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Melancholy  [message #39969] Sat, 16 December 2006 16:51 Go to next message
Deeej is currently offline  Deeej

Needs to get a life!
Location: Berkshire, UK
Registered: March 2005
Messages: 3281



This is the sort of post that historically I would have typed into a journal (not that I actually write a journal, but it would have been a word-processor document that served the same purpose, and, afterwards, I would either have deleted it or saved it somewhere on my hard disc, never to be read again). But I thought I'd post it here, because it's -- well, there's no reason really. To be honest, it's selfish of me. I suppose my only real question is whether this happens to everyone from time to time. I expect I'll pass out of this state soon enough and then I'll be able to rationalise away the rest of my worries.

Every so often I find myself in a sort of melancholic state in which I think about the things I've had in the past, those I've lost, and those that I'm likely to be able to achieve in the future. That is how I'm feeling at the moment. Almost invariably, when I feel this way, I feel like I don't have as much now as I did then -- though, quantifiably speaking, I still have my family, old friends, my health, my (relative) youth, etc. Oddly enough it's not really unpleasant. It would be if it went on for ever (like depression), but, provided it doesn't last longer than a couple of hours, it generates a strangely reflective and self-aware feeling. Perhaps even, to use a word I don't identify with most of the time, a "spiritual" one.

I think it has been brought on by the fact that it's the end of term and most people have gone home. I haven't quite gone home yet (I will do today or tomorrow) and thus it's a bit lonely. There's a strong sense of time passing, for it seems only a couple of weeks ago that term started. Today it's also motivated by the fact that I got out of bed at lunchtime; if I sleep in late I dream a lot, and today the dreams were particularly vivid. Most of my dreams are sufficiently rooted in reality that I can tell which elements came from where, so remembering them afterwards makes me feel rather nostalgic. Childhood, school, a sort of youthful exuberance that doesn't actually seem to work in the adult world (the feeling that magic could actually exist, that God could exist -- these feelings are only possible for me in film, literature and dreams nowadays).

Oh, and my sexuality. I have to resign myself to the thought that, unless I'm very lucky, it's unlikely that I will ever have a long-term relationship with someone I find especially physically attractive (either male or female). Of course love goes far beyond that, but so far I have only really experienced lust, never love -- what if I never do experience love?

It's also almost dark outside, which, considering I've only been awake three hours, is sort of depressing. It must have started getting dark about the point I woke up.

Finally, I'm listening to random pop (love/sad) songs on my computer. Why do so many pop songwriters rely principally on minor chords? Because it's the easiest way of evoking a mood, I suppose, and it's simpler to write in a minor key. I'm inclined to do the same myself if I'm at a piano and feeling like this. But it's still somewhat lazy. I haven't tried to find something better because, in an odd sort of way, they feel appropriate.

David

[Updated on: Sat, 16 December 2006 16:57]

Re: Melancholy  [message #39970 is a reply to message #39969] Sat, 16 December 2006 17:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Deeej is currently offline  Deeej

Needs to get a life!
Location: Berkshire, UK
Registered: March 2005
Messages: 3281



The feeling's mostly passed now. You are welcome to ignore the parent post if you wish.

Best wishes,

David
Re: Melancholy  [message #39971 is a reply to message #39969] Sat, 16 December 2006 20:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Nigel is currently offline  Nigel

On fire!
Location: England
Registered: November 2003
Messages: 1756



Just a couple of comments. I wouldn't describe being introspective as selfish. Selfish has the pejorative implication of excluding others. There are times when you must take care of your inner self.

This time of year when we not only lack sunlight, but what we see of the sun is so weak, we naturally want to sleep more. That's what the dark hours are for.

It is also natural that we want to cling on to the certainties of our earlier life. Younger people of course have fewer certainties to choose from.

Hugs
Nigel



I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.

…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
Re: Melancholy  [message #39972 is a reply to message #39969] Sat, 16 December 2006 21:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I think this is a perfectly good place to show that we are human. You have done that.


