New York, One Gay Date At A Time

Ex-Boyfriend musing

Recently, as cycles continue, an ex-boyfriend has moved to my area, we've been bumping into each other on the train or when we're out drinking. He also broke up with his most recent fling.

I have to admit to still having a crush on him, he has given me some very fond memories. He broke up with me, because he was new to the city and wanted to experience the wide world of New York men, then I fell into an odd little relationship. He came after me with much force and hotness. Yet because of my unfounded loyalty for a new relationship, I said I couldn't hook up with him.

It's true that men go after the unavailable. Now I sort of want him, I'm clueless how to go about it. I've text messaged him, he responded of sorts, I haven't called. A bit too shy actually. It's as if the gay gods are putting us in each others orbit - but just being shy about putting us together. I've been thinking a lot about his smile during these odd dates. I love the way his face lights up. Yes I'm being mushy, yet I'm sort of shy about picking up the phone and calling.

The one to two phone call rule applies to all dating scenarios. When we bump into each other we're always talking about hanging out. So yes I'm reluctant to call and I'm no good about being forceful. Hence the paradox of shyness.

Good Conversation

I've been on ten dates without any good conversation. I'm sort of baffled, where has passion and good talking evaporated to.

First there was the 2 hour walk through central park where we talked about the weather. Simply talked about people on park benches and well, nothing. He told me nothing interesting about himself and I in turn tried to nudge the conversation to something a little more interesting, such as the color of socks in winter. Yes, I was truly trying for topics, because earlier in the two hour span of walking, I tried the then current war in the Middle East (I mean, war in Middle East now-a-days can mean anything and anywhere) yet I drew a blank stare. I gave up.

Then there was the blond hottie and cute cuddler, who just wanted to make out and chill, which was totally fun for a while. Then well, turned pointless.

After that came the video game addict.

But for some reason, all these 10 boys have all wanted to buy me something.

I also, like to ask people questions about who they are, what they do, how do they like they're jobs, maybe find some sort of connection. Any connections to actually, find out if I like the guy. During this 10 date process, most of my questions were greeted by one word answers, i.e.

I ask: "what do you do?"
Silence, birds chirp, I check out his cute little nose.
cute boy: "Accounting"
I think I hear siren, some
He stares forward, I sigh a little - shake my head, smile
He looks at something in the distance
I ask again: "How do you like it."
Cute boy buys me lollipop

I think I need to stop dating, just drinking. Or maybe I should attend a poetry reading. Hold on, only dirty old men that sleep next to their gin martinis go to that.

The Second Date that Wasn’t

I love sitting in Coffee Shops on Saturdays, I often take my lap top, the people around me, help me create stories. I actually wrote great spots of my play in a cafe ages ago. Great inspiration.

Then a boy sat next to me. We made eyes at each other, not blatant - the look boys give while cruising. Yet the flirting gaze, trying to understand interest. He was reading HX and Next and I finally asked for his copy, that did it, we struck up a conversation, he had been reading the same mag for quite a while, it seemed the right time, that I should start talking to him. I do like it when boys talk to me yet they don't for some reason. So I often take the first steps, much to my broken hearts dismay.

We ended up spending the day together, I listened to his stories, he was an elementary school teacher for troubled teens. I couldn't even begin to imagine what he went through at work, my thought process, simply taken by his normality. He was normal, someone that didn't want to sing or act on Broadway and someone who wasn't pitching. I liked him instantly.

We ended up watching a movie and holding hands, when night fell - we found a park bench, cuddled and kissed.

All in all the perfect first date. I do have to confess. I was taken by his big hands, the manly paws that scooped me up.

Then we parted and promised to talk. He called me the next day. We spent some time chatting, making plans to see the botanical garden a place I've never been to, we also made decided on a trip to the zoo, something I found charming.

Then, I got his call, he had changed his mind, he realized that to much was happening in his life, he decided to call off our second date, he didn't realize that he shouldn't be dating, I got all the lines. The single barbs that I've heard time and time again.  I hate boys that raise my hopes then cancel.

I deleted his number quickly.

Trying again

As well as working a lot, on lots and lots of projects, I’ve been dating. I've wanted to get out there again. Part of me feels like this is a very temporary moment in my life, when everything is going smoothly and good things are happening quickly. I feel like I want to make as quick use of this time as possible.

So I've been going on a lot of first dates recently. I haven't had a chance to write about then. Yet most have just made me even more puzzled - regarding men. One boy felt the need to talk about Jessica Simpson for two hours. I just pretended to listen because he was cute, another hot blond boy, said he didn't like theater. He actually confessed that he fell asleep during the last play he saw and will surly snooze during any musical. He told me this after I told him I was a playwright producing work.

Maybe it’s the spring or the weather or boredom and silent moments. I’m starting to be really tired of being single. I want to actually spend the night with someone and not have them run away. Maybe during the fall boys will be more included to settle down. Who knows. But among all these first dates I haven't found a second.

