For me, it is the dead of night that causes my inner thoughts to rouse from their grave, running rampant gauntlets around my mind when all I feel like catching is a few precious z’s. Sleep and I share a tumultuous love-hate relationship, like that movie channel in your cable package that throws unknown garbage at you that you’ll never watch, but every so often, will surprise you with a forgotten favourite just when you’re about to give up hope. It doesn’t make the other crap any less crappy, but it assures that you’ll at least check it from time to time to see what’s on.

Delightfully, tonight’s feature presentation in my mental cinema, is all about me! Me, and the fact that the only man in my bed is the one on the moon – and how I’m perfectly okay with that.

I vehemently dispute the all-too-common notion that one must be in a relationship at all times in order to feel personally fulfilled. Obviously, different people seek out partnerships for a multitude of reasons – beside the obvious (love and devotion, companionship, security, recurrent sex, etc), the exact motivators and the sequence in which they are prioritized, are as varied as the individual in question. However, there are those who walk among us in blind belief that they, themselves, are improved by proxy through their partner. I disagree.

I believe the old adage to prove true, that one is unable to truly love another, until they are able to love themselves. How are you able to bring out the best in another, when you, yourself are not at yours? How are you equipped to instil hope in those around you, when you, yourself, are not hopeful? Is it reasonable or fair to expect somebody else to pick you up and put you back on your feet again? Is it truly someone else’s responsibility?

We all know those people who bounce from relationship to relationship like heart-shaped kangaroos, hopping from one sack to the next and thinking little to nothing of it. Some would argue that this is due to the fact that if they stop even for a moment to pause, realization would sink in that these people haven’t the sweetest clue as to who they are. It’s so easy to get caught in the trap of identifying oneself through those they are surrounded with, and before you know it, your own personal sense of self can be lost.

I do not identify myself as somebody who requires a relationship to function. There are no voids to fill or feelings of emptiness or inadequacy. Do I want a relationship? Of course. But I feel that to be the key point, here. My desire stems from a want – not a need.

Who doesn’t yearn for that special someone to share their life with? Your port in the storm, your shoulder to cry on, your best friend to laugh with. I’m looking for someone who improves my life by being present in it – not somebody who single-handedly comprises my life. I’m holding out for a person who understands me, not one who creates me. In my head, love has always taken the form of ‘partners in crime’, not puppet and puppeteer, and it saddens me in a way that some people out there are more than willing to settle for the latter, rather than exercise patience and abstain from grasping at whatever comes along.

The crickets’ courtship calls fall on my ears again, and for a fleeting moment, I feel the slightest twinge of loneliness. Just a carefully placed and orchestrated prick, as my inner acupuncturist reminds me that I am human, after all. As quickly as it arrived, the sensation leaves again, like a ghost passing through my chalk-coated room. It’s a full moon, after all.

This is the cue that I am adequately tired and ready to succumb to slumber. I close my eyes and dream of someone, out there somewhere in a moon-bathed room, listening to the cricket song and dreaming of me. When we cross paths, I’ll be more than a mere work in progress.

I’ll be ready. And it will be more than worth the wait.

One would think that keeping a firm grasp on what constitutes who you are would be a simple enough task. In actual fact, it’s a rather fleeting phenomenon, and if you pause for just a second to blink, it can slip out on you without leaving even the slightest trace as to where it went.

For me, my gravest error was allowing myself to be defined by those around me – particularly, by the men in my life. I believe that the last time that I truly felt as though I knew with any degree of certainty ‘who I was’, is back when I was all innocent and virginal like Christina Aguilera just before the video for ‘Dirrty’. Once I opened up and let the boys in, all hell broke loose and decorum still hasn’t fully been within my reach.

I feel as though I am not the only victim of this. It’s easy to have a sense of identity when you have no one but yourself to think about, but once you start loving somebody, and begin trying to piece together a future with said person, the equation grows exponentially complicated. No longer do you only have your own hopes, dreams, and plans to contend with, but also their compatibility with someone else’s to take into consideration. Perhaps I’ve just been unfortunate in the sense that I always find myself attracted to men who are unwilling to compromise to the same extent as I am – which has led me to tumultuous territory that usually ends with me out in the cold, with nothing to show for my intentions but a handful of unanswered questions. Such has been love, as I know it.

