GAY SEX AND SEXUAL INTIMACY

Sex is not performance, it’s not about giving a show or giving demonstrations of various kinds. Real sex is not a porn movie. Sex, and I’m talking about gay sex in particular, that is, a sexual dimension that has nothing to do with procreation, is essentially shared intimacy. Such concept of sexuality is very broad and includes many things that are not sex in the strict sense, but have or can have many sexual implications. True sexual intimacy is achieved when a guy is not conditioned by his partner, in the sense that he feels neither forced nor artificially induced to have sex, but does it freely, when asking for sexual contact from his partner does not create embarrassment and does not can under no circumstances elicit perplexed or embarrassed responses, when the request for sexual contact by one’s partner is welcomed as a positive thing and of great emotional significance, when being naked together does not create anxiety or embarrassment, when physical contact is unreserved and without taboos. The only real problem in gay sex is represented by the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, but beyond this risk, which is objective and which must ALWAYS be adequately prevented, there are practically no other real problems.

Sex, all sex, is absolutely incompatible with the idea of ​​domination, oppression or exploitation of the other. In gay sexual relations the rule of equality of partners is absolutely fundamental. Anyone who tries to use sex as a means of domination and control of another person or simply behaves by inducing forms of subordination or fear in the other, even unconsciously, should understand that those purposes and those behaviors are the denial of sexuality, which is a profound participation in the life of the other, in his anxieties and problems, that is, in the life of the other as a whole, because the entire personality of an individual is reflected in sex. And this is why living sexuality well brings enormous benefits not only to the tone of mood,but to the person’s overall balance and general state of health.

Sharing sexuality, when it is authentic and reciprocal, lowers anxiety levels and helps to face the problems of ordinary life together, because it creates a solid bond, a relationship of trust and esteem between two people who support each other and can participate in each other’s decisions by also expressing a different point of view, which never hurts.

Accepting the idea that compromises must be reached and that peaceful coexistence is basically the art of compromise is an indication of maturity, but if it is easy to accept compromises on questions of objectively very relative weight, the more a choice implies profound levels of a person’s affectivity, the more difficult it becomes to accept compromises. We can easily accept the idea of ​​going on a Sunday with a friend to see a film even if we are not interested in the film, but it is morally reprehensible to accept marrying one woman instead of another in order to obtain economic or career advantages. By morally reprehensible, I mean that such a choice is not only theoretically immoral but ends up negatively affecting all of life. In essence, immoral choices seem to bring advantages, or perhaps they objectively bring immediate benefits, but in the long run they are paid for and often very heavily. Mixing sexual interest with interests of another nature, that is, with interests linked to the search for economic or social advantages, means subordinating a fundamental emotional choice to the achievement of purposes that appear fundamental but are not at all. Those who devalue sexuality by subordinating it to non-affective ends deny an essential part of themselves in the name of ephemeral interests, that is, they subordinate the essential to the marginal.

Sexuality should not be mythologized or decontextualized, precisely because it is relational, it does not exist in the abstract but only in specific situations. Experiences related to sexuality are lived in a strictly personal way and depend on the relationship with another specific individual. What we lived with Titius has nothing to do with what we can or could live with Caius. It is precisely for this reason that defining rules of sexual behavior has essentially no meaning. There is no manual of sexuality beyond the one fundamental rule that sexuality must be a form of love. The only true rules of sexual behavior are in fact only corollaries of that fundamental rule.

Abstract rules, such as strict monogamy, the at least tendential definitiveness of the bond and therefore its irrevocability or its difficult revocability, the need for coexistence, the socialization of the relationship, etc. etc., are merely attempts to pigeonhole an affective relationship within categories similar to those that are taken for granted, although not always, in the context of marriage. That those rules may have no use and may even be an obstacle in the sphere of marriage, obviously heterosexual, has already been recognized on a social level, through the introduction of divorce, which among other things is an institution as old as the world, at least in countries where the law has retained its substantial secularity, that is, it was seen as an organization of the existing and not as a form of indirect imposition of behaviors deemed right a priori. In the heterosexual field there is the objective problem of protecting the interests of the children and a regulation of marriage has a motivation in any case. Basically, the real problem in that area is the definition of the limits within which the legislator can operate. In the context of homosexual relationships, if we refer to the protection of children, where there are any, we can only refer to the same discipline that regulates heterosexual relationships, because the interest to be protected is that of minors and not that of adults, but when there are no children, as still happens today in the vast majority of cases, in a secular state no restrictive intrusion by the legislator is admissible, while any intervention aimed at guaranteeing equal treatment with heterosexual couples for partners in homosexual unions who intend to legally formalize their relationship is a duty.

Obviously one thing is the substance of the couple relationship and another thing is its legal formalization, which is not an obligation but a right that must be the object of a shared choice by the two partners, but, it must be emphasized, it must only be the formalization of something that already exists. The couple relationship is not established with marriage or with any other legal instrument and, indeed, it can be said that the formalization of the relationship does not in any case constitute a prop to keep a shaky union standing or to create an emotional bond. In a gay couple sharing sexual intimacy is an absolutely primary and free fact, it is not a rational choice or decision that takes into account predictable advantages and disadvantages. The sharing of sexual intimacy, if it is not absolutely spontaneous and instinctive, is the result of a more or less violent forcing or self-forcing and for this very reason it is born spoiled by a lack of spontaneity and is destined not to produce positive effects.

Experience teaches that just as a straight guy is not attracted to all women, so a gay guy is not attracted to all men and, indeed, the vast majority of men are completely indifferent to him, because sexual attraction only arises towards a few or very few people. It is only with those people that one experiences a true form of sexual involvement, only with those people, if one gets to know them better, is it possible to experience forms of true sexual excitement. If the attraction is mutual then the idea of ​​sharing sexuality becomes a real possibility.

It should be emphasized that the traditional formula according to which well-matched couples, which would be better defined as stable couples, must be formed by individuals who are very similar to each other, is a classic preconception that has no correspondence in reality. There are no a priori parameters that allow predicting the greater or lesser stability of a hypothetical couple based on the mere observation of the two hypothetical partners separately from each other. Sexuality is relational and stable couples often find “their motivation” in things that seen from the outside have very little or no meaning at all. The reasons why a couple lasts over time are inherent to that single couple and cannot be generalized.

However, one element is recorded almost constantly when a new and true couple bond is formed: when a guy feels attracted to another and realizes that the other shares the same feelings, the involvement is total and both feel the feeling of starting a “new life” a life together. It is not said that these sensations are destined to last over time, because instinctive interest often arises on the basis not of serious reciprocal knowledge but of projections of what one desires, projections which one sometimes risks confusing with reality. The guy who sexually attracts me is beautiful, very serious, very good, very spontaneous, very much in love with me, etc. etc. Naturally these assumptions of principle will then have to deal with reality, but, if, even redimensioned, they will basically remain standing, perhaps leading to a conclusion like: “He has his flaws, but I wouldn’t trade him for anyone else!” and similar assessments will also have been made by the other partner, one can only acknowledge that a couple has in fact formed.

Couple means mutual freedom, mutual esteem, mutual knowledge without taboos and sharing of sexuality, this is where the difficult part begins, because, I stress, in this case sharing means sharing without reservations, without gray areas, without omissions. There is no real esteem for your partner if you don’t consider him capable of fully understanding your point of view and your experience, I am talking about understanding, not necessarily sharing, but, mind you, to understand behaviors of an individual, you must not adopt a judgmental attitude and at least you must have respect for what youe dom’t share. Not sharing does not mean judging negatively but only not experiencing the same things firsthand.

Sharing sexuality is a form of mutual trust. Each partner confides very private aspects of his person to the other, which is possible only when there is deep mutual esteem. Obviously this entrusting presupposes absolute confidentiality on the part of the partner. The violation of confidentiality is always an irresponsible behavior, but when it comes to sexuality it is particularly unpleasant for the partner and if the violation of confidentiality is fully conscious and wanted, it represents a hateful form of aggression that makes the continuation of the relationship unthinkable. What is known in the context of a couple relationship, and not a generic relationship of a social nature, must remain strictly within the context of that couple relationship. The violation of this principle of confidentiality, even towards parents or siblings, is intolerable and does not admit of any justification. Similarly, couple problems must be resolved within the couple, other people can also be called upon to intervene but only if both partners agree, otherwise the privacy of the couple would be violated and one of the two partners would see the trust placed in the partner heavily betrayed.

Sharing sexuality means finding a balance, i.e. a compromise between different ways of experiencing sexuality. The less the two partners’ visions of sexuality are compatible, the more complex the search for balance will be. I emphasize that I did not speak of identity or similarity but of compatibility. Two people can have distinct views on sexuality that are, however, perfectly compatible. Maintaining balance is not always easy and moments of crisis exist. A solid couple is not a couple immune to moments of crisis, but a couple that manages to find sufficient motivation within themselves to overcome the crisis and proceed further.

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A SECOND CHOICE GAY COUPLE

Hi Project,
I skip the pleasantries. What would you do if you were 30 years old and had a soft spot for a friend of yours with whom you also had a little sex, but he was a friend who perhaps wants to distance himself from you and that you might not want to lose? What would you do if that friend of yours had his birthday in a week? Would you send him a happy birthday text message? I don’t say more, but a good wishes text message?

Because now I find myself in this situation, I’m not in love with my friend, that is, I’m not in love in the sense that if he is not there I die, indeed perhaps I live even better, but I think that despite his roughness he is still a friend, I just don’t know what he thinks of me now, I don’t know if we really understand each other, maybe now we understand each other less than before, however between us there has always been a certain mutual tolerance with some particularly important moments, he, in his own way, he cares a little about me, or maybe he cared, and I care a little bit about him, we went on also and perhaps above all because between us there was a bit of sex, to say that I don’t care the sex part, it would be hypocritical, but I also wanted something else, I say I wanted because now sometimes I think I don’t want anything at all.

I have an ambiguous feeling towards him: he attracts me but he also rejects me. I can’t stand many of his ways of doing that seem disproportionate to me, but others touch me deeply.

I think sex has ruined everything between us. Yes, Project, first one goes out of his way to get there, and we both did, then you realize that you end up screwing it up, that everything ends up revolving around sex and everything else seems to have been just an excuse, a tool to get to sex, then you want to go back, but there is no going back. I wonder what I was looking for and what he was looking for when we met.

We both bragged about not being like the others, not rushing after sex just for sex, but in the end that’s what we did and so we screwed everything up, maybe not, but it’s no more like before. It is true that even now if there is a moment of strong communication it is right when we have sex, but then it passes and you realize that it ends right there.

There is the fact that neither he nor I really looked for other partners, maybe he did sometimes, but usually it didn’t last long, when he wanted sex he came to me, when he wanted love he thought of others without going to bed with them because if he had done he would only go to bed with them and anyhow he wouldn’t get what he was looking for.

He wasn’t in love with me, I was the second choice, the one without love, the one only about sex, at least that’s what he said and I think it was true. I knew what he thought of me, but I also knew that he needed me at least for sex and probably because I was the only one who cared about him, even though he would have wanted someone else in my place.

Another guy, in my place, would have sent him to the hell, but I never did because in the end I was aware that he would anyhow come back to me anyway, even if every time he came to me I was very cautious for fear of diseases because I didn’t trust what he used to say to reassure me and all this bothered him tremendously and so even sex sometimes started badly and ended worse and I ended up wondering: What am I doing here?

When we met we were not yet twenty and now we are still here, always fighting with the same things. He is perpetually frustrated and disappointed, not at work, fortunately, but in the emotional life, I’m increasingly disillusioned, but in the end we are still here. As for me, I believe that I will never have a boyfriend as I would like him and the speech is valid for him as well. Our being in some way together is clearly a compromise solution or better a fallback on both sides, but in the end that’s what exists.

