active duty dot com pornography, boys: reconsidered

andy pink, in tank —

at a weak moment, i joined activeduty.com, which is a site for military amateur gay porn, i've seen a lot of their vids before, elsewhere, so i thought i'd join the paying site ($24.95/mo) — i always return to military porn, after twink and jock, and i'm exclusively interested in the oral scenes, i focus on them, specifically, and i either cum before i hit the anal scene or skip to another vid and watch from there, the oral, jack, ejaculate, repeat three hours later.

it will forever be amusing to me that my porn of choice is military; i come from a violently pacifist family, and i identify as a pacifist, and so it is simply perverse that i return again to this mise-en-scene. if any of you — the gay male readers, i suspect most of you — who want my user id and passcode for the site, you're welcome to email me (again: not off the exit survey) and i'll send you the info and you can give the site a shot (or several); it's a well laid out site, easy to navigate, well indexed, and you can spend a good afternoon there enjoying these guys. i love the "first time" experiences — perhaps some of it is put on, but i suspect, you can see it, that many of the instances are quite verite — and there's nothing as hot for me as seeing a guy put a dick in his mouth for the first time and discovering, as most of them do, that he really likes it, getting into it slowly, easing his way in, in the process, of accepting, and later embracing, that he is a total cocksucker — with tattoos, with dog tags — and then just completely enjoying the dick; more —

i will go in for a lithium reading later in the week; i suspect everything is fine — at .8 or .9 — and so there will be no change; after ditching out on the abilify i feel no difference, at all, and so the lithium and the lamictal will be the standards for the summer, unless i really descend, and then i'll add wellbutrin, and the 10 lbs, and suffer through it until i swing around again. there is no doubt that i would be dead without the lithium; it sounds a little dramatic to write that, but i'm almost certain that i would have delusionally jumped in front of a train (as i once almost did, at davis) if it weren't for the lithium; dan will be back on it soon enough, en france, as he is slowly sailing away without it. dan referred to us as "husbands" recently and while i feel no sexual attraction to him, partly because he is not blond, i feel very close to him and suspect we will launch our various creative projects together soon when he returns to boston.

I am actually going to jerk off now; I'll be back in a bit.

***

although Raymond, my psychic, said that a Chris ("a man") would be "coming around again," I think the chris situation is officially closed, which is fine. It is difficult when you like someone, feel drawn to someone, for no reason, a stranger, a speck, it is difficult not to imagine an entire alternative future opening up that was simply not possible — or even imaginable — before you laid eyes on this strange pretty man, such was the fantasy with Chris. But at this point, months later, I don't feel much for him, I can recall how intensely I felt for him during those 6 months — that I bothered to (re)build an entire website for him — but it's very distant, and it even bothers me that I had such intense affect for him, at this distance, now. I suppose the deal-breaker was my mental illness, on ample display on this site, and I can almost see on a formulary, of deal-breakers with a potential mate, that mental illness would be one, on his list, and he would note it and move on. It's hard for me to conceive of mental illness — or specifically my mental illness — as a deal-breaker because I have a difficult time isolating it as separate from all the other parts of me; it's just woven into me, in my experience of it, depression, mania, psychosis, that it's hard to imagine it as an isolated, bound bullet point on a list of potential deal-breakers. But I also totally understand that it could be, my mental illness is pretty bad, I'm in the hospital 2-3 times a year, inpatient, and someone who was close to me, or who loved me, this is just quite a project to undertake. it is unlikely that Chris knew exactly what would be entailed in this project — or what potential joys he might experience in it — but I think most people, if given the choice, would prefer their mate to not have mental illness; I myself don't entirely agree with that perspective/prejudice — I would be into having a mentally ill boyfriend and have dated several completely crazy people — but your average Chris, not knowing what you were entering, what it would look like, feel like — he's rather, as Molly might say, "can we not?"