Yet, despite my countless instances of this exact same mistake, I still am unable to rectify my predisposition to it happening again. By no means am I an idiot, in fact I consider myself an intelligent being. But for whatever reason, time after time, my heart overrules my head regardless of the warning signs, and the whole gamut runs full circle.

It’s amazing, how unadulterated attempts at making another happy, can actually make you quite sad. If you’re not careful, little pieces of you can get chipped away, like a sculpture of ice, until eventually, one wrong chink can cause an entire section to break away, and the carving is rendered unrecognisable. How is one supposed to keep control over who they are, when the entire design of a relationship is to intertwine oneself with that of another?

It’s been a while since I’ve truly known who I am, and the blame lies entirely on myself. In blind trust and misplaced faith, I’ve allowed the men in my life to alter the very face of my inner being, and for that, I am borderline shameful. I defend them and their actions more than I have ever taken up arms to defend myself, and that is, without doubt, the greatest wrong I have ever committed. I am working daily to try and coax the old me to return – I remember him being very strong-willed, devoted, passionate, and inspired, and somewhere along the way, I lost him. He returns once in a while, but only for an ephemeral moment, when all I want to do is convince him to stay.

Don’t make the same blunders as I have. Learn from my mistakes, in a way that, clearly, I cannot. Maybe over time I will understand the root causes of this problem enough to deflect them in future. But until then, I’ll try to recreate my former self in eager anticipation of that glorious day.

Protect yourselves. Trust me, you’ll miss you when you’re gone.

I’m not a believer in destiny, or that everything happens for a reason. I also don’t believe that whatever will be, will be – at least not without a lot of work. Leaving things to the hands of fate is something I’ve always felt will short-change you, and hand you back something sub-par, or below what it is you’re actually striving for. To me, my destiny has always been an ideal that I must labour toward and shape on my own, and the notion that things might wind up a certain way if simply let alone, is a virtue I’ve written off as a poor-man’s consolation and an excuse for inaction.

Strangely, of late, my non-belief has been shaken. If fate is a force to be reckoned with, these past couple of weeks it has beaten down my door and stands before me, rattling its sabres like a hoarde of lesbians at a bar who were just told there’s only one beer left.

This paradigm shift has not been the result of a singular incident – rather, it has been a series of events that, when pieced together, make the argument all the more convincing. When chopped up into episodes, the whole theory could be written off as coincidence, or even, irrelevant. But when part of the greater whole, it has inspired curiosity in one of the biggest skeptics to ever breathe long enough to denounce the dreamers.

I have met the most incredible man to ever debut on my radar. Or, perhaps, I should rephrase – the most incredible man to ever debut on my radar had been on my radar for months, but strangely, I had been ignoring the blip until recently. Handsome, funny, intelligent, thoughtful, warm-hearted, successful – he is a bona fide catch by anyone’s definition. That is, anyone, with the exception of his long-term boyfriend who, not long ago, cheated on and left him in the cruellest way imaginable. Without going into detail, the ex has inflicted an enormous amount of pain on the kindest soul I’ve yet to encounter, which makes me understandably furious. However, this aforementioned warm-hearted guy is, in fact, so warm-hearted, that he still hopes his ex will return to him in spite of the suffering he’s endured. To some, this would seem foolish and gullible. I find it insanely mature (not to mention, romantic).

I’ve been trying to help this guy put the pieces of his life back together into something resembling the happy life he once knew – the problem is that half of everything that once made him happy is now missing. Citing experiences from my past, and stories that you, my dear readers, have shared with me through your feedback, I have attempted to, if nothing else, give him some sort of context or perspective in moving forward. Yet somewhere between Coors Light and curry-in-a-hurry, I found myself transition from simply wanting to help him move forward, to wanting him to move on – with me.

It also happens to be the point where these crazy notions of ‘fate’ and ‘destiny’ and ‘meant to be’ crept their way into my head and onto the playing field. Upon our first actual conversation, I felt an inexplicably strong connection with this man whom I hardly knew – the attraction aspect was obvious, but it was the intellectual and interpersonal bond straight out the gate that caught me off guard. How was this possible? My attachment was instant, and suddenly I morphed from concerned acquaintance, to someone who was sharing coffee with the perfect man.

When I left my frigid island in the ocean, what was my motivation for selecting the city that I ultimately chose? It is a major centre – government town, lots of people and opportunities – and I’m sure there are several possible explanations for my decision. I have some family here, a great school for the program I ultimately aspire for, and spent many of my summer vacations in the city when I was a kid, resulting in a certain familiarity with the area. Truthfully, I knew that this was where I wanted to be, and desperately – but I had no concrete idea why.

