House of Mirrors

I have had a number of relationships in my life where I view a high degree of similarity between myself and the other person, and within that similarity, I'm able to come up with a single difference between us that I see as defining. I liken it to being a mirror image. The image in the mirror is effectively the same, but inverted. There are actually three of these sorts that I find particularly informative to myself at the present moment.

The first, and the longest, is dealing with my elder brother. Not only do we look frighteningly similar to one another, but we also were the nerdy, awkward kids growing up. Both of us are gay, and both of us have had at least some degree of "needing to be needed." There's a lot more to it, but I think you get the point.

My brother's favorite book of all time was "The Catcher in the Rye." And he still firmly identifies himself with Holden Caulfield. The baseline reason for this is that, for him, adults are selfish and hurtful beings, for the most part. Children, while being very self-centered, tend to also be more giving and ultimately concerned for the well-being of others than adults. Particularly when one considers the hurtful ways that many parents use their children against one another, children themselves are often the victims of the selfish posturing of adults. And so thus, not only do those children become victims of adults, but they then have the tools hard-wired into them to become those hurtful adults who had victimized them. Thus, my brother has become a school psychologist, has a very small group of friends that he feels that he can trust, and otherwise remains wary of the rest of the adult world.

I have found that I am similar to him in this fact, not because I'm focused on children versus adults or anything like that, but because I do see that there is a lot of hurt in the world. Even with regard to activism, I have always taken the position that human beings are intrinsically able to have so much potential, but because every single person in the world has been hurt, they act out to hurt others. This hurt takes on such a large scale that the hurtfulness seems overwhelming. I can't help but sometimes take the look that everyone in the world is broken in some way... and that those feelings of being hurt and broken frequently lead people to act out in ways that hurt and break others. It is thus a never-ending cycle.

The true extent of finding myself similar to my brother was shortly after my last break-up. He had stated that every time he has fallen in love, it was *just* at the moment when he felt somehow safe. Not only did I come to a major realization within myself for that reason, but was put in a bit of a more agitated position when talking to Julie about the recognition, as she flippantly stated "but relationships are never safe. They're always a risk." This to the guy who was really hurt, but who kept running to one of the guys he was seeing whenever he felt hurt to hold and feel better... it wasn't one of my best moments, I'll admit. But I learned from it.

And yet, here's where the difference between myself and my brother comes in. We both see the world as a place that has so much potential to hurt people. And both of us see ourselves as taking an essential role in mitigating this hurt in some way. But where my brother, from my perspective, sees no hope in the world of adults and thereby attempts to protect children from the world, I see things differently. I see potential hope for all of us, so long as we can move PAST the hurt, past what has broken us, and to allow the cycle to end there. I believe that there are adults in the world who have been able to say "I've been hurt. I have this broken piece inside of me, but I'm not going to allow it to control me or to cause me to hurt or break anybody else."

And this is where I see my own role in mitigating the hurt and the brokenness of the world. And where I've made a determination for myself even within the realm of relationships. No longer will I fear love as an inevitability of being hurt and fight it every step of the way, and no longer will I build up barriers to trusting other adults. I will give everyone a fair shot of trust, respect, and mindfulness. And if and when they take that trust, reject it and reach down into their own pits of hurt to throw that trust in my face? I will not allow it to contribute back to that hurt and cause me to continue the cycle. I will communicate my hurt, and I'll be open and honest about my position, but I will write nobody off completely, and I will continue to validate the existence and feelings of those people who have hurt me. And my hope is that my example of allowing myself to be hurt without lashing back out will have a true and lasting impact upon them, and it may help them move past their own hurt, to stop the cycle of hurting other people.

And with regard to love? I'm not going to build my defenses higher, or put up more barriers to prevent myself from falling in. I'm in the process of breaking them down. I've been hurt before, and I've survived. And even the most painful of those relationships have left me learning a great deal about myself and other people. And so I give myself over. I am ready to be hurt again, because I am not going to try to protect myself and others FROM the world. I'm looking to fix the problem, and to begin the process of healing. Starting with myself, and moving on to others...

The second of these is far less on a grand scale. But it's a reflection nonetheless. It is actually a sense that I've had from one of the couple I'd last dated. And sorry to everyone if you thought I should be more anonymous with my blogs, or change people's names, but... that's not me. I'm honest, no matter what.

