This Desert Life

I got an answer and the answer is no.

I forget where I picked this up but one of my favorite bits of wisdom is this:

If you ask a question you better make damn sure you really want to know the answer.

In college, when I was living with Jan Michael, and I asked what he’d done with the guy he cheated on me with, I did want to know the answer.  I wanted to know how justified my anger was and how much more angry I could be.  So I asked and he told me.  Yes, I was angry, damn angry, but I also respected him for giving me an honest answer.

The very first time I ever kissed a guy, I asked him, “Does this make us more than friends?”  This was a few years before I confronted Jan Michael and I wasn’t as smart.  I really didn’t want to know the answer but I asked anyway.  The guy I had kissed gave a half-hearted answer.  He said something like, “We’re getting there.”  I denied it but I knew his real answer and I did not respect him because he wasn’t honest with me.

This week, I asked a question and I didn’t think about it.  I just asked.  It popped right out and two days later did I finally realize exactly what I had done.  I had asked a question that I didn’t really want to know the answer to.   The answer, as I’ve already said, was no.  But it was an honest answer and, frankly, what I needed to hear.

I’m feeling much better now.

Several years ago I saw a documentary about dogs.  The point was made that dogs get stuck in a sort of perpetual adolescence because there are no mature dog role models.  In the wild there are alpha dogs but domesticated dogs have no social structure to help them grow up emotionally.

I immediately realized the same thing could said about gay men.  Yeah, there are daddies who do the whole role playing thing but that’s typically more sexual than anything else.  Beyond that, though, there’s not much in the way of mature gay male role models.  Very few people have gay grandfathers.

What’s more, age is typically not a valued trait in the gay community.  Youth is where it’s at for most gay men.  Older men, again, are seen mostly as daddies in the sense that they can give you money and a place to stay if you need it.  Rarely, in my experience, do young gay men go to older gay men for serious advice or guidance.  It probably happens but it’s not the norm.  Gay men are cliquish and tend to run in packs of their own peers.  There’s no alpha fag showing them how to grow up.

Lately I’ve made the acquaintance of a few gay men.  I’ve also seen the ending of a few gay relationships.  Because of this, I’ve been thinking about my own maturity level in regards to how I relate to other gay men and relationships.  I admit, I’m still pretty adolescent in a lot of ways.  I find myself repeating behaviors that I acquired in college.  There’s got to be a more mature way to handle myself and possible relationships but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.

I need an alpha fag to show me the way, to learn from by example.  But for the reasons stated above that’s unlikely.  I guess my next best option is to find a pack to run with and figure it out as I go.

Truly, this is something I need to do anyway and I am working on it.  My pack has dwindled to almost nothing these last few years and I’m getting tired of this lone wolf act.  I’m also getting tired of this dog metaphor so I’m going to stop now.

I had another three-day weekend, thanks to my Cesar Chavez floating holiday. I’m not bragging about all the bullshit holidays I get and I’m certainly not complaining. However, I’m starting to feel like I’ve had too much time off lately. On the other hand, the prospect of sitting day after day in my rodent infested, psychological minefield office does not excite me either.

I spent this weekend totally alone and I think that’s part of what’s bugging me. Yet, I’ve had incidents with neighbors and sales clerks this weekend that made me kind of wish I lived in a hermit cave on a desert island on another planet. I spend too much time alone yet other people tend to bug the shit out of me lately. I’m complex like that. Rather, I’m wishy-washy like that.

I am just spending too much time in my own head lately and that’s not good. Don’t get me wrong. I love my freedom. But then again maybe I’ve got too much of it. For instance, I was so wrapped up in doing my own thing (which was a whole lot of nothing) yesterday that I forgot to call Dad and wish him a happy birthday. When I called this evening my sister reminded me. At least I sent him a gift which he seemed to like and that he got in time.

So I wonder why I’m alone. And then I realize I don’t cultivate the relationships I do have. I let emails from old friends go unanswered for weeks. I don’t return phone calls. I don’t seek out people and keep things going.

What’s wrong with me, then? I get so focused on my solitude and worrying about it that I lose sight of what I do have but then I don’t feel motivated to fix it until I get these sick feelings like I got when I realized I had forgotten to call Dad on his birthday.

I think part of it is that I need to spend more time with people in the flesh. Phone calls and emails just aren’t cutting it. But then when I do spend time with real people I mostly come away annoyed and dissatisfied. Maybe I need better friends. Maybe I’m just insufferable.

I don’t know. All I know is that I spend my time goofing off and going round and round my head about this stuff and the next thing I know another perfectly good three day weekend has passed and Cesar Chavez floats away.