How did I wind up with the job I have? It was a complete and total fluke that a friend from out of town had picked up a newspaper including information on a ‘gay restaurant’ here in the city, and that I had chosen that moment to submit a resume to the owners. Who, as it happened, had no vacancies at the restaurant, but also were the proprietors of a gay bar in another part of town – which did have an opening as of the day I submitted a resume. On Monday nights.

I needn’t inform you all that Mondays are hardly a lucrative shift for a bartender. However, I accepted the job, initially with the intention of possibly moving up to the busier nights once I had established myself there. Within a week, I had managed to secure a full-time gig at the restaurant, therefore eliminating my real ‘need’ for the Monday shift – but, for a reason I am unsure of, I held onto it, anyway.

The Catch is a member of a sports team within a gay league here in the city – who happen to come to my bar after their games. Guess which night of the week? Oh, right. Mondays.

Despite finding this guy attractive and charming from the very first time we met, why did I wait five months to say ‘fuck it’ and make my move? Which, through some stroke of luck, was mere weeks after his relationship’s shit hit the fan? Had I advanced prior to when I did, he wouldn’t have been single, and likely would have been rendered uncomfortable by my advance and probably backed away from me. Instead, he was deeply wounded and heading towards the bottom when I reached out – a situation to which I oblivious at the time.

The old me would have written the entire thing off to chance, and called it a day. But his nature, his words, his kindness and his perfect compatibility with me have left me no choice but to consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, all the events that lead up to this moment, weren’t random acts of nothing inspired by no one. Just maybe, this city and this bar and this time are exactly where I was supposed to be, to encounter this once-in-a-lifetime kind of person, just when his multi-year relationship came undone and he was made at least semi-free.

Cue the internal conflicts that accompany an incredible attraction to a mentally married man. He has told me in great depth of his strong desire to continue his previous relationship. While some would take that as a sign to hold back, to me, it’s honourable that he is unwilling to just give up on love like the rest of us would be under the same circumstances. I fully understand his need to at least try to see it through – because, regardless of the outcome, if they get back together, he gets what he wants and resumes with the familiar. If they don’t, it allows him to walk away with the knowledge that he did all he could to salvage the love they shared, only to find that there was nothing left worth saving.

He tells me of what he wants from his ex and from his relationship, seemingly without the knowledge that all of the things he hopes his old beau will become, are all things that I already am. While this idiot is willing to throw away years spent with an amazing and loving man in order to run around with other guys and fuck like a drunk frat girl on tequila, I am standing here, exhausted by guys who have no idea what they want, and so whole-heartedly ready for a committed relationship.

We fit together. Each time I see him, I become more in awe of his beautifully gentle and hopeful soul. I genuinely want him to be happy, under whatever circumstance. I have no doubt that his happiness with me would far surpass that of his prior relationship – however, who am I to say so? This is a discovery that he must make on his own, and in due time – when all avenues in the old town have been exhausted.

How much do I rationally invest in something that could be pulled out from underneath me at any time at all? How attached do I allow myself to get, to a man still partially attached to another? Who, for all I know, perhaps is unable to see me in such a light, no matter what the case may be. How do I know my limits, or when to pull away when the light is so bright that it’s impossible to look elsewhere? What do I do to persuade the hand of fate, to turn him ever so slightly in my direction?

A friend of mine reminded me recently that anything worth having is worth waiting for. Is this true? Should I let sleeping dogs lie, carry on about my business, and then, if we are meant to be together, it will just happen overnight? How do I approach the situation until then?

These are the feelings that have left me with no other choice but to turn to some form of higher power for guidance – fate, destiny. The notion of being ‘meant to be’. The magnitude of the situation is accentuated further by the fact that, in none of my prior romantic arrangements have I ever turned to these forces for assistance. For what reason am I suddenly a believer in ideals that, not long ago, I would have compressed and toss to the curb like recycled cardboard?

During his last visit to the bar, we had one of those conversations where you smile a lot and laugh and make prolonged eye-contact beyond what’s necessary. There’s a comfort between he and I unlike anything I’ve come across before. It’s uncanny and it’s frightening. I can feel my heart reaching out to him through my eyes, and I wonder if he can see it.