Trevor quite liked my mental illness and, when we were together, always came to the hospital, bringing books or food, sometimes we'd talk, or watch, quietly, and then he'd leave. I imagine he gained a sense of responsibility, authority, kindness from his attention to me, and the main reason I fell in love with him was because he was kind, not sarcastic, and smart, had a dry sense of humor, and was beautiful to me (he had a rather bizarrely shaped ass, which was fine, but it sometimes interrupted my quiet appreciation of his body with disconcertion or distraction); anyway, Trevor was basically perfect for me, if autistic, and we would have had a good time, in our future together. But the Trevor situation is also over, and I haven't talked to him in months, and I fear that if I call finally, perhaps he won't pick up, or he'll be busy, pretending to be busy — I'm almost positive nothing has happened in his life, girlfriend and baby, monotony; stunning what people end up signing up for even when they have more exciting options available.

Little guy and I are on hold; he is clearly away from the Trader J's for the summer, so he is probably a student. A possible relationship with him would be close to what I had with Erik, Wonder Boy, in Montreal, mostly because of the age difference, little guy is so young. There would be a lot of things that we wouldn't be able to talk about because I am older, and have experienced more, and know more, but I think we could probably connect on the level of people-watching, or world-watching, that we could pass the time together smiling at common objects in our shared purview of the visible field, and we would laugh a bit, or make dry remarks, and our relationship would in many ways be very quiet. I would have sex with him if he wanted, and I would probably try to top him, even though that is not my way, and certainly not something I would initiate, but insofar as I feel some love for the kid, little guy, I would do whatever I could sexually that he wanted; I would suck his dick frequently, and, I think, he would probably be doing a lot of sucking of my dick, too. I would say I no longer have any sexual desire for Trevor, and if in the highly unlikely situation that he wanted to have sex with me again, I would probably say no. Maybe holding his hands would be ok, if that would comfort him in some way, but I'm pretty sure that being naked with him, after all this time apart, is probably something I would turn down at this point. Late in my life, it feels, presenting my body to another man would be exhausting, and I'd rather laugh about something, or tease this future man, not so much suck his dick. But I would suck this future man's dick — not Trevor, but certainly Chris's dick — if that would make this man happy. But I don't think I would cock hound around for dick; I'm getting tired, and it's enough to make a guy laugh and think without the further exertion of making him ejaculate. But the exception here is: Chris. Pudgy, short Chris — I still want his dick in my mouth.

Unlike the Chris and Trevor situations, the Patrick situation is not over, though I was able to move on to Chris and little guy from him, after the mean 141, I guess as time passed. But because of my location, and his workplace, and my insistence on passing by the store rather than intentionally avoiding that area on California Avenue, the Patrick situation lives and breathes a couple of times every morning, on most days of the week. I have perhaps never so poorly — the word monstrously comes to mind — I have never so dispiritingly presented myself to another man that I was attracted to than the way I did to Patrick that morning. It had nothing to do with him, I wasn't feeling well, which wasn't related to anything other than the autonomy of my illness, no trigger from the context, nothing exterior, purely endogenous, and then I found myself, in this state, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The worst part about that scene — and I've endlessly written about it, both here and elsewhere — is not so much that I grotesquely misrepresented myself (which was the case) but also that I just simply and rawly upset him. It was like the last thing that I wanted to do, absolutely. I felt this love for this guy, for no reason, and felt so awesome in his presence, being in the store while he was working, and I was writing, and I think if I wanted to express anything to him that morning — and if I hadn't been sick I would have chosen to express nothing and go about my business as normal — the only thing I would have wanted to express to him was that I thought he was so cool and then, after that, to sort of make him happy in some small way that I would be able to do. Instead, I had a total and complete breakdown — not only in front of him but basically in his face, close to him, in his visual field, and aural field — and it had the obvious effect of upsetting him. I was mortified by my display of monstrosity, but the more acute source of my shame over the matter was that I had upset him. God, that was just so awful, when I realized it, what I had done, that I had made him uncomfortable, it was really its own punishment. I did apologize, when I got out of the hospital, in letter, but it was probably too late, by that point he would have told himself a story about me, the kind of person that I had turned out to be, after his initial interest or curiosity, and that sort of sealed the situation, there would be no further elaboration, nothing in my brief apology note could undo: 1) that I had upset him; 2) that I was a monster.

