Top 5 Reasons I Am Fed Up with Men

5. Ben didn't call me back.

The bastard.

4. I can't seem to get a blind date.

And by blind, I mean literally. There's nothing hotter to me than seeing a guy wave that stick thing around. Blind boyfriends come with advantages beyond the luxury of not having to look good every day. For one, they can't check out other guys unless you describe them first. Further, if you catch them flirting with someone, you can just say "Don't be fooled, he's looks like Lily Tomlin" and that's the end of it. And most importantly, you can sneak out of the house unnoticed, and by the time they realize it, you'll be halfway to whatever illicit activity suits your fancy. Just make sure to take the stick thing with you so they can't follow. I think it doubles as a dowsing rod for treachery.

The only drawbacks to a blind boyfriend are that they break everything and they can't tell what you're feeling without touching your face. I can live with that. If there are any blind boys reading my blog... I mean listening to it on JAWS (dun dahn dun dahn dun dahn), get a friend to click the comments link and hit me up. I'm a single non-smoker. I'm also a man, incidentally, but that shouldn't matter either way. If you're heterosexual, I can speak in a high-pitched voice and whine about my feelings a lot, and you won't know the difference.

3. I'm having a Penis Ugly Week.

I go through these phases now and then where I think penises are ugly and sex is gross. They never last long, but they're pretty intense. I usually try to get over it by looking at my "favorite" videos on xTube, but when I tried that this morning all I could think was: "Oh, sick! I can't believe I used to DO that." A few days without touching myself and it will pass. They're usually followed by heavily slutty phases, so get ready.

2. The only relationship-oriented men are the boring and the ugly.

Every unappealing man I meet wants a boyfriend. Every charismatic, attractive man I meet wants to screw and have fun. Nobody can explain this to me. Having felt intensely relationship-oriented this past month or so, I can only imagine I've become boring. Because I'm still hot.

There are exceptions to every rule, so don't get offended if you're relationship-oriented. If we're friends, your attractive, ok? I'm too shallow for anything else.

1. I don't have one.

Surprise! Believe it or not, this entire post comes from a place of loneliness and self-loathing! Waah waah waah, where's MY validation? Oh, that's right, my validation didn't call me back. (See above.) If you need me, I'll be cursing men, renouncing love, and spending the rest of my life alone like those women you read about.

Yeah, it's called "being empowered." Look it up.

Unoriginal Whiny Gay Blogger Crap Based on Sweeping Stereotypes, Canned Emotions, and a Severely Limited Homosexual Worldview: My Annual Allotment

In Which I Am Deluded Enough to Believe I Am Different From Everyone Else

The results of my poll have been overwhelming. Of one participant (so far) 100% of responses indicate that indeed everyone in New York City is an emotional fuckjob.... at least among gay men, which is pretty much what I meant.

As it turns out, if you're not a loser with no future, then you're a crazy workaholic who only has time for a little after-hours bump-n-grind as long as you're up for your conference call. If you're not falling in love with everyone you meet at the drop of a hat, then you can't commit to more than a "you seem cool" because you're seeing three other guys.

You've all dealt with this. Then, FINALLY, you find someone who wants to properly date, but after going out a couple times, oh it turns out they have GROSS emotional problems and run away or smack you (true story) or otherwise make you wish they didn't exist. What the hell is everybody's problem? Sex and the City was supposed to be fiction, people!

Look, I know not every guy I meet is going to be a candidate for Mr. Righthood. I have no problem with a one-night stand or a shallow, just-for-fun relationship because sometimes that's all that something's gonna be. It takes all types, right? Those things are fine as long as it's established (even non-verbally) that that's all the relationship is. But doesn't anybody want to try out the long-haul thing?

Let me rephrase that. Doesn't anybody my age who's not socially deficient want to try the long-haul thing? Because I've met enough internet-trolling basement dwellers taking their monthly break from World of Warcraft to try and cast Lvl 16 Romance on me to last a lifetime. (...said the member of the NYC Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fanclub.)

I'm also well aware that some people are just not into me. I mean, fine, we go on a date, you change your mind. Whatever. But sometimes, GOD, can't people smell chemistry? If we spend an awesome evening together doing dinner and drinks and walking without a break in the lively conversation and then go home and spend an even more lively night together... WHY not call me back? But, fine. If we spend all week together fawning and gazing and being more comfortable than we've ever felt with someone so early on in a relationship, why suddenly stand me up with no explanation?

It's a matter of respect. That's what I'm upset about here. If you don't want to be with me, ok, but don't put on a show. Don't act all perfect gentleman on our first couple dates only to call me a couple days later asking to come over and fuck. Don't just disappear without a trace when it's clear we owe each other more than that. Don't pretend I'm the only person you're seeing if all you want to do is casually date a few people. I won't care! I won't care until I get invested, and I'll only get invested if I think you are.