Another patron at the bar, who had been watching us for a couple of minutes, turned to us and said, in Spanish, ‘usted es una linda pareja’, and grinned. ‘Excuse me?’ I asked.

‘You are a cute couple’.

We looked at each other, and smiled, both with our mouths and our eyes. Despite our not-being-a-couple, the notion that, together, we would make a cute couple, was not news – to either of us.

Perhaps not a couple at this exact moment. But, if fate will have it, or if it’s written in the stars, we will be, one day.

To some, my repugnance of the joy of Christmas is beyond comprehension. For many, it is an eagerly anticipated time to spend with friends and family, to exchange gifts and get drunk and laugh and be thankful for all the ways in which the heavens have smiled upon them with good fortune. For others, Christmas is a harsh reminder of their shortcomings, and acts as a giant mirror to reflect back onto them all the things they wish they had or could have been.

For me, it is neither – but rather, is the one time annually where my normally buried weakness is subject to highly undesirable exposure. Ironic that the one week of the year that everybody is supposed to feel happy and loved, is the one week that I always feel most alone. And I get the distinct feeling that I’m not the only one.

Throughout the rest of the year, it’s easy to paint a picture different than what may lie underneath. You can submerge yourself in work, school, play – planning vacations or concert trips or casual sex – going to the gym, baking a cake or whatever the hell you want to fill your days with. However, when the snowflakes start to fall to the sleepy sound of Christmas carols, and the families gather ’round the fire and a cup of cheer, the absent aspects of your life become glaring obvious and impossible to ignore. Suddenly, that elephant you keep hidden in the closet all year round, comes barging on out, doused in gasoline and heads straight for the fire.

Suffice to say, I have never been in a relationship around Christmas or New Year’s Eve, this past holiday season excluded, even though by the time the season rolled around, it was pretty obvious that the road was coming to an end. I have yet to scream ‘Happy New Year’ and plant a kiss on the lips of somebody who makes me unconditionally happy. Someone who I could picture myself ringing in the next ten, twenty, thirty of more years with. There’s been nobody whom I would rather curl up in a blanket on the couch and hide from the snow with. There’s been no feeling of complete and total contentment with my love life and, by extension, with myself, around the holidays – and, as a change of pace from the rest of the year, these sentiments are able to be unwrapped without whacking first.

I think that Christmas will forever be the ultimate barometer for me and my relationships. There’s an old saying that sex is the gauge for what’s going on in a relationship, but let’s be realistic here – we have sex with strangers, so who are we to use sex as a judge of anything? No, for me, it’s the holiday season. if the weather outside is frightful, and yet you help make me feel less afraid – I think we could be onto something.

In a way, I guess I just find it a little backwards that the time of year when most people feel most complete and content, is the same span of time in which I feel the most incomplete and unremarkable. I keep busy otherwise, devoting my time to countless projects designed to not only entertain, but also to give myself amnesia when it comes to my loneliness, but when everyone around you is exploding with happiness out of every possible orifice, it becomes more than just a little difficult to casually brush it aside.

Perhaps, some day, I’ll develop the strength of character to successfully hide my feelings, even during Christmas. Or maybe, I’ll grow as a person to the point where I will no longer feel the inadequacies I presently undergo. Who knows, I could conceivably meet the perfect man for me with whom to pass the holidays in the bliss that the general populace and Hollywood have trained me to want for myself. But whatever the case may be, and under whatever circumstances, I just hope that the growth is positive, that I am stronger because of it, and for fuck’s sake, that there’s no mistletoe anywhere near this ho ho ho all fucking Christmas.

Ding, dong, merrily on high? A boy can only hope.

These days have been exciting times for me. My feet have planted in my new locale, and I’ve begun to dig in my roots and explore a little, on solid footing, for once. With my new city as my shiny new oyster, I basked in the bliss of being an unknown – flying under the radar, the mysterious stranger from a far off land. I could walk into a room full of other gay men, and nobody knew my story already. No one could rattle off a list of people I’d slept with, why me and my ex-boyfriend broke up, who had a crush on me, all of the things that plagued me at home no longer applied – I knew hardly anyone, and I had a clean slate, plain and simple.