Deeej wrote:
> Oh, and my sexuality. I have to resign myself to the thought that, unless I'm very lucky, it's unlikely that I will ever have a long-term relationship with someone I find especially physically attractive (either male or female). Of course love goes far beyond that, but so far I have only really experienced lust, never love -- what if I never do experience love?

You know, that is not true. "I have to resign myself to the thought that....". No. When you wrote this, that is the point you felt resigned. But it is not true

"...what if I never do experience love?" To experience it we have to be open to it. Generally, but with many exceptions, love is "lust plus strong 'like'". Which happens first? No idea. But, if we are receptive, then it happens, and happens again, and again. Physical attractiveness tends to be present because lust usually is for the form we find attractuve.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Melancholy  [message #39973 is a reply to message #39969] Sat, 16 December 2006 21:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
electroken is currently offline  electroken

Likes it here
Location: USA
Registered: May 2004
Messages: 271




Hey David your writing here struck a cord with me too. I am a fairly rational and logical person (even though I still believe in God I suppose) but I get those melancholic feelings and I also realize I am what would be termed "A hopeless romantic". I also feel like I have never loved anyone and all it has ever been is lust for a boy at times.

There is this feeling that love of me by anyone else would be undeserved and I get this strong feeling of rejection from almost the slightest thing. I had talked to this young man about renting a room from me and had him come by to look at it so he could see the state of affairs here. I have a really cluttered house and I wanted him to be able to see what things were like before he agreed to live here. He said it was going to be fine and that he would move in a few days later on thursday. When thursday arrived and I hadn't heard from him, I called him. He then told me he had gotten another room instead. I tried to get him to tell me for what reason he was turning my room down and taking the other, but he cut me off and ended the call. I was feeling very rejected over this and it is not really logical as it could have been a number of other reasons for his choice, but in my mind it was because he had a negative feeling about being around me.

I will get over it, but it is not an easy feeling to rid one's self of at times. So I can understand how you feel David. Well, I just wanted to tell you that you were certainly not alone..............many of us have the same feelings more often than we would admit.



Ken
Lust vs. like  [message #39974 is a reply to message #39972] Sun, 17 December 2006 00:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Deeej is currently offline  Deeej

Needs to get a life!
Location: Berkshire, UK
Registered: March 2005
Messages: 3281



Timmy said,
>You know, that is not true. "I have to resign myself to the thought that....". No. When you wrote this, that is the point you felt resigned. But it is not true

Well... looking back at it now (now I'm feeling normal again), it was a bit of an exaggeration. But there is a certain element of truth to it. People are less attractive as they get older; the age gap between me and those I find most attractive is greater than it used to be. Five years ago the difference was negligible -- the person I found most attractive was about nine months younger than me. Nowadays I have no particular interest in pursuing people of that age (i.e. 16 or 17), because, with the occasional exception, we wouldn't have that much in common intellectually. But I do continue to find teenagers attractive.

I know I've said this sort of thing before. It's a symptom of my tendency towards over-rationalisation: it doesn't necessarily help. I don't think I am the only person to whom it applies here or anywhere else, but I am very aware of the problem at the moment, as I'll be leaving university soon, and then I will drop out of the category of "student" and into "young working adult". While it's possibly not as great a step as that from "schoolboy" to "university student" it does seem a significant one. No wonder so many of my friends are considering postgraduate study...

>"...what if I never do experience love?" To experience it we have to be open to it.

I am open to it as far as I am able. I think that my personal situation doesn't help (I have not really enjoyed the LGB society at university, and I'm naturally a bit of a loner, partly but not entirely through choice). I have to say I am not really open to love with someone who is significantly older, because... well, the "lust" isn't there at all.

>Generally, but with many exceptions, love is "lust plus strong 'like'". Which happens first? No idea. But, if we are receptive, then it happens, and happens again, and again.

The friend who came out to me a few days ago is a case of strong "like" with a slight element of attraction, but I don't think I would call it "lust". It sounds a bit pathetic if I put it into so many words, but I would like to be able to experience lust first-hand as part of a relationship; there is plenty of time for "like" over the next few decades. Age (and even gender) is not a barrier to love through like -- look at the number of people here who have had a long-term straight relationship with a woman on the basis that they got on well.

