A synopsis of my love-life.

I don't really have much of one.

***Warning: This entry talks candidly, although not explicitly, about gay sex.***

I've been back at school for about a month now, but it's only recently that I've started incidentally running into Flippy Hair again, which is strange considering he lives down the hall from me.

Anyway, so I've been running into him a lot lately, and I find the old feelings coming back. Not the 'desperately want to kiss you every time I see you' feelings that I had last winter, but I still find him very attractive, in fact more so now than before.

We first met on a dating site last summer, but we never really did anything. Then last fall when I moved into my new dorm, I discovered that he lived just down the hall. For most of that fall semester, I thought he was cute and sort of admired him from afar, but not as creepily as that makes it sound. We actually met in person for real when I joined the musical revue group, of which he happened to be a member. That's when the feelings really started to develop, when we were seeing each other at almost daily rehearsals. After the big performance of the year at the end of February, we saw each other less often, but still on a semi-regular basis, since we were neighbors.

So eventually I worked up the nerve to tell him I found him attractive. Well, sort of. I posted it anonymously in his Facebook Honesty Box. For those of you not familiar with Honesty Box, it can show you the gender of the anonymous posters, so seeing that comment coming from a male, he was intrigued and replied asking who I was. I pussyfooted around for a bit, but eventually revealed myself. After that, he never responded, and I felt worthless and rejected.

Anyway, the musical revue group is now having regular meetings again, even though it's the off-season and we're not allowed to start learning our act until December - said musical revue show is a strictly regulated competition and an old tradition at my unnamed Baptist university - so I'm seeing Flippy Hair more often, and boy does he look great. I've pretty much gotten over the pain from this spring, so thankfully it hasn't been awkward. In fact, it's almost as if it never even happened.

On a somewhat different note, I think Lip Ring is ignoring me again. He and I met on the same aforementioned dating site this spring. It was recently after my rejection by Flippy Hair, and I was trying to move past it. We met in person for the first time at a concert in town, but it was really awkward and he ended up having to leave early to deal with a friend's crisis. After the concert, he texted me saying something along the lines of 'I can tell you don't like me. It's okay.' I responded with the truth, that I liked him just fine, but that I was just a shy person, inexperienced at dating and awkward around new people.

So we decided to make a fresh start. A week or two later, we met again to have some one-on-one time, very chill. We got some food at Wendy's and then went back to his apartment, where we started watching Donnie Darko, his favorite movie which I had never seen. Two gay guys sitting on a couch in an empty apartment with the lights off. Needless to say, we didn't get very far into the movie. It started with a kiss and moved on from there. About an hour later, we were both naked and we moved to the bedroom, where we had the best sex I've ever had. Not that I have too much to compare it to. It wasn't mind-blowing, but at least it was actually good, as opposed to sex with Pepper, which had been more or less an exercise in futility.

Oh, Pepper, that was an interesting time. He was the first person to whom I ever came out. It was so cheesy. I was barely 17 years old, and at 20 he seemed to mature and world wise. But I was stupid and naïve and was blown away by anyone who was already out of the closet. Anyway, I got to know him from being in a community theatre production of Beauty and the Beast. I played Gaston. He was a pepper shaker, hence the moniker. So we had been subtly flirting for the past couple weeks of rehearsal, and after our first performance and on the way to meet the rest of the main cast for dinner, he asked me if I was gay and I said yes. After dinner, he drove me to my house, talking the whole way about being gay. When we got to my house and it was time to say goodbye, he kissed me, and I stayed in the car. After making out for about 15 minutes, we moved the car to a darker spot down the block, and that was when I got my first blow job. But for some reason, I don't really know why, I wasn't really getting much out of it. Maybe I was just nervous. Anyway, we eventually gave up and I went home.

