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Self sabotage

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by Pathetic Coward, May 3, 2016.

  1. Pathetic Coward

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    I would rather not be posting which is probably reason enough to. Probably rambling and TMI.

    A few weeks ago I suspended therapy. It wasn't doing much if any good. I mean paying out of pocket to stare at the floor and grumble is not productive. To be fair I hate "connecting" with people. It's all crap and lies. So the fact is it's on my plate. Probably just an unworkable situation.

    I know I'm being jaded but it seems to it was only useful (at all) for the first five minutes of the first session -- and the last five minutes of the last. At least then it felt like the therapist was being honest. Said I was being a martyr because it was safer than doing something else. Maybe. I'm really good at creating reasons not to do something.

    Broke things off with the casual guy I was seeing. It just wasn't worth it.

    So I fire the therapist for being too real and break things off with the guy for not being real enough. Bleh.

    Fact is I really, really hate how I think gay men see me. I just do. And I'm pretty sure it's not all in my head. Some of it is, some isn't. Problem is it is in the way.

    I remember getting creeped out at 16 by a much older man. He was part of a social/hobby group I had joined. Nothing happened but I was left with the very clear thought. 1. That guy is gay. 2. He wants to F you. 3. Gays are all the things society says they are.

    For a Jesus Camp, Midwestern "good christian" in the early 90s, 3 wasn't a stretch. I know it cost me a few years. Rationally I know one is not the other but if I look at myself and how I'm "seen" I frankly have almost zero use for gay men.

    I remember cussing at the windshield one night. "It's not my fault my mom raised a bitch." If I look at myself objectively I know that I'm being dismissive and derogatory. This isn't about sex roles but ends up that way. I've made peace (more or less) with being far more "vers" than I thought I was. Which is both fine and not.

    Fact is I was raised to be a pushover. The how and why of that really doesn't matter. A person can spend forever reading the ashes of the past. Doesn't help anything. Joke is everyone talks about "authentic" this and "true self" that but simple fact is the "real me" would get eaten alive.

    Here's what I know about myself. When I'm not treating the world as the enemy I'm a flat out nice person. I really am. Problem is in the real world nice people don't get what they want. Someone else does.

    I look at my life right now and see the active errors I'm making to keep myself back. I quit dieting a month ago (the first thing to go). Was on a strict-ish low carb thing for over a year. Cut 80 lbs. I was, at most, a year away from decent looking. I remember being asked for ID at a grocery store and the clerk wasn't sure the picture was me (a real positive feeling, to be honest). Now I'm stuffing my face. Hard. I've gained at least 25 of that back, 30+ if you count "water weight." That's a glad-I-kept-my-old-clothes level of take back.

    I'm also drinking more than I would like. But such is life. I'm smoking again. Granted a cigar or two isn't a two pack a day habit but still. All of this is self defeating.

    The weight gain thing I remember doing before, in my early 20s. I remember thinking/muttering to myself "then the f-gs and single moms will leave me alone." Looking back I was really giving off a 50's protector/provider vib (probably was trying to be my dad) so what else did I expect?

    Which is probably what all this is really about. I look back at 16 year old me and can't help but laugh. Kid was a gym membership away from being a twink. So being creeped on doesn't mean anything more than I felt creeped on. I mean I know that some of this is just social programming leaking through in that I'm looking for excuses to apply old views (aka homophobia) but enough of it isn't.

    Short version. I hate the vib I give gay men (or anyone, for that matter). I just do.

    Hitting the gym won't help. It would just amplify things. I feel like nothing will help because the type of person I am is just "not a winner" in the competitive (and I dare anyone to prove otherwise) world of hookups/dating. I'm a doormat.

    I've given real thought to dying my hair black and buying contact lenses, just to get away from this blonde, blue eyed f-able look I have going on. Yes, I can hear it now. "Poor guy thinks he is -- or can be -- attractive, cry me a river." On top of it I'm 6'2" with more-or-less (less so, now) "big" shoulders, which I can't change. Fact is I look at what I've got to work with and all I want to do is be anyone else.

