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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I am finding the answer to this question less obvious as I think about it.
I've been considering a theoretical situation. As you read it, please place yourself in the first person singular and tell us what your thoughts are. The question hinges around a meeting and an attraction. I may not describe it as well as I hope. Bear with me!
BEGINS
I am in a room full of people. Across the room I see a face. I am attracted to faces first and foremost. The face is of a beautiful boy (please choose the age group you wish your experience to be with), we are the same age. His eyes flash and catch mine. He's shy and looks away, but keeps looking back. Me too. If I knew him I'd say I was in love. In reality I am so attracted to him that it hurts. He is gay, that is a given. I want to get to know him, and, with luck, far more. I walk over to him and we start to talk.
ENDS
So there is the scene. But what do I want to do with him? Or do I want to do it to him? Or do I want him to take control of the agenda? That's the part I've never understood. I desperately want something, but what?
The reason I'm asking this is to find out if I am alone in not knowing what on earth I want to happen next.
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
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I think we're all different on this one!
For me, it is simply being with him, doing whatever makes him happy (his joy is infectious!).
That can be sex. Or exploring disused industrial workings. Or listening to him practice a particularly difficult instrumental piece. Or whatever. In my personal life I've always been a follower, not a leader (a complete contrast to my professional life, and my public personna even as a schoolboy). In my case, the "something" I want(ed) was a soul-mate - how that expressed itself was and is somewhat immaterial.
It may be be different for you. Perhaps you want someone not exactly to take control, but to give you the confidence to go places (mental and sexual) you haven't been before? As the "initiator" - but with no fear of rejection?
"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
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To me it would be about commonality, certainly the physical attraction is there on my part. From there on it is all about equity then a melding together almost on a metaphysical plain. As has so often been said the physical stuff is just icing but that's now after years of experience. I wish I had known then what I know now!
So when it's happened in the best of ways it has just flowed!
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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I think you've already done it. What you want is to be with him. From across the room, you and he were feeling desperation as well as hope. When you walked over and started talking, the desperation may have given way to awkwardness and confusion, but awkwardness and confusion beat desperation every time.
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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Be together. Share our dreams, opinions, attitudes. Get to know each other. Whether something more develops, time will tell... Share our love in lovemaking.
Love is not about 2 people staring at each other but about 2 people looking together to the face of future...
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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I think you nailed it on the head, Brit. Just connecting, and knowing that he has feelings for you. I would be walking on the clouds from that point forward.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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Before reading other answers I thought I'd consult my own desires.
There's an old song that I think has it right - "Getting to know you."
I want to get to know him. To find out his likes and desires and family and past and abilities and skills and talents and weaknesses and what he is like naked and where are his inhibitions and how to please him.
Curiosity is closely linked to desire in my mind, I think.
Love,
Anthony
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:45] |
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I'm not sure that I should be writing this and in a way I do hope that one or more of the posters here will be able to shoot me down, as it were.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of gay relationships. There is one kind of relationship which is pure love. By that I mean that each partner experiences a strong and lasting emotional attraction to the personality of the other. In such a case the physical appearance of the other partner is either unimportant or not very important. The other is loved for being him, pure and simple.
But there is another kind of attraction which is very physical. We are attracted to the physical appearance of the other and want to enjoy their body - at the very least in a visual way. That visual pleasure may invoke a physical sexual relationship, but what triggered it was not the personality of the other but his appearance. In many cases there is a fixation on a certain age group, a certain type of physique, a certain colour of the hair and so forth. By 'fixation' I mean that we look for and find pleasure in seeing that kind of person more than any other and, in some cases, to the exclusion of any other.
I do not know whether both types of attraction that I have described can exist simultaneously in one person or whether one type can gradually develop into the other type. It may be that we are either of one type or the other.
Please confirm or deny my thesis.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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From personal experience, I think both can coexist.
When I was 13 I fell head over heels in something with John. Not sure precisely what I fell in, it may have been love or lust at this distance. It was decades ago.
I think it was love, romantic love, love that could be fulfilled by just being with him, hearing his voice, seeing his face. But I also needed to touch him, to connect with him.
Lust arrived pretty much at the same time as the love. I wanted his body as well as his soul.
