The HORROR! A product that removes hair??? Sample packets of Nair for Men, a product that I couldn’t have imagined, were being passed out at the Gay Parade on Sunday. I tried to tackle one woman passing them out, “Stop her, don’t take any! Save the fur!!” I yelled… Here’s me and Big Chris and Little Dave at the parade, and Dave and me smushing the sinister sample packets…
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So my current state of mind these days seems to be characterized by a queazy mix of vulnerability and eagerness. My eagerness is for intimacy, sexual and emotional, to bond with another, to share my love of life and experience. I have so much passion and intensity that’s been dammed up for such a long time that keeping the floodgates even partially closed is almost impossible. I’m the Hoover dam ready to burst on top of you. Kiss me and hold your breath, babe.
Man, has the dating scene changed over the past 11 years! Sex seems to be this exchange akin to a handshake. I can’t even read the expressions of love. I had a very intense sexual encounter the other night, the kind where if I had taken viagra we would have had to take me to the hospital according to the warnings in the commercials about four hour erections… Well, during this exchange, my partner looked at me at one point very intensely, for a long time. It was so intimate, he was so open–I couldn’t even handle it, looking away quickly, almost afraid of falling into him, afraid of his openness, not ready myself to be so vulnerable. The next afternoon, after sleeping only an hour, jumping up and down stairs and singing loudly every Cole Porter song about the delight and deliriousness of love, he informed me that the exchange meant something very different to him, that he’s not ready for anything more than friendship, and while he enjoyed our time together, I need to be aware of his limitations. And so I picked up my little heart which had shot out of my chest like a balloon in those Looney Tunes cartoons, bouncing off of the ceiling and walls, the shriveled bloody little lump landing at me feet, and stuffed it back down my throat and have been gasping for breath ever since.
Sure, I’ll try to be his friend, and I’ll respect his boundaries, and perhaps something will develop. Perhaps it won’t. But how could I have misread him so completely? Now here’s where we get into my scorpio-ness–am I trying to make something happen when he’s told me all-too clearly that he’s not interested? I can’t relate to the head’s domination of the heart, or even understand it, but I’m trying to accept it, and certainly not challenge it.
And I’m not going to play Plato’s “lover” and “beloved.”
So my head tells me…
HEAD: “Chris, he’s created this structure, defining who he is and what he’s ready for–he told you this in every piece of e-mail and conversation that you’ve had, why are you expecting more? Get a grip.”
Then my heart pushes my head off and kicks it down Collingwood Street, and says…
HEART: “No Chris, he’s just not in touch with what he’s really feeling–YOU felt it, you did, he’ll come around. Just play it cool and see what happens…”
At least they’re both telling me to play it cool.
So what do I do? I’m going to try to accept his boundaries, be honest about what I’m ready to pursue, and see what happens. This is the point where Big Chris is going to tell me that I’m deceiving myself, that I should walk away, I already know enough, etc,–but I can’t. “Hey boy, crazy boy, just play it cool, boy, real cool… da da da, da da da, da da da, da da da… snap, snap, snap, pshaw!”