    I know some of this is irrational. If if it was all sorted out I doubt I would be posting. But I look at my options. I'm not going to be walked over. End of story. So that means either become as competitive and hollow as the stereotype I'm whining about, or sit out of the game. And becoming someone I'm not (again) just to "win" at a game I don't need to play feels outright stupid.

    I know that "not all guys are like that" and whatever but I've got no use for lotto tickets, and from where I sit scratch off tickets have better odds than meeting a guy who isn't going to end treating me exactly as I present myself.

    Am I making any sense?

    PC
     
    #1 Pathetic Coward, May 3, 2016
    Last edited: May 3, 2016
  2. SiennaFire

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    Here's my take.

    When you say that you hate how gay men see you, I think you are really projecting onto other gay men your own self-hate. You hate how you see yourself. You still have internalized homophobia and shame about being gay as well as lingering issues about being raised as a bitch/pushover. By expressing your gayness, these issues have been forced to the surface. Still don't understand why the blonde, blue eyed fuckable look is a problem, although I can speculate. Care to help me out?

    The lack of accountability regarding weight and drinking is a symptom and not the root problem.

    Does this seem like a good summary of what you are trying to say in the post?
     
    #2 SiennaFire, May 3, 2016
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  3. Nickw

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    PC

    I suppose Siennafire is correct (as usual) here on your feelings about other gays. I have a bit of the same with the stereotype of bi men. Perverts! And, if I could actually find one I might be disgusted!:icon_wink

    But, I am also wondering about your apparent low self esteem in general and what you can do about it. Is there something you do that you are good at that really fires you up? If so, sometimes you can build on that and apply it to other parts of your life. I am about to go do my own version of that right now...mountain biking. The clarity I can achieve on a fast descent I can use for all sorts of things... even relationships.

    I am often accused of over-simplyfying things. But, I sometimes try and look for simple answers that might provide a partial solution to bigger problems. Pretty soon the big problem gets smaller.
     
  4. Pathetic Coward

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    Somewhat. I mean I knew I had (and still have) hangups but it was simple enough to put things aside. It's like I made a choice to see men as something other than a negative stereotype then felt like an idiot when said stereotype (or most of it) was right in front of me. Then it's a case of "I knew better" rather than "try again or try something else."

    From where I sit now hookups and dating are filled with the same narcissistic sex addicts propaganda warned me about. And that just makes me sad. I know that's not the entire truth but it seems more true than not. Naivety is flat out gone. Some of it I'm sure is just my mindset but some of it -- enough of it -- isn't. Which makes the entire thing a tidy excuse to return to the sidelines.

    I might have an excessively high opinion of myself but when I take stock of who I am when I'm willing to be "me," aka the guy I should've had the spine to be twenty years ago, I'm almost a catch. Almost. Some of this is whining, "why doesn't the world see how great I am" but some isn't. This might be textbook narcissism but I ask myself, "would I date me?" and the answer is more or less yes. I'm probably just being needy but it feels like the very things that make a decent boyfriend make for a doormat of a hookup. And hookups are all there is. Calling it a "date" doesn't really make it one. I doubt being "out" would change things very much, at least not in the town I'm in.

    I'm probably one of those idiots who'll bounce between co and counter dependency his entire life. Aka too close or too far. High walls or no walls. Which just becomes another reason to just sit it out. But if I do that I'll turn around and wonder where my 40s (rather than my 30s) went. Bleh.

    There was a thread a while ago "benefits to not coming out sooner" or the like. I wanted to chime in with the fact the jerks would've eaten the younger, even needier, me alive. Bastards, all of them.

    I don't want to hear about how I need to "accept this part of myself" or some other garbage. I'm not a bottom. Almost none of my fantasies involve bottoming. I've never "finished" when bottoming. The entire thing is closer to trading sex for intimacy than something I enjoy. Which is fine. But that implies a relationship, not some guy making sure you don't end up with his socks. What, you're still here? I finished thirty seconds ago.

    I feel that between my "look" and the personality my egotistical family bullied into me I give off a "here's a hole, f him and throw him away" signal. I got no use for that. None. Men are shallow bastards looking to make someone else their bitch. End of story. There's no love to be had. None. So either I become as shallow and aggressive as they are or I'm best off on the sidelines.

