Relationships: September 2007 Archives

I'm the first person to say that I'm no relationship expert, most things I have learned about life and relationships I've learned through trial and error. I'm nobody's psychologist and I hardly ever give anybody advice. But there is one thing I can advise on as it has been proven time and time again in my life, so much so that I have made adopted it as my overall relationship theory.

Adam's Theory:
"If a man really wants to do something he will do it. Period."

Sounds simple doesn't it? So then why the hell don't we ever remember it when we're involved with someone? Let's take our friend CancelCancel. As you have read (and if you haven't read, read it here) he canceled twice on me before our first date. We eventually went out we had a good time and then we went out again (read about that here). But all during the time we were dating I felt like I wanted it more than he did. I was always the one doing most of the calling and I was always initiating our dates and meetings while he remained somewhat indifferent about the whole thing, canceling, postponing, changing dates and "we'll see-ing" and "iono-ing" me to death. I told him how I felt, yet no changes. So in an effort not to jump to any conclusions regarding his feelings or lack thereof I decided to test things out. I stepped back, I stopped calling and I texted him my availability leaving it up to him to make the next date. I got one call and during that call I didn't even mention that the day had past that I was available for the date. I left it all up to him. If he wanted to see me he was gonna have to put forth some kind of effort, just as I did. After all I've been through I refuse to run after another man.

On Thursday I got this text message from him:

CancelCancel: "Have I done something wrong? If I have then let me know. You haven't been talking to me lately sooo I just wanna know what's happening between us so that way we can avoid a serious let down."

Dude you've gotta be kidding me. "I haven't been talking to you..." You mean I stopped running after yo' ass. Dudes act like they don't know to pick up a dayum phone. I told him before that I felt that things were uneven and that I was not gonna run after him. I was tryna be nice but I guess he didn't believe me. By this time I was over it. Where the hell have you been all week? Now you want to show some concern. Whatever. I texted him back on Saturday, two days later:

Me: "As far as your text message: CancelCancel, I'm surprised that you even care as far as I'm concerned. I have nothing against you but I've just grown tired of running after u. I'm always the one trying to see u and meet up with u. What happened to last Sunday? U were supposed to get back to me and u never did... I don't feel as though you want this as much as I did and as a result I have become disinterested in pursuing things further with u romantically. I like you as a person, ur kewl but I'm obviously not a priority... and that's kewl... We're just not at the same place right now and I'm not tryna get myself hurt pushing you into something that you obviously don't want. Because if you wanted it you would have taken the initiative. Period. At this point there is no future for us. Period. So why waste each other's time? I wish you the best in all your endeavors."

He text me back two hours and one minute later:

CancelCancel: "I understand where ur coming from. We're not meant for each other. I don't regret any of the time spent with u. I wish u all the best in life Adam. Nice knowing u.
-CancelCancel"

Now ain't that some shyt? Ya see why I don't get caught up so easily anymore. Was I not absolutely right? That was very 'easy come, easy go' as far as I was concerned. I'm so thankful for situations like this because it shows me how much I've grown. Now if this were two years ago I would have never even sent that first message. I would have suffered silently and tried my hardest to push him deeper into a one-sided, uneven, hurtful mess of a relationship. And if it were a year ago I would have called him, cussed his ass out, and hung up the phone on him. But I've grown. My best friend told me in the beginning after I told him that he canceled those first two dates that I was, and I quote "a stupid bitch" and to leave his ass alone but I was really sexually attracted to him and figured that more than likely we wouldn't go anywhere serious but I may get a few hot sessions out of the deal. Dating is supposed to be fun right? That's why I never put too much on it in the first place. I liked him but I've dated guys like him many times before and I knew what I was getting into. He's not a bad person, he's cool, there's no hard feelings. What he did wasn't necessarily wrong, it was wrong for me. But I've learned after seeing actions like his though not to expect much.

The moral of this story is: DON'T EVER RUN AFTER A MAN! EVER! Lemme repeat that for the people just skimming this post: DON'T EVER RUN AFTER A MAN! EVER! If he wants you, he will show you. He will make an effort toward getting to know you. The effort between you should be shared and equal. Your actions cannot make anyone love you, or like you, or appreciate you more. It's either there or it isn't. He wants you or he don't. And your heart will tell you you're doing too much. Listen to it, don't ignore it. Unlike most things in life this is black or white, very simple, either one or the other. You should not always be calling, you should not always be planning. Even if he gives you a million excuses, be understanding but realize that something still has to give sometime. If a man really wants something he will do whatever he has to do to get it. Period. Simple as that. If you can sacrifice sometimes for him, why can't he for you? Anything worth having is worth working and sacrificing for and if homeboy doesn't ever do it for you then that should tell you that you aren't worth having, to him, that is. Drop him.

