dating that they are positive. He says that he didn't know whether y'all would just be a one night stand or not, but the second week around you obviously wouldn't be a one night stand. It took him three weeks and y'all fuckin' for him to magically realize that y'all are gonna "last"... That sounds crazy, what mature adult would say that? He has no idea in that little bit of time whether you're gonna last or not but what he should have is enough respect for you to say something to you in that time, before the sex. Then the nigga gon' have the nerve to tell you he's positive via a text message. Are you fuckin' serious? And isn't this guy supposed to be older than you? Obviously, he has a lot of growing up to do.

I feel bad for the guy, I know that having HIV isn't easy but I still can't give him a pass. Especially because this same thing happened to me, I was right in your shoes a few years ago. Slept with someone on the first day I met them for them to tell me later that they were positive. The difference between my person and your person is that my person took the time to sit me down and tell me in person and didn't have sex with me again until he told me. Because he was so forthright the way he went about telling me, I wasn't mad at all. I wasn't mad because he told me after we hooked up and started seeing each other, not after we started seeing each other for a few weeks and had sex and he sure as hell ain't send me no damn text message. I can't get over that shit. Sorry, but this dude is a loser and I don't think he's as into you as he's putting on.

As for you, go out and get yourself tested. Hopefully for you, this experience will just turn out to be a lesson learned rather than something you have to live with for the rest of your life.

God Bless You,
-Adam

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email. And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"You Shoulda Told Me".
by Kelly Price
from the album "Mirror Mirror."
==========

So from now on all the music reviews I'd normally write and post here, I will post on their website.

Click here to check out my review.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Speak Up"
by Kristinia DeBarge
from the album "Exposed"
==========

Enjoy.

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email. And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.
==========

I must say, I'm so tired of talking about this...

Dear Adam,

I am new to your blog and I’ve really enjoyed digesting your thoughts. This is a question that has been burning my mind since I’ve been sexually active (~ 2 years) but I don’t have the balls to ask any of my top friends. So I digress to you, as an avid top, and your readership. Excuse me for being wordy:

Whenever a guy tells me that he's "exclusively" a top, or bottom, I get indignant. I don't get verbally indignant; rather I let a subtle eye roll and subsequent disinterest in the conversation register my judgment. I consider myself versatile, freaky, and generally down to fuck. My preference honestly varies depending on the guy. I have had wonderful (and terrible) sexual experiences in both positions.

I have on multiple occasions blown off guys who I otherwise would be interested in (either for a relationship or quickie). For the short-term, I could accept a constriction but it is a deal breaker for an LTR. The idealist in me imagines that every semi-interesting, semi-cute 6’3” guy is a possible LTR; therefore, I call myself being proactive by completely shutting the door from jump if he “only tops”. I consider myself open to flirting with many guys and accepting most quirks; I have prolong flirtation with dumbass “bi-curious church monkeys” for fun but I can’t accept rigid sexual preferences (or talking during sex, but that’s another story). In many ways, I judge these guys worse than I do closet cases.

I feel like defining sexual roles defines the relationship physically and emotionally. If I’m the top do I also have to be big spoon, his “daddy”, and the breadwinner? If I’m the bottom do I have cook dinner and iron his undies? What happens if 15 years (or 2 months) down the road I change my mind, do I have to spend a lifetime in an unwanted position because I agreed it to after our first date? What happens if I normally bottom but have a bad day at work and need to be aggressive at home, would an exclusive top have to accept my request?

Sincerely,

Indignant

Dear Indignant,

Not to be mean but I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet. My reply to all your questions is essentially, so what? Top, bottom, versatile, these are all a matter of choice, what you're into, what you like, what satisfies you. I've noticed that versatile people tend to judge, and vilify tops and bottoms for liking one thing over the other. I for one, you know, have never really been into the penis, I've tried to tango with the one eyed snake only to find that I'm just not that good a dancer and that's fine. I'm not into getting fucked and that's okay. On the other hand I have many friends and dates who love getting fucked and couldn't possibly see themselves doing anything else. Does that make them less of a man and me more? Absolutely not.