    I think I bought into the "respectable gay" crap society started pushing a few years ago and frankly, it just ain't so. Some of this is homophobia, but some of it isn't. The men of my generation +/- (aka my dating range) are damaged goods living down the the stereotype the haters and "gay culture" forced on them.

    Two words, bastards. AIDS QUILT.

    This is the society I'm going to stand up and to paraphrase Anderson Cooper, "count myself part of"? F that.

    I wanted to believe things weren't the way the bastard preachers and demagogues said they were. I mean, marriage is a thing, not just a joke about Massachusetts. Right? Things had changed. Right? Right? WRONG.

    Gay/hookup culture is the worst thing to happen to guys since Leviticus. At least they had goat herder myths to hide behind. This, this you're doing to yourselves. DO NOT WANT.

    Okay, some of that was venting. And I know that I've got old negative thoughts waiting to jump and scream "told you so" but when most of what you see proves the haters right? What then? I know if someone looks for the bad/downside in anything they'll find it, but I'm tired of putting any trust in the simple idea "things aren't as bad as some say" when things aren't clear at all. They just aren't.

    Guess I'm just really disillusioned atm.

    Probably. It's like I've got two playbooks regarding life. One's "try to be the person you want to be" and the other (the one I'm using now) is "f it, why bother."

    Probably. Sort of. I think I'm just really disillusioned. Don't know how I can put aside some old notions (aka homophobia) when even a blind man can see guys are more or less living down to that very idea. But I guess that's life.


    I've wondered that too. I used to think that I was undermining myself because I was bi or gay and not out. But I think it might be a separate thing, really. I don't know. I probably put too much stock in the idea that "fixing" this part of myself would fix everything else as well.

    Fact is if I was a stronger, more centered person, none of this would be a real problem, would it? So you're right. I probably need a "win" of some sort to get the momentum going again.

    Thanks again, everyone

    PC
     
  5. gryf

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    Wow.

    First, your therapist sucked. If I were you, if get another and because of your very strong negative feelings, of consider going on meds. Actually, I had to, turns out I have depression.
    With medication, and talk therapy (been through like 7 therapists) I'm doing OK.

    Do you have any friends you can be around? That may help.

    Also, maybe you're looking in the wrong places for your guy??

    The apps or places you've been to are giving you jerks or, guys who just want sex.

    Try other places. You want real and supportive. Look to lgbt support groups, meetups, clubs, etc.

    I think you need to leave yourself out of hookup game. It seems to be hurting you and not fun.

    Just try to make gay friends and if you get more, great. I think it will help you feel better to be social with the sex expectation removed.

    Hope that helps
     
  6. SiennaFire

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    PC,

    You're rebelling against yourself. You don't want to be gay, and you definitely don't want to be/seen as a stereotypical gay. You're clearly responding to your programming from earlier in life when they taught you homophobia, that being a faggot was wrong, filthy, and a ticket to hell.

    I get it. Nobody wants to be gay and different from societal norms. I didn't want to be gay either, and spent too many years fighting myself like you are now. Now I see things totally differently. I cannot change the fact that I'm gay, so I started to focus on what I could control and learned to accept myself. Life is so much better once you stop resisting. Today I'm glad that I get to be gay because this is who I am.

    Yeah, I know, this is the accept yourself crap that you don't want to hear. I don't care what you want on this particular topic TBH; it's what you need to hear if you ever want to get off your ass. It's so much easier to complain and be negative than to get off your ass and make something of yourself. I think you fired/pushed away your therapist because he started to touch upon that very point.

    Here's an updated blog entry that I posted after you went dark on EC. A lot of the ideas should be familiar and may help you - Healing the shame of being gay, take 2

    You need to accept yourself because at some level you long to be gay. I sense it hidden in your negative prose, which is the written manifestation of the hurt you feel. I feel that you feel more hurt about the casual relationship than you are making explicit. It seems to me that you want a guy who you can cuddle with after sex and spend the night. A guy you can do laundry with and who would enjoy sorting socks and underwear with you. Then after the laundry is put away, you'd make out some more and have another round of passionate sex. You want a guy you can love and be yourself around.