This was a mild situation. 'Cuz back in the day situations like this would have me going through it. Since this is one of the only things I can say I know and can teach with complete certainty please take my advice. If you ever feel like your efforts in a friendship or a relationship aren't being reciprocated, stop. Talk to that person and tell them how you feel. Their reaction to your feelings will let you know whether they're worth having around.

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Playing In The Background...
"Doing Too Much"
by Paula DeAnda
from the album "Paula DeAnda"
and
"No Fool, No More"
by En Vogue
from the album "The Best Of En Vogue"
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This is another one of those hard to write posts where I reveal stuff about me that I don't even like to think about.
Enjoy.
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What's the one thing every gay man is most afraid of?

Is it getting fat? Nope. But it's a good guess. Is it dying and going to hell? Nope. Well, I guess, for the church queens, but as a whole, no. Is it "the big disease with a little name"? Nope. Yes I said "nope," you heard me. Considering the statistics and our actions as a whole, as a community we obviously aren't all that afraid of it. Not to discount it at all but our collective actions toward it do not illustrate that we are all that fearful. So what is it you ask, what strikes fear in the hearts of all gay men? Growing old and alone.

A gay man once told me that the gay life is a lonely life. So many of us in this world, gay without our permission, born into this world, feeling flawed, look at straight people and all the opportunities they have to come together and start a family and at all the encouragement society as a whole gives them as opposed to all the discouragement and abuse society gives us.

Not to mention the way we fuck each other over. He fucked you over so you fuck over the next one and that next one fucks somebody over who you end up meeting at a club and ends up fucking you over and at the end of he day it's like what the fuck? When does it all fucking end? Can two man ever just fucking be together and be happy without all the fucking bullshit?

This is the thing, we're all wounded, wounded and scared. It's hard growing up gay in this world. More than likely our parents and other relatives don't understand us or were abusive to us. We were made fun of in school, we lived double lives, etc., etc. We all have our own emotional baggage to deal with. We put up defenses and walls to shield our all too oft broken hearts from more pain. We do it to protect ourselves but in the process we push anyone else away. As a result we're snappy, we're rude, we're fierce, we're cynical, we're jaded, 'we've created a fuck or be fucked, fuck that 'cuz I'ma get mine' world for ourselves and yet the better part of us still expects to be happy. Even if someone means us well we don't believe it because we're simply not used to it.

So what are we gonna do about it? Actually, I can't tell you what to do. As I haven't done it myself yet. The question is what am I gonna do about it? The last few weeks have been really introspective for me. I've been looking inside, seeing what makes me tick, seeing why my relationships don't work. Let's have a look at my patterns:

ADAM'S RELATIONSHIP PATTERN:
This is so fucking embarrassing by the way, but I think this is a good exercise you should do for yourself in the privacy of your own home and not necessarily for the whole world to see like I have here. Remember, we can rationalize our way out of thinking that we have a problem as long as we only let it live in our heads. But once we put it on paper it's not as easy to deny. Here we go:

- Adam meets a guy.
- Adam is attracted to the guy.
- Adam does whatever he can to sleep with the guy.
- Adam sleeps with the guy and if he doesn't get to sleep with the guy he usually becomes disinterested in the guy altogether.
- Now Adam has feelings for the guy.
- Adam as usual feels a little more for the guy than the guy feels for him.
- Adam is now scared. These are the things Adam is scared of:

- Adam is scared to show too much emotion to the guy because he's afraid that he won't get it back and that will make him feel invalidated.
- Adam is scared whenever he calls or texts and does not receive a call or text back within the hour that maybe he's doing too much and the guy is over him.
- Adam has a perpetual underlying fear that the guy will just stop calling or corresponding altogether out of the blue because it's happened to him a few times in the past and it hurt... A LOT!
- Adam knows that he has done some triflin' ass shyt in the past and is always waiting for the proverbial ax to fall.