We always said things to each other’s face, even the things I wrote to you here, and also said in a much more direct and aggressive way, at least in words. I don’t like the idea of losing him at all. I know it would probably be the best solution for both me and him, but I would anyhow miss him badly. I would really be sorry that everything was lost, I’m afraid it could be so and I don’t know what to do.

His birthday is a simple (trivial) way to tell him that I still think of him, what he will do I don’t know, if he doesn’t answer me he will have made the last move, the decisive one, and I will accept it, because I can only accept it, if he answers me I will have to face a thousand problems and I will, but I don’t feel like I’m the one to decide for the no, because that’s not what I want.

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GAYS AND STRAIGHT FRIENDS

Hi Project,

a few days ago I was struck by a sentence on an email from a guy who said that his boyfriend must first of all be a true friend. I have had guys and also friends, but I don’t know how many of them were also true friends, probably very few. I said a banality, I know, I think that true friendship is a rare thing anyway and this is the core of my speech.

I know well that I don’t have to expect too much from anyone because I also think I have been a disappointment for almost all of my guys, if not all of them, at least sometimes, and also for my friends. After all, all this discourse only serves to demystify falls in love and friendships, especially those not tested, and to understand that happiness or its less mythical substitute can be found above all in everyday life and in the banal, as long as it is not too much banal.

We must console ourselves with what is there, which is not necessarily very little. But this also means starting to give a value to many things that were not seen before because the myth of overwhelming and total things polarized our attention so much that we didn’t see anything else.

I will certainly not tell you an overwhelming love story, which is not something that suits me, and then there are too many of them around, but I’ll only tell you a small story of respect and affection between two people who didn’t merge their lives, who indeed continued to go their separate ways, but found in those ways an added value because they met.

Project, I’ll tell you about my friendship with a guy, but it could also be a girl, here, finally, sex has nothing to do with it! For heaven’s sake, I have nothing against sex, but it often promises things that it doesn’t deliver at all, which doesn’t mean it’s always a disappointment, just that it probably promises too much. On the other hand, some friendships promise nothing, they are small things but they help you to move forward and understand many aspects of life.

In April 2011 I’m 26 years old, I lived all the classic experiences typical of gay guys: isolation within the family, parents who don’t know and wouldn’t understand, friends who don’t know and who wouldn’t understand, etc. etc., so much fantasy, so much pornography, so many stories read on your forum, so many half stories mentioned more than started and so many half disappointments.

Among my friends there is one with whom I feel at ease, his name is Guido, we have known each other since school. He speaks little and also rather slowly, he doesn’t speak like a machine gun, he is always calm but I think he’s very restrained and a bit neurotic, he isn’t a leader, he doesn’t participate much in discussions, he listens and remembers but he doesn’t tell you what he thinks. At the university we did very different faculties, I towards the juridical, he towards more scientific things.

He is the only ex-school friend of mine with whom I maintained contact throughout the period of the university, not a special contact, but we met more or less every month and we went to get a pizza together talking about this and that. The conversations weren’t so particularly involving, we didn’t end up talking about personal things, we talked a little bit of politics, and there we understood each other enough, and we talked even a little bit of his and my study stuff. We didn’t use to go on talking for long at the end of the pizza , we just said goodbye and went home, everything was apparently very banal.

I specify that Guido in my opinion is not a handsome guy, I have never been interested in him from that point of view. I didn’t know anything about his private life, that is, I didn’t know if he was gay or straight and I’ve never wondered, especially since we never talked about those topics. When we talked, I was happy, because I knew I was going to have a quiet evening. When he saw me less calm he encouraged me but in a generic way, he didn’t ask me questions, he was very respectful of my privacy and on the other hand he never talked to me about his.

When he called me on the phone he was very concise and in any case he rarely called me, usually he called me, I never called him because I knew that sooner or later I would hear from him. In those years I lived my first stories with guys alternating highs and lows on the roller coaster of love. Sometimes I wanted to talk about these things with Guido, then I told myself that he wouldn’t understand and I let it go, my relation with Guido were something apart, not intertwined with my love life.

One evening we go out for the usual pizza and I notice that he wears a wedding ring on his finger, not a simple band ring, but a classic wedding ring of a traditional type, I ask him why and he tells me that he got married 15 days before but he didn’t tell me anything about not to make me feel obliged in any way, I’m perplexed that he only told me it after the fact, but he immediately changes the subject and proposes something that I would never have imagined, that is, he proposes me to go to dinner one evening at his house, I understand that he cares a lot and I accept, but then he changes the subject again and we end up talking about the usual things.

The next week I go to his house for dinner, he introduces me to his wife, Lucia, a very pretty young girl, who treats me very familiarly and puts me at ease in a way I never imagined. Guido and Lucia are a quiet couple, I would say that the air you breathe in their home is one of serenity. Dinner is excellent and very familiar and the conversation is light and pleasant, basically a nice evening.

At the end Guido accompanies me to the car and I tell him: “I was really good and I’m happy for you and for Lucia!” And I tell him with full conviction, he reads it in my eyes and smiles at me, there I realized that he really cared about my opinion. Then we said goodbye in the usual way. In the following months we continued to see each other with the usual rhythms, in practice nothing has changed between us with his marriage.

In the meantime, I had begun the longest and most tormented of my stories with a guy (Lucio). I didn’t say anything to Guido about Lucio, partly because I wanted those things to remain mine and I also wanted to behave with him as he had behaved with me, and partly because I didn’t know how he would react.

In March 2018 the story with Lucio went into crisis and I fell into a very black period. Guido noticed it, he understood that something had happened that had put me in crisis, I realized it because he was more considerate of me, he called me more often on the phone even though he had become father twice and had to think about family.

One night we go out at a time when I was really in trouble and he simply says to me: “What happened?” I tell him: “I broke up with my boyfriend …” He’s not in tha least upset but remains silent waiting for me to tell him the rest and then I go ahead, he doesn’t interrupt me. In the end he just says to me: “Don’t blame Lucio, he may not have understood anything and he could feel bad too …” This last thing made a light bulb turn on in my brain and I asked him: “What would you do?” He replied: “I would call him immediately.” I told him: “Now?” And he replied: “Yes”.

I took my cell phone, left the pizzeria and immediately called Lucio. Lucio was in a crisis worse than me and it was evident that we were both happy to hear from each other again. After 40 minutes I saw Guido leave the pizzeria with two takeaway pizzas, he gave one to me and said in a whisper: “I’m going on foot, take care of Lucio! …” I continued talking to Lucio and in the following days we started again to see each other and in the end it was a positive thing, because not Lucio nor I were at ease with each other and above all for reasons of stubbornness. The problems with Lucio were resolved, at least on that time, and we both regained some serenity.

About a month later I saw Guido again and I told him that the problem with Lucio was over, he just said to me: “I’m glad.” And he smiled, then we talked about something else. The problem that I and Lucio were two guys was never taken into consideration, for Guido it was completely irrelevant. Guido is not the one who listens to my love problems, but one whom I trust and who often understands me on the fly without me even needing to speak, he plays down things even by not talking too much about. He doesn’t like the blah blah, he is operative, if you have to do something, for him, you just have to do it, without starting to think about it in vain.

I recently went to his house for dinner and I saw that he has a way of treating Lucia that enchants me, he is not expansive but reassuring, he is the man of doing more than talking, when I arrived he was in the kitchen with Lucia and they were cooking together. If I have to think of a model of a happy couple I think of Guido and Lucia, they are straight, ok, they have children, but above all they don’t create stupid problems, they talk little and commit themselves together. I’m sorry to say, but among gays such a thing is quite rare, although I think it is rare even among straight people.

I would like my relationship with Lucio to be similar to that of Guido and Lucia, but we are not at that level, we are still two cockerels pecking each other or two boys who have not grown up who have kept the habit of fighting each other. Slowly we are learning but I think the road will still be long. Lucio is a bit jealous of Guido and I tell him: “But Guido has a wife and two children!” and he replies: “Mh … It may be, but I don’t think you’re telling me the truth!” and then he laughs and chases me around the house.

The technique of not speaking which is typical of Guido also works between me and Lucio, Lucio likes to talk, but now he talks less and between us there are more affectionate gestures, when he comes to me we go shopping together at the supermarket (a small supermarket) and the ladies we meet look at us with curiosity, because they are not used to seeing two men together in the supermarket doing their shopping, at one point I feel a little too observed by an elderly lady and I feel a little embarrassed, and so, to get out of the embarrassment and even a bit ‘to laugh, I try to make me or him look like a young dad and I tell him aloud: “Remember to take the diapers!” And he replies: “But you don’t need it!” And the lady looks at us very puzzled!

I conclude here, of course, Project, do what you think of the email, the names are all fictional.

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GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND COHABITATION

In this last period I have often met gay guys in chat who have a partner but who have found themselves having to deal with at least partial disappointments, so I will try to outline and summarize the nodes of the problem. 

First of all, the expression “having a partner” is extremely generic, ranging from stable cohabitation for several years now to the relationship that is still in its infancy and is still to be verified, up to the long-distance relationship in which there is no real contact except absolutely episodic and brief. Obviously in such a variety of situations the concept of “mythization” takes on very varied and scarcely homogeneous connotations. 

The myth, in itself, embodies an archetype of behavior that is either received from the outside or created autonomously. The mythization of real people is the typical example of the self-constructed myth, identifying the person with the role he fills or one would like him to fill and projecting our personal archetypes of that role onto that person. Attributing even only hypothetically a role to a person is equivalent to recognize that person qualities and attributes that are often taken for granted, because the projective mechanisms lead us to see above all, if not exclusively, what we want to see. 

A few decades ago, when there were no means of distance communication, people’s knowledge was numerically much more limited but also much more direct than what is achieved today through social media. Today social networks don’t allow us to see and evaluate the behavior of others but only to know the image they intend to give us of themselves, that is, to know their self-representation. Obviously, the representations of oneself vary according to the aims one intends to pursue. In the search for the so-called soul mate, often, the self-image that we tend to provide our partner is built on the moment, exploiting the information we already know about him. 

The fundamental information is photography, with which we instinctively assess whether the other is or is not an object of interest to us. If it is not, that is, if the photo doesn’t correspond to our archetypes, the tone of the conversation is low, the appreciations are limited, we don’t try to deepen the relationship but to make it slide towards banality and towards a short-term dissolution. If, on the other hand, the photo interests us, the tone of the language changes and we try to express a concrete interest, the discourse heats up, we immediately enter very personal arguments, we are careful to give a positive image of ourselves according to the interlocutor’s yardstick. The first thing you appreciate is beauty, which is the objectively most impactful element at the first eye contact. Listening becomes extremely attentive, space is given to the interlocutor, trying to collect through his words useful elements to build a representation of ourselves as seductive as possible, even at the expense of truthfulness and completeness. All the similarities and analogies with the interlocutor are underlined and all possible points of divergence or distance are largely overlooked. An image of oneself is built and transmitted by specularity-complementarity (the two hands are not only similar but specular and complementary and are perfectly suited to work together). 

Then comes the time of the retrospective image of oneself, of one’s own history, and in particular of one’s own affective history, and here too often the mechanisms of selection-omission of contents operate at an unconscious level, through which, in the archive of individual memory, some episodes are chosen as emblematic of one’s own being and acting and others are omitted that would be in dissonance with the former. The language slips very easily towards expressions that indicate strong involvement and appreciation (the drift of love language). The whole process just outlined can be summed up in the word seduction. To seduce means to “take aside”, “attract to oneself” a person. 

If the relationship is born symmetrical, that is, the first impact evaluations are very similar on the two sides, one gets the impression of being in front of a beautiful love story or at least its onset and the projective mechanisms come into operation by building a progressive mythization of the partner on the basis of what we know of him, in the presumption that the image that the other has given us is authentic. But the mechanisms of selection of contents, which often operate unconsciously, invariably provide at least partial, if not distorted, representations of reality. In other words, verbal contact or even that in audio-video doesn’t show the reactions of the other in real situations but only what the other, in a more or less conscious way, wants us to see, or simply makes us see. 

