decomp

i was pretty sure it was to the point this had run it's course. me and this 21 year old guy. let's call him tyo (twenty-one year old. original? i think not).

tyo is a nice guy, we'd started out chatting on one of the myriad gay hook-up/chat sites out there. he was just getting over a relationship. not ready to date, yada-yada-yada. this was around christmas. he was in hawaii on vacation, so it was safe on so many frontiers.

we talked, got friendly, lost contact. basically one of the three or four possible outcomes with relationships between gay guys: meet, fuck, never see each other again; meet, fuck, fall in love; meet, never see each other again and meet, become friends.

scenario number three.

or was it?

a few months later, we start chatting again.

variations on a theme.

particularly, since this time he is apparently over whomever it was in december and whatever had happened with him and was presently dating someone else.

imagine my surprise when he shows up at my lil part time gig one day and offers me a ride home.

fine. scenario number four it is.

we start hanging out. a phrase i generally steer clear of since it is basically gay for hooking up. it used to be that getting coffee was gay for hooking up, but that became such a confusing cliche that we had to evolve. hanging out is way less confusing.

this was maybe late february and we would go for a drink or two now and then, see a movie, grab food or watch a dvd at my place. had to be my place, tyo still lived with the 'rents.

one afternoon, tyo tells me on the phone that he wants to cuddle while we watch whatever movie we're gonna watch at my place that night.

brakes screeched in my imagination. easy, tiger. boundaries.

he doesn't see the big deal, it's just cuddling. now this is something that has confused me about a couple of my friends/neighbors, kiki and bebe, who can sleep in the same full size bed when one or both of them has drunk to much without anything happening or cuddle on the couch while watching tv. another friend, the silver fox, can also put people up for the night in his bed without feeling odd about it. i just don't get it. sharing a sleeping space seems so intimate to me. as does cuddling.

i put the kaibosh on that, explaining that i just don't do that with my friends. cuddling seems to be a gateway toward sex in my experience. i muse that he has perhaps not been held enough as a child.

he keeps working on me.

of course, i am stubborn.

yet, i challenge myself to grow. kiki and bebe can do it. perhaps this is something that is holding back my emotional growth, this intimacy between two friends. we give it a go.

nice.

and then the sexual tension pops up. single entendre, "pops up" is.

i mention in a text or something that i am eager for that sexual tension to fade. this is a few weeks after. his response? he hopes it doesn't.

he breaks up with the guy he's dating.

one night we're watching a movie. cuddling. he rolls over to face me on the couch and nuzzles into my neck, begins to snooze.

i put an end to the sexual tension that night. i'm merely a man.

to my surprise, he seems perfectly open to this evolution in our relationship. i resist doing my "told ya so dance". i do, however, explain my own code of conduct when dating younger guys-leave them better than i found them. i don't want to be part of what i percieve to be one of the biggest issues and oxymorons in the gay culture; namely treating each other like tissue. use 'em and throw 'em away. nsa sexual encounters, predatory sex...come on, how can we demand equal rights and marriage equality as a culture when within that culture we fail to treat each other as equals or with respect? it's like blacks calling each other what my white guilt prevents me from typing.

soon, we're seeing each other four to six nights a week and texting or talking daily.

shortly thereafter, perhaps a few weeks ago, he tells me he has just assumed we were dating exclusively but wants me to confirm it. i do so by suggesting he hasn't left me much time to cat around, nor have i. not my style. doesn't fit within my dating credo.

last week he's talking about joining him and his family in hawaii for the fall.

i'm talking to my friend brian about how to get out of this relationship and whether i want to.

i resolve to ratchet it back before i leave for vacation on july 5th.

my goal, to do so while preserving an opportunity to maintain a friendship. this fulfills my credo and my goal. i have never been good at maintaining friendships with guys i date. i have determined that i generally remain in the "dating" mode with them too long and become so irked with whatever it is that makes me want out of the relationship that i don't want to be their friend, i just want away from them.

then, there's the alternative.

anyone seeing where this is going? i'm not good at building suspense without tipping my narrative hand.