The Patrick situation will end when I move away, maybe next yr, and no longer have the facade of the store to deal with, or when he moves away, whenever, and I notice that he has moved away, I get word somehow, and then that future will be gone. sexual attraction was not a big part of my interest in Patrick, it more had to do with him, or his experience, background, or what he might think about, or notice, what we would notice together, and that we would sort of enjoy each other's company, present to each other. He was of course beautiful to me, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to notice him, and I had some fantasies about his chest, torso, that I would spend some time with his chest, torso, but sex with him was really secondary; there seemed to be, in my fantasy, more important things to attend to with him, beyond sex, or his body. But he is totally beautiful, there would be people who would immediately notice that.

later, andy pink

in many ways, the relationship with Jason would have been ideal. He was not gay, I was not sexually attracted to him, and yet we were ideal for each other for the future. I take most of the responsibility for the fact that our relationship did not work out — that was my fault, and in a way, my daftness — the premature closure of that future is mostly on me, which I regret. I am mostly at fault in the case of Patrick, the issue with Trevor was on his side, and I guess Chris was the obstacle for that future in that case. Nothing has gone wrong with little guy of trader j's, as yet, and I will have the long slog of the summer to plot my strategy when he returns to the register in September. Wish me luck!

Of all the boys, and of all the mistakes — Trevor, Wonder Boy, Chris, Jason, Dylan, all of them — no one was as mean to me about the situation, about the impossibility, about my desire, than Patrick and his 141. But even that unprovoked meanness was more an index of how much I had upset him, previously, that morning a ways ago, than an indication of any flaw in his character. The fact that I felt the need to retaliate, respond in kind — the banner on this site, for one — probably speaks to deficits in my character. I am a nice guy — unless I am sick, or twisted in some way — but I do always take the bait, I do always retaliate, and it's nasty, and mean, I become all of those things that I find to be such stains to the sphere.

But Patrick must have felt cornered and threatened and exposed that morning, I thought he was out and available, which turned out not to be the case — and then my exhibitionist display of my interest in him with the sign post plot a year later — it would be easy enough for him to dismiss me with the 141. but the error in the character there, his character, is that he didn't pause, he didn't wait — he also didn't bother to read the site — he didn't pause, and in his quick reply he forgot to notice how much I liked him, cared about him, for no reason really, and if he had waited, thought for a moment, paused, he probably never would have sent such a cruel riposte as the 141. Funny, I had expected flattery — that he would feel it, and perhaps the nonresponse, like Chris, because of disinterest — but I never thought for a moment he would be upset, didn't pause there, I didn't, either.

My next project: getting fat.

andy

It is always so surprising when I feel love for someone, suddenly, because it is very much a new feeling each time, like with Chris, it just happened, a different sensation, an alternative tingling, and yet I knew almost immediately that I was in love with him, and this realization was unveiled solely by affect (which has no meaning) rather than by thought (which is a series of reasons). No one falls in love with someone, randomly, unexpectedly, with an explanation "because," "for this reason," and so on — it's just a feeling, and then you basically try to cope with this feeling, this love feeling, or symbolize this feeling, all of which is inadequate until it finally fades away and you stumble across a wholly different face, and all at once, and then to the top, again, for the first time.

the important point is that i rarely find myself interested in any guy, I'm mostly involved with myself, or my friends, or reading and writing, and there just aren't many guys who appear interesting to me. this is why these few guys stay with me — Jason, for 20 years — because the feeling I felt for these men was so intense but also so rare; it's difficult to forget the source of the feeling, and because it is a rare feeling, and because it is such an intense feeling, it's hard not to classify it as love even if it has no foundation in any reason or meaning (Chris is the exemplar of this; I am utterly at a loss as to why I liked him). It should go without saying that it is to the credit of these men — mostly at a distance — that they generated such wonderful feelings for me in my personal history.

classes were good today, strong start; i haven't had sex in 4 months.

I titled this fact sheet entry, " boys: reconsidered" — and here I will try to summarize what I found memorizing about the boys, wet and used, in my kitchen sink, unwashed:

Jason

sense of humor

Wonder Boy

ass, age

Chris

eyeglasses, movement in space

Trevor

kindness, height, yoga 8-pack

Patrick

feminine small motor manipulations, gait

Dylan

face

Brian

aggression, vulnerability

Little Guy (Ian)

ordinariness

These are probably inaccurate, and if you asked me tomorrow, which you might, I'd probably have different answers for you; but, at the moment, this is it. Chris is the greatest mystery for me — his movements in space, around the coffee shop, were mesmerizing to me, and his eyeglasses, on rotation, like mine, were inspired. But Chris is difficult to summarize, as I found him, and perhaps that is the reason that of all of these dirty boys, it is still Chris whose dick I want to suck the most.