Obviously, the encounter in person, if episodic and brief, still maintains this same pattern and if anything tends to confirm the mythical vision of the other. Only a real coexistence in ordinary and long-lasting situations makes it possible to understand and evaluate the personality of the other with a breadth and depth of a certain thickness. 

It should be emphasized that if the one who speaks about himself to a person in whom he is interested in any case provides a sweetened representation of himself, that is, he makes a selection of the contents to be presented, even the listener, in a more or less conscious way, makes a selection among the contents that are presented to him, attributing value to those that go in the direction he wants and neglecting or minimizing those that go in the opposite direction, in this way the image of the interlocutor undergoes a second deformation induced by the listener on the basis of his own archetypes and his own projections. 

At the end of a period, however short, of meetings in chat alternated with short meetings in person, one gets the impression of having built a stable relationship and of knowing each other in depth, but in reality the mutual knowledge is minimal and the image of the other is heavily deformed. Myth makes up for reality, integrates it and strengthens it, as long as contact with reality doesn’t intervene to correct the situation. 

The old saying: “marriage is the tomb of love” means that cohabitation actually makes many couple relationships collapse because they were built only on projections and myths far removed from reality. 

The demythization that follows real coexistence can be of a very different type and degree. The higher the level of mythization in the pre-coexistence phase, the greater the level of disillusionment that follows from coexistence. The person who gives the best possible image of himself (self-mythization) is also the one who has the greatest a priori probability of generating profound disillusionment. The person who, on the other hand, doesn’t avoid speaking clearly about his own problematic aspects, is less likely to be successful in the seduction phase, but, in the long run, is much less exposed to the risk of creating disillusionment in the partner. 

In the gay world, today, stable cohabitations are more the exception than the rule, civil unions are rare, partly because they involve a coming out that in some cases would create problems that are difficult if not impossible to solve, but above all because a coexistence of long term requires basic choices oriented towards stability and the ability to act over a long period in a manner consistent with those choices. Short stories and in any case without formal constraints can be born very easily and just as easily they can end, they are already born under the banner of the relative, the revisable, the non-definitive and essentially the disengaged, and are often based on fragile mythologies destined to shatter when one face a real coexistence. However, it must be said that the tendency towards disengaged or, as it is commonly said, free relationships, has its underlying reason in the difficulty of creating a deep interpersonal relationship, which would require the presence of forms of compatibility between the partners that are decidedly uncommon. In general, the first experiences of gay guys have as their goal the creation of a stable couple, but since in many cases this goal remains in fact unattainable or in any case unfulfilled, one ends up choosing the other choice, the more disengaged one, which is certainly more fragile but represents an objectively achievable goal even in conditions that are not ideal in themselves. 

It should be emphasized that a disillusionment, however heavy it may be, doesn’t necessarily lead to the rupture of the relationship, because, if only for reasons of inertia, the possibly cracked relationship can be mended or better strengthened, even more than once, but obviously that relationship, marked by disillusionment, which is often reciprocal, risks being gradually emptied from within, if other mechanisms don’t intervene to consolidate it. 

The idea that disillusionment is not in itself destructive of the couple’s relationship is often accepted only as a fallback solution, but should rather be seen, sometimes at least, as a healthy return to reality, because disillusionment is such in relationship to the previous illusion, but seen from the perspective of the future, it can lead to a re-evaluation of the relationship which is not necessarily its degradation. In other words, it is a matter of taking note of the reality of the other, or at least of a less mythical and distorted image of him, which can profoundly and not always negatively modify the internal balance of the couple.

Overcoming the couple crises, which often derive from disappointments, can even consolidate the relationship. In long-distance relationships, involvement is largely linked to the myth of the partner, the relationship is based on words and easily controllable situations. In cohabitation, the possibility of more or less deep misunderstandings with the partner is very concrete, one realizes that even sexual compatibility is conditioned by the fact that different individuals have different visions of sexuality and of being gay. Behaviors that are desirable for one of the two may not be desirable at all for the other, the example of coming out is enough here, but many other topics could be quoted here that are argument of frequent misunderstandings within the couple. In gay coexistence it is very easy to make mistakes even when the conditions for building a lasting couple exist. The relationships of stable coexistence without disappointments and without cracks don’t exist, a certain amount of conflict is physiological for the very existence of the couple. To realize a coexistence it is essential that the partners understand at the outset that there will be mistakes on both sides and that rigid positions risk destabilizing even the couple relationships that had all the theoretical presuppositions of solidity at their origin. 

Disillusions, as mentioned, are often reciprocal, but it is not certain that they are obvious, or that they are on both sides. Disillusionment is often kept to oneself while waiting for it to be disproved and vanish and this indicates that the myth is in crisis but has not completely collapsed. In these cases, those who hide their disappointment tend to assume a characteristic claiming attitude, staying in the couple assumes for them the sense of waiting for the decisive proof, until the measure is filled and the account is presented to the partner by listing or better by reproaching him all together his shortcomings or presumed such, it is the moment of the so-called showdown, in these cases the answer can be cold (the worst answer), frustrated or even claiming, in the latter case, the partner to whom the bill has been presented presents the bill to the counterparty in turn, to put on the scales the expectations and faults of the two parties. Even in these cases, however, it is by no means certain that the couple’s life goes irremediably to pieces, the situation turns to the worst when the two separate without having either resolved or lightened the conflict situation, that is, when the attitude is rigid. 

Obviously cohabitations are unstable equilibria in which, especially in a very early phase, small corrective thrusts are sufficient to maintain the balance. It should be added that cohabitation, if on the one hand it can lead to the demythization of the partner, on the other hand it can make one partner discover the qualities of the other partner that are less evident at first sight. One of the qualities of a partner that emerge in long cohabitation is non-destructiveness, that is the ability to manage the destructive tendencies of the other, to cool tones and conflicts, to minimize the negative and to enhance the positive of a relationship. 

Ultimately, the myth of the partner born in the seductive phase fully collides with reality only when it comes to a long-term coexistence. In this phase, the demythization of the partner takes place, which leads to a re-evaluation of the elements on which the couple is based. The outcome of this new evaluation is not destructive in itself, but can lead to a re-foundation of the couple’s life on less projective and more realistic assumptions. 

The “unconditional compliance” that is the tendency to always say yes to one’s partner in order to save the relationship, deserves a separate consideration. The very concept of dynamic equilibrium implies that the thrusts must be balanced and that, if to the pressures exerted by one of the two always corresponds to a yielding of the other, the equilibrium cannot be maintained, the requests for adaptation will progressively extend to all areas of shared life and beyond, and that equality that represents the essential core of the gay couple will eventually be wiped out. In this way not only will life as a couple not be preserved but it will be reduced to a series of obligations or a series of psychological addictions.

Here are some excerpts from the e-mails to illustrate what has been said. 

SEDUCTION 

“He calls me on video and immediately tells me: You are beautiful! But he is beautiful! He looks like an actor and he has a hot, sexy voice. When he saw my photos for the first time he was speechless and didn’t believe it was me! He told me that he has never seen a handsome guy like me, that I have taste, that I dress well, that I know how to choose the haircut, that I listen to the right music, the same one he listens to, that we have the same tastes. He is a sunny guy but he has no friends. When we talk he tells me beautiful things, I tell him that I’m not as he sees me, that I have a lot of defects and that he is mythologizing me and he replies that he can’t wait to meet me in person.” 

SEXUAL LANGUAGE 

“There are some things I can’t stand in his way of doing, first of all the language. We have sex with each other, but when he talks about it he uses certain vulgar terms that really get on my nerves, I wonder where he learned to speak like that. He tells me that I’m a hypocrite and that I want to save my face of good guy , and he can’t stand that I want to save my privacy. He tells me that if I do sexual things I have to call them by their name, but I don’t see those things as he sees them, assuming he really sees things differently, but when he talks about sexual things with me he uses his own language, so vulgar that I can’t stand it at all, then, when he gets angry with me, my God, he speaks with a language worthy of the worst porn and when he does that I would throttle him.” 

FORCING 

“One thing I can’t stand about my boyfriend is the fact that he wants to force me to do things (sexual things) that I don’t want to do and that he obviously did or perhaps still does with others. On some things I can also give in but on others I should really impose it on myself with violence and I just don’t want to do so. When I say no to him in a very decisive way, at first he insists and even too much, and then he seems to go beyond, as if nothing had happened, but when we happen to quarrel he pulls these things all out and reproaches me them, he tells me: “You must always do as you say!” (which, by the way, is absolutely not true), then he tells me that I don’t really love him because I don’t always do what he wants, but I say: if we are together, I give in on one thing and you on another! Why he doesn’t he realize that sometimes he just asks me absurd things, that I really can’t stand?” 

RECOVERY MANEUVERS 

“The other day we had a fight over a very stupid issue, or rather the bickering started from there: to wear socks or not when we have sex, he only wears those socks for the foot, I wear normal short socks, but he wanted me to take them off and I didn’t understand why, since he wore them, a string of complaints about my behavior started from such a stupid thing, basically he told me that I never said yes to him and that I had to argue about everything and then, once he started in fourth gear, he went on and never stopped, at a certain point he dressed as if he wanted to go away and I said to myself: What is he doing? Is he really leaving for such a thing? But he’s out of his mind! So I told him I felt like a complete fool for looking for him and it would never happen again, then he changed his tone, undressed again and got back on the bed and then he said to me: Come here! I asked him if he would still say the stupid things he had just said to me and he replied that he had said too few and that he says such things for my own good, even if I don’t understand it. Anyway, at least he has the dignity to go back!”

___________

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gay-relationships-and-cohabitation

DIFFICULT DIALOGUE BETWEEN GAYS

Hi Project,
I read your email, you say things that are right but very difficult to put into practice, I’m trying it because I also think it’s the only way: “understand my boyfriend’s weaknesses”. It is clear that he has a life of his own, he did not show up with a mask, he was honest with me and I – on this you are absolutely right – I used what he told me to devalue his image and not to try to understand him as I should have done. That is, he gave me weapons and I turned them against him. Honestly my behavior has been shabby. I didn’t try to identify with him but I judged him in a very stupid and superficial way. 

Anyway there is the risk that the attempt to understand is totally intellectualistic despite the good will, because basically these are things that I have never experienced and I can only understand from the outside. More than understanding, which perhaps isn’t even possible, I would like to be there for him. You talk about his weaknesses, but his are fears more than weaknesses. In this I certainly made a big mistake, I thought that he could not be afraid of anything and instead he may have been overwhelmed by deep, visceral emotional reactions, in the face of things he didn’t know, which he faced with a kind of fatalism that from the outside looked somehow cynical. 

In reality there was nothing cynical and I begin to understand what a disappointment it was for him to be somehow scolded by me, that is by a guy who basically hadn’t understood anything of what he was really going through. In this sense, yes, there are weaknesses, but on both sides.

Then I should also correct another attitude: I talk too much, let myself go to useless sermons that can be irritating and above all I put myself in an attitude of opposition. I try to juxtapose my attitude to his and to argue that mine is the right point of view. Basically I think that he has understood that I’m a little afraid of him, it’s a fear in the best possible sense, that is fear that my ways of doing, instead of creating a contact, can make him feel even more alone. 

I know I’m not the most important person for him, but I see that he still looks for me, especially in the most difficult moments and it is precisely in those moments that I go into crisis. When you love a guy, you end up afraid of him and this has happened to me too. I talk about his neuroses and I don’t see mine, but he sees them and when he points them out to me I stiffen in a defensive attitude. I have wondered a thousand times why he has never looked for a simple and tender couple relationship, I don’t mean with me but with anyone. He tells me it’s not true and that he looked for it but never found it. Perhaps it is difficult for me to understand the meaning of this statement because if he had sought an affectionate response from me I would have felt enthusiastic and I cannot understand how other guys could have not felt equally enthusiastic, evidently they didn’t love him enough. 

