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...