Then comes the paradox of time, when I'm stable and a good boyfriend, in other words, low drama (relatively) I don't manage to find anyone I'm interested, then when my life is in the air trying to resolve itself, I meet all the wrong guys.

So where is the happy medium I wonder.

 

21 Year Olds

For some strange inexplicable reason, I've been attracting 21 year olds, I don't know why this phenomenon has occurred. I haven't had this many young ones in a row, ever. Not even when I was 21, it's strange that the reverse has happened.

Long time ago, I pined for my peers. I also didn't know that I was into boys, I told myself constantly and with much forthright self righteous vindication that I wanted to find love - with a girl. That a girl was it for me.

Now as I'm 27, I'm finding other bedeviled boys to play with.

Yes I am wiser and can speak my mind, yet other then more life experience, I'm still the same person. Just different insecurities and a lot more questions. It's odd, reminding myself that I was young once. Last night I slept with a boy, that couldn't really tell me what he wanted. He only looked at me, standing there naked, he was blond perfect and wholesome.

I look at myself in pictures, he looked like me when I was younger, I also couldn't tell people what I wanted, what I needed. I don't mean just in bed, with a partner. I mean generally. Earlier in the evening, we talked about his cell phone carrier a lot. I found it thoroughly uninteresting. Yet I listened just to watch him avoid eye contact, yet as I looked away he instantly reveled his blue eyes, he was searching to see if I liked him, I could tell this, because when I was 21 I had the same questions.

Part of my interest in younger guys, recently, okay often. Is finding a muse. Someone that is different. I find myself staring at pages and unable to write yet again. Writing serious work in any case. My play is going to go into production for November, the details are being work out right now. We're on the mad hunt for a director. I'm anxious and hope that I've learned a lot from my previous attempts at team building. Now. I just find these guys, just starting to question the world - a shadow of my former self. That is, still scared of the world, looking for answers - yet in much need of love and caring.

Not long ago I was their age. Maybe I want to remember it in an idealistic sense. Maybe I'm hoping for a spry young one to jolt me out of my doldrum. I don't know, I don't have the answer, maybe when I'm older I'll know.

Playing Dumb

I just had an hour long conversation at a party about playing dumb. I can’t do it, I tried, but I can’t. Actually I was told that I can’t play dumb. I’ve likened it to playing Possum. Some people can, I can’t. I’m too energetic and frankly I toss and turn even at night, so I can’t really stay still. So playing possum and acting dumb are two things that I just can’t do.

I should give some back story here. I was hanging out with an actor, a model (still haven’t figured out what he does though) and a dancer. We were talking about being single and picking up boys, who we attract and the like. Everyone professed to their own smarts, I sighed, that’s when I confessed that I can’t play dumb. They all agreed.

Apparently the actor attracted young-hanger-onners. I think these are all young men that complement a certain style in a wardrobe. I wonder if boys that attract young-hanger-onners, much like Picasso, have blue periods, or pink periods. Or maybe just like the young nubile man leading a horse, these young men go through, slender, buff, Ford and Click phases.

This was also the portion of the conversation where I dripped Ketchup on my pants (and I wonder why I’m still single) I don’t think anyone noticed though.

Everyone agreed that chilling out and just letting the boys come to them was the way to go. This is another task that I’ve never actually been accomplished at. I’m always the guy that talks to boys and gets shot down, or I find that they’re playing dumb and I’m not interested. So this paradox, this perpetual understanding of the game, eludes me.

If only boys thought it charming, the spilling of Ketchup.

Cruising

I people watch, I don’t cruise, frankly that weird stare that involves cruising freaks me out and I can never maintain it. It breaks away before anything happens and I run. Then again that stare is mostly maintained by trolls; yes they have mastered the gay stare.

I also cruise; at least that’s what it appears like, when I’m thinking of a play, short story, novel or just generally daydreaming.

So this weekend I was on Christopher Street chilling on a stoop. Watching people go by wondering about they’re odd walks and the way they move and gesture with their hands. I’m trying to crack a play concept about body shapes, movements and how people interact. Something eludes me, the thing that will make the play pop. The only way inspiration will strike. Is if I continue to watch, so hence my need to stare and ponder cute boys.

Not that I don’t do that for sport, yet it’s odd, when I’m just chilling and someone I know, a former lover to be precise, one that I’ve only seen lately when I’m waiting for someone, or hanging back being the cool customer.

So he walks by with a cute Marc Jacobs bag and friend in tow. He casually mentions and notices, that he’s seen me around a lot. That’s code for you’re a loser cruising boys in the village. Then he mentions that I’m a party boy, that of course = you’re a slut. This banter went along for a bit. A look of pity washes over his face as I’m sucking on the straw in front of me, I’m drinking ice coffee. Holding onto the straw like it’s my only saving grace and the reason for saying very little. 

He leaves; I try and play the scenarios in my mind, how I could have made a response, that wasn’t really feeble and shallow and reeked of desperation. Yet I couldn’t so I’m just blogging about it.