Before long, I had stumbled across what all parties involved widely considered the ‘gay holy grail’. Tall, dark, handsome, funny, kind, talented in the kitchen (not to mention other rooms of the house, as well), and, simply put, everything you could ever want in a man, and more besides. I experienced one of those moments of insecurity that I’ve heard others talk of before – the ‘why me’ syndrome. By no means do I have any self-esteem issues, in fact I generally have it in excess, but once it became clear that this guy had taken an interest in me, it seemed almost surreal. Too good to be true, and for the first time in memory, I almost felt slightly out of my league. However, I was humbled and definitely up for the challenge, and thus instead of curling up into a ball and dying amongst my self-doubt, I took it as a chance to step up to the plate and actually strive to be on top of my game.

And then, horror of horrors. Right on cue enters the one who not only threw me off my proverbial horse, but rather, shot my horse dead and then proceeded to beat me to the brink.

My happiness and elation over my new beau was torn apart like a typhoon passed through my coastal fishing village of love – suddenly, everything was turned upside down and I was left to flail around in a contained panic – what do I do? How do I react? Is it possible to contain the situation before it erupts completely?

I’ve learned that I am the definition of safety for my ghost of relationship past. Whenever there is a crisis or major development in his life, after which he needs to regroup and be steadied, I am the proverbial rock to which he returns for comfort. He knows that I am always here for him, that I have yet to let him down, and, to a certain extent, he also knows that things between us could potentially be drastically different had he not so royally fucked it all up. Thus, whenever there’s a storm on the horizon, he comes running to me for shelter – and, like a fool, I allow him to. The trouble comes along when you consider the fact that he has, and always has had, the opposite effect on me and my stability. To him, I am the calm sea after passing through the hurricane. To me, he is the hurricane, and I fumble around in the waves hoping for the occasional eye.

Thus, the entire situation is thrown into jeopardy. I am on the cusp of complete and total euphoria as far as men are concerned with the beautiful new model/chef boyfriend, and the whole thing is up in the air simply because my old beau is back dropping hints of remorse for the pain he caused me more than two and a half years ago. The strangest thing of all is that it should be glaringly obvious what the proper course of action for me should be – I am able to recognize that I’d be a bloody fool to do anything other than give yesterday’s love the complete and total cut-off heave-ho, and focus all of my attention and effort towards soaking up as much of the holy grail as I can. And I don’t anticipate it making any sense, but it’s not quite so easy for me.

As strange as it may be, when yesterday’s love talks about relocating himself to my new city, with the intention in mind of very likely giving things yet another try – my knees go weak. I have difficulty breathing and my chest sinks through the floor – but not out of terror. Rather, it is out of pure and unadulterated hope that this will actually come to pass. He talks about coming up to visit me, and I want to squeal like a schoolgirl. Despite our history and his record when it comes to destroying me, I actually believe that he has grown by leaps and bounds since we parted the last time, and that with each passing day, he becomes more and more capable of being exactly what I need him to be.

But, I won’t hold my breath – until I have solid reason to think that his plans to relocate and start over are actually legit, and not just experimental banter, I’ll call off the holy grail cavalry. Until then, I’m going to cling onto my little tiny boat for dear life, and try to navigate this scarily rocky ocean we call love. I just hope that the ship doesn’t sink, altogether. I’m a good swimmer, but losing out on both would surely cause me to drown.

We all enjoy the thrill of the first date. There’s that electricity in the air that’s palpable, like humidity before a thunderstorm. It hangs around you the whole day, in anticipation of what’s inevitably about to take place. The slate is still clean, you dress yourself to the nines, and start pre-planning the things you’ll talk about, the jokes you’ll make, the emergency excuse in case the guy turns out to be a total creep – but still, time after time, the possibility that this guy might be ‘the one’ for you, keeps bringing you back to that starting block. On your mark, get set…hold up.

You hear people all the time, talking about how they enter a new dating scenario, ‘without any expectations’, or that they’re looking to date someone who is without expectations. I’ve often wondered what this statement means, exactly. By sheer definition, expectation is the same as anticipation – and, to the best of my knowledge, the point of getting to know somebody in a romantic context, is to bear in mind the possibility that you could wind up in a relationship with said person.

Obviously, the nature of dating is that not everybody you meet blossoms into a boyfriend. Some guys you meet, all goes well, and the natural progression of it all develops into a more prolonged, intertwined partnership. Also known as, a ‘relationship’. Some guys you meet, all goes well, but they’re lacking that certain je ne sais quoi – that spark of chemistry you simply can’t fake, which doesn’t make them a bad person, just maybe not right for you in the long run. They generally become known as something called ‘friends’. Some guys you meet, and when they ask if you’d like dessert after dinner, you find yourself thinking about how much more enjoyable it would be to throw yourself in front of a bus. Normally, they progress into something called ‘remember that time I went on a date with the guy who wore socks with crocs, talked about sushi for two hours, and offered me a ride home on his bike?’.

