The Waiting Game.

I spend an awful amount of time waiting on men to notice me. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. It's a weird, irrational feeling that I get. I try to step outside myself and observe the behavior. It makes me want to slap myself around until I get it. Kind of like how writing it down makes me analyze the behavior and try to figure out how to erase or improve it so that I am not always getting let down. I always feel let down. The feeling of being let down has grown with me since I was a kid and I realized that I was not like all the other boys my age.

My first boyfriend and I spent a small amount of time flirting before he asked me out. When I was almost 19 I thought that moving into adulthood would cure me of my constant waiting and procrastination for better things to come. I didn't know how to date, let alone how to be someone's boyfriend, but I assumed that it would all come to me instinctually. The prospect of dating another man titillated me that I was ready to jump into a relationship head first, without knowing how it would affect me emotionally. I was really wearing my heart on my sleeve. To this date, I can't remember what our first date was. I think we had dinner at his place? I remember that he lived with an aunt or sister-in-law. We spent a night laying out on a trampoline, talking and making out, underneath the night sky. I shook the entire time. In my mind, this had been what I was waiting for.

The honeymoon ended a few months later when I met Jason. Every moment that I remember of Jason, being in his presence, listening to him speak, admiring his beautiful smile, moved in slow motion. It was the kind of slow motion that Hollywood always spins in romantic comedies. I was in pure lust, but I was also in a relationship with someone that I thought I was in "love" with. My first boyfriend and I didn't really argue. I think we might have had a spat or two from time to time, but nothing that warranted a bad relationship. The day he told me that he had slept with Jason, I knew that we were headed for the splits. I was saddened, heartbroken, and ultimately lost. I waited for him to call me and tell me that he wanted me back. I'd sit and wait by the phone and hope that maybe he would miss me the same way that I missed him. Nothing ever materialized after a few weeks and I tried to figure myself out again.

Eventually I got a call from my first boyfriend begging me to get Jason out of his house. It turns out that they were not entirely compatible after all and Jason had no where to go. It took a little convincing to get me to agree to pick up Jason. Jason and I had an intense morning, the day that he and my boyfriend had slept together. It was weird. I wanted to fool around with Jason so much, but I kept telling myself (and him) that I was in a "relationship". I was certain that my boyfriend followed the same line of ethical thinking. But you can't put a nice piece of filet mignon in front of a tramp and tell him that he can only have the chicken that he ordered. Jason was a prize, a man-whore slut, but still a prize to be won. After he was placed back in my care, I was determined to climb that mountain.

Over thirteen years Jason and I had many trysts. He would be dating someone and find himself quarreling at some point then find his way into my arms. We slept in the same bed together. He spent the nights with his arms wrapped around me. We met up at bathhouses and spent time getting naked and enjoying one another. Everything always seemed to occur at his discretion. I was always willing to sit by and wait for him to hand me scraps. He gave me pieces of his love and sometimes demanded that I remain faithful to him. We went to California in 1999 or 2000 on a pilgrimage to obtain some furniture that he had inherited from family members. We managed to spend a night in a crappy hotel just outside of Riverside that changed how we related to one another. We made love like both of us had never known love. It wasn't like it was our first time (or our last), but it was such an amazing moment that he and I shared very passionately.

Jason always had this power over me. Even when we weren't together he knew that he could count on me to be at his beck and call. I would do anything (within reason) for him. I was a lovesick fool who didn't mind waiting for the next so and so to fall off the map so that I could have my turn again. Jason and I were always trying to live in the honeymoon phase at the beginning of whatever time period we were in the middle of. He'd say one thing and do another and then get hostile with me, because I expected him to follow through with his commitment to me. We played this game for years until I met Steven and the dynamics between Jason and I changed forever. I had met someone who was willing to give me something new, no strings attached. Jason was still playing the field. I made my choice and Jason annexed me from his life as he had done many times before.

Jason and I would go weeks without talking. I would wait for him to come to his senses and hope that he would call me and let me know what he was up to, but he never really did. Before he kicked me out of our apartment in the summer of 2000, he had asked me "so what about you and me? what about our plans to go to California?" And all I could really muster was "I met someone who I think is really worth pursuing something with." I could see the hurt in his eyes. He couldn't hide the disappointment on his face when he said "are we ever going to make love again?" I knew the answer to that question and reluctantly said "not while I am with Steven." It wasn't that I didn't love Jason anymore or that I wasn't faithful to him anymore. I had just grown tired of our back and forth, that I was ready to move on to someone who was waiting on me for a change.