Once he said to me, “Do you remember what I went through? Don’t you?” Such a sentence makes me think a lot, because I tend to homologate him, to consider him similar to me but he is a completely different person, with a completely different past. Yesterday we talked for a while, he told me that he currently has six partners with whom he has sex, but that they are also his friends, with whom he spends days even without sex, he says that everyone knows that he is like this, that he doesn’t want too close relationships with anyone, because he would feel asphyxiated and would have the feeling of losing his freedom, he tells me that I’m obsessed by the idea that he is missing something, that is that he is missing the couple life, but he doesn’t want the couple life and he is fine like that. 

He told me about an ex-boyfriend of his, with whom he had a rather long affair, who has now a stable relationship with his new boyfriend. He is happy with this, but says that he is happy for his ex-boyfriend, who thus achieved what he wanted, but he would never want a life like that. He says these things but he also says he fell in love with one of those guys of his, who, however, didn’t like such kind of stories at all because he was afraid of losing his freedom and treated him very badly to shake him off, so he forced himself to pass over his falling in love and reduce contacts to just sex in order not to lose his partner. But all this suggests that at the beginning he tended to create relationships of an affective or nearly type, but that he then ended up adapting to the environment in one way or another, precisely in order not to be completely alone. 

He says he needs to change guys or at least he needs to feel free from couple burdens, that basically he has emotional relationships with his guys but such relationships are not exclusive and that he is fine this way. You say: “try to understand your boyfriend’s weaknesses!” Ok, but these are not weaknesses, they are just different, or at least apparently different ways of seeing life. Instinctively I think that he has adapted to that mentality, which was the mentality of the environment and that slowly he ended up assimilating it only because in fact he had no alternatives. I can understand that you can love at the same time more than a single guy but this basically means that you don’t love anyone of them, that is, that in your life there is not a really important person you can count on. 

He says that trusting in an emotional relationship means not being prepared for that blow that sooner or later they will give you anyway. That is, he takes it for granted that an emotional relationship must end in betrayal or abandonment and it must have happened to him in a very heavy way. How do you get vaccinated against treason? You have to putt it all on another level, erasing affectivity or detaching it from sexuality, as if all of this were ultimately an acceptable solution. When it comes to choices, it is one thing to choose a person or a behavior to carry out your own life plan, and a very different thing is to adapt, pretending to choose, in order not to be 100% out of the game. 

He says he doesn’t believe in emotional relationships but in fact he fears them, he is afraid of that terrible blow that according to him is inevitable, because everyone answered him negatively and froze him. I think that the gay environment, or rather a certain gay environment, has been deeply conditioning and has induced defensive behaviors tending to spread affectivity on various relationships, none of which really important and all centered only or above all on sex. 

At the end of the conversation he had to go to work and I told him that I would like to call him back in the evening, he replied that in the afternoon he had a birthday party and he would probably come home later, I didn’t know what to say and in the end he told me: “But you try to call all the same …” This is the maximum of affective dimension you can get from him. He doesn’t want addictions and obligations of any kind. You see, Project, it’s not me complicating things, it’s just that things are really complicated. Years go by and relationships remain on this level and I honestly don’t think they will change over time. 

Somehow what had happened between that friend of his who had replied negatively and him, is newly happening between him and me, practically I risk becoming addicted, and in the end I don’t even know what it means because the boundary between loving and being dependent is very blurred. I have had instincts to escape many times because I think that in the long run a relationship or better a non-relationship of this kind can be destructive even for me and can lead me to some form of emotional freezing, but I can’t really detach myself from him, sometimes when I succeed and we don’t hear from each other for a while I say to myself: “This time I did it!” Then he calls me and all good intentions fade and we inevitably start all over again, I think that in fact, in some respects at least, we are very similar, we never make a choice, we adapt, we go on by inertia and we call that inertia love, or sex, two words that seem different but in the end the first word is worth the second. 

I realize that I too risk becoming or at least sounding cynical, but I don’t know what to do, I would like everything and the opposite of everything, I would like to be useful to him at least in something and at the same time I would like to detach myself definitively, or at least so it seems to me, that then the story we tell ourselves inside our heads is all a schematization and it can be largely falsified by interpretations or a priori refusals we are not even are aware of. We should simplify everything, bring everything back to an instinctive response that perhaps once existed, several years ago, but has now been buried under a mountain of pseudo-psychological ruminations. We become victims of our own being too much talkative. 

I realize that I have a radically ambiguous attitude but I cannot get out of it, because certain things, even if you try to put them outside the door, are not finished anyway, they are too vivid memories, which need years and above all a radical change of life to be truly passed from the present to memory. He told me to try to call him in the evening anyway and I did, but the phone was off the hook and it sent me to the answering machine, maybe it was better this way, because basically I wouldn’t have known what to say. 

This stop like all those before will last for a while, then we will get in touch another time and the embarrassment will be very great again and I will end up adapting myself to accept the rule, that now seems to him his rule, the rule of low profile and disengagement, so that he may feel free and put aside the idea of permanently cut ties with me. History repeats itself! People change but the logic is always the same. Will this ever change? Thanks anyway for your email, I can see that you put your soul into it, but maybe you are too rational and don’t understand that ambiguity can become a way of life. In any case, if you answer me it makes me happy.

_____________________

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum:

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-difficult-dialogue-between-gays

A TRUE FREE GAY LOVE

Hi Project,

I have read the forum far and wide and I also want to bring my contribution on gay couples.

Frankly, after so many years, I can say that I have completely put this concept aside. I speak of many years because I’m moving towards 50, I have exceeded 45 and I’m now at the age in which people begin to take stock of their own life. As a boy, 30 years ago, I was very reserved, very shy, complexed by sex and very attached to a gay mythology, pass me the term. I have fallen in love many times, I would say too many times, and just as many times I have been forced to downsize everything, because my hypothetical boyfriend was straight (it happened several times), he was a collector for whom I was just one of many, or simply because the guy on duty had no intention of building a real relationship with me, more or less like: “Sex yes, as much as you want, but then get out of my way!”

I’m not giving you a catalog of those obsessed with sex of a certain type and only with that, of those Catholics who first have sex with you and then blame you for everything and accuse you of having led them on the wrong path, because “they are not gay and want to have a family etc. etc.”, I also spare you those of the worst category, that of jealous possessives, who spy on you, who demand from you an unquestioning obedience and of those possessive affective who want to make you a satellite of their galaxy by dint of emotional or sexual blackmail, taking for granted that they have the right to choose your friends, to decide which movies you have to see, to plan your holidays, etc. etc.. And then there is the category of the chronic undecided, of those who can say no more than “but and perhaps”, or even worst yes but with reserve, and no but with reserve, which is even more absurd, I call these people those of: “Mom! Mark touches me! … Get busy, Mark, touch me! Mom is looking the other way!”

In the end, when I was 40, I got bored of that strange zoo and said enough! If I ever find a normal guy and something really acceptable really comes out, okay, otherwise it’s better to stay alone than badly accompanied!” I have unsubscribed from certain sites and I have deleted certain apps. There is no need to tell you which ones. I limited myself to use some porn and I was content with that, because, let’s face it, I have always been a hypochondriac and I have never put myself at risk, that is, when I had sex with a guy I was very careful not to pass the guard limits and when I said no my no was indisputable, and many guys just didn’t accept this, for them I was a strange, obsessed, etc. etc..

After putting aside the idea of finding a partner, I did something else, I worked, I started a small private business, very small but that gives me satisfaction and absorbs most of my time. At 42 I met a guy who was 12 years younger than me, he was a guy different from the others, prudent in speaking and with a way of doing that I liked, never aggressive, he was also a handsome guy, as well as intelligent, but all this observing and reasoning for me meant no more than that there are still beautiful and smart guys, but nothing at all more than that. I thought that that guy belonged to a world far from mine, in practice I didn’t even think that between us there could be more than an exchange of four words of courtesy, I was convinced that he was straight, in short, for me he was and I thought he would remain a perfect unknown.

I met him for the first time in my accountant’s waiting room and we talked a little about a lot of general issues, but just to pass the time and, after that episode, we didn’t see each other again for a couple of months and practically I had completely forgotten about him, then towards the middle of December, on a day when I had a lot of problems on my mind, I met him by chance on the train, while I was going to Milan for problems related to my little enterprise, he was in the corridor of my wagon, and we started talking. After a few minutes he came to my compartment, it was morning and there were very few people, there were just the two of us in the compartment and the time to spend on the train would be at least of another three hours. I completely forgot about my problems and spent those three hours like I was surrounded by a pink cloud, the compartment seemed to me an enchanted environment, but also substantially unreal.

We were both headed to Milan, he lived in Milan and worked there, but he often came to Rome, where his parents lived. I have never been a conqueror, with the guys I have always been very awkward but with him I felt at ease, let’s face it, I was not embarrassed because I simply thought that I would never see him again, I had no plans about him, not even at the level of minimal imagination. I had to stay three days in Milan and I hadn’t booked the hotel, because I would have found a hotel anyway and he told me: “But if you have to stay three days in Milan, stay at my house, it’s small but comfortable, in the heart of the city.” At the station we separated because he had work commitments and I too would not be released before 19.00. We made an appointment for 7.30 pm under his house, obviously we exchanged mobile numbers.

At 7.30 pm I am in [omitted] street and he already stays there with a plastic bag in his hand, he tells me: “I got something for dinner …” The house was tiny, only one room, but everything was in perfect order, We enter the kitchenette and he goes to the stove, prepares two plates of spaghetti and puts chicken and potatoes from the rotisserie in the oven, in the meantime we talk, but always about very general things. The atmosphere is familiar, for a moment I had the feeling that with that guy as a mate I would have felt at ease, but such an idea seemed a thousand miles away from reality.

After dinner, he washes the dishes in a flash and then tells me that he is very tired and that he would like to go to sleep. In the room there are two beds, he points to mine, we get ready for the night and go to bed, but despite the tiredness we start talking and go on until late at night. It was the first day I talked to that guy, I felt at ease and the situation didn’t seem strange at all to me. I swear to you, Project, I was convinced that he was straight and I carefully avoided any reference even vaguely gay. He had a beautiful voice, damn sexy, but in my opinion he was straight … and the whole discussion remained on very general issues, in practice we never went into private questions. He never talked about girls as I never talked about them, but at the moment I couldn’t give the slightest weight to such a fact. He had a few books in the house but they seemed to me the classic straight books, let’s say, there were no photographs or paintings, none of this.

In the morning the alarm goes off at seven o’clock. He immediately gets up and goes to the bathroom, I hear the water running from the shower but it doesn’t make me hot or cold, then he leaves the bathroom and goes into the kitchen. I go into the bathroom, he opened the window and it’s freezing cold, but it’s all clean, before going out he dried the whole shower and changed the towel. I shower quickly and then I dry everything, as he had done, when I leave the bathroom I find breakfast ready. He tells me that he would be out ten minutes later so as not to be late for work and that if I wanted I could stay at home, he gives me a set of keys and just tells me that when I go out I have to close the door. He would be back around 7.15 pm, then he waves his hand to me and leaves.

I was alone in his house, I had the keys to the house, I could have poked around a bit, even if there was very little to poke. I choose a different way, I make the beds, both his and mine, his retains a sensitive trace of his perfume. I wash the breakfast cups, fix what little there was to fix in the kitchen and then go out for my meetings of work. At 6.00 pm I send him a text message: “Don’t take anything for dinner, I’ll take care of it.” I go to the rotisserie and buy something, adding also a bottle of Tuscan wine, then I go back to his house, put the water on a low heat and set the table.