- Adam as a result of Adam's fear of being abandoned again is torn between wanting to outpour the feelings he's feeling to the guy or to be guarded and aloof (which he's really not but only is now as a result of being hurt so many times before) in an attempt to ready himself just in case this guy abandons him.
- Adam wonders why can't he ever find a guy who likes him as equally as he likes the guy.
- Adam has actually found people like that in the past but somehow to him it just doesn't seem real so he doesn't trust it or it may actually be real but if Adam is not physically and sexually attracted to the guy then it doesn't matter to him anyway.
- Adam does more and more to get the guy to like him and validate him but the guy never really gives Adam the pat on the back that he craves.
- Adam starts to get annoyed at the fact the that he goes all out of the way for the guy and he's still not getting the validation he wants. Mind you the guy never asked for all of this sacrifice from Adam.
- Adam is frustrated, at the end of his rope and ready to break things off but he doesn't want to be alone.
- Adam passively seeks out someone else to get with as insurance as he feels that him and this guy are about to be over.
- Adam snaps and breaks things off because the guy committed a minor offense against him that most people probably would have just dealt with or ignored but not Adam, he's way too hypersensitive to invalidation and is hurt by even the smallest, most insignificant slight at this point.
- Adam is alone again and moves in closer on the new guy.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. This is my relationship cycle in black and white. Dayum I sound crazy as hell. I don't feel too bad though cuz most of y'all bitches is crazy too. I've dated some of you. Like I said I don't have an answer yet. I know that it's definitely me who needs work but then again with all my emotional baggage flung across my shoulder I could be attracting the wrong type of men as well. I will look at this and look at my current dating situation and figure out exactly where I am on the cycle and figure out the best way to break the chain because I'm so tired of going through the same shyt over and over again. And I sure as hell do not wanna end up old and alone.

Like I always say "knowing is half the battle." Now that I have admitted publicly that I don't have it all together I can take steps toward trying to put me together. Like I said before I'm wounded, so before I can be a part of a successful relationship I have to love myself enough to heal me first so I can have something to give to someone else. So cliche, but nevertheless so true.

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Playing In The Background...
"What Is Love" (My Motha Effin Goin' Through It In A Relationship Theme Song)
by Vivian Green
from the album "A Love Story"
Check out my blog post on the Vivian Green concert I went to back in April. It has video and everything.
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Happy Labor Day everyone. How are you celebrating? Are you at the beach or at a barbecue enjoying the last official weekend of summer? Well I hope you're having fun because I am at work laboring right now. Yipee! But anyway I had a story to tell...

My ex boyfriend and I, Mr. Man (as I have recently have named him) met up on Saturday to discuss some business as we work on various projects together. After the breakup I told him that I wanted to remain friends. And I mean that for real, for real, not just as some bullshyt to say to soften the blow. As I talk to more and more of my friends I'm learning that for most people that isn't an easy feat. But I don't think of it as a big deal. I'm amicable with like 95% of my exes (read more about that in this post). Maybe I'm just different.

After he called me on Saturday morning to reconfirm our meeting that afternoon I ended up calling him back to tell him about the new Britney Spears song ("Gimme More"). We are both music freaks! At the end of that conversation he said:

"You are just gonna be my friend aren't you?"

He said it in a tone that said that 'I was really gonna continue to speak to him like I normally even though we just went through the weirdness of a break up', I wasn't bullshitting. To that I give a resounding yes! For me breakups don't have to be all weird and crazy. We're both adults, the past is the past, let's just pick up the pieces and move on. It's how I deal with things. I was talking to a friend about this kinda thing yesterday and he told me as a few people have that he wishes he could be more like me in that regard. Honestly, I don't feel as though I'm doing anything special. I just refuse to waste time on feeling weird and avoidance and all that mess that goes along with a break up. Life is way too short and precious for that.

We even got into a discussion about out Friday night dates which went well for the both of us. We compared notes and laughed about it like friends, how we were in the first place before mushiness and relationshippy shyt came along and complicated things. It's weird but I feel like Mr. Man is way too important to me to be of a romantic interest. I tend to place much more value on friends than boyfriends and dates. Dates are cool, sex is great but it's here today, gone tomorrow. I have much better and longer lasting relationships with my friends. Even though it won't be easiest thing in the world (for normal people more than for me) I'm glad were friends today. Hopefully that can continue tomorrow and the day after that. We'll take it one day at a time.

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Playing in The Background...
"Free/Sail On"
by Chante Moore
from the album "A Love Supreme"
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