    This is not the guy you hooked up with. You ended it and moved on. Good for you. Now instead of getting all jaded about gay guys, why don't you try to find a guy who is closer to what you want. Small town in fly over America make that too hard, gotcha, then move to an area that's more gay friendly.

    I think you fired the therapist because he was beginning to be effective (he was too real as you put it) but used the inefficiency and cost as justification (even though you probably didn't open up enough during therapy). I feel that it would help you to resume therapy either with him or another therapist, a gay one if that's an option. You definitely have some emotional baggage that you need to let go of and once released that would make it easier to accept yourself as gay and get on with your life.
     
    #6 SiennaFire, May 4, 2016
    Last edited: May 4, 2016
  7. SiennaFire

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    There's definitely a rejection and disillusionment with the gay culture in post #4. I think this is a manifestation of your internalized homophobia more than anything else. You are using this quite effectively as a reason to sit on the sidelines when in reality the following lead me to believe that you really want love and genuine connection with another guy. I referenced this in post #6 but wanted to quote the salient ideas from post #4. You are definitely thinking very black and white here, whereas reality is somewhere in the middle and affords you more options.
     
    #7 SiennaFire, May 4, 2016
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  8. OGS

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    My apologies if this comes off as blunt. To be honest, I suppose I am a little offended by your post--there's a lot more homophobia there than I've encountered in real life in decades, so it's a bit for me to process. But you're clearly in pain so I'll give it a shot...

    You talk a lot about how it's all you: how you were raised, how you present yourself, etc. Somehow it's even a problem that you're blonde and doable (I guess if you live long enough you will eventually hear everything). But then it's pretty clear the way you talk about other gay men that you really think it's just on everyone else. My advice would be that you really need to decide once and for all which you think it is. And I would strongly encourage you to come down on the side of it being about you, because you're not going to change everyone else.

    The good new is that I don't think you have to. I think I'm a bit older than you are (I'm 44) but I think we're basically the same generation, unless I misestimate your age. I've been out for well over twenty years, been actively involved in the gay community for pretty much all of that time. I've known hundreds if not thousands of gay men very well over the years. And I've found gay men to be as a whole among the kindest, bravest, sweetest, most romantic and loyal people I've ever met. I've been with my husband for 18 years and before that I had a truly wonderful dating life that I still look back on fondly.

    So how come that hasn't been your experience? Well, it could be a few things. It could be the apps--I've never used them myself, didn't see the point. I do, however, have friends who have and, while it doesn't seem like a very good pool of people I definitely know people who have done fine that way. I think in the end it really comes down to how you are presenting yourself. I found myself over and over as I read your posts thinking something that I often think while reading posts on this forum: "what do you mean why won't gay men date you, you don't even like gay men." I know you think you don't present that contempt. I can assure you, you're wrong. One thing I have learned over the years is that no one, including myself, is as good at hiding contempt as they think they are.

    My guess is that you are at least somewhat closeted. This is going to limit the field you meet too unless you go to great lengths to prevent it. Closeted guys are going to be more likely to present the one and done thing, because there just isn't room in their life for more. You're not just a sweet kind guy they could spend time with, you're someone who might just rock the boat--and the seas are already choppy. Plus, when it really comes down to it being closeted means that you aren't being honest about who you are and what you want. You're looking for someone who wants to take you home to meet his parents--but you don't want him to meet yours.

    Add to that the fact that you flat out say that you hate "connecting" with people and it seems a little surprising to me that you are even surprised that your interactions are all superficial and/or tawdry. Yeah I guess you could just sit the game out, but it's a great game. Maybe you could just play it differently. Whatever you decide I hope it brings you happiness.
     
  9. Justasking100

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    ^^^^^^ this post is great for all to read and I'm glad you posted it.

    PC - there's some good points above the I can take on board as well, keep going. I think the point is there is more to being gay than hookup apps. I hope so!!

    ---------- Post added 4th May 2016 at 05:58 AM ----------

    I know what it's like to feel like a pushover. Always trying to please other people, and doing anything for a quiet life. I think a good start would be changing your handle to something other than pathetic coward, I'm sure you are more than that. Stop being so hard on yourself and move forward more positively.
     
