This Dating Thing- Part I

Starting over from square one can pose a challenge, especially if it’s a place you’ve never been before. Every relationship starts somewhere. I have never had a relationship start from where I feel it should. Steps have always been skipped. I always tell/ask myself a few disastrous things:

• Why do I have to start from where everyone else starts?
• There is such thing as love at first site, and this is it.
• We’re meant to be together, I know it!
• I love him.
• Everything about this feel so right, he has to be the one.
• He’s different than everyone else.
• Why does it matter we I skip a few steps, we know it will work?
• I don’t care what anyone else says, I know myself better and I know him better.
• We can make this work.

I usually go through all of these thoughts in my head, and then I convince myself that yes it’s worth jumping into.  All of these combined with the fact that I have a huge fear of dying alone, if not stopped, will ultimately equal me dying alone.  I find someone I like and BAM! next thing I know we are living together and then begins the battle of trying to make things work starting from a few steps in instead of from the first step.

A little background about me,  I have been in three serious relationships.

One, was to my ex wife.  We were married on October 22, 2005.  We lasted until May 1st, 2008.  I met her while I was in the Air Force.  I had signed up for a site called Hi5.com.  She contacted me and told me how cute and adorable I was.  I ate that up and asked her on a date in her home town.  We stayed out all night that night talking.  It seemed so right!  Within a week we were inseparable except for when I had to work.  Every extra minute I had was spent with her.  I was mesmerized.  She was everything I thought I wanted…If I wanted someone to continually cheat on me and lie to me.  We were married within 3 months of knowing one another.  I had always thought, “hey I always hear my grandparents talk about how hey got married really quick after knowing one another, they work well together.  I can do that.”.  Yeah.  Umm.  Not so much!  We got married and two weeks later she left for Air Force basic training because it was something she had always wanted to do.  Sometime after getting there, she decided that we were not meant to be.  Instead of talking to me about it, she just started seeing someone else while there.  I found out because she had a phone that was in my name and she would never respond to texts or calls.

One night I decided to go online and see what was going on and if she was talking to anyone else.  Within 5 minutes of me calling that same night, she was on texting and on the phone with someone else.  It boggled my mind!  Long story short.  She was cheating though out all of basic training.  Me being the person that I am, when she came back home I forgave her and tried to move forward with our marriage.  She couldn’t stop cheating.  We ended up having a son together.  If he didn’t look exactly like me, I would say that he was someone else’s, but luckily he is mine.  We both ended up getting out of the Air Force prior to our son’s birth.  On May 1st, 2007, She dropped me off at work, because she had some errands to run and we only had one car.  I didn’t see her or my son until three months later in divorce court.  The cost of rushing things in a relationship and not building a good foundation prior to jumping into something so serious.

In a way the relationship with my ex wife ending, opened up a door for me to explore more with who I was.  I always knew I was bi or gay, but I had never had the chance to experience things with another male and to be sure.  This gave me the opportunity to do so, and I took it.  I started looking at all the options to find a guy that I was interested in.  I turned to myspace.  I started talking to guys on there like crazy.  They were intrigued by me, because I was a this new guy and they wanted to be my first.  It was an interesting experience for sure.  I eventually found someone that I thought was a sure bet.  He was very attractive and seemed very sweet.  I started talking to him and I fell head over heals.  We talked almost non-stop for a while and before I knew it I was asking him out on a date.  On July 25th of 2008 we went on our first date to see Batman: Dark Knight.  I love the movie, but that night wasn’t about any movie.  I wanted to experience things.  I had been dying for so long to experience things with a man.  This was my night!

This is probably going to come off as me being slutty or a whore or whatever, but I wanted down his pants bad.  We sat down in the theater and held hands and I laid my head on his shoulder.  I didn’t care what anyone thought.  I was happy, because at this point I KNEW that this was what I wanted.  I knew that this was who I was.  I was gay!  I let go of his hand and and put my hand on his knee.  I gradually started to rub my hand around on his knee, as dorky as that may seem.  Then, gradually I worked my hand up his leg until I finally reached what I was aiming for.  I didn’t know what to think, because I didn’t think what I was touching was it.  It was too far down on his leg and too big.  It couldn’t be anything else though.  I rubbed on it gently as we sat there and “watched” the movie.  I know, what a lack of class, rubbing on him in the middle of the movie theater, but I honestly didn’t care at that point.  It wasn’t like I had it out or anything or that I was stroking it super hard.  I was just gently rubbing on it.  My mind was going crazy.  I couldn’t believe I was finally on this date with a guy.  I think at that time I wasn’t aiming for emotional attachment…it was all physical and I have no problem admitting that now.  He ended up getting off in the theater that night.  He had to run to the restroom in the middle of the movie.  I didn’t even realize he had gotten off until later that night when he told me.

That night we went back to my place and hung out and watched another movie and just cuddled.  I fell hard for him!  We too spent every free minute we had together.  I had something to contend with with him though.  It wasn’t another man, it was a serious drinking problem.  I saw past it and fought for more than equal time with him over his drinking time.  It was challenging, but I saw something in him and thought it was worth it.  He also had a ton of legal problems that I managed to see past.  It was a lot of drama, probably too much, but after having sex with him (my first time with a guy),  I wanted to be with this guy and I wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.  Bad mistake!