Since I moved to this city, I've dated exactly two people who I was into and who were relationship-oriented, level-headed, and respectful. I remain friends with both of them. They didn't work out, but you'll never catch me bitching about them. Everyone else I find myself liking has played some sort of game that involved not being up-front with me. And I'm tired.

Template: "I like your _______." Easy!

I'm just gonna come out and be honest about it. I've had a fair number of admirers in my life.

By no means do I think I'm some drop-dead gorgeous hot commodity or anything, but every now and then, there's a guy who digs me. Hooray, right? Most of them are about 1,000, but it's still good for the ol' ego to hear now and then that people appreciate me.

For a long time, I wasn't able to take a compliment from anyone. Tell me you like my eyes, and I'd look away. Admire my hair, and my hand went up there to fix it. It's a messy combination of shyness and lack of self-confidence that we won't get into because I'm over it. Or if I'm not over it, at least I've learned to be gracious about it.

But one thing people constantly say to me with the best intentions always makes me totally uncomfortable. There isn't one graceful response, I don't find it the least bit flattering, and it makes me instantly dismiss any prospect of dating a guy who says it.

It has many variations, but the gist of it is: "Wow, you're so smart/fun/sexy/faaaabulous/neat WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?"

I know. They're being nice and saying I deserve a wonderful guy. But it sounds like they're trying to figure out what's secretly wrong with me. And what they're REALLY making me think--rather than "Oh, that's so sweet"--is the answer to that question, which is "I have no idea, why don't you ask all the guys that reject me?" or "Well, I've had a couple, but my gross emotional problems preclude the sustainment of anything lasting."

I used to respond with something awkward to try and communicate how their question wasn't really flattering at all like "Because I am afraid to love" or "I am shy and lack self-confidence, so I am unable to accept when people like me and eventually drive them away with my depression and social anxiety," but then people started thinking they'd be my Saving Grace Fucking Messiah Of My Heart, so I had to stop that.

I mean, hell, even agreeing with the question makes me sound like a self-righteous asshole. "Oh, I dunno, I mean you're right, I am after all practically perfect in every way; it's a wonder people are too thick to figure out that I'm the man for them." The only proper answers are "Thank you" and "I don't know" but they're both lies because I'm NOT grateful and I DO know. It drives me nuts.

So, yeah, I'm enough of an asshole that I just wrote an entire blog entry complaining of how people compliment me. But please, you can't tell me I'm wrong. That's an awkward thing to say! So never say it to me, ok? Just pick a feature and tell me you like it. Don't try to delve into my torrid relationship history and drudge up memories of failed romance. It's not the way to get me going.

Fluid Dynamics

I was up all night last night thinking about the roles people play in our lives and the labels we assign to those roles and then how we tend to relegate people to those roles as if the labels were there first and relationships have to be decided in accordance with them rather than the other way around.

"You're my friend so we could never date."
"We sleep together, suddenly you wanna talk and be friends too?"
"You're my boss, isn't it too weird to go see the penguin movie together?"

We tend to place these self-imposed restrictions on natural interpersonal development because of some "rules" that exist even though nobody wrote them down. But thinking back, I realized that some of my most rewarding and memorable relationships were those in which the dynamic made either a gradual or dramatic shift into another realm, causing questions like "Are you friends?" and "Did you ever date?" to become unanswerable.

My friend boyfriend and I didn't become close until after our relationship was over and we suddenly felt more comfortable sharing our feelings and doing the whole teenage sexual exploration thing. I started sleeping with a guy in grad school because he appealed to some gross, carnal part of me, and I told myself we'd never be friends. That all fell apart when we had something of a relationship after which he became one of my most trusted friends.

Putting a label on a relationship can be a dangerous thing because it can cement that relationship into eventual stagnation. To some people "boyfriend" means "never will be a friend" and "sex partner" means "never will be someone I trust", but that limits the gradient of emotions and interactions that the relationship will allow. But this also isn't to say having a "boyfriend" is wrong.

It may appear that following my logic on this issue is like driving along a downward slope to polyamory and incest with a cinder block on the gas pedal, but it's not. I guess the point is to encourage you to respect the labels you have placed on your relationships by constantly scrutinizing them and stretching their limits. Let things change instead of die. This is so important. It will allow you to keep things fresh and reinvent the way you appreciate the people in your life, but more importantly, you'll come to realize that even if something doesn't work out like you'd hoped, there is still a world of possibilities for where it can go.

You don't ever have to really lose someone if you're willing to allow the way you see or interact with or love them develop organically around your experiences. This is a supremely comforting thought that has helped me through a lot... and allowed me to sleep.