>Physical attractiveness tends to be present because lust usually is for the form we find attractuve.

In my case the physical form and mental form differ by a few years. This presents a problem. Not an insurmountable problem: if I am lucky, I will meet someone in his early twenties (or even late teens) whom I also find extremely attractive on both a physical and intellectual level. But I haven't so far. Well -- not an attainable person, anyway.

David
Re: Lust vs. like  [message #39975 is a reply to message #39974] Sun, 17 December 2006 01:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



Deeej, lust doesn't have to come first! It's perfectly possible to get to know someone on a "like" basis, and for that to gradually develop into love including an very high level of physical lust. So if you meet a guy who fits your age and intelligence, who you like, do follow it through and see where it leads.

Conversely, instant lust may not always be a good foundation for a loving relationship. Maybe it's just me (as a result of personal history), but the guys I instantly lust after are nearly always unobtainable (straight, shallow, whatever) and so are "safe": I'm pretty sure that it's a self-protection thing to prevent me getting badly hurt by letting my gonads over-rule the rest of me~!

As regards moving on from Uni, yes, it's a scary change in life circumstances. But you have support from all of us here if you need it, and it may offer you a chance to get to know different circles of people. Actually, the commonest place for people to meet their life partners is "through work", so here's hoping that it works that way for you.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Lust vs. like  [message #39987 is a reply to message #39975] Sun, 17 December 2006 15:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Deeej is currently offline  Deeej

Needs to get a life!
Location: Berkshire, UK
Registered: March 2005
Messages: 3281



Hi NW,

Thanks for your comments.

>It's perfectly possible to get to know someone on a "like" basis, and for that to gradually develop into love including an very high level of physical lust. So if you meet a guy who fits your age and intelligence, who you like, do follow it through and see where it leads.

If that's true, it reassures me a good deal. I have never killed off a platonic friendship on the basis that the person is not attractive to me, or even excluded them from the possibility of a relationship some day, in the unlikely event that they should turn out to be gay and find me attractive -- but I have sometimes wondered, "Would I find them attractive enough?". (I have quite a few times gone the other way, though: killed off a potential friendship or even relationship with someone I find shallow and boring, even if I lust after them. I think, or hope, that that is common practice, however.)

Worrying doesn't really seem to be getting me anywhere. Instead I should find a better way of meeting potential partners, if one exists. This place is not designed for so doing, I find the LGB society almost intolerably awkward, I'm not impressed by the intellectual credentials of most people one meets on gay dating sites, clubbing frightens the life out of me, my small talk is very poor, and I have so many hang-ups I could use them to support an entire wardrobe.

>Conversely, instant lust may not always be a good foundation for a loving relationship. Maybe it's just me (as a result of personal history), but the guys I instantly lust after are nearly always unobtainable (straight, shallow, whatever)

The same applies to me. In my case, age often makes that a person unobtainable or at least inappropriate as well.

>As regards moving on from Uni, yes, it's a scary change in life circumstances. But you have support from all of us here if you need it, and it may offer you a chance to get to know different circles of people. Actually, the commonest place for people to meet their life partners is "through work", so here's hoping that it works that way for you.

I have certainly met some very good-looking crew members in the film industry. Hopefully sooner or later I'll be able to find one who has similar or complementary interests, and who will actually turn out to be gay...

David
Friendship with benefits  [message #39989 is a reply to message #39987] Mon, 18 December 2006 00:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Friendship can easily extend into smething between friendship and partnership. I wonder if "Friendship with benefits" is a heterosexual phenomenon as well? It is by no means unusual for two guys to enjoy a sound friendship which includes enjoying intimate encounters as well as sociable encounters. Often there is nothing romantic in these at all, just the pure joy of uncomplicated and mutually satisfying sexual exploration



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #39991 is a reply to message #39989] Mon, 18 December 2006 00:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



I was partly thinking of my experience of this kind of thing when I replied to David.