While I was never as close to Steve as I was to Ray directly, I also saw many frightening similarities between myself and Steve. One of those particularly, became especially apparent during my birthday dinner, when Steve had discussed a certain strategy for manipulating a supervisor to get a dispensation he'd been looking for. Apparently Ray had not agreed with Steve's ability to get the dispensation, or the method that he was using to get it. Steve's response, of course, was to merely point out how much Ray didn't understand how to properly manipulate people.

Sadly, I got this. For my own point of similarity, my mother was, and still is, one of the most manipulative people in existence. To this day, she has excelled at making it seem as if her meeting some of her own needs is somehow tied to something important for YOU, and as such, you owe her something for it. It's like getting a two-for deal. She meets her own needs, and then gets you to feel obligated to her for it besides. In high school, this meant that there was an all-out war between us. It was mostly a "silent" war, as of course it involved *relatively* little violence... well, for my part, at least. It was instead a war of manipulation, as I saw my only means of escape as being able to beat her at her own game. And I became VERY adept at it. Which again brought out many issues, including a sense of profound satisfaction any time I managed to drive her to acting out in violence, as I never reciprocated. It gave me a sense of victory, of winning... and when I finally went to college, and when she attempted to direct my course in college, I had what I'd considered my "final victory" where she no longer had any power over me.

The degree of the manipulation was immense. To the point where my brothers and I even to this day will point out a habit, a thought process, or even a way of arguing that one or another of us will use, and say "you know that's not normal, right? That comes from Mom." And yet, at least at the time, I'd taken a profound satisfaction from the fact that, in fact, I had beaten her at her own game.

The problem becomes that I have absolutely no desire to be that person, and therefore attempt regularly to NOT engage in such manipulation. It has taken me years, but I've come to see the silver lining in it, which is the fact that the attentiveness that comes from knowing how to manipulate, also brings with it a sense of empathy. For the manipulative person, like my mother or Steve, to get back to the original topic, you need to be able to read people and see where they are, in order to understand where to push this or that button and therefore to trigger the effect that you're looking for. After you become adept at reading the signs, however, you can also turn things around and do what you can to help *prevent* the breakdowns, recognize what somebody might need despite what may or may not benefit you, and help to ease tensions instead of generating more of them.

And so is the difference in the reflection of what I see in Steve. He takes a great sense of pride in his ability to manipulate others, and maintains it as one of his greatest strengths. In effect, he uses it as a means to protect himself by trying to be in complete control over every interpersonal relationship he has. He benefits from it in a great many ways, as well. For a brief while, I was actually even somewhat jealous and upset that he managed to get away with it so amazingly, whereas my refusal to "stoop to the level" had managed to mean that I got to be the person hurt the most by the situation... and yet, over time, I've recognized one thing. By controlling each relationship, you are maintaining a static environment, and you are never growing. I may have been hurt, but I've grown from the experience and have moved onward. And even when I sent my last message stating that I understand the place of hurt that he had come from, and that I still cared deeply for both him and Ray, his scathing response... the one that came from that place of hurt and brokenness, made me realize that mine is truly the better way. And my hope is that my refusal to give back that hurt and pain will help him to realize that maybe there is some room for being open to hurt, after all.

Finally, and I apologize for this being a much more long-winded entry than it should have been (now that I think on it, I should've broken it down into 3 separate entries), is my friend Aileen. We both had gone to the same Jesuit college where we met, and she has been one of my greatest friends. I still remember her as having one of the most positive reactions to my coming out, having put her arms around me and hugging me, and congratulating me on being able to come to that point. Aileen is also an activist. Aileen is a strong feminist, as am I. After Fairfield, both of us spent the same summer at the New Haven Catholic Worker. Our positions are very similar to one another.

But in many, many ways I am a separatist. Aileen is a reformer. I saw the Catholic Church, and indeed Christianity overall, as being horribly linked to sexist, homophobic values and have summarily rejected it, in favor of coming to a cosmology that is more humanist, affirming, and value-centered. Aileen always saw the same problems that I have, and yet has always felt that there is room to reform the institutions from within.

It is similar with regard to the idea of marriage and monogamy. I reject both institutions, seeing marriage as having started as a means of documenting possession and control of women, and having not improved substantially since its inception. Aileen has always been more "traditional" when it comes to dating and relationships.