I have come to realize that all men are cocksuckers — naturally so, perhaps not receiving from another man, but certainly giving, giving a blowjob to another man — and, in the way an alien, who comes down from outer space to observe us would probably be shocked to quickly notice that humans are regularly and consistently nasty to one another — it has been shocking to me to learn this. but, in the end, men are naturally cocksuckers.

I myself don't like receiving, a blowjob doesn't do anything for me, my tactility is blunted for some reason, but sucking a guy's dick for me, and i imagine for the lucky guys who try it out, sucking a guy's dick really is the loveliest of feelings.

update re site: I have started working on a new section for the website — "Andy Pink's Outrageous Collection of Penises" — it is in progress, not live yet, but it promises to be better than "Barbara's Vagina" (which is not really all that funny; I have not yet mastered the talent of forcing the vagina to submit to my dry sense of humor) — but the new section promises to be about as good as "Places Andy's Been Fucked" and "Andy Pink's Jockstrap Hall of Champions" — both of which really are top shelf.

to be up in the next few days, I hope — andy pink, to rethink — I have considered deleting — or moving — some of the more schizoid posts from the site, but I have been advised against this, and I suspect that the close reader will be able to discern the interval between madness and health as it is navigated in my writing, here.

i hope that morrissey dies. i finally told my psychiatrist that i would have sex with my sister "if the opportunity arises" — this was not considered especially revelatory, which is fine, but i'd like to think that i am unrepressed enough that i would make the move. molly does have the fairest hands in the kingdom. she would never do it; i won't bring it up with her; but dan is a fan of this plan.

activeduty.com update —

I have not had sex in 4 months, and until this week, I had not jerked off in about 6 months, I think all to the good. But then I got horny, or the lithium level is low, and I joined the activeduty.com military amateur gay porn site and it is completely out of control. I think I have jerked off 15-20 times in the last 3 days and feel like I am stroking my dick in a kind of feverish mania. my cock is now completely swollen — not chaffed, yet — and I'm finding it difficult to perform ordinary routines. but what I wanted to say about these marines, most with girlfriends, many with wedding rings, is that they have this kind of manic frenzied gay sex with each other, it's like this most lovely of gay porn genres. it is very obvious, after watching a bunch of scenes which, like all porn, have a kind of deathly repetition compulsion to them, that the main purpose here is to suck dick. It is a paid excuse to suck dick. There is a kind of convention in the scenes where after one guy sucks off another guy that the guy who just got sucked off says, "I'll return the favor" — but this is quite simply code, the truth is the exact obverse. The favor is letting some other marine suck your dick. Some of the cocksucking really can only be described as frenzied — or insatiable — and it has a kind of violence to it that is both mesmerizing and erotic. the newer guys who have never had a dick in their mouth are often quieter, slower, more hesitant, getting used to the scene, but the guys who have done a few scenes are completely, many of them, out of control, and the performances give a kind of visceral meaning to the phrase, "eat a dick." there is some cocksucking on the site that is so intense that the viewer (and perhaps the guy receiving) might reasonably imagine that the sucker is going to completely swallow the dick; meaning: bite the dick off, and swallow it, "eat a dick." while I do sort of understand this perspective and attitude, and have written about dick-eating before, on the fact sheet, I'm pretty sure I would not in fact eat a dick. but then — more intense than the frantic mania of some of the cocksucking — is the guys who are quite obviously overwhelmed with the mystical divinity of the penis — they can barely manage it or approach it, be near it; these are the guys — overwhelmed, undone — that have to hover around the penis, not for flirtation, or coyness, or seduction — not for the pleasure of the guy and his dick — but it's very visible in these cocksuckers, many of whom are butch rather than faggy: this raw awe, overwhelmed, in the presence of the penis. I have a hard time imaging that any woman feels this way about cock; girls that I've slept with certainly never felt that way about my penis, and you don't really see it — verite — in straight porn. I realize that cock worship can be a heterosexual practice, but if you inquire into that subculture, it's mostly gay men, and it's not even deemed special or noteworthy, it's just the gay man's relationship to the penis: raw awe. from watching these scenes, it's really hard not to conclude — as I said above — that all men are natural cocksuckers, and I feel very identified with these marines, especially the divine spiritualists of god-cock, because I think it really is only a man who can understand the overwhelming force and presence of a man's dick. and when that dick is in your mouth — while it feels powerfully right, is explosive, shattering, it also makes you want to bite the dick off and swallow it, "eat a dick."

anyway, all men are natural cocksuckers and I want to eat chris's dick.

