Echo

I just had a…though-provoking conversation.

This guy has been trying to get with me. Within the “negotiations,” I’ve been very upfront about what I’m looking for right now (or more specifically, what I’m not looking for) and we were on the same page, except he’s just revealed to me that he has a girlfriend. So of course, I tell him this is a dealbreaker and I won’t be going out with him. I ask him if he was serious about his girlfriend and if so, then why he would want to mess around on her. He said that he was very serious about her but there were some things that he needed to get out of his system. I told him that he was looking for more trouble than he was ready for because messing around on someone he truly loves will fuck him up. So, in the same way things usually work out with me, we end up getting into a deep conversation about why he would be motivated to do something like this, and the conversation turns to sex issues. I’m giving him advice about communication and approaches and even sexual techniques and then it comes out…he’s never messed around on his girlfriend with girls, but a few times with guys. Strictly blowjobs, giving and receiving, but he says that seeing another guy’s hardon turns him on. That it’s not so much about the guy, but because it’s taboo. And his girlfriend has no idea that he’s bi or that he’s had encounters with other men. I tell him that just because he’s turned on by hardons doesn’t necessarily make him bi/gay (which is just a label anyway when sexuality is actually quite dimensional), referring to Brian’s Dan Savage/Trannie article. It just means that he likes hard-ons. I spent the rest of the conversation talking to him about the hard-on as a symbol, sometimes how people, men and women, are turned on by the sight of a male erection because it means approval and it’s an outward, measurable sign of pleasure, of which they caused. And sometimes, people are turned on by it not so much because they are gay, but because they have self-worth issues, probably stemming from an important male relationship. And maybe if he talked about this with someone close to him, he’d find out that he doesn’t really carry around this “horrible secret” of being bi, but that it’s something else, and by telling someone, he’ll discover that this thing that is a turn-on isn’t actually such a big definer of his sexuality. Or maybe he’s just gay but scared to accept it.

So here’s my thing. I have conversations like this a lot. Even with random strangers. Conversations turn deep and these people feel comfortable enough to reveal deep issues and I put all judgement/preconceptions away and just focus on easing suffering. But then afterwards, I have to deal with my own feelings about things. Right now, I’m a little bit tweaked. I have so much anxiety about being played for a fool. Because the first guy I ever dated played me for a fool and I never want that to happen again–to be disrespected and yet be completely oblivious of it. So it scares me enough to think that someone I’m dating or even married to would cheat on me, and it really tweaks me to think that there are these facets of them that I don’t know about–such as this need to go out and fool around with other guys. I know that my top three questions that I ask when I meet a guy are:

Are you married? Are you single? Are you gay?

Because I don’t want to be doing anything with some cheating scumbag husband and ruining a family somewhere. And I don’t want to be hurting some other girl by doing anything with her boyfriend, being used as an instrument to disrespect another person, her trust and their relationship. And I don’t want to be blindsighted by being pulled into someone’s fantasy about themselves, when they are trying to avoid being truthful with themselves. I just don’t want to be the last one to know about things, to be the chump, to be oblivious. Because I’m really, really hard on myself to the point of cruelty and this happens to be the arena in which I am a downright tyrant.

I’m trying not to think too much about this. But it’s conversations like this that make me terrified of dating. Because I don’t think I could ever trust someone. As much as you will ever know about someone, you’ll never know everything and I’m so scared of what kind of things are in those shadows that I can’t see into.

ADDENDUM

Alan…you know this stuff with coincidences? Here’s one:

I was dating this guy and after three months, we still hadn’t had sex. So one night, I have this horrible dream where we’re talking and he makes a joke like, “Yeah, I’ve fucked a guy.” I ask, “Really?” And he kind of looks at me funny and says, “No.” . I look him straight in the eye and say, “Really?” He says, “Of course not.” I say really gently, “You know, it’s okay if you have.” He gets quiet and then finally says, “Once.” I’m devastated in my dream and in real life, because I start to cry in both. I ask, “Were you doing him or taking it?” And he said, “Taking.” And I felt the whole world physically fall apart.

When I woke up I was pretty traumatized. We hung out that night and he was being an asshole and I went to a party afterwards with Jake and Brian. I saw this guy eyeing me but I was pretty much ignoring him, because I was in a pretty bad mood. He comes over to talk to me anyway and it turns out he went to the same college as my boyfriend. So I ask him if he knows him. He’s not sure. So I ask him if he knows “**,” my boyfriend’s ex. Turns out he knows her really well. So I say, little blond guy, dated her for a while, was in [whatever frat]. He says, “OH! I know who you’re talking about! He almost got kicked out of his frat cuz he gave some black guy a blowjob at [some gym on campus]!” I FREAK OUT, because I HAD JUST HAD A FUCKING DREAM ABOUT THIS THE NIGHT BEFORE.

So he calls some guy over and asks, did you hear about………..etc? And that guy says, “Yeah, they tried to kick him out cuz he’s a fag and went down on some guy at the gym.” The first guy says, “That’s her boyfriend!” And the second guy says, “No shit! He’s not out???”