In taking on our activism, it was always somewhat profound to me that we would be able to go about our work in such meaningful ways, and with such a continuity of spirit, when our philosophies were also so different, as well. In a sense, and you'll forgive me for the nerdy comic book reference, I have always seen myself as the Magneto to her Charles Xavier, or for a more realistic reference, as the Malcolm X to her MLK.

I admit, however, to being a little bit nervous about one thing. In most of our discussions, I can remember having said "I hope I'm wrong, and that you are able to make the changes that you want to make within the institutions. But I don't think I am, and that the institutions are doomed to forever be perpetrators of oppression."

I'd lost contact with Aileen for many years, and only just recently have re-connected with her again. She is still one of my best friends in existence, despite the years and distance intervening. And yet, on her facebook profile, the one thing I've read that I have yet to mention in my conversations with her thus far, was that her religion section lists the word "Episcopalian." It makes sense, of course. She can become the minister she has always wanted to be within the Episcopal Church, and the teachings of the Episcopal Church are still extremely similar to the Catholic Church.

For once, I get the fear that I was right. I can't help but feel conflicted. She is clearly going to be happier as an Episcopalian than she ever could have been as a Catholic. But the fact remains that I can't help but imagine what it must have been like for her on that day, to come to the conclusion that, yes "this institution is not going to change. I no longer have hope for it, and therefore I must leave it to become a part of something better." Part of me is relieved that I was not around on that day, because such a decision speaks of having a sense of lost hope. And yet, I wish that I could have been there to tell her, at least, that yes, there is more out there that is better. And even though you are rejecting this institution, you are leaving room for building something that is better.

These are my mirrors. I admit to taking a bit of satisfaction in witnessing how much I've developed by relating back to them again, in some way. But even in the course of writing this, I've even still learned something else that is new. Each of the people who I consider to be one of my mirrors, the difference that I see, is dealing in some way with growth and the way we relate to the world. And it is a question of growth versus safety. Whether it is the safety of an institution, or safety in distance from the adult world, or even in manipulation and control over your relationships, there is a safety that comes as a result. In each of these, however, I have taken the path of less safety. The path of risk. And yet, I think that the safety I take from my position is knowing that I can always relate myself back to each of them. That to some extent, while I have prioritized my need to grow and become something better, to create something greater, I can always turn either back or to the side and see those who have found an anchor. Perhaps they aren't my mirrors after all, but my lighthouses. Those who provide a point to which I can always refer back, even as I venture out into uncharted territory...

The Waiting Game

There is very little that can be considered one of my triggers than getting stood up. Particularly getting stood up by gay men. And I honestly don't know what it is either about me, or about gay men, that makes it so overwhelmingly easy to make it continue to happen as frequently as it does.

I certainly understand that this may not be as much of a function of gay men in general as simply what gay men I've been in contact with, some signals that I am giving off, or some other functional relation that I have yet to discover. And yet, I still can't for the life of me figure out what it is that is driving this constant problem.

But let me assure you, that it is, in fact, a constant problem. I've been stood up on plenty of first dates, first times meeting with people who are interested in friendship, and both of those are actually somewhat understandable. I've also been stood up on second and third dates, and by people who I've been hanging out with more frequently.

I also tend to consider myself reasonable. With enough prior communication, and at least a semi-plausible reason or excuse, I'll forgive pretty much anything. Heck, forget semi-plausible, I'll even take a "I really don't feel like hanging out with you tonight. I'm feeling much more insterested in doing x instead." Even if x happens to be hooking up with some random trick that the person has never met before and will never see again after. So long as they're honest about it. Generally, I always put my friendships first, and while sex is great, there is nothing about it that can ever trump a friendship.

This is one thing I've learned is very different with me from the majority of the rest of the gay male community, however. In my experience, for most gay men, there is nothing that trumps sex. And most of the times that I've been ditched by friends, it has been for some random trick or another. Admittedly, as I said above, it's a hot-button topic for me. But we also all know how far in advance most tricks are set up. Right the heck now. So my question always is, "if we had plans, why did you suddenly go start looking for a random hook-up half an hour ahead of time?" Then again, maybe part of my problem is that I have yet to actually verbalize that question in the face of such cancellations.

