Awkward Stare Situation

Last night I was walking home from class and I heard some distinctively homosexual male voices. They were walking kind of close behind me (in New York it is somewhat normal to walk close to people on the street) but I got the sense that they were talking loudly for my benefit. I kept walking and looking forward like I wasn’t listening in their conversation, but I secretly was. They weren’t saying anything important, I just felt like they were “queening” to see if I was gay or not? I don’t know.

So the two voices start walking right beside me and I see that they are both attractive, but one of them is really attractive and they both want to make eye contact with me, but I just keep looking forward because, one guy is enough to make my heart race, but two!?!? So they eventually see someone that they know up ahead and they run towards them and all the while I’m thinking “why were they looking at me, what is going on…” and then I look at one of them from the corner of my eye and he’s cuter than I thought. So I kept making eye contact with him and it was really intense. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to talk to him, but he was with his friends and I felt kind of awkward because both he and his buddy were checking me out.

So I just started walking fast and eventually turned a corner and got myself out of that situation. I probably would have talked to him, but the situation was kind of awkward for me, and oh yeah, and I’m Mormon, not to mention married.

I Should Be A Whore By Now

Lately, I’ve been perfectly ok until I see a hot guy. Once I see someone who is attractive to me I automatically start feeling sexual. I guess that means I’m gay…but what I’m trying to piece together is why it doesn’t go anywhere beyond that. Because of where I live, I get looked at and “cruised” and picked-up on all the time by guys that are pretty cute, and sometimes, really cute. And yet it never goes further than that. The looking, the staring, and it doesn’t work out. I keep telling myself that if the opportunity presented itself where I could make-out with a hot guy and/or have that guy touching me that I would follow through.

All this makes me believe that prayers of my forefathers are working. I am at the whim of my attraction. I’ll look, I’ll stare back, and I’ll even be the one to make the first move, but nothing has panned out, and I think it’s because the Lord is protecting me from a sexual encounter with a guy. It’s just not in the cards for me right now. Even when I feel like I’m getting closer to a sexual encounter with a guy that I think is hot, I just don’t feel attracted, or I’m uninterested. I’m not saying I don’t have my free agency, I’m just saying that the Lord is doing a lot in order for me not to follow through with my homosexual desires.

I should be a whore by now, but maybe it’s just not in my horizon. In a way I’m thankful. Who needs gay sex when you’ve got a blog to write!

A Schizophrenic Wheelchair Bound Mute

Most of us have all been there. Sitting with a friend or wife/fiancé and feeling the anxiety of coming clean and telling the deepest darkest secret of homosexual attraction. And of course there sometimes are tears, a cathartic release of emotion, laughing, shaking, all of the above. And if that person is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints then most likely they’ve said something to the effect of: “we all have our challenges, and we all have our individual handicaps.” I may not be in those words exactly, but most everyone who is gay has heard that sound byte before; comparable to schizophrenia, to alcoholism and even a wheelchair, homosexuality as a handicap.

The interesting thing about someone who is not gay bringing up this type of information is that I’ve felt that myself. I’ve sat in the dark before, contemplating my existence as a gay man, my existence as a gay missionary, gay husband ect… and sometimes the “handicap awareness voice” comes from within and tells me that homosexuality is my wheelchair, being gay is my psychological illness, and that being gay is just my very own version being addicted to alcohol.

Isn’t the universe funny? I mean, here I am a nice, smart, attractive and very obedient Mormon boy who until early adolescents, realizes that he is like unto a paraplegic. “Only bad people get addicted to cocaine!” And in the meantime I’m the one who’s addicted to looking at naked guys kissing each other…karma’s a bitch.

But seriously, I have felt that offense, and I have noticed how it makes me feel when others try to tell me that I’m like the cripple who is destined to live his life with others looking at him in pity, and being unable to do normal things like have kids and get married. And then there is the exception to the rule, like the Down syndrome couple that find each other and people look at them like they are freaks, but cute freaks nonetheless.

Is that my life? Am I really a schizophrenic wheelchair bound mute who is destined to live his life in such dreadful circumstances? And can we even compare alcoholism to homosexuality? I mean people don’t call young alcoholic boys derogatory names like “faggot” and “cock sucker.”

Maybe there’s no way to compare because it is what it is, and it’s very different from anything else that’s out there. Maybe that’s why people are so quick to compartmentalize and place being gay in the box with the schizophrenics…it’s just the only thing that people can do to understand it if they aren’t living it themselves.

As for me, I’m ok if you want to call me handicapped because I call myself that sometimes. I recognize that my attraction is debilitating, whether I like it or not. I wish that I could be “normal” like other guys and feel completely aroused by a woman, I wish that I could walk into a locker room and not have to tell myself to stop staring at other guys dicks. I want to be able to be free from worrying about my worthiness, and if I’m a bad person because I want to get it on (naked and hard) with Jake Gyllenhaal. And if along with that handicap comes a caring and empathic individual who dresses well and knows a lot of musical theater songs, so be it…but it’s not easy.

Feelin' Good

I’m 28, soon to be 29 years old. I’ve never really had regrets, only just a lot of questions. I’m getting to the point where I’m looking back at my life, and certain parts start to appear farther and farther away. Soon I’ll be older than I originally planed, and I’ll still be asking myself the same questions.

It sometimes gets exhausting to keep feeling like I have to be exploring my emotions, and intentions all of the time. People generally live to be around 80 years old. And if you ask me, that’s long enough. Some people want to live forever, but I think at some point all of us yearn for this life experience to be over. No matter what position you’re in, no matter what you’re doing, there’s always a piece of myself that feels like it can’t wait to end this struggle of earthly survival. The choices I make, and the intuition I hold are very useful to me as I strive to grow spiritually, but being gay and constantly wondering if the universe is really ok with the same-sex relationship is just beyond me.

I know that Heavenly Father loves me, I know that I am a child of God and that there really truly is a Heavenly Family that I am apart of, but I don’t know that my desires for men are wrong, I don’t know if being attracted to a man is merely just a struggle/temptation, or an actual tool that I should be using on my path to spiritual development.

I long for the day when I don’t have to worry about it.

Things are getting better with me. I’m feeling less and less tied to masturbation and pornography. I’ve been able to cut it out. I still have desires for it every now and again, but I’m not tied to it. It’s a good feeling to regain that power that I once lost to the addiction of staring at naked men. Gay sex is addicting. It’s more than just an attraction, it’s like an unquenchable thirst that continually gnaws at m like it will never be satisfied. I feel like since I’ve stopped looking at porn and have subsequently stopped masturbating, that I’ve been able to feel more in control, and to feel more at peace with myself.