A few minutes before 7.00 pm he arrives and seems very happy to find everything settled, a spontaneous smile comes to me, but he doesn’t talk about the house fixed and the dinner ready, instead he asks me with a questioning face where I am with my work schedule in Milan, the question sounds strange to me, I interpret it as if he wanted to tell me that if I did what I had to do, I could as well come back to Rome immediately, I stop smiling and with a serious and quite rude attitude I answer that in practice I have done everything I had to do to do and that I could come back to Rome even in the same evening because I would just have to change the ticket. He seems not listen to me and goes on his way as if I hadn’t said anything: “I don’t work tomorrow morning, if you want I’ll show you some beautiful things in Milan.” I wasn’t expecting that answer and he must have seen looking at my face that my good mood was back in its place. Evidently we still didn’t trust each other, we were looking for confirmations and misunderstandings were still possible.

I make the story short, my second day in Milan was very nice, I seemed to have always known that guy, we had lunch out, we came back in the evening and we talked until late before falling asleep. The third day was short and we only met early in the morning, he had to work until 7pm and I had my train at 11.30 am. I gave him back the house keys and we said goodbye with a handshake. Shortly before the departure time he sent me a text message thanking me for the beautiful days he had spent with me. I told him that I was expecting him in Rome as soon as possible and that if I returned to Milan I would let him know.

I took the train, I tried to rearrange the memories of those hours spent together, and there it occurred to me that this could be a model of life as a couple, but in reality I knew very well that it was just fantasy. Anyway, I assumed he was straight, and I thought he too had taken me for straight. After about 10 days he calls me back, tells me that he will come to Rome the next day and asks me if I can host him, he explains that he had to go to his parents but that he anticipated his departure by one day to spend that day with me, his parents knew that he would arrive the next day and therefore from the next day he would stay at their house, but he wanted to spend one day with me.

The next morning at 11.00 I go to pick him up at the station and take him to my house. Needless to say, I had cleaned up and fixed everything and made all the gay clues go away. Shortly before noon we are home, I had prepared a room for him, but he tells me that he had come from Milan to talk to me and that this would not have been possible this way. That’s why we move his bed to my room, then we have lunch, he notices that everything is prepared with the utmost care, he tells me that my house is much bigger than his and also much older, in fact I live in an old area of Rome and in a building that I think dates back to 1700, a building of only two floors, with ribbed vaults made of bricks, it was a family home when those houses were poor people’s homes, then, over time, they became houses for tourists, if opportunely restructured, my apartment needs to be restructured but there is no money to afford a such an expensive project.

In the afternoon we go for a tour of the city and above all of the places where tourists don’t go, in the evening he doesn’t want to eat out, we go home, prepare a quick dinner and then we go to talk in the the living room. He tells me his story but in a very concise and incomplete way, deliberately trivializing, as if it were a set of obvious things, and I’m listening to him with the utmost attention. I can see that he is at ease, at least relatively or, better, I can see that he is not afraid of me, but he is exploring the terrain, he doesn’t tell me anything particularly significant, but it is in that situation that I start to think that the relationship I have with that guy could be something more complicated than it appeared to me at the beginning, I listen to him but I start asking myself questions, I realize that we have never talked about women and somehow I start to expect that the speech will end with some important statement, but at some point he tells me that he is tired and that the next morning he will have to get up early and so we go to sleep without having said anything at all. I don’t understand why he made me bring his bed to my room but in the end I prefer not to ask myself too many questions.

The next morning we have breakfast together, then he greets me with a handshake and leaves. I quickly delete any alternative hypothesis from my brain and say to myself: “But what the hell of nonsense have I been thinking about? Gays see gays everywhere! And I’m no exception.” Three weeks later I happen to have to go to Milan again, I call him and tell him, he seems happy, he tells me that he will not be able to come to the station and that we will meet directly at 19.30 pm near his house. The phone call is very short, I feel that he is busy. I think I have to repay him and I buy him a scarf, an object, as a way of saying thank you.

On the journey to Milan I begin to ask myself many questions and even to feed some expectations, I thought that finally we would be able to “perhaps” speak clearly because the whole story had very little of ordinary. At 19.30 pm we meet in his house, and as the previous time he took something from the rotisserie for dinner. At home I immediately notice that he is upset, that he is not in a good mood, I try to ask him some questions but he dodges any questions and talks about something else. A call arrives on his cell phone, he looks to find out who the call came from but doesn’t answer and turns off the cell phone. I think it is a courtesy to me, but he tells me that he has had too much trouble today and hopes to relax at least at home. He behaves strangely, he’s not like the first time, he’s kind but also unfriendly, to the point where I tell him: “If you need to be alone, no problem, there is a hotel here 200 meters away … .” He looks at me and says: “No … you have nothing to do with my problems, they are work problems only …” But I don’t have the impression that they are just work problems. However, he cuts the speach short. We finish dinner and he tells me that he is very tired and wants to go to sleep. We don’t stay talking like the first time, I feel almost as an unwelcome guest, perhaps not really so, however he remains closed in his world, that is, in his bad mood.

The next day we say goodbye rather coldly. I have to leave for Rome before noon. This time I don’t receive any text messages before departure. On the train I repeat myself many times that I mustn’t let my imagination run wild and that I will do well to stay in my world. I promise myself not to call him when I have other opportunities to go to Milan and on this, at least at that moment, I have no doubts. I arrive in Rome and he calls me on the phone to apologize, it is something that I don’t expect at all, I’m positively impressed and I come to the conclusion that after all everyone can have some dark moments and that his problems come probably precisely from work matters.

We haven’t heard from each other for almost a month. I thought he had forgotten about me and in a sense I was also happy, because that way I too could have put a stone on it. Then, quite unexpectedly, he calls me one morning before 7.00, tells me he will be in Rome the next day and asks me if he can stay with me. Obviously I tell him yes, but inside I’m not at all enthusiastic about it. Anyway I tell him yes. I’m tempted to make him weigh the way he had treated me in Milan the previous time, then I tell myself that such a thought is really mean and childish and I force myself to organize everything exactly as the previous time.

I go to pick him up at the station, he is visibly happy to see me and I’m also happy to see him again, I ask him if he should go to his parents the next day but he tells me that he has taken three days off and that he has come for me, this raises inside me many questions to which I don’t know and daren’t answer. In practice he would have stayed in Rome for three days, something that I absolutely didn’t expect, he realizes my perplexity and tells me: “If I create problems of any kind for you, just say it, I’ll leave immediately …” I look at him and tell him: “Be quiet! Now I’ll arrange my schedule, please don’t make that face!” I picked up the phone and in a quarter of an hour I organized my three days off. This is the advantage of those who are small entrepreneurs like me, indeed I should say very small!

When I close the phone he wants to restart with the fact that he can go away immediately, but I tell him peremptorily: “If you came here you will have a serious reason …” He looks at me and says: “Give me time …” He stretches out on the sofa in the living room and I feel that he is about to tell me something important. He says to me: “You understand, isn’t it?” I actually didn’t understand what, according to him, I should have understood and I absolutely didn’t want to say nonsense, but I could not be pretending to be stupid because I would have embarrassed him, and I replied: “Well, more or less, I think yes… ”I thought (I hoped) that he could tell me that he had fallen in love with me, that I was important to him, but it was nothing like that. He tells me: “My boyfriend dumped me … I was fine with him, but I was deluded and yesterday he dumped me. When you last came to Milan I was already out of my mind because he treated me with indifference, but now he really sent me to the hell … “

In a few minutes I had gone from the role of the one who expects a declaration of love to the role of the one who has to do as a comforter, however, in a sense, I felt reassured by his statement, even if it may seem paradoxical. I try to let him speak and to intervene as little as possible. He feels cheated by his ex. He gives vent to his bad mood at least a little but then it is clear that he expects some serious answer from me. I do as he did, I completely avoid preambles and tell him: “When a story ends it always seems like a failure but it can be a liberation. It is better to know how things really are than to go on in the dark. You have only lost an illusion. ” He looks at me disconsolately and tells me: “I know, but I was hurt and a lot.” I decide to get out of the ambiguity and to do, me too, my coming out and I tell him: “Something practically identical happened to me too, he left because he was looking for something that I was not able to give him” After this mutual coming out I fully entered my role as a comforter. I told him: “Come on, help me to cook something better!” He looked at me smiling and said: “Ok!”

I was wondering what he expected from me, what the limits of my role must have been and I was very confused about this. The only possible way seemed to me to act with the utmost prudence, or rather with the utmost respect for him. We still had two days to spend together and I didn’t know what to do. We cooked, had lunch, washed the dishes together, then it occurred to me to ask him if his parents knew about him. He replied that his parents are good people and that they always worked hard for him but he did everything to finish his studies as soon as possible and to go to work in another city, because he wanted to have some autonomy and eventually managed to get it. He has no brothers or sisters and also for this reason the relationship with his parents was very close and almost suffocating. He has maintained a good relationship with his parents even if he cannot speak clearly with them, he goes to visit them more or less once every two months but for the rest of the time he stays in Milan and keeps in touch with them only via skype. He told me: “My family is a normal family for better and for worse.”

After the talk about the family I didn’t know what to say and how to go on and the mutual embarrassment felt very strong. He too no longer knew what to say and how to behave, now we knew that we were two gays who liked to talk together, it was evident that both him and me had thought that we could have taken a step further, but the fear to ruin everything was so strong that it was paralyzing. I propose that we go out in the afternoon to take a tour downtown. He replies that he didn’t come to Rome to be a tourist but to be with me, a very ambiguous expression in itself, but behind which, in those particular circumstances, anything can be implied. We begin to talk about our gay experiences, but it was evident that the talk was only to fill the time, and it was equally evident that there was not much to tell. Some stories, yes, really non very few, but basically nothing serious. I asked him what he wanted from his life and he said he didn’t know.

He got up seemingly to come and sit next to me, but he didn’t, he turned around and went to sit in his armchair again. Then he asked me: “Why do you think I came here today?” I replied: “Because you were very upset about that guy and you wanted to talk a little.” But he stopped me and said, “Just for that?” I told him: “I hope not …” then he came and sat next to me, took my right hand and shook it hard almost up to  hurt me, then he leaned his face against it, I passed my hand through his hair, and he said to me: “Let me stay like this for five minutes and that’s enough …” I remained silent to caress his hair, then he leaned on my shoulder and didn’t say a word for very long minutes. I felt his warmth, his physical presence, but also his discomfort, his uncertainty.

At one point he stood up, looked troubled, dark in the face, some bad thought must have crossed his mind. I asked him: “What is it? Something wrong?” He only replied: “Nothing …”, then he newly shook my hand hard. I think he too clearly perceived all my uncertainty, then his phone rang, they were looking for him for work problems and he spoke on the phone for a long time, opened his super-tech laptop and got in touch with his office. I left him alone, in the meantime I made coffee and brought it to him with some biscuits, he answered me with a smile and I went to prepare some dinner until the end of the phone call.

When he finished he apologized and I said to him: “But for charity! No need to apologize if you have to work!” Then, one of his unexpected questions came to me like an arrow, or better like a flash, a question I didn’t expect at all, he asked me: “Why didn’t you try to go further when we were on the couch?” I felt caught off guard and simply replied: “Because I never wish you could feel forced in any way.” He looked at me and said: “I thought exactly the same thing about you …” And we hugged each other very tightly. Feeling the physicality of a guy who wants you is a very strong feeling, they are not words but it is his body. The embrace was very intense, desired, profound, it was already a way of being no more alone.

I thought that after it was all downhill road but it was not so. He was hugging me but he wasn’t really happy. I told him: “I see you upset…” He broke away from me and said to me: “I have to tell you… I’m thinking of another guy, and I wish he was here now. Somehow I expected a speech like this and I told him: “Well in a situation like this very few people would have the strength to make a speech like this, I appreciate it very much, because it is an honest speech.” I saw myself being brought back into the role of the comforter again, but it didn’t seem to me like a secondary thing at all. After all, a relationship of total clarity had developed in a very short time, which is something more unique than rare. But that clarity had not put anything in crisis, on the contrary, it had strengthened a bond that was now taken for granted by both sides.