I've also discovered that holidays are actually another hot-button for me. Thus this post. There is nothing quite like waiting around for over 5 hours for a couple of friends who made plans with you, and announced 1 hour before your plans that they were at a party and therefore asked you to call before you leave "just in case they aren't there." To call and find out they are still at the party and are drunk is one thing. It's annoying, but ok, it IS the 4th of July after all, right? Two hours later, calling again and being told that they'll call whenever they're getting ready to leave is pretty outright rude. But whatever, I ended up finding a trick of my own. After finishing with that, and coming back home, however, I came to the conclusion that further waiting was not only not an option any more, but that I was willing to be pretty harsh in explaining that I wasn't willing to wait any more. Scratch one more friendship.

Of course, in the face of that, the holiday card came up a few other times in my last relationship, and it was Thanksgiving that played the trigger for that relationship ending. There's nothing like leaving home to spend the night away from your kids to be with the men you love, only to have them unfold an air mattress and announce that that's where you can stay to make a man feel truly appreciated. Right?

The thing that I understand the least, actually, is how or why, and in what realm of the universe, do any of these people believe that what they're doing is ok? And what boggles my mind even more than that, is that ALL of these people in some way or another have determined that this type of behavior is ok. Otherwise, it wouldn't be such a prevalent problem!

This is what makes me believe that I'm the one who is somehow sending out signals that this type of behavior is somehow acceptable. I tend to be pretty open about my own issues, feelings, or positions with people, and so I would scratch that off of the list of options for it. I also have had enough of a problem with this situation in particular that people know it's a problem for me before they do it, as well, so I'd say that rules out another possibility.

What other possibilities exist, I either don't know, or are far too self-deprecating to mention. This would bring me to the possibility of it being more about them again, rather than me. Partially, them knowing that it's an issue may mean that they are attempting to self-sabotage things before they even get started, so as to head off any future issues, or to prove that the friendship/relationship/whatever-it-would-have-been was doomed to failure from the start. Maybe it's a result of some internal self-esteem problem, and proving that nobody is ever going to continue to love somebody or be friends with somebody unconditionally, because look how much this person got angry over a single incident of missing out on plans...

I really don't know what it is. And maybe part of it is that I don't want to know, either. Back to those self-deprecating options. The fact is, I'm still completely baffled, and with every new incident that comes up, the stronger and stronger my reactions to that behavior have been getting. But may goodness help the next guy who stands me up at the last minute. And for their sake, it had better not be on a holiday...

Sex, Love and Friendship

For a very long time, I've thought that the words sex, love and friendship are WAY too general to be considered particularly helpful in many people's lives. Particularly more so within my own life, but whenever I feel as if I'm simply too far gone from the traditional bounds of relationships, friendships and sexuality, I'm reminded by every sitcom, romantic comedy, and drama that I watch, exactly why I'm not so different from everyone else in that sense after all.

For every romance that we see, there is confusion, a need to identify boundaries, to determine the true feelings that each person has for one another, and a series of possibilities. There is always the mystery of who the protagonist will "end up with" and what exactly will their final relationship be to the one(s) who were their other possibilities?

The fact is that love, romance, and sexuality are far too complicated to be able to fit into the mold that our culture has attempted to box them into. So why, then, do we continue to box ourselves in? Partially, I think of it as a sort of inertia. There were good reasons for having delineated separations between friendships and relationships due to issues such as disease, inheritance, etc. ages ago, which developed the familial structures that are centered around marriage with a singular exclusive partner, and because that has been the structure that has been in existence, diversion from this paradigm has been slow. Granted, there have been a great deal of changes, merely from the fact that we can consider that people no longer marry for political or economic reasons (at least not always), and that marriage is considered, at least in theory, to be based upon love.

There is another reason, I believe, as well. And that comes simply from my experience of the complexities that are involved with diverging from this cookie-cutter model existence. When one diverges from already-existing models, you are left without default options. Once everything becomes possible, then truly everything IS possible. In the minute that happens, more than ever, one must truly be in touch with themselves and their own feelings, and they need to be able to communicate those feelings to others, as well. It seems simple enough, and no matter how often I believe that I've achieved the requisite level of self-awareness, transparency, and communicativeness, I find more boxes and more shadows within myself.

I consider this. I am quite possibly one of the most sex-positive individuals that I know. I have moved well beyond the recognition that as much as we culturally view sex as something dangerous that needs to be controlled. And I have done more than my fair share of breaking down that stereotype and opening myself up to proving that sex is something that is positive, affirming, and full of potential. Sex, just like relationships, can take a multitude of forms and possibilities, and all that we are required to do is to be open to those possibilities.