so tyo invites himself to my friends' 4th of july party. the founding members of the dea are throwing it, brian is slated to attend. tyo knows these guys, so i figure it will be ok, plus it has the added benefit of reinforcing my desire to remain friends with him by taking him somewhere with my friends the night before we have "the talk". the next morning i can take him to breakfast, talk, then get out of town so we can adjust to the new parameters of our relationship. i actually dread this type of conversation but really think we'll come out of this friends-who can cuddle.

growth. not bad for an old dog.

shortly after arriving at the party, i ask him to be aggressive about introducing himself to people i talk to if i don't introduce him right off. it means i can't remember their names...he tells me that will be hard for him since he's not that aggressive.

that said, i virtually don't see him the rest of the party. when i do it's strained and i feel like i'm intruding. i take responsibility for his distance by assuming he's miffed at me for what he percieves as pushing him away.

brian is a no-show.

later in the night, the gal i have been chatting with, her friend, antony, and tyo and i are all hanging out. antony suggests heading out to dance. i'm ambivalent about it. antony is being less than sublte about hitting on tyo. antony looks a few years my senior. i send tyo a text suggesting antony could be a little more subtle. tyo looks torn about going out, i tell him we can. he doesn't shoot antony's advances down and antony gets more aggressive. tyo starts shooting me looks that transition from annoyed to complicit. i suggest he go ahead and go out with antony to whatever bar they want to hit and i will take a cab home. i am assured that is not what he wants and we decide to head back to my place and turn in.

i wake up at 5:30, hearing tyo in the bathroom. he comes back into the bedroom and then leaves again. feeling guilty that he is sleeping on the couch because it's been so hot in my condo, i think about going out and talking him back into the bedroom. then i hear a paper bag rumpling in the hall, the door opening and then shutting quietly.

i lay there for a second, confused. i double check the time. still 5:30.

then i get up and take stock of the sitch.

shopping bag with xbox: gone.

toothbrush: gone.

key fob to my building: left behind.

note: negatory.

i pace around, composing my feelings on the sitch for a few minutes. within the half hour, i have sent the following text message: "i love being right...you should have just gone with him last night". ok, not the most mature response, but i feel like i can loosen my grip on the wheel a bit.

this unravels a spool of what are at best poor attempts to spare my feelings and at worse-and so much more likely-lies intended to save face on his part. my favorite was his deliberate decision to leave the party and come to my place the prior night because he knew he could have something long term with me versus what a drunk at a party had to offer. i mirthlessly point out that he snuck out of my place without explanation five and a half hours after making that deliberate decision.

i mention he should have said something and update my status on facebook to indicate how i enjoy being right. perhaps this is too loose a grip on the wheel...

we trade a few texts throughout the morning. tyo tells me he wants to be friends. i suggest he's got some ground to make up before that will happen as my friends are people that are close enough to me that i can invest truths about myself to them and expect real attention and support; suggestions on how to conduct myself. as well as just having fun. the rest of the people i know i classify as acquaintances. someone who places his own comfort above mine, and doesn't mind a lie to me to make things easier on himself since he has no loyalty to me other than an occasional public run in.

i hope he sees the lesson i am attempting to display here.

tyo attempts to roll out a laundry list of reasons why i deserve such poor treatment which ends up containing one item and changes his own status on facebook to something that makes it sound like he has been raped.

clearly the lesson was too thickly veiled for him to discern. sadly, he preferred to not learn from this experience.

i unfriend him and haven't heard from him since. matching his maturity level...i'm so proud.

the dea did mention that they had caught someone having sex in their master bathroom at the party. knocked on the door and left the room so as not to embarass whomever it was. there was a doubt as to what they might have interrupted until they went in after the party and discovered a bunch of missing hand towels and general disarray in the bathroom.

i'm actually surprised by my reaction to this seemingly spontaneous development. i'm sad. i think it's more my reaction to being lied to than the loss of a friendship opportunity.

guess that means i still have more work to do on myself. yet i can't stop worrying that tyo will use me as an excuse to behave unaccountably toward others since he felt perfectly entitled to leave me with no accounting.