In no time at all, we were living together…and so, began my battle of trying to make things work.  It was a one man battle and I was bound to lose it, and I did.  We fought a lot and in short, we got physical and that is somewhere a relationship should never go!  We ended things with him leaving me feeling alone in the world.  It felt like a huge void and I felt like a failure.  This relationship that I tried so hard to make work,  ended after 14 months, but continued later on for almost an additional year.  I’ll get back to that in a sec.

After he left, I felt lost, because I didn’t have anything.  I had lost my job in the economy situation.  I had enough money after selling practically everything I own, to get by for a little bit.  I knew this guy that I had made friends with online.  He was bi, but not out of the closet.  He knew everything that I was going through and he wanted to be there for me.  We talked, and eventually I asked him out on a date.  Again, we did one date and I went head over heals for this guy too.  SOOOOOO CRAZY!  (notice the recurring mistake here in each of the relationships?).  I told myself that this one had to be the one!

This one was different than the last guy, because he was head over heals for me too, moreso than the first guy was and he was all about showing it.  It was a mutual feeling and we both thought it we could make it work.  He was exactly like me.  He knew what he wanted and it was me.  We didn’t even build a foundation.  Just rushed right in.  Here is where the problem came in, I was running short on funds and I had a friend offering to help me in California.  This posed a problem!  And we thought we had a solution that would work.  We tried everything to figure it out, but the only option was for him to come with me to California.  We talked it out and decided to go for it.  I spoke with the friend and they said they didn’t mind paying for us to both come out.  Without any real plan, he quit his job and we got everything packed up from both of our places and we hit the road.  We leaped!  What a learning experience!

The hardest part was that he was still in the closet.  I was way out of the closet by this time.  I thought I could see past that and overcome it, but it was really difficult and hard on me.  He was struggling with wanting to come out of the closet but not know when or how to do it.  I was struggling because he couldn’t tell anyone about me and that made me feel like I wasn’t important enough.  I know it’s a selfish feeling to have, but it was the feeling I had.  He was still doing balancing act between if he wanted to be with a man or a woman and he felt like he didn’t have enough experience to make that decision.  It was so tough for both of us.

We tried everything to keep things together once we got to California.  It was a struggle though because neither of us had jobs and we were having to spend every minute with each other and it just wasn’t good.  We stressed each other out.  We got to a the point of being in California for 3 months together and we jointly decided that it wasn’t going to work.  I had enough money set aside to pay for him to get him to Nebraska to be with the rest of his family.  So, he went.  We tried making it work long distance for a short while, but quickly decided it wouldn’t work.

After he left, I reached out to my first “gay love” again.  He was in a relationship but he was ready to get out of it.  We started talking again and quickly fell for one another again.  I had heard he wasn’t doing so well and I felt bad an wanted to help him out.  Me wanting to help him out, quickly showed that I cared for him still and we quickly moved off of that feeling.  We talked when we could.  I had just started this job making more than I had ever made in my life and I wanted to share that with him.  So, I offered to get him out of his situation and move him to California.  Within 3 weeks, he was in California with me.  We lived with (gay) roommates that I had made an agreement with long before he came back.  It was challenging.  These guys did drugs and drank non-stop when they were off from work.  He couldn’t resist and it killed me inside.

I came home once to him not being in our room or anywhere to be found.  He was in a back room with one of the roommates and his friends behind a closed door.  I walked up to the door and they were talking about how hot the tattoo on his back was.  I was pissed!  I knocked on the door and the roommate asked who it was and I told them.  The roommate said “shit” and you could hear shuffling around in the room and then my boyfriend answered the door and came out and looked at me and said “what?!?”.  It killed me.  I didn’t say anything.  I just walked away and went to our room and tried my hardest to pretend it hadn’t happened.

A few days later, I came home from work again, and another big surprise!  I came in and he was sitting at the computer and looked over at me and said “wow, you’re home earl….” before he could even finish his statement, I noticed that there was a pair of shoes on our floor that were not his or mine.  I asked him whose they were.  “umm..they’re ____’s”  I don’t even remember the name.  I was like “ok who is he and where is he?”.  He pointed down the hallway to the roommate’s room.  I said “oh again?”.  He replied with “what?!?” like I was just stupid.  I took the shoes and I threw them out in the street.  I was furious!  Again, I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.  I held it all in.  I didn’t write about it and I don’t think I even mentioned it to anyone.  Again, it killed me on the inside.  I just didn’t get it and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.  I felt like again I had failed.

He realized he had messed up and said he would go back home.  And get this…I told him to stay and that I needed him.  Yup!  Dumb move, but in relationships I was a master at dumb moves!  They flowed from me like a river!  If it is a bad decision and it involved a relationship, I made it!  I told him that we would work through it. <<<<<<take a note, this is where the fear of dying alone comes in.  “If this relationship doesn’t work, will I ever be able to find someone again?”  That fear of dying alone has done it’s damage on me.

To be continued……