  10. Weston

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    In part, you seem to be saying, ever more explicitly, that you're not a bottom. Yet according to you, other men see you as a bottom, your physical appearance is that of a bottom (whatever that means!), your family has conditioned you to act as a bottom, and you have bottomed for other men (but derived no pleasure from it). Obviously, you spend a lot of time thinking about bottoming and it makes you unhappy. I think, perhaps, in addition to internalized homophobia in general, there's a lot of bottom-shaming going on in your mind. Perhaps you really are a bottom, but are unable to act upon it or when you do act upon it, to enjoy it, because of shame. It's probably something you should talk to a therapist about.
     
    #10 Weston, May 4, 2016
    Last edited: May 4, 2016
  11. Krater

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    just want to add my 5 cents for what its worth.

    Sienna Fire's response to you is a cracker.

    When I read your post PC, I just thought that this guy is really really hurting and so alone within himself (i have alot of empathy for people who are hurting, ) it seems that you have decide to come up with reasons to justify what you feel the way you feel. You can listen to your head in what you feed it and what it speaks to you or you can listen to your heart. My assumption is that you are afraid to listen to your heart and follow it because (again, my assumption) is that you might have to face some stuff that you don't want to.

    Gay guys can be this or that they can rip you off and you can be devastated and society says this and that..... etc... i reckon that it is just an avoidance tactic to justify what you don't want to face. It also throws people off the scent

    Its really easy to come up with all the arguments that society and other people do against us to somehow justify why we are the way we are. Its called blaming, its really easy and it lets us off the hook (so to speak).

    I get it that we carry baggage from our childhood and family life... but we are no longer children. Except maybe the memories and hurts are frozen in that space of time from our childhood.

    I used to hate this saying, But you choose how you respond, no-one on this planet can make you choose your reaction or response.

    I am really curious as to what parts of yourself that you are afraid to face? But only you can answer that. you don't have to respond.
     
  12. bingostring

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    I wonder if the therapy went bad because it required you to open up and 'expose' yourself. And it was just too uncomfortable.. and it was therefore your own self-hate/ internalised homophobia at the controls?
     
  13. Pathetic Coward

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    Thanks for everyone's input.

    I'm going to step away for a while because I don't think this (my whining at a support forum) is doing any good, or maybe I'm making sure it isn't, or something.

    To be honest I think I just sort of posted out of habit. Who knows. At any rate there isn't any "new ground" to be covered here and my general mindset right now is no way to make friends. Time for some air.

    Take care.

    PC
     
  14. SiennaFire

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    Let me try this from a different angle.

    You feel jaded and disillusioned because your casual affair with the older guy corroborated what you learned about gays growing up - that they just lust over you and want to fuck you and toss you aside. You don't like your blond blue eye look and pushover personality because you feel it makes you an easy mark. In fact, you are gaining weight on purpose to make yourself less attractive. You wanted to believe there's more to being gay than being the bitch in the hookup culture, and you are deeply disappointed that he proved you wrong. You don't want the gay life of the hookup culture where you are objectified as a sexual object. You'd rather sit on the sidelines than become the asshole that is required to win in this hookup culture.

    This is a false dichotomy - there's more to gay life than the hookup culture. If you don't want to play in the hookup culture, by all means don't.

    Just don't quit being gay.

    Despite all the pain and disillusionment you feel and express, it's very clear to me that you want and need a loving relationship with another man and that you don't feel that's possible. Overcoming this feeling is the key to moving forward. Intellectually, there are a lot of gay men in committed loving relationships, so it's possible once you get past your disillusionment.

    At some level you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater by dismissing gay culture because your first experience with a hookup didn't lead to love. The hookup culture is one aspect of the gay culture. There are things about the gay culture that aren't for me, and I simply avoid them.

    You've come a long way over the past several months towards accepting yourself as a gay man. It's not easy unlearning all the crap we learned growing up. In order for you to continue your journey, you need to be honest with yourself about what you want and don't want as a gay man. I feel that once you are honest with yourself about what you really value, the rest will take care of itself.

    (&&&)

    ---------- Post added 5th May 2016 at 08:40 AM ----------

    Damn, I missed you by 4 minutes. I think you post here because you need a fresh perspective to get past your general mindset. Hopefully you'll come back after getting some air.