Eureka!

Well, actually Oakland.

This Wednesday, I'm off to Oakland for a conference for work. And I'm looking forward to that. Kinda. I still haven't let my father in on the news, which he's going to take pretty hard, hating it as he does when I go away.

And another thought occurred to me. That crappy mood I've been in lately? What's that all about?

Well...

I decided to save some money by staying with someone I know. Namely, Special Guy.

The Love Of My Life So Far.

Him and his new boyfriend.

I know, right?

What was I thinking?

And I'm probably going to be quite the Problem Guest. Leaving early, coming back late.

But a good thing has come out of it. I've finally--after what? four years--getting in touch with my anger at him for dumping me. Perfect timing, right?

And anger at myself for... For what? For not putting up a fight? I've flogged a lot of passive bottoms in my time, but I've avoided flogging dead horses.

And at the time, I thought that I'd just found a new Special Guy. Just breeze on into the Special Guy store and pick myself out a new one.

And since then, nuthin'.

Will Special Guy be my last relationship?

Ludicrous, you say? Ridiculous, you bluster?

Think about it.

Lord knows I have.

I'm forty-two years old. Forty-deuce. And for me, it's all about men my age or older. So let's think of it mathematically.

Think of the complete set of gay men forty-two and older. Now subtract from that set the following:

1. Those men who are not kinky, kink-averse, or kink-phobic;
2. Those men who live outside of the greater Philadelphia area or New York City;
3. Those men not interested in dating me because I live with my father, or because I smoke, or whatever;
4. Those men who are lawyers;
5. Those men who are clean-cut, clean-shaven, and clean-livin'.

So that narrows the field considerably, right?

But wait. There's more.

Think about the men who are left over. Most of them have found one another and coupled up. While I'm out at the Bike Stop surveying the crowd and finding it wanting, they're home falling asleep watching South Park in bed together.

But then, there's the guys who aren't coupled up already. What might the reason be for that?

Fear of intimacy? Fear of life? Serious unresolved issues of one kind or another that result in all kinds of weird-ass behavior where romance is concerned?

Yeah, those are the fields I'm tilling.

So having recently come to this realization, what am I gonna do? Why, I'm gonna spend five solid days thinking about What Might Have Been.

Look for me at the Loading Dock or the Eagle or wherever the hell I can still smoke a cigar in SF this weekend!

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