We cooked together and the harmony was perfect. We looked like an affiliated surgical team. After dinner he told me that he was feeling very tired, even though it was not yet ten o’clock. He goes to the bathroom and then gets on the bed, calls me, wants me to put the armchair next to the bed and to sit in my armchair, he says: “If you want …” I smile and tell him: “Of course I want!” and I sit next to him. He has two wonderful eyes, the kind that steal your soul. I stroke his hair for a few minutes and he falls asleep. He evidently felt safe and did not feel conditioned in the least. I go to sleep too. In a very short time our relationship had become very important, I was happy that he was there and he had come from Milan for me. I thought It wouldn’t easy to get asleep because of the crowding of thoughts but things went differently and I slept very well.

I got up in the morning at 7.00 and made breakfast, then I went to wake him up, he stretched like a cat and gave me a beautiful smile. I told him: “Breakfast is ready!” He got up and came to the table in his pajamas. At a certain point he said to me: “Aren’t you mad at what I told you last night?” I motioned him to shut up and eat and he nodded yes. I tell him: “Today I’ll take you to the Pigorini Museum at EUR and I think you’ll like it a lot!” I briefly explain to him what it is and he seems very interested. The visit to the museum gave me a clear idea of the cultural depth of that guy. He is an engineer but he knew a lot of things about prehistory, Neanderthal man, geological periodizations and a thousand other things. Ours was not a running walk through the museum, but a decidedly careful and very selective visit, especially oriented towards the prehistoric sector and less towards the ethnographic one.

We got home when it was almost three in the afternoon, but we had taken something to eat from the rotisserie and lunch took a short time. Just after lunch, a moment of mutual embarrassment took over, it was necessary to break the ice. I didn’t want to do any damage and neither did he, but then he took the initiative and I followed him immediately. I hadn’t had a lot of sexual experiences in the true sense of the word but I too had minimum of experience (and he too), but, as far as I’m concerned, being with him was just a totally different thing, it was all spontaneous, of course, there wasn’t the slightest embarrassment, in short, with him I was “fine” I felt serene, understood, accepted, important and I saw him at ease.

But there was a moment that deeply troubled me. When we finished he had wet eyes but I didn’t dare ask him why. The next day the thing was repeated, even if in a minor tone, I tried to explore the ground, he smiled at me, stroked my face and did not speak but his sad eyes spoke for him. On the afternoon of the third day we said goodbye very warmly but he was serious, thoughtful and I could say sad. I sent him a text message to say thank you and he replied with a phrase that made me tremble: “I don’t know if I did well. Forgive me.” I calculated the time it would take to get to Milan and called him. He told me he had just arrived home. I told him I was worried about those phrases and he said to me: “I must not deceive you, because you could feel terrible … “I told him that I’m not deluded at all but that I love him, that he was 100% honest with me and that he should not feel bound in any way, because his freedom, for me, it is sacred. He added: “But when I told you that I wasn’t thinking about you but about my ex, well I think it was like a stab for you …” I told him: “No, it’s clear that you keep thinking about that guy and that you might also think of other guys, but it’s not that I can love you less for this, I love you for who you are and for how you treated me, nothing like this had ever happened to me … “He replied:” Well , but you have to keep in mind that I can’t guarantee you anything, because I’m a very fickle guy… ”I told him he doesn’t have to guarantee me anything, God forbid! At the end of the phone call he told me he didn’t know if he would call me in the future and I replied: “If you don’t do it, I’ll do it for you, you just have to answer …” And he said to me: “You can count on that!” and the phone call ended like this.

He didn’t show up for a week so I called him. He was happy. He told me that he had seen his ex-boyfriend again and that they were trying to get back together. But the tone didn’t seem to me that of a guy in love, he insisted a lot on verbs like try, strive to and so on but in fact the enthusiasm was not there. I had to be careful not to intrude on his important stories, but I had many doubts as to whether those were really important stories. However, I felt out of the game and I retired in good order, I didn’t call him for a week and then he called me, he seemed more serene, he had no problems to talk to me, he just assumed that his getting back together with his ex-boyfriend wasn’t going to shatter our relationship.

For me the situation was embarrassing because I thought it was such for him and for him it was embarrassing because he thought it was such for me. We were talking for a couple of hours, the presence of his ex-boyfriend was not felt at all. We also joked and said nonsense, then the conversation returned to a serious tone and he told me that he felt observed by me when we had finished making love and he felt like crying and he told me he felt like crying because he wanted to make love like that with his ex-boyfriend and he felt like he was deceiving me and added “like now I’m deceiving my ex, because I don’t feel in love with him anymore” I asked him: “So why did you get back with him? ” And he replied: “He insisted a lot and I wasn’t able to say no to him, and now he has deluded himself another time and I’m cheating him.”

I asked him: “But what do you want?” and he told me he would like his ex to be like me, which made me very proud but also held me back a lot. He continued to be with his boyfriend with the hope of being able to change him at least a little from the inside. The contact with me was never interrupted, but he didn’t come to Rome until the following Christmas, in practice for 10 months, and I didn’t go to Milan, or rather, I went there for work, but I went to the hotel without telling him anything, so as not to intrude on his sentimental projects. On December 11th he calls me and tells me: “Tomorrow I’ll come to you…“ I understand what that sentence means, I try to ask him what happened, but he answers me. “Don’t ask questions, see you tomorrow, I’ll arrive on the 11.00 train.” 

I go to pick him up at the station, I’d like to take him out for lunch but he’s holding me back: “No! Let’s go home!” Once inside, he hugs me very tightly and says: “I missed you so much!” The rest you can imagine. Almost 4 years have passed since then. He is trying to move to Rome but it is not easy. One weekend I go to him and one he comes to me. Living together with him, even if partially, I can say that it seems to me that I am living a fairy tale and at the same time a situation of total normality. We are not a cohabiting couple, somehow we are cohabiting but we are not a couple, we simply love each other, there are no bonds between us, as long as everything works by itself, ok, otherwise we will continue to love each other in a different way. I stop here. If you want, put this email on the sites, I made him read it and when he finished reading he told me I shouldn’t mythologize and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

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http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-a-true-free-gay-love

NOT JUST GAY SEX

Hi Project, the Forum is unfortunately abandoned and it’s a pity. For me it was a very important experience, but several years have already passed. It would be nice if there was a recovery, but I see it very difficult. It is up to you to decide whether or not to publish this email, which is the result of my latest experiences. I’ve learned the hard way that trusting so-called good guys is sometimes risky, and then, good guys in what sense? Guys who speak cleanly, that is, speak little about sex and save appearances because they have learned the art of hypocrisy from their families? In short, I have learned not to trust good guys and this tendency to put easy trust aside has gradually widened and I have begun to avoid trusting anyone, as you can well understand, least of all, the guys who don’t even have the appearance of the good guys and the result was that I practically created a total void around me. I have not been disappointed but I think I was a disillusionment for the guys I met, or at least for some of them. I think I have destroyed the more or less unrealistic dreams of some guys more naive than me, but perhaps in time they would have destroyed me. With one of them, however, things went differently. He is a handsome guy, but relatively, he is no longer very young and on the other hand neither am I, because I’m 32 years old, we had known each other for several years. When he was 18 he was beautiful and I confess he fascinated me, but then he slowly lost the charm of early youth, he is still a handsome guy and he is not indifferent to me even now but it is not the physical attraction, or perhaps it is not above all the physical attraction that has led me not to lose sight of him. I’ll call him Sergio here. Sergio has two peculiar characteristics that are absolutely unique, he is intelligent in a way that amazes me, I would say in a non-standard way or better in a way all his own, he has an autonomous mind, he does not depend on the judgment of others and he is radically honest, he doesn’t look at the formality and he tells you even brutally what he thinks. He went through very bad periods of depression shortly after turning twenty and then slowly came out of it and was able to conquer his spaces exclusively by studying and working very seriously. Several years ago we tried to get together, the idea, at that times, attracted me a lot. We have been in a very complicated relationship for a few years, but it was a relationship that was only half satisfying to me. I could have all the sex I wanted but I had the clear feeling that affectivity made absolutely no sense to him. He had told me his whole life, even the most problematic aspects, he trusted me, he had taken me seriously from the beginning and there was still a bond between us that went beyond sex, I call it the bond of clarity, the bond of reciprocally accepting each other for who you are. I am not at all what people consider a beautiful guy, I am barely average and if he had wanted to find a guy better than me he would have found a hundred thousand such guys. He had other guys but he never put me aside and he never cheated me, he told me he was fine with me only for sex, probably not to delude me, even if things weren’t exactly like that. We have always understood each other and, this may seem incredible, we have never argued. Our relationship was extremely elastic but did not break off, we never had an overwhelming relationship, like those that radically modify your life, we talked little, no rhetoric of feelings neither of sex, so much melancholy, and even deep despair, but between us there was no risk of misunderstanding because we always spoke very clearly even if we spoke little. Sometimes we saw each other at intervals of two months or more and practically every time we met we ended up in bed together. Believe me, Project, it was never something stupid, it was also a way of communicating. I’ve seen him cry many times when the guys he believed in ended up leaving him without explanation. I often told him no, but he never felt demolished because of this, because he knew I loved him. I have always wondered why Sergio had chosen me, why he had trusted me. I think the reason was because I always considered him a very good person. I respect him deeply as a man and, furthermore, I think that if a guy chooses to experience sex with another guy, but not as a ritual or as anything devoid of any value but exactly as a way of truly being himself, it means that he instinctively finds in the partner something compatible and trusts him.  Sex was a means to get to know each other better, to test each other, to get to understand each other in a deeper way. We have two very different ways of experiencing sex, he is much hotter and more passionate than me, while I, even though I’m practically his age, I have longer times and sometimes I also have sexual problems. With me he is afraid of exaggerating while I’m afraid  of disappointing him but in the end it is not the performance that counts but sharing one’s sexuality with a person you trust, knowing that you can be yourself to the end. This is the right expression: we trust each other. Honestly I never felt judged by him but I felt a lot of times respected and understood. Over the years, mutual trust has increased, I have learned to be less restrained in sex and he has also begun to give an emotional meaning to sexuality, somehow we have come to meet halfway. It doesn’t make sense to say he’s my boyfriend, he doesn’t belong to anyone, but we love each other, now I have no more doubts about this, we both need reassurances and we find them in each other. Sometimes I told him no and sometimes he told no to me, but our saying no wasn’t at all something like a refusal of the person of the other. We both knew that such things wouldn’t destroy anything and that our relationship wouldn’t break anyway. He is generous, never selfish, he does not dramatize situations but tries to lighten them, tries not to worry me and not to burden negatively on me. Not only he never blames others, but he also tends to feel responsible for things that are not up to him. He knows that for him I will always be there and that I will continue to be there anyway and I know that I will not lose him. Today, if I think about the  models of gay couple I had in mind years ago, I understand how absurd they were. I love Sergio and I know he loves me. If he also needs to be with someone else why do I have to say no to him? I know I won’t lose him anyway. I would feel jealous if someone took him away from me, but many years have passed and we are still here, and this is a sign that it was a serious relationship. As for the problem of sexually transmitted diseases, he is informed and knows what he is doing and that is the reason why he has sometimes said no to me, because even if he is prudent, if he has even a little doubt, before coming to me he wants to take the test. This, in my opinion, is seriousness in the profound sense of the term. Sometimes we play like kids, but when we talk about serious things I trust him more than myself and I have the pleasure of having an intelligent man close to me who loves me and this is a great feeling that I have only experienced with him. About other guys I can say that sometimes I feared them, but I never was afraid of him, I knew that I could never expect anything bad from him, neither for malice nor stupidity. The more the years go by, the closer our paths get. He needs his freedom, and it is right that he has it. When we meet, it’s nice to have confirmation that nothing has changed and that the pleasure of meeting is mutual. There is a phrase he now likes to hear: “I’m fine with you!” In other times this sentence would have alarmed him, as if it were an attempt to put limits, to restrain, to limit his freedom, to tell him: “I love you … but you must be as I say …”. Now he knows that I’m not under the illusion of creating a “classical couple” with him and he is no longer afraid of those words and therefore takes them in the simplest and most direct sense. At first he would have accepted anything sexually but he would not have accepted a caress for the same reason that used to make it hard to him to hear the expression “I’m fine with you!”, but now this is no longer the case, there is sex, of course, but there are also some moments of tenderness, if I caress his face or beard he is happy, he understands that it is “only” a gesture of tenderness and that there are no other motivations of any kind, that I’m not falling in love with him in the sense that I could expect something from him in return. I see a change in our relationship, which is probably due to the fact that we are no longer two kids and that we begin to value according to its real value our being there for each other. I consider him an essential point of reference in many things, precisely because he has points of view that are also very far from mine, but he is balanced and of extreme common sense. If he tells me something, it means that it is the result of his experience, not a simple hearsay. He does not talk nonsense, if he has to tell me something that he believes to be far from my way of thinking, he premises that that is only his way of seeing at that moment. I really like it when he teases me and makes my caricature, because afterwards he bursts into an amused smile and acts like a kid. He doesn’t pose, doesn’t act, and he would have the opportunity and the possibility to behave this way, but he doesn’t. When he is calm he gives me serenity, I know I can trust him. If I hadn’t known Gay Project Forum I would never have understood the meaning of the relationship with Sergio, I would have remained addicted to the classic concept of couple “marriage style” and in the name of that concept I would have refused a relationship like the one I have with Sergio, which instead from many years is somehow the center of my life. I know that he is there and that he loves me and I know that I will not lose him. Lately I’ve been tempted to push our relationship towards a more classic couple model but, if I think about it, such an idea seems to me really unhealthy, he needs freedom like air, he has to go his own way, whatever it is. Our relationship will not fail anyway. In the early days there was one thing I could not stand about him and that is the tendency to not plan anything and to always and only act extemporaneously, he told me that he didn’t want to create rules or habits. I have always been very inclined to plan and organize my days and I felt upset by never being able to design anything that involved him. When he was about to leave, while greeting me he never told me when we would meet again and then he called me or came to see me in the most incredible moments of the day and night. Before, I didn’t understand these attitudes. He said to me: “I come to you when I feel the need and these are things that cannot be planned!” Now this way of thinking has become familiar to me and I’m beginning to like it. I asked myself what it means to love each other and I would like to understand it without being dazzled by myths and fables of various kinds. I think I have wasted too much time running after butterflies and devaluing what existed and I had in front of my eyes practically every day. The stories of the cover guy in love with you and you with him, let’s tell it: is just nonsense, if you are looking for something like this, you can search for it your whole life and you will not find a single guy that really suits you. The couple as a perfect symbiosis or as the idea of the perfect fusion of spirits is the typical cheap romance. I have never found charming princes. Sergio is not my charming prince and he is not even my boyfriend, in the classic sense of the term, he has his faults but also his merits, I must not forget neither faults nor merits and then what could I propose to him? Eternal love? But that would be ridiculous. We love each other but we remain two different people, who have points in common but do not live the same life anyway, we are two and we will remain two. What should I expect from him: absolute fidelity? And in the name of what? Why should I limit his freedom when I don’t know if I would be able to guarantee him the same fidelity? I can only ask him one thing and that is to be honest with me and tell me what he really thinks, because I would not stand to be deceived, or maybe I would stand that too, I don’t know, maybe in some circumstances I would not stand it but in others I would. Should I expect his constant presence? But even here I ask myself: in the name of what? I can ask him, if anything, not to pretend, not even to avoid making me feel bad. Why should we be a couple? We do not know what we are but we are fine even so, or at least, when we see each other, which happens quite rarely, we are happy to meet … should I think that this is little? But it is not little at all, if it is true! Loving each other doesn’t mean always staying close, but having the pleasure to see each other again when you see each other again. Sergio is not my living myth, we love each other but in a very simple, very spontaneous way, without commitments and without conditions. We will not have children to raise, we love each other instinctively, because it is something that comes by itself. I often think about him, I know that our relationship will last, but I can’t make any other predictions. It makes no sense to try to foresee the future or to condition it. A transient affection is no less important than a relationship that is sustained by duty or by necessity. The transience doesn’t detract anything from the seriousness of the feelings, if those feelings are true. Sergio and I know each other well and we trust each other, sometimes I miss his presence but I don’t have to pester him, he has to follow his times and rhythms, maybe time will pass but then we will hug again and I’m sure it will be a real hug felt the same way by both of us.