I think it's our automatic attachment of straight traditional gender roles to our gay sexual positions that's the true root of this hateration if you will, that the root of a man's pride or assertion in being a top is his way of trying to hold on to some type of heterosexualized masculinity as the root of another man's assertion in being a bottom is his way of clinging to some type of heterosexalized femininity, neither of which are necessarily true. Sure there are people who take on these ideals but there are also plenty who don't. At the end of the day guys bottom because they like dick, other guys top because they like ass, versatiles like both so they flip fuck eachother. None of this has to define how they behave in a relationship nor is it anything for you to get "indignant" over. And lets not forget about the vers-tops and and vers-bottoms of the world just in case you're ever feeling frisky. Unlike the notion of one being gay in general, sexual position in the realm of gaydom is all about choice, it's about what someone likes. How dare you become angry with someone because they like what they like? You don't have to like it. You don't like tops, right? Neither do I and that's okay. How about you spend more energy on what you like and less on what you don't?

-Adam

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email. And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Do What You Like" feat. Junior M.A.F.I.A.
by Lil Kim
from the album "Notorious K.I.M."
==========

So from now on all the music reviews I'd normally write and post here, I will post on their website.

Click here to check out my review.

==========
Playing In The Background...
"Fistful of Tears"
by Maxwell
from the album "BLACKsummers'night"
==========

That brings me to Steven. A while back I met a guy, lets call him Steven. Steven was my type, short, thin build, beautiful face and a ridiculous body, thin and toned, just like I like it, a pretty boy, sexy as hell. I met Steven out one day on a fluke, out somewhere where I didn't even plan to be and he was just there. We had a few drinks, we ended up talking, flirting, the attraction was definitely there. Then he began to talk about his boyfriend, how they were having problems and were about to break up. How his boyfriend was cheating and how as of late it'd become disrespectfully apparent.

I mean, you know how it is when you're bitching to someone else about how wack your boyfriend is. Not only are you trying to convey how bad he is to them, but deep down inside you're still trying to convince yourself that you should leave him alone when you know that there's a part of you that still loves him in spite of what he's done. So yeah, it was basically that. He was flirting with me while talking shit about his boyfriend, but most importantly flirting with me... hard. He kept talking about seriously breaking things off with his boyfriend on a slant toward trying to start something with me. Yeah, right. That was obviously the liquor talking. But he was sexy, and I was single and horny, so I went along with it. Fuck it.

See, two years ago, I may have fallen for that whole thing, the whole I'ma leave my triflin' ass boyfriend for a better man like you bullshit. Back then I may have listened to it, I may have even allowed the misguided glimmer of hope to enter my mind that I could get with this fine-ass dude just like that. I felt bad for him hearing his story and yeah I was definitely a better man and yeah I could've definitely treated Steven better than his man was treating him,. His dude was crazy for cheating on him like that, Steven was fine, he seemed pretty nice, he was a cool dude, and did I mention that Steven was fine. But being the smarter person I am now I realized that I was only hearing one side of the story and at the end of the day I didn't even know this nigga like that. Now, don't get me wrong, on some regular shit, if we were both unattached, I could definitely pull this nigga if we were like in a club or out on the street or something, but under these circumstances, no. I'm so not trying to get involved in all of his relationship drama. The best I could hope for with Steven was a roll in the hay and that'd be that.

Eventually, after a few days and a few messages exchanged back and forth Steven and I met and well... I fucked him. And it was good, damn good, everything I'd imagined it to be and then some. There's no better feeling than to finally be able to stick your hard throbbing dick inside of the object of your desire and watch as he enjoys every millisecond of it, each stroke and thrust taking him to higher heights and deeper depths of illicit ecstasy, to watch his beautiful head and juicy lips bob up and down on your pulsating dick, to have all your recent masturbation fantasies fulfilled all at once.

He came while I was still inside of him and once I pulled out to cum all over him I leaned down and whispered in his ear "I already know I fuck you better than ya man. It's okay you don't have to admit it." and smiled slyly, as he smiled back in agreement we looked into eachother's eyes and we connected. I liked him and I believed he genuinely like me too, in fact he told me that as we were getting all cleaned up. He told me that he wanted to see me again and implied that I should be patient with him while he straightened things out with his man. As fast as Steven was feeding me these lines I'm shook them all off in cynical disbelief, not even for a second allowing them to latch onto my psyche. Who the fuck does this nigga think I am, Monica Lewinsky or somebody? Fuck outta here. I've been down this road before and it's not a scenic one. The saddest thing about it was that he was actually believing the things that he was saying.