***

I saw Patrick on his skateboard this morning, he noticed me, but we didn't look at each other, I looked up at him a bit, but he was turned away and went along his way, he was on the wrong side of commonwealth. Since he has been checking the site, I decided to take down the barista cocksucker banner. It is mean. It is in direct retaliation for the 141, which hurt me deeply, and was this terrible thing, but in the end, I'm not really a mean person, I really like the kid, and I don't want to hurt him in any way; I think the line about "feminine" would sting a bit, and I don't even want to do that to him. I like him, liked him instantly, care about him, and basically would never do anything to harm him, and I would never try to hurt him in any way. I regret the barista cocksucker banner, and I am sorry that he saw it.

I think basically what happened with the Patrick situation is that he noticed that I was gay, and thought that I would be a nice person, and thought that I would be a good guy to talk to about how hard a time he is having being gay. This was all correct on his end, I would have been a great gay friend for him, and we would hang out, and talk, and we'd talk about being gay, and how difficult it still is to be gay. I think this is basically what he wanted from me, though he never told me that. I then completely missed it. I think the reason for this is that his situation is a totally different kind of experience than the experience I had. I grew up in brookline, to liberal, accepting parents, I had gay friends in high school, and college, and grad school, and I am very happy being gay. I don't think I am particularly good at being gay, but I am really happy to be gay, and I wouldn't want to be straight, and being gay is this really cool thing for me. In contrast, Patrick grew up in Worcester, to parents who had no money, probably Catholic, probably conservative parents, and given how feminine he is, despite his stature, he was probably tortured by kids in school because it is obvious that he is a faggot. He worked really hard to get out of Worcester, he probably went to Worcester Polytech for science, and he worked really hard — this is the thing about him: he works really hard — and he made it to Boston, to Boston University, and he is probably with the girl that he took to the prom at Worcester Central High School. I do not in fact know any of this, he never told me, I never bothered to ask, but I think that most people's stories are pretty simple — mine is — and I think this is basically his situation.

Now, this is the kind of situation, or experience, that I could imagine seeing in a movie, but it is very hard for me to conceive of this situation in real life, that someone would have this experience. So, this experience, missing it, I didn't understand what he wanted from me, which I think was basically a gay guy friend to help him feel better about being gay.

Then, I gave him this other thing that he did not want and that scared him. This other thing was like some kind of crazed manic sexuality, and he didn't want it. What abides as a mystery is why I decided to give him that, because that was not at all what my interest in him was about; obviously, he is quite beautiful — everybody would know that — but that was not my primary interest, I am not a particularly sexual person, and though he is lovely to look at, I am totally fine not touching him. In fact, what I wanted was to hang out with him, and, I think this is what he wanted, and we would have had a really good time hanging out as these two gay guys who were trying to make it in the world. I would have been very happy with this. But, I did not understand what he wanted, he never told me, I never bothered to ask, so I missed it. And then when I gave him this other terrible monstrous thing that morning, he did not want that, was scared by it, told himself a story about me based on this grotesquely misrepresentative image of myself, and then the story was over.

Peter said that there are like a thousand gay guys that he could be friends with that would be good for him to hang out with and talk about being gay with. But I think the caveat here is that for some reason — surely unknown to him — he chose me, I seemed to be a good shot, someone that he could talk to, and I entirely let him down, mostly by accident, and mostly because I got sick in the store that morning. He is a brutally beautiful person, and I will have to move on, but it is a shame that I didn't really understand what he wanted. I do think that he was sexually interested, but I don't think that this was primary, because the terrible situation that he was in was the main problem. I would have been a very good person for him to hash this out with, I would be good at that, I would have performed the function well. I have nothing to teach him, no advice or instruction, but I would have been a good interlocutor for him. As it stands, he has a girlfriend, no gay friends, hateful parents, and is having a terrible time.