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NOT JUST GAY SEX (gayprojectforum.altervista.org)

BEEING OR NOT BEEING PRESENT: A CLASSIC GAY PROBLEM

Hi Project,

I wrote to you a few months ago and you replied things I appreciated a lot. The problem is always the same. I don’t know if you remember, me forty-one and my boyfriend (an expression that in this case has a very special meaning) thirty-one. I’m fixated on how I’m old and he is interested in me, but only from a sexual point of view. Something that would have seemed absolutely incredible to me. A few more months have passed and the situation has remained more or less the same. We never lost sight of each other, every now and then a little sex, but otherwise two separate worlds, we almost never hear each other and we meet only for sex. Nevertheless there is a kind of relationship between us that has its own seriousness, even if it is very diluted and also quite a bit ritualized. He’s never satisfied with the guys he meets and then he comes to me, but in practice he comes to me only when he has nothing better. I want to emphasize that I don’t blame him for this, because I would most likely do the same in his place. I never tell him no, but I never look for him because I’m afraid of interfering with the mechanisms of his real life, that is, the one he would like, even if he can’t live it with the guys he really cares about. I haven’t heard from him for three weeks now and I can’t deny that I miss him, because there has always been a relationship between us that is not at all stupid, even if it cannot be summarized under any label. In short, now I miss him and I miss him in every sense. I have wondered a thousand times what to do, whether to call him or not to call him. I don’t know if calling him will bother him or if maybe it’s something he would like, but the fact remains that he has not been heard for a long time now and this makes me think that maybe he has found a guy with whom he is feels happy and it would be a great thing for him. I would gladly put myself aside and basically I have always been aside, but I would also accept to disappear completely, letting him forget about me and remove me from his consciousness. He never reproaches me for anything, when we talk he’s very spontaneous, he doesn’t tell lies. In short, I don’t know what to do, or rather I know it, because I think I will do nothing, I will not call him, and if he doesn’t call me, our story will end up by natural consumption. I wouldn’t want one thing only, I wouldn’t want him to feel bad and not tell me because maybe he thinks I want to distance myself because I’m no longer interested in him. He changed several guys and never understood why I never used those special apps looking for guys. He doesn’t realize that he’s really important to me. Today I thought about calling him but then I started thinking that maybe he could be with a guy and that I would bother him and so I gave up. I don’t want another guy and deep down I don’t want him either. I only wish that he loved me, even without going to bed with me and instead it happens that we go to bed together but not that he loves me or rather loves me as I would like, because he treats me with respect, except in some moments of nervousness. I have known other guys in the past and even now there are some guys who have shown me a certain sympathy and who I think would be happy to be with me, but for me there is only one guy who matters, the others are friends, but I would not be able to be myself with them, while with him I feel completely at ease and I think he too feels the same way , even if sometimes, after sex, he becomes a little more aggressive (verbally) towards me and he reproaches me for being physically decayed, for not playing sports, for letting go, for eating too much, and he’s probably right. This is a stupid email, now that I have tried to reread it I have noticed it. In fact, it sounds like a one-sided story, but it isn’t. I would like to see him smile, play, be less serious than his usual, but he never really melts with me because I think he doesn’t even melt with himself, or maybe he would or even does it with other guys. He doesn’t have a great idea of himself neither from the physical point of view nor from the mental and work point of view and instead he seems to me a beautiful guy and also very intelligent and capable to deal with every situation, but as for beauty, at least, my judgment could be a little biased. There are some guys who turned him away because they thought he was ugly … and this is something that I will never be able to understand. Not only is he a handsome boy, but he looks much younger than his age. In short, I love him and maybe somehow he loves me too, but obviously this is not enough to get together. There are other needs, let’s say primary, but in the end those primary needs still fail to make him feel good. We certainly share a fear and it is the fear of time passing, I’m now over 40 and I have to start getting used to the idea that the best period of life has passed and that now more than dreaming we must try to build something that can last, I’m not talking about building a life as a couple or anything like that, what I would like is to be able to maintain a true friendship with him, perhaps even with a little sex but, at the limit, I could even do without sex. Having him as a friend would make me happy and then, if I saw him happy, fulfilled, then my happiness would be perfect. But I wish I could count on his friendship with the certainty that it would not fade over the years. In fact, we met 12 years ago and we never really lost touch. Today, however, I’m afraid that what hasn’t happened up to now could happen just now, for me it would be a problem because I would lose the person who, strange as he was and very different from me, has been anyhow the most important person of these years. I feel melancholy not because I’m afraid of losing a boyfriend, but because I’m afraid of losing a true friend. Who knows why one falls in love with a guy and keeps him in his soul so than there isn’t any place there for anyone else! The fact is that you feel that guy frighteningly similar from many aspects which however are not those needed for the couple life. A smile from him or a kind word from him counts more than any seduction. I love him because he’s him and because deep down he too recognizes that he has something in common with me. I’m very sad, Project, because I haven’t heard from him in a long time and I’m tempted to call him. I could do it tomorrow, but he certainly has to work tomorrow morning, his hours of the week change frequently and then I could wait until next Sunday, when almost a month will be passed since our last meeting. I hope that my call may be something welcome for him, and it would be enough for me. I will let you know.

Hamlet79

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A QUIET GAY COUPLE

Hi Project,

I remember starting to hang out on your forum many years ago and it made me a little vaccinated against dating sites, applications and especially easy sex. Somehow I owe you a lot, even if you don’t know, because I met my partner, with whom I have lived for years, on the Gay Project Chat, when there was a lot of people and there were even two chat channels. You don’t know me, because I was one of those hit and run users and then I would have been very embarrassed talking to you. 

I’m 35 now and my partner is 31. I can say that all in all we are a nice couple. He is really beautiful, I am much less, but we are a beautiful couple because we have been living together for more than eight years and we love each other. My name is Paul and my partner is called John. We have always been calm and have had a lot of luck, in addition to meeting on Gay Project and feeling a little fond of the environment, even if from the outside. 

We both had families that didn’t cause us any problems. They certainly struggled to accept our relationship, but at least they didn’t create problems of principle, I would say that above all my parents struggled to accept the situation when they didn’t know John in person and therefore reasoned a lot in the abstract. John’s parents had an excellent relationship with him even before and would never have been afraid that he might get into trouble. We are both only children, which on the one hand made family relationships easier but on the other, perhaps, made it more difficult to accept the idea of a gay son, but in the end, our parents met and made friends. This was our second luck, but the most important one was that we were just fine together. 

We are not partygoers, not obsessed with fashion, we don’t smoke, we don’t drink, we work a lot but without the determination to make a career or money at all costs, because we want to enjoy our life. First we studied, then we had to think about finding work and we had little time for ourselves, now that our work situations are at least relatively stabilized, we want to have some time for ourselves, not to travel or to do who knows what, but just to be among us. We always had both Saturdays and Sundays free and on Saturday evenings we had fun cooking something different, or doing laundry and ironing, or cleaning the house, and then we would get together on the sofa to watch TV. They may seem trivial things, but staying lying on the sofa and feeling the warmth of my partner’s body leaning against me fills me with tenderness. A caress and a smile are the best thing in the world if they come from the right person. 