The Test

I’ve just recently gotten tested. It’s a bit traumatic for me. I’ve played safe; I’ve used a condom, yet what if? That constant voice in the back of the mind, ghosts of one night lovers, often never satisfying.

I don’t talk about my family background much. The hardest thing for me, when getting tested, is the breaking away from my social history.

I just finished reading, The Fall of the House of Bartha in New York Magazine. I was instantly drawn to lament on my own family and past, I didn’t know that Dr. Bartha was Romanian. I saw all the insanity, which was my childhood in the article, reflected in his quest for the American Dream. That holy grail of sorts. For my father, it was his own business. He wanted to have his own business and the word President stamped on his business cards. He destroyed everything in his path to achieve this goal.

For my portion of the family, they never quite understood how to mix into American Society. I feel and empathize the exasperation of Bartha’s children. Yet as Gawker pointed out and as the fates would have it the townhouse property value actually increased after the explosion. LOL.

For me getting tested is hard, I was raised to believe that disease is caused by God and cured with antibiotics, everything could be cured with determined prayer and Erythromycin. When I was a child and my mother broke into my journal. She read that I masturbated, I was sent to the doctor because she thought that I would go blind. My father when he lectured me on sex said that condoms were unnecessary if you pulled out of the girl. That condoms impeded pleasure and were not used by real men. That’s what he said.

When my parents saw autistic children on the streets, they marveled at how many there were, because in Romania they were hidden from view. It was understood that God punished families that sinned with autistic children, to test their faith.

So often my worlds collide and something as personal as getting tested, something that I need to do, because my rational mind tells me, will keep me safe and help me make the right choices. Is at odds and wars with my emotional side, the primal mind that has been conditioned to believe that I have sinned and caused wrong.

So yes, as Bartha blew up his townhouse on the East Side, I could see my father react in just the same way. So I understand how the decades of communism, that is taken so light hardly by most native Americans, has destroyed so many (btw, I consider myself an American, not Romanian). I am the third generation afflicted by communism and I am the sanest of the lot. That is what causes my wonder.

Oh btw, everyone, as I lament on my own quandary, getting tested is important. Because there are curable STD’s out there, that if caught in time, will not affect quality of life. I think we forget that, a lot and people refrain from getting tested because they are afraid to deal with the results.

The Party

The parties the thing, I’ve come to realize that New York runs on a series of events, we’ll I’ve always known that. There came a time - few years back, when I fell into a group that valued the number of parties they got invited to on any given night. It got old quickly.

Part of getting my play and writing career off the ground has been the cocktail party circuit, that ubiquitous world of inspiration and connection. Frankly I find both.

I went to another Spin Cycle event, Chip has been effective in wrangling me out of my Hells Kitchen bar hoping, 49 Grove opened a Wed night party with a Cosmo open bar. So I needed to be there.

I have one phrase to describe the event – den of iniquity. In a good kind of way. There are always the usually suspects at fun parties and I bumped into two ex’s and so did my friend, the air kisses flashed as they got engulfed by the crowd and once again left me. I vaguely thought of Andy Warhol milling around with his entourage at a party much like this, back in the Factory days (I can dream can’t I)

As the bar got crowded, the models came in, real models, make heads spin, or at least runway models and some print, in any case, my head spun and everyone else's as well. I talked to one; he was new to the city and had been just recently “discovered”. I found myself old in his presence. They’re model manager was busy wrangling them in as the eager boys danced their way through the crowd.

The spectacle is always fun, the dance and the crowd and the mingling to loud music. I also got to dance, something I’ve done very little of recently and I got very close to kissing a boy before giving up and going home.

All and all a good time, I’m glad to say that the nights of forced isolation are over for a while. I’m so poor though.

The Resourceful New Yorker

I don't really know what to post, other then the fact that I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Yesterday the trains got cut and I found myself in a movie moment. There was an electrical failure on the one train and I couldn't get to work. Out of the blue, a hot boy offers to share a cab with me. We stand out on the street corner, making sure that old ladies and the elderly don't have first dibs on the cab we want. After all, we're both running late for work and no one can stop up. We settle on an uptown strategy, that is waving an uptown cab to go downtown. Yet in a pinch we succeeded.

Then we proceeded to be stuck in traffic because all of New York comes to a grinding halt when the train doesn't work and we of course got trapped behind a bus brimming with strap hangers.

We start talking and of course, since he's a cute boy, he works in theater. We hit it off, he's in a relationship, all the cute ones are. Except for me. I seem to stay single for very long times. I wonder if we'll keep in touch.

Okay, I'm off to a party, man, I feel like I've been bar hoping for two weeks straight. It's sort of nuts. New York is a town of parties, because everyone goes for the shear chance of meeting the right person, to produce their work or achieve whatever goal they have in mine.

It's funny, I meet a caterer that does really good work at a networking event, now I'm about to hire them to do our summer office party.