But for all of the sex-positiveness that I so often exude, I have yet found multiple inconsistencies within myself. Small things that reflect a certain reservedness or timidity in the face of certain sexual encounters, or even potential sexual encounters. I will be the first to say that, while sex is certainly possible to be devoid of a great deal of emotional entanglements, as the vast number of one-night-stands can imply, the fact is that sex is still simultaneously an extremely powerful emotional tool.

It is this potential for emotion within sex that finds me more reluctant to open the door to sexual overtones within certain of my friendships. With one friend, for example, there had been a sexual tension between us for a very long time. However, from primarily my own choice, I had decided years ago that it was far too much of a risk to engage in a sexual relationship with that friend. That friendship has remained to this day one of my most bolstering friendships. It is a friendship where we understand one another, have the ability to talk for hours, days actually, without ever running out of things to talk about, and where we can emotionally rely upon one another. There is nothing that we cannot share with one another about our vulnerabilities, insecurities, or fears.

Except that it is false. There is one topic that still remains a bit of a smokescreen, and that is something that I only have discovered in the past few weeks. As both of us have re-entered "single" life within the past 6 months, and each of us has entered therapy, it has become highlighted for each of us that we have a bit more of a connection with one another than a standard friendship, and quite honestly that fact terrifies me. I cannot help but find it odd that it does frighten me as much as this, as well, because of the fact that I have been so open to so much else in my lifetime, and yet there is something about this single friendship which the potential of changing one of the basic dynamics of it fills me with a tremendous amount of anxiety.

At the same time, I am also meeting a number of new people. After ending my last relationship about 6 months ago, I found myself not only out of a relationship, but strongly lacking in my number of friendships, as well. And in meeting most new people, for once, I found that most people were interested in sex far more than they had any interest whatsoever in friendship. I can't help but laugh at myself for the fact, as my college days when everybody wanted to be my friend and tried to date my roommate, I had secretly begged for this conundrum. And the universe apparently answered my wish in a most scathing manner. Be careful what you wish for, and all that jazz.

Despite everything, however, I have made friends over the past few months, and some of those friends I have played with, others I haven't. One of those friendships was with somebody who had numerous times expressed an interest in moving to a sexual level, but I resisted. I had convinced myself that because of the issues that he had with his own self-image and sexuality, that he needed friends who would be his friends regardless, and not because he could provide them with something, namely sex. What I'd found, however, was that I was projecting heavily upon him. It was me who wanted the friendship without a sexual bargain attached, and while the friendship has taken on a sexual component since, it was a lesson that I have certainly learned.

The difficulty that has come up since then is that I have another similar friendship. It is with a couple where there is a clear mutual attraction, but which I have drawn a clear boundary with. Coming into this situation now, I recognize that part of the reason I have been so compelled to maintain this boundary was to have the ability to be certain that our friendship was out of a genuine desire to be friends, and to have the emotional security that I associate with my friendships. Recently, it has become more clear that there is a genuine sexual interest on all sides, as well, yet I still find a reluctance to step forward and engage due to some sense that the friendship may give way before a more sex-based relationship.

And last but not least, having re-entered the dating pool, I have met somebody who I have found that I really like a lot. Ironically, while still being the sex-positive person that I am, I had decided that I liked him so much on the first date that I didn't want to have sex with him right away. We've been talking regularly, have gone out one more time since, and there is a connection like electricity between us. And yet we still haven't taken that step towards sex. And the ironic thing about it, is that it is, for me at least, entirely a function of a sense that I really like him, and that I am hoping for some more long-term potential from the relationship.

The problem is not nearly as difficult as I have made it out to be, in reality. I can still consider myself sex-positive, and love sex and all of its possibilities, and yet maintain these conundrums. The fact is that sex IS a powerful force and tool. One-night-stands are able to work because of the context in which they occur. And yet, I have known people who have begun relationships through nothing other than a singular such encounter. Fuck-buddies, friends with benefits, and other such relational models still exist, and sex is a strong force within those friendships. Sex is bigger than many of us make it out to be, probably because we're all a little bit afraid of what that fact implies. But sex is simultaneously far more beautiful than any of our detractors would have us believe, and it does not need to be controlled and restricted at all costs.

Sex is nothing to fear, but it needs to be respected. It is like fire. It has a myriad of uses, its potential for use is nearly limitless, and it is truly a wondrous thing. But just like fire, we need to be mindful of where it is, and what exactly it is doing, or we may find that we can be burned by it, as well...