To Love... or To Lust?

A lasting relationship wins hands down - but then at my age, I've done everything that you younger people have yet to do. You have to go out and explore for yourself and decide what is best for you.

It's refreshing however, that someone your age is deemed a romantic, and holds love in higher esteem than lust! A one night stand is a quick fix, not a long term solution and if you're looking for a long term solution, then don't be put off.

We're all different, many of my friends still prefer one night stands, and that is their choice. They are not lesser people for doing that and so don't feel under any pressure to conform.

Unfortunately there are people out there who will take advantage of you, and that's the hardest part - they'll promise you the earth and agree to allsorts just to have sex with you, and then unceremoniously dump you the next morning.

I don't mean to sound cynical - but it happened to me in my naive younger days!

 

I wish i could find a guy like you! I'm a big "romantic" myself. I have been thinking that gays are more sexual though, because a requirement for knowing you're gay is to understand what you want.

 

I found myself agreeing with every word David said.

I know of two or three people in mid-late teens who came out and found the gay scene, and were like a kid in a sweet shop. They found that being young and cute meant there was no shortage of offers and seemed to be with different guys every night. They quit their jobs, moved to a big city with a bigger gay scene, and seemed to live just for nightly sex. It didn't matter who the person was, 'cos they only wanted one thing.

It seems to me to be an extrement false existance, and I'm sure the excitement wears off after a while and it becomes a dreary routine. With no job and no income (other than benefit) it would be easy to slip onto prostitution. I lost contact with the guys in question when them moved away, so I don't know what happened to them.

One night stands can be risky. Not only is there the ever present risk of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, but there is also the risk of violence and being forced into some nasty situations.

There does seem to be a stereotype that gays are more into one-night stands and not into relationships. Pre-AIDS this was probably the case, probably because it was easily available and carried no great risk (no risk of pregnancy, and anything else could be fixed up at the STD clinic). Whether this is all these guys really wanted is another matter though. I think many wanted a proper relationship, but this was the closest they thought they could get.

Dave - I think you have exactly the right attitude, and you should try to avoid compromising that position. Ignore those who say you should be looking for sex not love. You know what you want, and I truly hope you find it without getting hurt along the way. Be patient and be cautious.

David's warning is completely true though - there are people who will promise the earth until they get what they want, then you won't see them for the dust. This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine when he was 17 - he thought he'd found the love of his life for a week and a half, but all the other guy wanted was his virginity. The heartbreak and the anger at being used took some time to subside, and even now (13 years later) it is not advisable to mention the guy's name to him.

Sorry to turn this thread to doom and gloom, but I really don't want to see any of you guys go through the same thing.

Paul.

 

Wow, people on this forum ask the best questions!

I think a lot of teenaged guys, gay or straight, are looking for sex. I think a lot of them think they're looking for a relationship because that's what they've been led to believe is acceptable but many people when they're just starting to date don't have the skills and emotional experience to sustain a relationship, so you get people with the best of intentions who you end up involved with and it turns out it was just for sex.

There is nothing wrong with wanting something different from that but it's good to remember that people are different and do want different things, and that sometimes they might not be together enough even to realise it.

I have to say I do COMPLETELY hate it when people start talking about someone's dick size like it's this huge big thing (pardon the pun). I mean, people like what they like but I think that particular preoccupation is really lame, because it's not like anyone goes, "Oh did you see the nice 5" (or 6") he's packing?" It's always about the porn-induced notion that bigger is better, and that's bunk.

That was a really cynical thing for your friend to say. Not necessarily untrue, but a really depressing way to put it, like saying, "You're going to get your heart broken." I mean, chances are you are but only because we all do at some time or another, and friends should, in my humble opinion, be a lot more supportive and uplifting than that. I'm really not fond of those "I'm being really mean to you but it's because I love you and I don't want you to get hurt" people, mainly because essentially they're doing the hurting in the process of attempting to "shield" you from big bad life. It's an extremely hypocritical position to take.

It's definitely harder to find a good relationship than it is to find a one-night stand, so one-night stands can serve their purpose. But if you want all the romantic and intimate stuff, you can't usually get that from a one-night stand. Sure, you can get a lot of physical intimacy but emotional intimacy usually requires a lot of trust and knowledge of each other that is extremely rare in short-term flings (though not unheard of).

Having been through all sorts of different... involvements with people, I think it's a good policy to try to keep your expectations... if not exactly low, then reasonable. That's really hard when you're starting out with relationships because you don't have any yardsticks to gauge what's reasonable with but I tend to find people skip the present and start planning/daydreaming the future too much. Not that imagining the future is a bad thing--it's definitely not. But it can sometimes combine in a not very pleasant way with our needs and insecurities and cause us to lose our appreciation of what's going on right now and throw our perspective out the window.

Negotiating this kind of thing is like a balancing act, which most of life is like. You want to keep one foot firmly planted on the ground while you let your mind soar off into happy fantasy.

 

Except that they will and there's nothing anyone here or anywhere can do to prevent that.

You can't protect people from this kind of thing unless you convince them to live life under a rock. Part of growing up is having your heart broken--you could make a good argument that it's a pretty universal coming-of-age ritual, even. Trying to avoid that means pretty much shutting out the world and that, in the long term, is a far worse life to live.

And the whole "one-night stands are risky" notion is, well, problematic. You'd be less at risk having protected sex with someone on a one-night stand than you would having sex with your boyfriend who unbeknownst to you is cheating on you.

I suppose if you're having dozens of sexual encounters, one night-stands could be considered riskier but again, you could have dozens of safe sexual encounters with no consequence and one unsafe one with huge consequences. And violence and sketchy situations happen in long-term relationships, too.

The trick is not how much sex you're having, it's what kind, and developing good instincts about people (in terms of whether you'll be safe with them). Again, it would be much better to be someone savvy who had safer sex with five (or ten or fifteen) different guys who you were confident were decent people than to be someone who was naive and was in a "monogamous relationship" with a user who was screwing around on the side and then pressuring you to have unprotected sex.

Sex doesn't screw people over--people screw people over. Ultimately all the "less sex is safer" arguments reduce to the "don't leave the house because you might get hit by a bus" argument. Yeah, you might get mowed down by transit but you certainly have no chance to get where you're going if you don't leave the house... and you can take sensible precautions (like looking both ways before you cross the street) to reduce the risk that you're gonna have an intimate encounter with a bus.

Ha... I just came up with a new expression: "I've been bus-fucked!"

Okay, maybe it's not that funny. But I laughed. :lol:

 

The art of loving, by erich fromm has some really good insights about one night stands.

It states that people fear to be alone, he calls it the fear of separateness. Sex, in particular one night stands, can give you the feeling of not being separate.

Lately I've been feeling this separateness more and more, and I actually considered going to gay bars and clubs... even to a sauna. But while reading that book I finally understood that plain, emotionless sex isn't going to help me get over my separateness.

I decided to wait and meet someone I like, someone I know, someone I can love, and the separateness will eventually disappear. Sex is just something else in a relationship, and that is what I'm seeking: a relationship.

Someone I can just be with for hours, without uttering a word, and still understand each other completely, where there is no such thing as an uncomfortable silence, where I know I can sompletely trust someone. And sex... sex is not my goal in life, the release of sexual tension I can get from masturbation. True, sex does feel better, but It's something that I don't desperately need... not any more anyway.

So, I'm with you in the waiting for Mr Right... even if it is a long wait.

And yes, I know along the way I'll get hurt, heartbroken and that will make me grow stronger.

Anyways, I highly recomend that book to everyone here, even if you've read it, give it another read... you'll always find something you missed the first time... I know I did.

And am now reading it for the third time...