I had presented a statement to make to the girl, which I have rehearsed several times; it is a good statement, it is quality, a little long, but it summarizes the situation well. I think in the end the problem with this — and why I will not present to her my script — is that she is surely in love with him and she immediately saw me as an obstacle, because she knows that he is gay. Also, one of the reasons that I missed his msg — that he wanted a gay friend — is that this is the kind of relationship that for some reason gay guys in the culture do not pursue. I don't know why this is. It is an important question. Although Patrick did not originally read the website, where I quietly and benignly ask him out on a date to the museum of science (and/or snowboarding, which I think he likes, and I could probably get into) I think that even that was too much for him. He has since read that section — answering neither the yes nor no button, preferring the back key on his browser, indecision — but this was too invasive, too much, and of course the sign plot itself was cornering, threatening, and exposing, and even though that was not my intention — my intention all along has been to make him a little happy in some small way that I would be able to do — the effect of the sign plot was terror. I do understand the riposte of the 141 — but it was cruel — because I had cornered him again, like I had that morning, and this was in a way my mistake, though I also did not really know what he wanted, so I gave him something that he didn't actually want.

In the end, this is all very sad, because I really liked the kid, I liked him instantly, and in a way, we met, we actually met each other, and that morning when I looked at him and said to her that he was so cute, he blushed. I remember in the moment feeling horrified that he had blushed, that I had embarrassed him in some way, but when I thought about it, I realized that he never would have blushed if a girl had told him that he was cute. I believe what happened was that he had spent his life, like me, finding other guys cute, and because he is in the closet, he had never told any guy that he was interested in them, and he had never heard any guy say that they were interested in him, and I think the blush was because this was the first time that the circuit of desire had been completed, we met each other, and he was into me, and I returned that, that I was into him, and I think for the first time (maybe third time for me) he had met this guy. This is very rare — meeting someone, having a meeting between two people, an encounter — and it happened that morning under this terrible duress, because I was sick, and he was in the closet, and he was working. But I think that in the end it is this lovely thing that we actually met — fleetingly, violently — that we met each other. His 141 (and possibly the intimidation pose) was simply confirmation to me that he is gay. He came out to me, it's such a lovely thing, I feel special in this way, and I am sorry that I wasn't able to return to him some kind of msg — I did send the book, and I meant the inscription, "it has been real, love Michael" — it has been real, it was a total encounter, between two people who met, and, for no reason, I loved him. But I also think that there is a way in which he loved me, which is fine, and he felt comfortable coming out to me, which was this very difficult thing for him to do, because of his situation, which is very bad, and which he is suffering, and I really never had the proper chance to respond.

If anything, reader, I want you to consider that it is still — in 2017 — very difficult to be gay. And I think that he is having a terrible time, and I feel that I was unable to help him out, in any way, to be present, as another gay guy, while he suffered and enjoyed being gay. This is really too bad, and while I don't feel ashamed of myself for it — though I do feel ashamed of my behavior in the store that morning — I actually feel a little guilt, which is something I never feel, because I think that I ultimately let him down, not because I lacked the talent to fulfill his desire, what he wanted, but because I botched it, I fucked it up, and I met him, he met me, and then it was lost, basically because I didn't understand him, and to reiterate what I said earlier, because I have a hard time understanding his situation, Worcester, which is basically this terrible situation for him.

***

update about dan: dan is now in the hospital, it was a terrible struggle getting him there, but I think this is a good development; he will probably be in the hospital for 2 weeks, which is not a big deal, and then he can go back to France with the meds when he gets out. We will not be living together, but this is unrelated to our both being manic depressive; there are some other issues there, and we're best to live separately, I will find my own place, which is fine.

I think that Patrick was also frightened by my display of mental illness, and I think he thought that he didn't want to get involved with that. I totally understand that, but I think what people (and him) miss in their prejudice (which is fine) against mental illness is that people (he) might have reaped some unexpected joys helping me while I was sick, and it would be hard for him to imagine this, outside, not having any experience with it. Basically, the main thing you have to know about Patrick is that he works really hard, this is the main thing that I liked about him, it is this wonderful quality that he has, and it is incredibly sexy. Also, I want to point out, that we are both phds, one in humanities and one in science, and this, undeniably, would have been a good match.

