Tag: Relationships

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Gay Rant

Spinster of This Parish? Not Today Thanks

I need something from you.   I need closure.  Don’t take this the wrong way.  Moving at the wrong pace.  I love you but…

You told me that you could not give me what I wanted-but I think you misjudged what I wanted.   What I wanted more than anything was that we could do all the things we said we wanted to do when we weren’t in a position to do them.  We had some really great ideas about what it meant to be together, time together, excitement together, exploration together.

You said you would fly to see me if only you could, then when you could..you couldn’t.

You may have become less free rather than more free, less brave rather than more brave and complain all the time about your lot without ever taking action to improve it.  Darling Lamb Head:  get a  job you love and a place to live and make yourself available.  Stop wallowing in self-pity and false promises.    How long is this charade going to last where you pretend not to be having a life because you don’t want to be found out?

I am afraid of the huge difference between us.   You see, I am not scared of all that life has to offer!  When I was your age, at the merest hint of an invitation I would have been on that plane, that boat, that train, I would have been in Paris and London and Rome!  You put all the reasons why NOT to before the reasons why you should.

If it had been me I would have come home triumphant!  Armed with stories I would have told my grandchildren.

Darling, I need you to not call me when you are lonely and make cooing noises that just makes me love you all over again.  I need you to set me free from the hope that we could ever be anything other than friends.  If that!

It simply isn’t fair or considerate-in fact it is down right cruel because I cannot call you when I am feeling lonely not least because you are not very good at being compassionate.  I don’t think we should see each other at all until we have got ourselves settled with other people.

I am going to meet this guy tomorrow and I am going to take him to dinner and then I am going to ask him if he will come to Paris with me.  You had your chance and all you could say like a willful, petulant child is NO!

I think we really did exhaust things this time.  We really may have pushed the right button.  Please, please lets hope we did.

So, as a delicious post script to the man I loved:

You know, the days we spent in NYC together were some of the best I ever spent with anyone..ever.  Lamb Head, you never let me write about that.  You kept me silent.   I wasn’t allowed to describe the joy, the love and the kindness.  Never allowed to describe our tender kisses just in case it hurt other people.  Our perfect moments sullied by your fear of what others might think.   Like holding hands in the street.   I can’t hold your hand in the street because I can’t bear the thought of the disapproving glances.   No wonder your mother thinks so badly of me because I never get to write the beautiful things..because you told me not to.   So, I want you to know that we had beautiful time.  I had a beautiful time with your son.  That he is capable of great love.  He knows how to love a man.  He knows how to make a man happy.

Just as it is meant to be.

The last thing he said this evening was that he didn’t make the huge changes in his life to be with me but that, I’m afraid, is the lie he tells himself.  He left the other for a relationship with men, not this man, not me, but with men and we must honour him for that, for it was his bravest hour.

We are tired of the conflict, tired of the unresolved feelings that causes so much distress on this roiling sea of emotion.  We must say goodbye now-help me. Help me say goodbye.

Categories
Death Dogs Love Malibu

Crying

The Sex Rehab show effect has been cumulative.   When it first aired I expected to be immediately recognized.  As the weeks and months pass more and more people come up to me in the street and introduce themselves.

Shown daily on VH1, making it easier for old ‘friends’ and acquaintances to reach out to me.  Long forgotten, now reminded by Sex Rehab re-acquainted on Facebook, twitter etc.

Reality TV is truly life changing.   Opportunities include film projects,  book deals,  lovers-I am anywhere but where I thought I might be at my age.

Outside, this rainy afternoon, the gardeners are pulling out tons of weeds.  It is good to hear them chattering away in Spanish.  So, that’s what life will be, a life of chattering Mexican gardeners until Dorset Mary pitches up in her airstream and tends the goats and the chickens.

I have to call the bee man today about getting the bees up here.  I know where I want them to go.

I wrote yesterday about crying, a commission for a new magazine.  There’s been a great deal of crying during the past few months as my focus shifted from the big picture to just one man.   Ones view narrows exponentially when one falls in love and at the same time balloons into something huge.  My tears were not often for him but for past traumas and relationships and deaths.  My focus became very shallow and as I retreat from love I seem to be more aware of the horizon.

I cried when my Darling Big Dog was killed. I sat in my bed for a week and sobbed like a child.  I am still prone to sink into that deep, black well of sadness, tears  flooding my eyes and my heart.

