No Expectations

One of my blog friends (I’ll call him Pete) e-mailed that he was going to have a first meeting with an on-line friend this past weekend: a momentous occasion to a fellow closeted married man. Being curious, I e-mailed to see how things had gone.

You can't believe how glad I am that you asked. I think I need to talk about the situation, but don't have anyone to talk to.

Join the club – a world where so many of us have so much to say, but our only support is at the other end of a keyboard. Not exactly a definition of intimacy. I had been thinking of Pete and his weekend meeting because it had a certain resonance with my life and so I will digress for a moment.

A few weeks ago I was up later than usual, a sleeping wife and awake children – passive guard duty if you would. So while the children played I was online and in an unusual moment went to gay.com and figured out how to chat. Understand, I am not of the IM generation, I don’t do chat. But chat I did and after a few fizzes met someone: a strange balance of common friendliness and sexual tension.

Not that I am naïve, but I was surprised when after a few minutes he suggested we meet – then. Wake my wife; tell her I need to run out for a few hours at 11:00 on a Friday night. I don’t think so. But now I feel bad – I took this nice man out of the play on a tease. The next day I do what cyber people do – I e-mail him with an apology. He responds and suggests we meet sometime – public place, no pressure, see if it clicks.

Now I need to digress some more. I have a guy in my life, my age, my socio-economic status, my tastes in bed – WAIT – it’s me... No, not really but he could be. We e-mail, we talk –real talk - when together, and we have awesome sex. The whole package one would think.

So why am I entertaining an e-mail from someone I never met. “Why?” should just be the motto for the past year and hopefully not my epitaph should I crash and burn. Mr. gay.com and I will be very near each other Friday afternoon. What could be the harm? Sis tells me she is throwing up her hands – probably so they will be too busy to slap me. I know this is self destructive behavior.

But I digress wildly. Let’s not forget Pete.

Was it everything I hoped for? The simple answer is, “no.”

I read Pete’s words. The simple response is that we do not really know what we are looking for so it is hard to meet such fluid, undefined expectations.

Mr. gay.com and I meet in a parking lot – there is a diner, but there is no electricity. We lean against my car, we chat for a half hour, a long half hour. I am happy I met him because how else could I feel such emptiness.

I guess I was hoping for incredible sex and the beginning of a great friendship. What I think I got was mediocre sex and an awkward, confused relationship.

I did not have sex, good or bad, no budding friendship, but awkward: a word I do not think I have ever used in this blog but what a perfect word – pure awkward. A wonderful awkward that allows me to feel like the ass that I sometimes am. A wonderful awkward that will be a reminder before another bout of insanity.

But the self flagellation ignores the simple truth – I went to meet him. What if we had “clicked”? I really wasn’t interested – I cannot find enough time to be with the man I already know. When I first started blogging Ian posted a quote from a song as a comment to me:

And I can tell by the way you're searching
For something you can't even name
That you haven't been able to come to the table
Simply glad that you came


I realize that my search will continue but it will continue with my therapist. Writing from my heart – writing for me and sharing with you – is part of my therapy. So fasten your seat belts. I fear it is time to expose more than my sex organs.