The bisexual dilemma

I can't speak to a lot of what you're talking about because I lack the experience of being with a guy, but I'm wondering about the places where you're hooking up with these guys.

If you're hooking up with guys online, can you state in your profile what your intention is? That you're looking for more than a one night stand? What about looking for guys through organized groups where you have a similar interest whether it's hiking, cooking, etc.?

 

Beingdude wrote

 

Beingdude

I haven't been with a guy since I was a kid. I fell in love with my wife at a pretty young age and had never considered practicing my gay side until a couple years ago.

That said, I have met a couple of guys, recently, where there was a very strong mutual attraction that would have gone a lot further if I was not committed. I am a bad cheater. I fell apart even considering it.

My athletic activities allow me access to men. So, it is pretty easy to meet a lot of guys. Since I don't plan on having sex with them, I am not afraid to engage them emotionally...ie I am very friendly. I think this starts a completely different process.

I think it is also worth mentioning that I do this with women too. Similar results.

The thing is...people want to be desired. Men and women. I just try to show this when I meet someone...not in a pervy way. At a minimum, you make someone feel good about themselves for a bit. Sorta fun on its own merits!

 

It seems to me that a lot of it really comes down to the medium. It sounds to me like you don't meet women on hookup sites. You could. I have straight male friends who do. It seems that their results are pretty similar to yours except it's not a problem for them because that's what they are looking for. I never used the apps but back in the day I definitely hooked up. But it was guys I met at bars, in classes, at parties, at the gym, at the beach-i.e. the way I used to meet women. They were hardly ever one-off things. Maybe the sex was but usually not the friendship. Many of them I am still friends with twenty years later. Actually, I ended up marrying one of them.

I guess I would say if you are having different experiences with men and women don't assume it's necessarily about the difference between men and women. It may be about the different ways you approach them, the different expectations you bring to the encounter. Try approaching men more the way you approach women and see if you get a more desirable result. I hope everything works out for you.

 

So many things about your post describe my personal frustrations, and they have not been of a short term nature. The trajectory of your life even has more than just a few similarities. If you read some of my own posts, you most likely will discern some of my own frustration on this. However, you have described the nature of the problem much better in some ways than I have.

I have come to the conclusion that the portion of what you describe (that I have clipped and quoted above), is not really correlated to being gay. It is correlated to being male. I think you and I have misunderstood the predominate, hard-line, social rules that males go by, in relation to being "friends" with other males. And, also, I must as usual disclaim that I do not mean facebook "friends," one of the words Zuckerberg has bastardized to an awful degree.

Oh, sure, dating sites have lots of guys who claim to want intimacy and "long-term relationships" with other men, but after a life of training with the system you so perfectly described above, do they even know how?

At the very least I have to thank you for affirming that I, and those in this emotionally-available minority aren't nuts. When the situation that you described in the first paragraph above--physical intimacy followed by you-don't-exist--happens, I feel like a complete failure and a reject. I'm sure you do too.

I've met quite a few people who have the attitude that they can play for 35 years, and then "settle down." About 90% of them crash and burn in a not-too-pretty way. You learn to be a good friend, by long training and practice. It's like flying an airplane. If you are put in the pilot's seat for the first time when it's in the air, there won't be a happy ending.

 

We seem to have walked a lot of the same paths.

I'm not sure what I think of the concept of "sexual addiction." I suspect it might be built that way. This is something that I can analyze in myself. Women have been known to criticize we men for "thinking with our penises." If they only knew. The basic, primal impulses that seem to leap forward when we are "horny" are fascinating. For example, How I resolve not to write again to somebody (like your hookup mate you described) who I'm annoyed with, but do it anyway when I'm aroused. In the same way some drunks have to put away the cell phone when drinking (to avoid drunk dialing), I think sometimes it would be a good idea to put the computer away when I'm aroused.

I guess I "had sex" around age 10, too. I had an early puberty. Of course, "sex" consisted of experimentation with friends my age. I'd probably be put in therapy for it today. That's the present thinking, that "playing doctor" is the result of child abuse. I wasn't abused--my brain was simply waking up. I apparently wasn't in a state of shame for it, to the extent you have been.

Every adolescent, say age 15 or so, is almost guaranteed to be obsessed and fixated on sex. It is built in. As adults, we learn to tame that primal impulse in appropriate ways, but it is no less primal.

So yes, the addiction model fits. The problem is, it's very, very hard wired. To the extent it is hard to "treat." With drinking there are people who cannot handle it, and then there are the majority, who can use alcohol when they want, and avoid it for long periods when desired. Asexuals can do this with sex, but this is a minority of the population. Perhaps that means asexuals are more "evolved."

I'm eager to read your future thoughts about the sex addiction issue and how that unfolds for you. I'm here to learn from others and to share. It's a great opportunity for me, since these kinds of conversations are tough to find in 3D.

 

Beingdude

Apologies, I'm going to be a little mean here. As I recall, you are older than me (55) by a bit. I know that I do have issues with my age even though I am pretty well preserved. When I first considered cheating on my wife, it was with a woman probably 20 years younger than me. It was, frankly, a vindication that I still "had it".

Siennafire, on my first post, suggested I was really looking for a fling with a younger man. He was off a little...but, not completely. Right idea...wrong sex. I wanted to prove something to myself.

I noticed that you brought up that this current hookup is younger...a couple of times. Are you sure this isn't more than sex? Is this a confirmation of your manhood? Sorry, but, it almost seems like you are bragging a bit here. I, totally, get that.

If what you desire is a committed, and intimate, relationship with someone, male or female, you may need to look at what you can give in that relationship. Not how the sex with someone defines you. If you don't really desire that...cool too...that is what is great about the human condition. But, you sort of have to decide what you really want here.

 

I find people whom want a relationship on the sites will expressly state so in their profiles, those that want fun only make it obvious as well.

Hook ups are meant to be no strings attached and a quick release. If your looking to build a relationship, stick to the profiles that expressly say that is what they are looking for or use other apps or sites more suited for dating.