If I had not witnessed that terrible moment I would be a lesser man today.  In many ways to have suffered like that unleashed all I had been denying myself throughout the years.  So many times I should have, could have, would have cried but remained stoic and dry-eyed.

The architects have just been to the house to check out the layout.  She was a rather wonderful, practical woman with a great attitude.

My film is taking shape, the garden continues to give pleasure and I am getting into my creative groove.  Although I am still mourning the death of love I am looking forward to a brighter, leaner future.

Categories
Gay Love Malibu

Limerence

Malibu Spring

Woke up this morning in a wonderful mood after a lovely evening with Anna.  True friends are too few in this life.   I woke up in my own body.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  Doesn’t everyone?  I woke up in the moment, not in some delirious fantasy about what could be.  I smiled to myself.  Gently.   I imagined myself walking the pavements of Notting Hill Gate.  I imagined looking into the beautiful homes there.   I thought about London-because I am happy.

A beautiful spring morning in Los Angeles.

The fact is I don’t live in New York.  I live here and for the foreseeable future I will continue to live here.  I have to make this work as best I can.   Any other plans to move will have to be made because it suits my sensible self.

My great friend John has gone travelling and I miss him being around.  He reminds me to be awake, to no longer sleep walk through life.

I loved seeing Jennie this week.  It was after all this week last year that I entered Sex Rehab and the adventure began.  The journey of self discovery, the great revelation, the great insight, the life of many choices, the decision to love myself, the strange and wonderful experience with reality TV and of course my relationship with the inspirational Jennie Ketcham.  The love affair, the language of recovery.  The list goes on and on.

To love someone selflessly is hard.  To live without hope is very hard.  To put a lid on my feelings for another seems almost impossible.  If I think back to the end of my most beautiful relationships there are weeks of debilitating sadness, sad songs then emerging from the pall with my head held high.

Today is Saturday 3rd of April.  I pay my rent today.  I go to my Saturday morning meeting and see my friends.   Do you have a group of men or women around you who can hold you when everything seems desperately bleak, when things are going so well that your feet scarcely touch the ground?

Several of my readers really helped me yesterday with their comments.  I read about limerence and it was painfully, embarrassingly familiar.  I particularly liked Leslie’s comment.

“What are the three most dangerous words? ‘I love you.’ By saying these words to another, we give them power. But the power is two-fold: the Other then has the power to destroy us, to kill our heart. The Other then also has the power to create us, to give our heart life. So what is the love we give when we say those dangerous words? It is peace, patience, mercy, trust, fidelity and forgiveness.”

It is hard to explain to those who are close to me how important this blog is.  It is a relationship with the world.  Reaching out daily to those of you who read what I write and honour me with your comments and opinions-good and bad.

So, Anna and I sang sad songs and laughed out loud and when I went to bed I no longer had any yearning in my heart.  After all, what have we got to look forward to?  I’ll tell you what-today, this moment..right NOW.   Like so many people I have lived so much of my life regretting the past and hoping for a brighter future without really paying attention to what was happening to me right now.

Categories
Gay Hollywood Love

Help Me

Banana and Walnut Loaf
Banana and Walnut Loaf

I wore a Helmet Lang jacket this evening that I have not worn for years.  It felt great.  I trotted off for dinner with my friend Dom and his sweet friends.

I was late.  As I walked over I ended up on the telephone with you know who.   I needed to break things off, or rather recalibrate my relationship with my dear New York friend.    Break things was what I tried not to do; he is already a broken man.   I failed.  I was heavy handed and abrupt.   In spite of my best intentions the seething resentment and obsession and mad thoughts spewed out of me because I couldn’t hold them inside for one minute longer.

The day ended thus.  I felt free for the first time in weeks.

The day began very badly.

This morning, after the 10-second earthquake, I stood naked in the middle of my sitting room sobbing like a baby because all I could think about was him and all I wanted to be rid of was the thought of him.  Our friendship has been so fucking overwhelming-watching him fall apart, pick himself up and be there for him without ever thinking what was best for me.

My fantasy was that a man twenty years younger than me who I met for the first time three short months ago would fall in love, move to LA and get a job in the film industry.  How INSANE is that?

I prayed, “Send me somebody who’s strong and somewhat sincere.”