I look for and at people who look like he did. My head turns for a shock of bond hair, or rosy cheeks. My loins twitch more for his facial type than for any other.
Does that help?
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
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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I agree with you. There are these 2 types that are boarders between which we balance. I believe in developping one type into another or rather simultaneous existence of the types. The truth is, that most people (gay, bi, straight...) who have a lasting relationship usually truly love (or really like) their partners, what, however, does not prevent them from looking at another objects of their interest. Most of the population is monogamous (promiscuity is rather rare), but psychologists claim that this should be called successive monogamy - one have their partner, then falls in love with another, splits up with the first and starts a relationship with another. Being in a loveful relationship does not mean that you don't take a look at a cute face, legs, bum (whatever attracts you), but usually the idea of leaving your partner doesn't even cross your mind. Is that right???
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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Timmy, what you have described sounds something like the 'fixation' type that I described. Could you love a man who is physically very different from John? Are you looking for what John was?
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I could. The woman I also love is entirely different from John. For me love requires either physical or emotional attraction first, and I cannot separate sex from love that easily where it is romantic, not paternal nor fraternal love we speak of.
The shocks of blond hair are not his hairstyle, they are a different type entirely.
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
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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Mz first glance is aimed at face. There are so many beautiful types of faces, that I like many young guys... Next step (if it happens) is getting to know him (likes, dislikes, opinions, leisure time activities etc.). This is the state when I faal in love.
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Ah yes. Always the face. Though one can also fall in love in an online relationship where one attributes a face of sorts to a personality.
I fall in "something" with the face. I think with a desire to be close to, to look at, to make eye contact with.
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
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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Even when I'm behind someone who looks fine, I try to see the face, I need to see the shape, then eyes (oh, those eyes, they tell so much) and I love smiles (who doesn't?). Like you, Timmy, I really fancied blond, but now I find myself liking guys who are blond, brown, black/haired (like it's not that important anymore...). Tastes change...
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I still predominantly favour blond, but more out of habit than anything else. Pavlovian reaction to blond hair.
For example we have a paper boy with a shock of blond hair. He is not particularly good looking, but his hair makes my head turn. He does have cheeky eyes, though.
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
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Yes, Marek,
and a nice smile invites me to make conversation and begin getting to know someone.
I was thinking this morning, when a young man smiled at me (he was waiting outside the barber's for the man to arrive and open the shop our local barber is always late!), that it is surprising how rare it is to encounter someone in the street who gives you a frank smile as you approach.
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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The smile is geography dependent.
In Bracknell people stare fixedly ahead and avoid any form of eye contact. A smile or saying "good morning" or "hello" throws them off balance.
In Dartmouth, where we will move as soon as we are able, a smile is theorder of the day. And a conversation often starts, even with incomers and holidaymakers.
In Doha airport there was a squat and very wide lady in traditional Islamic dress, with face exposed. She was maybe mid 70s. I smiled to her and she smiled hugely to me. No language in common except body language. The sympathy of a fellow passenger for a fellow passenger!
In Sri Lanka everyone smiled except those in Nuwara Eliya, who seemed to be above that! A nod, or an "Ayubowan", both with a smile were expected and appreciated by all concerned.
When we had dogs we used to walk in the woods here and our sport was waiting until the oncoming folk drew level, when we said "Good Morning!" loudly to them and caused them great confusion. We had smiled all the time they approached, but they had not smiled back. Collapse of rude party in consternation and mumbled return of "good morning".
Every so often I get a returned smile in Bracknell. But it takes effort.
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
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Well, Timmy
Bristle is *almost* west country! So we are on the way to where people are less frenetic and driven and with that goes more smiling and polite behaviour. And, of course, I'm an incomer: I've only been here since 1991.
Love,
Anthony
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If Taunton and Reading are anything to go by, the further west you go, the friendlier people are. It's difficult even to drive past someone on the small country roads round here (I'm in Somerset this week) without a friendly nod and a wave back from them -- even if you don't know them from Adam.
On the other hand, in Reading, smile and wave to a random passer-by and you're more likely to end up in the A&E department of the local hospital with multiple stab wounds.
David
[Updated on: Fri, 29 August 2008 17:32] |
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