As the days went by I would still hear from Steven, albeit less, with much less urgency. In an effort not to allow myself to get caught up I wouldn't be so quick to reply to his messages, even as they were fewer and further between. One day we finally talked on the phone and I was really honest with him about how I felt about him. I told him that he was cool and I liked him and that the sex was great but I thought that that was all it should be. Maybe if the timing were different it could have been more than that. I continued explaining that though what his man was doing was wrong that what we did was wrong as well and since we were lucky enough not to get caught that we probably should just leave things where they were, why test fate? We could enjoy our night for what it was and hold on to the memory. He then agreed and went on to tell me that he got back with his boyfriend the night before.

See kids, the moral of the story is this. As nice as I am and as great a lay as I was, Steven didn't really want me. Oh no, Steven wanted to get even. Steven's rendezvous with me put him and his man on the same level. You can't really sit around crying and bitching about what a horrible cheater your boyfriend is when you're doing the same shit. Once the fucking was over and the nutts were busted I'd imagine that Steven was able to put himself in his boyfriend's shoes and in rationalizing his wrongdoing he found a way in which to rationalize his boyfriend's transgressions. So in a way we both got what we wanted. I wanted to fuck him, he wanted me to fuck him and he also wanted to find a way to feel better about him and his boyfriend's situation. Everybody wins. Of course, I wouldn't get the chance to get to know Steven better but I was smart enough not to expect that in the first place. no matter how good my dick was.

The idea that one night of good sex could be enough to bring someone out of a relationship is ridiculous. I learned from past experience to never get caught in with a nigga who's dealing with relationship drama. As much as he may tell you that he likes you and wants to get with you, given whatever drama he's in, he truly doesn't know what the hell he wants. I always say, as fly as you may be, as good as you may be, you could look better, dress better, fuck better, and just all around be better, but the one thing you can never fuck with is the past. If someone is in something and they've been in it for a while it's gonna take them a while to move on to someone else, that is if they even decide to move on to somebody else. You can't compete with the past, with all those memories and shit, and until that person is ready to let go of the past there's nothing you can do. As much as I would have like to have gotten to know Steven, the timing was off. I mean hey, there's always the future right? Given the statistics and the law of averages where gay male relationships are concerned there's a good possibility that there will be a time where me and Steven will both be single at the same time and we could possible get together the right way.

In the end I don't regret me and Steven's night together. The sex was good and in some strange way it seems to have contributed to Steven and his boyfriend staying together. Hey, I do what I can.

Today, Steven and and his boyfriend are still together and Steven and I haven't communicated since.

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Playing In The Background...
"Timing"
by Jaguar Wright
from the album "Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul"
and
"Next Lifetime"
by Erykah Badu
from the album "Baduizm"
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===========

If you haven't seen the pictures from the soiree click here to check out the photo gallery on my FaceBook page.

And if by now we aren't friends on Facebook, what the hell are you waiting for? Click here to friend me.

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Playing In The Background...
"Diva"
by Beyonce
from the album "I Am... Sasha Fierce"
==========

Now ya know I can't let my b-day pass without havin' a party. Although my big day is today the party is on Saturday. Below is your official invite. See you there:

Whaddup,

Adam Benjamin Irby here.

This is your official invite to my 26th birthday celebration on this SATURDAY, AUGUST 1st, 2009.

A lot of you were at my party last year. We really packed the place out and had a great time and I really appreciate your attendance. After much thought and consideration (and a couple of requests lol) I've decided to do it again this year at an even more grown and sexy venue.

If you don't remember last year, check out the pics here:

Here's the info:

ADAM'S 26th B-DAY CELEBRATION
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1st, 2009
11PM - until
@
LAS CHICAS LOCAS LOUNGE
(inside the Four points by Sheraton Hotel)
160 West 25th Street (bet 6/7)
Chelsea, NYC

FAQ:
- Admission is FREE
- You can bring whoever you want
- No ID checked unless you're ordering drinks
- No dress code, so you don't have to dress up
- Gifts are not expected or required
- LCL is also a restaurant serving Mexican fare, you can dine and/or snack if you'd like. Just know that the kitchen closes at 12. I'll be having dinner there at 10, but the drinks will be flowing all night.
- For more info on Las Chicas Locas check out their website at: http://lclny.com

If you've got any other questions you can reply to this message or hit me up at: adam@abenjaminirby.com

-Adam