I know several guys who find this a good solution, but I've never managed to make it work for me ... after about the third time I'm incapable of preventing myself falling in love, and also in lust!



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Lust vs. like  [message #39992 is a reply to message #39987] Mon, 18 December 2006 01:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



David, just one point I'd lie to pick up on here. You said ", my small talk is very poor,", and I'm sure it feels like that from the inside, but actually I think your social skills are much better than you give yourself credit for (it's true for most people, incidentally).

None of us can get outside ourselves enough to see how we strike other people. One of the most interesting experiences I've ever had was a two-day workshop, at the end of which we all said what things we'd found most positive and rewarding about our fellow participants. I found, and the one very good friend that I made on the course also found, that the things that others saw in us were often things that we regarded ourselves as rather poor at.

The course, incidentally, was by PACE, free to London residents, entitled "Friend or Foe" and is about improving the ways we as gay men relate to ourselves. Thoroughly recommended to anyone in London, participant age range on the course I went on was 22-54. It runs two or three times a year.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40001 is a reply to message #39991] Mon, 18 December 2006 23:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tBP is currently offline  tBP

Likes it here
Location: England
Registered: February 2004
Messages: 242




Friends with Benefits as we at uni call it, does indeed exist within the straight world too... one of my flat mates, having been exasperated by the latest in a long line of disasterous boyfriends has fallen back on this option...

a relationship based on friendship minus the need for commitment and all the other issues of actually going out with someone. a close friendship tht carries on into the bedroom. it works for some i guess, and i can see its attraction, though its not for me personally.



Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40002 is a reply to message #40001] Mon, 18 December 2006 23:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Deeej is currently offline  Deeej

Needs to get a life!
Location: Berkshire, UK
Registered: March 2005
Messages: 3281



'Friendship with benefits' is an interesting idea, but not (I suspect -- though I can't really say without trying it) something that appeals to me very much. The reason I worry so much that I won't be able to fall in love is that I would very, very much like to; and preferably with someone who is willing to reciprocate. (I'd also, as I mentioned in my first post, like to fall in lust with that person, to have a chance to see what it's like. I've fallen in something approaching it before, but almost invariably with straight people, and while I was still closeted, and that's very frustrating, as I'm sure everyone round here is aware.)

My parents have a very strong bond. It would be fantastic to have a long-term relationship like theirs -- it doesn't matter if it's with a man or a woman (the probability is rather higher that it would be with a man; but it would certainly make things easier if it were with a woman -- from the point of view of conventionality, parental pride, having children, etc.). It would be great to find the right person while I'm still in my twenties and be able to spend the next fifty or sixty years together.

David

[Updated on: Mon, 18 December 2006 23:42]

Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40006 is a reply to message #40002] Tue, 19 December 2006 01:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Brian1407a is currently offline  Brian1407a

On fire!
Location: USA
Registered: December 2005
Messages: 1104



Deeej, there is someone somewhere who is going to fall in love with you and you fall in love with him. It just hasnt happened yet. You are very good looking and someone is going to notice.



I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........

Affirmation........Savage Garden
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40017 is a reply to message #40002] Tue, 19 December 2006 07:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



One is always "able to fall in love" unless one is substantially autistic, in which case it probably does not matter, nor is it a matter that one so afflicted would consider of importance. So you will be able to. And you are already able to fall in lust.

The issue is exposing yourself to the opportunities that come close to you and also causing more opportunities to come you way.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40024 is a reply to message #40017] Tue, 19 December 2006 07:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
marc is currently offline  marc

Needs to get a life!

Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729



Be careful if you go about exposing yourself....

You never know who just bought a mouse trap....



Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40026 is a reply to message #40024] Tue, 19 December 2006 08:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



At last! The true origin of circumcision!



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Friendship with benefits  [message #40027 is a reply to message #40026] Tue, 19 December 2006 08:42 Go to previous message
Aussie is currently offline  Aussie

Really getting into it

Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475



Aaarggghhhh!!!Ouch!!!

Aussie
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