The next day, he wanted me to go with him to his apartment after the show, but his best friend, also on the cast, was having a party at her place that night and it would have been rude not to go. We had a nice, open time there, hanging out and playing spin the bottle with other cast members. Then on the third day of performances, we had two shows in one day, and then that was when I went with him to his apartment. It began like any other 'date': sitting on the couch, kissing, and eventually clothes coming off. He hadn't thought it out very well, though. He had no condoms and no lube. We ended up having sex bareback (of which I am not at all proud) using cold cream as lube. The cold cream worked alright as lubrication, but it kind of made me numb, so again I was unable to finish and we eventually gave up. As a result of that, he thereafter didn't want me to use a condom, thinking it would make me last even longer. At least from then on, he made sure to have lube handy.

Still, we had sex on a semi-regular basis for a few months after that, always bareback (again, not at all proud of that) and never anything that I would actually call 'good.' It didn't help that, as an actor, he overacted his reaction to me being inside him, always moaning and shouting in such obviously fake ecstasy. I kept trying to shush him under the guise of making sure his neighbors didn't hear, but really I was just trying to get him to shut up because it was really distracting.

Despite the so-so sex, I still wanted to have a real relationship with Pepper. He felt otherwise. He said he 'didn't want to spoil what we had' and wanted for us to just continue being friends with benefits. I felt a bit cheap, but I said okay, hoping that he would eventually want a relationship. That situation lasted from July until about November, by which time our meetings had become less and less frequent until we just didn't see each other at all. About two months later, I read in his Xanga that he was in love and had a boyfriend. I cried a lot that night. That scarred me pretty deeply and I spent the next two years wondering why I wasn't good enough.

Fast forward to my encounter with Lip Ring. It felt so good to have some sense of intimacy. That was about a month after the rejection by Flippy Hair, and I was still carrying the Pepper baggage, not to mention the fact that I was very sexually frustrated after the dry spell of more than two years. Lip Ring and I were supposed to meet up again about two weeks after the first time, but he ended up going to Austin with his friends instead. I was a little upset, but I decided to let it go; we could meet up another time. We eventually met up at a popular coffee shop just off campus, along with one of his good friends. We had a nice time talking about various things, all the while flirting on Y!IM on our laptops. I went back home before it was too late. It was close to finals, after all.

And that was the last time I saw him. That was May. We went a while without talking, because he never seemed to be online. Then in early August, we finally IMed again. He said that he was feeling frisky and was wondering if I was up for some fun. I said I was. He said he wanted to have sex outside, like at the lake or something. I wasn't too sure about that, but I figured I would play it by ear. So we agreed that he would come pick me up at a specific time a couple hours later. I showered, shaved, fixed my hair, and put on one of my favorite outfits. I texted him directions to my house and then waited for him to come. But he never came. He wouldn't answer his phone or respond to any of my texts or Facebook messages. He stood me up and was now ignoring me.

Time went by, I came back to school, and then I finally received a text from him in mid-September, in which he asks if I would be interested in having a threesome with him and another guy. I had noticed in the month that he was ignoring me that he had gotten a boyfriend, as evidenced by his Facebook. I asked him who the third guy in the threesome would be, and when he named someone other than his boyfriend, I knew something was fishy. I asked if his boyfriend knew about this planned threesome. He said no, at which point I flat out said no to fooling around with him at all. We had a long conversation about why he was wanting to cheat on his boyfriend and what I thought he should do, i. e. not cheat on his boyfriend and talk with his boyfriend about the problems he was having. After a great deal of convincing, he finally agreed to talk to his boyfriend about it that evening, and I told him to let me know how it went.

The next day, his Facebook disappeared completely. I don't know if he blocked me or if he deleted his Facebook or what. He also has not been on Y!IM or AIM since. He is still my friend on Myspace, so I sent him a message asking him what the deal was. Myspace tells me that the message was read a few days ago, but he has not responded. I just sent him another message a few minutes ago, addressing the fact that he seems to be ignoring me again. We'll see how that works out.

In my rational mind, I have eliminated almost all thoughts of trying to be anything more to him than a friend, but it will have to be up to him to decide whether I will even be that or if I will become a stranger.

I realize that this is a rather long and heavy post, but I figured a bit more exposition was in order.

That's all for now.

-PW