The good news is that tonight, after our chat, I am feeling a little more like myself.  I have come clean with those I love and admit that I have been looking at pornography rabidly for the past week-as of old-so intense was the feeling.

Whenever I am feeling vulnerable I resort to my old friend-pornography.

Tomorrow I will try for one day of abstinence.  I will try to get through the night without looking at that heaving pile of stinking pink flesh claiming me with so many muscular arms.   For the past week I have stuffed my feelings with porn, cigarettes and food.

My flat is dirty, my clothes strewn over the floor.

This is a lesson in unmanageability, I am powerless over…well, fill in the fucking blank.

You see, I thought that I was falling in love but I was just held hostage by intensity.

The past three months have been wrought with emotion-watching someone I deeply care about tear himself and his life to pieces and being judged for doing so by people who fail to understand his predicament.

The point is-his problem is not my problem and I foolishly shouldered the entire burden of his life.

I have choices yet my choices diminish the moment I get obsessed-a hideous chain reaction then unfolds before me:  Obsession, resentment, anger.  When the pain becomes too much to bare, when I finally get angry enough to reclaim who I really am, then I feel shame for getting viciously angry-then remorseful for how I treated those I love.

My dearest friend I want to thank you for the privilege of watching you be brave.  For demonstrating how the truth can set you free.  Now, fly like a bird my darling.  Soar as high as your tiny wings will carry you.  Never settle for second best.  Don’t give yourself away to fools or liars.   From this moment on always tell the truth. Never tell people what you think they want to hear.  Be true to yourself.

Life is never without lessons to learn and I have learned a great deal during these three amazing months.

You know, my dear, we have our finest days to come but probably as great friends and not as fuck buddies.

And so to bed.  I am so tired.  So bloody tired.  I may even sleep tonight.  Let’s hope so shall we?

 

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Dogs Gay Hollywood Queer

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

I needed to stay in home alone tonight.  I feel sad.  Sad about Kristian, sad about my friends who died this year and sad that once again I am on my own:  the vacuum left behind after a wonderful weekend with a great friend.

I have always had and certainly will continue to have a serious problem with goodbye.  Saying goodbye permanently or even temporarily brings up huge feelings of loss, vulnerability and then the anger-the anger overwhelms me.

The genesis of these feelings: I was ripped from my mother’s breast and put up for adoption.  These are primal fears of life and death.   The most profoundly affecting goodbye after my mother’s abandonment was the death of my Darling Big Dog.

When my dog was violently killed the resulting anguish unleashed a torrent of sadness, a great wave of misery that may have resulted from not ever having said goodbye-ever to anyone I loved.  I did not go to my grandfather’s funeral nor my grandmother’s.   I have rigorously avoided any ritual goodbye and for that I am a lesser man.

Whenever I leave a party I just slip away as if saying goodbye will somehow humiliate me.

The same feelings overcome me now after the deaths of three friends in as many months.  Yet the very act of writing about them lends me immediate solace.

The end of relationships causes me unrelenting heartache.

Stoically accepting the end of a relationship?  No, not for me.  Nearly all of the relationships I have had have ended badly.  I never, it seems, get to write that scene in the movie of my life where two people say a dignified goodbye.

The end of my relationship with Joe ended thus:  I knew that I was going to leave but it took me 2 years to end it and when I finally did I tried to do it with tenderness and compassion but he was so angry that he made my life miserable for a full year after I left him-ending up in court fighting over property.

In my mad head I forget that I have choices, the choice to remember that the past no longer runs the show, choices to say goodbye without the reenactment of traumatic and ruinous scenarios.

Today I waved goodbye to a new friend who has come to mean a great deal to me.  Whether there is any romantic future between us is really not up to me-unless I behave in such a way that he would never want to see me again.   This morning I began to get angry, angry that he was leaving but knew that it was for the best.

Even though I was only momentarily angry-until I could identify what was going on in my mad head and break the cycle of abandonment and despair by telling him that I would miss him, that I was feeling sad, that I had no mechanism for making those feelings go away…and by telling him the truth I was freed from behaviors that would alienate him from me forever.

I will say goodbye to Kristian this week, say my heartfelt adieu.   His death has brought up all sorts of STUFF.   I sorted out pictures of us today and will post them as soon as I can.

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