At this point, I won't bore you with all of the stupid details of my life with Steven. I chose not to relive it, because it is a part of me that ended in such a way that still affects me today. It shouldn't affect me at all. I shouldn't give it power by acknowledging or denying it. I am just not ready, willing or able to go down that road. As far as I am concerned, I wasted 6 years of my life and chose not to recall the good or bad times. I waited long enough for my Prince charming, only to discover that he was a wolf in sheeps clothing.

So we move to the age of modern science where smartphones and hook up apps are how gay men meet one another for sexual gratification. I feel like a slut having profiles on Grindr, Growlr, Adam4Adam, Jack'd, Tinder, and Scruff. I have had profiles on many different dating (hook-up) sites over the years. Sometimes they lead to possibilities. Sometimes they lead to dead ends. Sometimes I meet someone who gives me the impression that they are looking for something serious. Most times, I meet someone who is just looking for a piece of ass. I am there to fulfill all those needs. Time after time, I wait for another "Tom, Dick or Harry" to impress me with his bravado so that I still feel desired in a world consumed by superficial beauty, unobtainable goals, unrealistic social status and instant gratification. I hold out in hopes that Charming is just waiting for a guy like me.

In the interim, I still need to get mine. And I find myself falling back into old behaviors of me waiting by the phone for someone to give me a call because they are finally thinking about me. It's a stupid process that doesn't do me any good. I know this. At the end of the day I try to figure out how worthy I am by how much I impact others. It's a hard balance to find ones own self worth while trying to figure out how worthy you are to others. Instant gratification or not, I can't figure out how to love myself enough to show people how worthy I am of their love and attention. Some people say "why do you care?" And my answer is that it's just how I am. All I am waiting for is that feeling of love and happiness to come back into my life. Sitting, waiting, waiting, waiting....

Instant gratification is part of an equation that I have such a hard time with. It's not like there isn't an available piece of meat out there willing to spend some time rolling around in the sack. I have my buddies. They have their buddies. Some of them have boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, all of the above. There is never a moment that I can go without sex unless I choose not to have sex. The occasion hits me frequently. When it hits me I commit to the hunt until I find what I am looking for. Then I wait.

Recently I spent a day waiting for someone to make his way into my bedroom. We had spent most of the morning flirting over texts and going back and forth with sexual innuendo. I needed some preparation time before I would let him swing by and when I finally felt like I was in a good place to entertain, I sent him my address. An hour, turned to two hours. I tried not to think about it too much and told myself to stay still. I figured that he would materialize at some point. At the end of the day, with no word from my intended fling, I gave up the wait and put on my Sunday best to salvage whatever was left of my evening. I waited a whole day for someone who wasn't really honest about his intentions. And I am the sucker who didn't call him out on text or flag his profile as being misleading. On one side of the coin I was taking the high road. On the other side of the coin, I was feeling insecure and used and walk upon like I had let myself feel many many times over the years.

Again, it's not like I couldn't hit up the handful of men that I know who are always hitting me up to have a good time. But time seems like the enemy when it comes to hooking up. My younger friend who is beautiful and sexy and masculine always hits me up when I want to be left alone. It isn't his fault. Most of the time I want to be left alone. I want to be lazy and I don't want to go through the acrobats necessary to prepare for butt sex. It's not a pleasant ritual, but it is necessary if someone wants to have sex with me. If he wasn't always hitting me up, I think that I would be more willing to go the extra mile.

Which leads me to the other men. After waiting too long to engage with some of them, I have been given the cold shoulder or the silent treatment. One guy expressed how grateful he was to finally meet up again and after our rendezvous I haven't heard a thing from him. A buddy that I have enjoyed over the years is also getting tired of getting me at the wrong time. It just seems like no matter how much I am waiting for someone to sweep me off my feet, they are getting tired of waiting for a convenient piece of ass. My part of the equation fucks everything. No communication, no expectation and no completion. I go back to the waiting game until I find something else to occupy my time.