Before getting to know each other we had some experiences but minimal, a little disappointing, and therefore in a certain sense educational, but never traumatic. I mean that we have understood that to be well together you have to stay on the same wavelength, that is, you have to see life in a rather similar way, otherwise the contradictions sooner or later come out. That is, in love the “who” counts much more than the “what” and the “how”.

 Since we met we have lived in strict monogamy, not out of a theoretical duty of fidelity or out of fear of diseases but because we were well together. We looked for our sexual equilibrium together and it wasn’t even difficult to find it because even from that point of view we reasoned more or less the same way. Sex between us exists and has always existed, since the beginning, but other moments in life have not been less fundamental for us. 

In particular, it happened to me a few years ago to lose my job and at that moment I felt John very close. He knew that I was going through a very difficult time and he was close to me not in words, but by spending hours scrolling through advertisements and checking employment opportunities and conditions. Sometimes we spent the night in front of the computer preparing and mailing resumes, and we went out on Saturdays for job interviews. The problem of work was my problem but I felt very comforted by John’s presence and I think that if the problem had been his he could not have done more than he did for me, and all this operationally, without useless chatter. He was anxious that I find the best possible job and quickly, he didn’t think in the least to have to show me that he was taking care of it, he didn’t have to make a good impression but to solve the problem. 

He and I both had few friends before we met, then our friends met and his friends became my friends and vice versa. Now the friends are no longer mine or his but ours, in the sense of us as a couple, they are seven people in all, two straight couples, a gay couple and a straight guy looking for a girl. Among us everyone knows everything about everyone and there have never been problems. When I tell it nobody believes it, they tell me it’s impossible, but that’s exactly what happens. 

Now I feel serene and I only have in the background the fear that all this could be upset at any moment by something unexpected and terrible, because when you have achieved your happiness you are afraid of losing it. In our life there have been no sensational facts, it was all very peaceful. Our parents are all still in good health and things should go on like this for at least ten years. The Covid virus, which for many people was a shock, brought both of us the opportunity to work from home. We work, yes, but there are no more transfer times and we have much more time for ourselves. 

I am experiencing how important it is to be two in the substantial sense of the term, it is something that reassures you, that makes you feel good, and then you realize that you are also important for your partner, you know that you can put him in a good mood when he is sad or frustrated and above all you have a reason not to let yourself go when it turns bad, you have to feel good for him too, and it is not a small thing, it makes you bring out the best you have inside. When he is in a good mood, John hums and consequently I feel happy, when he stays too long without humming it means that there is something wrong and that he needs a caress or a kiss, and it works. 

When we met we didn’t live in the same city but in very close cities, just a few minutes away by train. We met every time we had a free afternoon, so at least twice a week, then slowly we began to move by car, also to have a place to stay and talk with a minimum of tranquility and privacy when it rained, because at the beginning our parents knew nothing about us; when they knew about us, basically a year after we met, John came to my house and I went to his house a lot of times, there were no problems, it’s true, but we had need to have a little intimacy and that’s how we started thinking about looking for work in the same city and living together. 

Basically, I sent many resumes to companies in his city when he was still finishing his studies and I found a job in his city. He was not earning yet and the idea of taking an apartment together, I mean buying it together, that is, paying it each for a half, was not feasible, and so I was in a “student” rent, that is, in a rent that could be renovated annually and things went on like this for almost two years, but at least we had our own little place. 

By the time he started working our parents met for the first time and week after week they got to know each other better and so, making a tremendous effort, they paid us an advance for the purchase of an apartment. To tell the truth, it wasn’t all easy because neither his parents nor mine were in favor of a joint purchase, because if the relationship did not go well there would also be the problem of  sharing the house. But frankly, such an eventuality seemed completely unthinkable to both John and me and so we purchased the apartment. 

The mortgage was not very heavy because we worked in two, then when I lost my job and I was without work for almost a year, that is, I did odd jobs for almost a year, for me, paying my share was not really easy, I continued to pay it anyway, but John paid all the bills, taxes, car tax and insurance, among other things we had also sold my car which was newer and worth something more, and we had kept for us only the John’s one, because, since we lived in the same house, we didn’t need two cars. We took a short mortgage to pay less interest. We would have made a more intense but shorter effort. Today we are only a year away from the end of the mortgage and then our house will truly be ours. 

John says very well about the place where he works and his colleagues but he doesn’t consider them friends, he never receives them at home. I have my satisfactions in the workplace but in a sense I don’t physically have a place where to work, that is, in theory I do, but over 10 days, at least eight I spend them around the province, with the company car, to make inspections and to install systems. The teams of workers I work with change every time and I always find myself in the role of the expert who comes from outside but who has nothing to do with the environment. My bosses trust me because I don’t create problems and on the contrary I solve them if there are any. If I have to tell the truth, I have never had any real work problems, some complications yes, but for administrative problems and only for that. 

John, on the other hand, had some problems with a girl who has lost her mind a bit for him, and she is a colleague of his, but they don’t really work together. We talked about it but I didn’t know what to tell him. In the end, he showed detached and the girl put her soul in peace, without the need to say anything and make statements of any kind. The whole story didn’t last more than a couple of months and it ended by itself. Such things have never happened to me because there are no women in my workplace. In this period of my life I feel happy and I see that John also feels happy. 

Project, if you want to publish this email you can certainly do it, I often hear guys (straight but not only) who talk about homosexuality as if it were a kind of catastrophe and talk about homosexuals as a kind of damned race. I don’t know what experiences they have had in life and I don’t allow myself to judge anyone, I limit myself only to saying that it is precisely homosexuality that has made me happy. I love John and I feel loved by him. They may well be rare things, but these things do really exist! 

See you Project! John too greets you. Thanks for what you unknowingly did for me and for John! 

Paul

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PASTRY AND GAY LOVE

Anyone can be able to prepare good biscuits even by instinctively mixing flour, sugar and eggs, adding flavorings to their liking and then baking everything, but pastry is a difficult art, which is learned gradually, proceeding by trial and error: not all flours work the same way, the methods of dough and leavening have great importance on the final result, not all ovens are the same and not all cooking methods produce the same result. The rules of cooking and pastry come from experience and cooking books and videos are so common precisely because through those books and videos it is also possible to treasure the experience of others. In sexuality things work in a similar way but it is much more difficult to treasure the experience of others because there are no tools similar to cookbooks and taking advantage of the experience of others is practically impossible, at least because sex is a topic that is rarely addressed seriously.

I intend to proceed in this post with the same criteria that are followed in a cooking books. 

THE MOST COMMON ERRORS 

1) Believing that the life of a couple coincides with putting one’s fantasies into practice and that it will be very easy to build something shared on this basis. Let us remember that being appreciated as a good pastry chef is a very different thing from knowing how to make good desserts at home. 

2) Believing that sexual intercourse is the essential purpose of a homosexual relationship, that is, the element that gives meaning to the relationship and without which the relationship loses meaning. Let us remember that there are excellent cookies without sugar or without eggs or even without flour. Sexual intercourse is one of the ingredients of a homosexual relationship, it can also sometimes be a very important ingredient, but just as you can’t make biscuits out of flour only or out of butter only, so you can’t even create a relationship starting from sex only. 

3) Believing that the partner’s sexuality is identical to ours, that is, that his sexual fantasies are identical to ours. Remember that aniseed biscuits are delicious for some and not at all for others. 

4) Believing that sexuality can only be monothematic, repetitive and devoid of fantasy and variants. Let us remember that a good pack of chocolates has a vast assortment to satisfy the most diverse needs. 

5) Believing that sexual intercourse is satisfying in itself and does not need anything else, in particular that it does not need words, affection, pauses, smiles, distractions. Let us remember that many desserts, such as trifle, are delicious precisely because they are soaked in liqueur. 

6) Believing that in a relationship the more sex the better. Let’s remember that in every recipe there are optimal doses and that if a pinch of cinnamon gives perfume, an excess of cinnamon makes the biscuit inedible. Even in sex, as in the use of cinnamon, excess means compromising the final outcome. 

7) Believing that in a homosexual relationship sex must be the premise or that in any case we must get there immediately, that is, being in a hurry to get to sexual intercourse. Let us remember that there are biscuits that do not need leavening and can be baked immediately, there are others that need a short leavening and also others that need many hours of leavening. Baking long leavening biscuits before the necessary time means trying to force things but this way only a mediocre result can be obtained. The first virtue of a pastry chef is patience. 

8) Believing that one’s way of living affectivity and sexuality is always the best or the only legitimate one and that everything that goes in other directions is wrong and deleterious. Let us remember that pastry chefs are not born pastry chefs but they become refined pastry chefs  after a long period of training and that affectivity, like pastry, is learned through experience and the willingness to listen and learn. 

EQUIPMENT AND HYGIENE 

1) Today there is only one absolutely indispensable tool for dealing responsibly with sexuality and that is the condom. I remember that the condom was not born as a tool for preventing the contagion of sexually transmitted diseases, but as a tool for birth control, clearly this original function has no meaning for gays but for them the condom is and must remain an object they always have to take with them when they can get involved in situations that can even potentially lead to any kind of sexual intercourse. I must stress  that neglecting condom use means putting yourself at risk of AIDS (and other terrible diseases) and putting your partner at risk too. The use of condoms should not be considered a possible option but the only possible option. We never forget that in the kitchen, as in the pastry shop, it is essential to have a life-saving electric switch, an earth socket and a sensor for gas leaks, these are appliances which, in theory, can also be dispensed with, but in case of current leakage or gas leaks, our life depends on these devices. 

INGREDIENTS 

1) To build a truly satisfying homosexual relationship, three fundamental ingredients are needed: human availability, deep emotional involvement, non-ephemeral sexual interest and these ingredients must be genuine and not contaminated by other non-emotional interests such as economic interests and above all individualistic drives. In pastry, if you want to get a top quality product, you have to start with top quality ingredients, preserved from any possible pollution. 

2) What makes a homosexual relationship grow is reciprocity, which is the true leaven of affective relationships. In the absence of reciprocity, a story is born unilateral, it is not even a relationship between two people but it is only a relationship of an individual with his fantasy. Without any type of yeast, only very hard biscuits are created which, when eaten, can break teeth. 

3) To build a homosexual relationship, sweetness is very important, which is not weakness but affective intelligence. Sugar-free cookies can also be made, but they will have very little flavor. 

4) In emotional relationships we often resort to exchanges of small gifts, to affectionate messages, to small rituals that serve to highlight the affection. These things can have their function when there is a true emotional relationship at the base, but they cannot replace it if the true emotional relationship is missing, nor can they correct it if it is deeply defective. In pastry, aromas are used that make good desserts even tastier but which cannot transform biscuits made with poor quality or contaminated ingredients into good biscuits. 

THE PACKAGING 

1) In love relationships, it is not words but feelings that count. The abuse of the rhetoric of love often hides the emotional emptiness. It is by no means certain that the best chocolates are contained in the most beautiful boxes of chocolates. Good chocolates don’t need flashy and deceptive wrapping. 

2) In love relationships, clarity towards the partner is essential. The presence of gray areas makes the relationship suspicious. The composition must be indicated on the packages of sweets, if the declared composition does not correspond to reality and above all if the expiry date on the package is missing or illegible, it is legitimate to suspect fraud. 

THE PRICE 

1) Love relationships require commitment, seriousness and availability of time. Those who are not willing to dedicate their time and commitment to their partner are unlikely to build satisfying relationships. Good chocolates are expensive, often double quantities of poor chocolates can be bought at the same price. 

PRESERVATION OF THE PRODUCT 

1) The gestures of affective life do not have an infinite duration. The affective gestures made in the past retain their effect for a while, then they must be renewed. The best desserts are freshly made ones. Desserts do not keep for long and a pastry shop must sell only the freshest products to be appreciated and must therefore work every day. The best creams turn sour after a day and the cookies lose their friability.

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