I think this is basically what happened: He noticed that I was gay, and I think he thought I seemed like a nice person, and I think he thought that I would be a good person to talk to about how hard a time he was having being gay. I think he might have also been sexually interested in me, which is fine, but I think this was very secondary, and I think it was secondary because he was having a terrible time and this was the primary problem. Then I gave him this other thing that he did not want, and it scared him. The reason I gave him this other thing is that I completely missed what he actually wanted. I missed this because he is this totally different type in a completely different situation that I had never encountered before. Then when I gave him this other thing, which he did not want, and what I gave him was this kind of like unintelligible sexual mania, then he recoiled, and then he told himself this story about me, that I had been the wrong person to help him out with the situation. But the thing is: he never told me what he wanted, so I had no idea. Then I spent 2 years basically confused, because he did not make clear what he wanted. I would have been happy to give him what he wanted, I would be good at that, I could have made him feel better about being gay, and been a good gay friend to him, but I didn’t understand that that is what he wanted. Now, I think that there is another reason that I didn’t get his message initially, and that is that a gay guy hanging out with another gay guy talking about being gay is not actually the kind of relationship that gay people pursue in this culture. I don’t know why that is. I think this is a very important question. He would more likely talk to some girl about being gay — what is referred to sometimes as a “fag hag” — and that girl, the girl, would be that person. But I think because surely she was in love with him, he either wasn’t able to talk to her about it, or she wasn’t helpful. I also think that because I presented sexuality as this playful, funny thing that morning, that was all wrong for him, because, for him, being gay is this terribly traumatic thing, it is this deadly serious thing, and it is not funny at all for him, he is suffering his situation. There is now nothing that I can do, and I won’t do anything. I think it abides as a mystery that I presented this manic sexuality to him that morning, because that is not at all what my interest actually was. I think this can be explained by my being sick, I think that is basically what happened, and then what I said in the store that morning really had nothing to do with how I felt, and it was not related to what he wanted or what I even might be able to give him. Also, there is a window in our culture for coming out. After a certain point — I would put it at age 22 — after a certain point, it really is impossible to come out. I think that this window is closing for him, and I think he knows that, and this is a major problem. I have completely let him down and now it will have this potentially profound consequence for him. Peter said that there are a thousand guys that could be his gay friend, and talk to him about being gay, but I think it is important to note that he actually chose me, not for any particular reason, not for any reason that he would know, but I somehow got nominated for that, I think probably because I looked like an intellectual, and I probably looked like a nice guy, and I am a nice guy, and he thought he could talk to me. This is all true, but I missed the message. I am not sure why that happened, except that he is a totally different type and I have a hard time conceiving of his situation. Anyway, I have let him down terribly, which is fine, and not really my fault, but his situation is really bad, which is fine, but I was the right person to perform this function he needed, and I would have been good at it, but I missed the message, and he also never really said what he wanted. I realize that it is all now completely too late. And I hope that he will be able to find someone to talk to. But I actually feel that he won’t, that his experience with me is such that he will not give it a shot again, and that his experience with me has sort of shut that down for him, which is very bad. Obviously I would want to prove to him that I actually would be a good gay friend — that I could help him feel good about being gay, more comfortable — but it is now too late for me to do that. I suspect that he is locked into his situation, I failed him, and now I have lost him, and he is completely stuck. There is nothing I can really do about this now. Dan told me that he believes he was molested by his grandfather; he now says that for a long time he has felt that he could molest boys, that he knows that this is wrong, and would never do it, but that this pedophilia on his part is connected to his homonegative views which are getting in the way of his situation. There is nothing I can really do about this, and there is very little that I can say here. Talking about the Patrick situation is very difficult because he is special to me in a way that no third party would really be able to understand. It is received in the abstract, then related to one’s own experience, like Peter’s experience, or Lisa’s experience, and then they get it all wrong because this feeling that I have for him is not the kind of feeling that I can properly express, and so it appears like I am talking about this regular person, that I have regular feelings for, which is not true. The basic problem is that I can’t actually present to them who this person is that I am talking about. This is not because I don’t know him, I totally know him, but how I feel about him, knowing him, is not something that I can say very easily.

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