Like anything, in dating, you win some and you lose some. In my experience at the man slot machine, I’ve gotten plums at least a hundred times more often than the jackpot, and even after winning, my payout never did come. Sometimes, they like to tease you with the idea of having won something, only to reveal at a later date that your prize is dramatically different than it first looked when the screen lit up and the sirens started wailing. ‘Dream Men awarded may vary from those pictured’.

Therefore, I have to ask the question – if you are entering a dating scenario ‘without expectations’, then why are you dating? What is the point of going through the tumultuous motions of the courtship gauntlet, if you aren’t even after a prize, of any kind? Do people gamble simply because they feel like burning some money, or do they gamble out of hopes that they’ll win more? Do people put out resumes for sheer amusement, or do they want to get a call and a job offer? To me, dating and expectation go hand in hand – if you’re not looking for something or someone, and you don’t want to be in a relationship – then don’t bother! If romantic solitude is what you’re striving for, save yourself and your date the time and effort, and stay home.

Which, ultimately, is what I believe the people who legitimately aren’t looking for someone, do. Nobody creates a profile on an online dating service, goes on chat rooms, or courts others without expecting something. If we go out, and I’m not what you’re looking for, just tell me – I’m a big boy, I can handle it! But please, spare me the bullshit about how you ‘can’t live up to my expectations’, or that you ‘can’t give me what I want’, or that you’re ‘in a weird place right now, I’m not looking for a relationship’. If it’s sex you’re after, there’s even more people out there looking for that for dinner.

I don’t wager much on every guy I meet turning out to be my dream boat, but I enter every new potential situation with a mind that is open to the possibility of a repeat performance, but also well aware of the likelihood that my Prince Charming is still busy elsewhere. Maybe having dinner at the place next door, about to ready to throw himself in front a bus if those socks in crocs get any closer. It’s all one giant game of chance, which, maybe I won’t ever champion – but the excitement each time at what the first date might hold, beats the shit out of any expectation out there.

Can’t give me what I want? Sweetie, we’re only just on appetizers – you have no idea what it is I’m after.

Ultimately, we are all perfectionists in our own right when it comes to love. We all have that ideal that we strive for in another, and then determine how people we meet measure up to that ideal. That bullseye is ever elusive, yet we all yearn for it anyway, and accept somebody who is ‘close enough’.

After all, in all likelihood, we will never meet that exact match for us, and even still, rarely is it considered that if you DO have a horseshoe up your ass and meet your Mr. Right, who is to say that you are his? Which, of course, would be the most torturous of all. You’d get the same sentiments out of dangling a filet mignon in front of a muzzled pitbull.

People have different sets of expectations and desires when they first enter into a relationship. It is impractical to believe that everybody wants the same amount of personal contact, intimacy, phone calls, instant-messaging, or progress, and the trickiest part is trying to juggle your personal needs with his, without making it known that you’re on differing pages. Nothing causes the alarms to sound more than even the slightest hint that you’re moving too fast, be it emotionally, or physically. So, you play it by ear, and choose your battles wisely and carefully.

For me, the biggest challenge in dating and relationships, is coping with the realization that the other has lost interest in you, just when you’re starting to ease off on the brakes and let yourself get into it. In my experience, I think I’d actually prefer to get rejected up front. Right off the bat, just rip the band-aid off and I’ll survive easily. At least then, you don’t know me, I’m still a stranger, and your judgment of me is likely based on my physical appearance or on our very light and insignificant banter. Again, I’m fine with that. But, it stings a little deeper when someone waits until they get to know you a bit better before they vote you off the island. I’m all about the superficial rejection, but this other kind is as pleasant as a root canal. Bruising and all.

It will never cease to amaze me how quickly some men can go from borderline infatuation, to complete and utter disinterest, seemingly overnight. One day, you’re getting a hundred texts and invitations to sleep over, hugs and kisses and cuddles and laughter, and then the next day, you initiate conversation and get one words answers, closed sentences, single ha’s and definitely no cuddles. What the fuck? Why does this happen? I think that my experiences in the dating world have taught me an awful lot about men, and I pride myself in having learned many of the most commonly asked questions about gay relationships, but this one is the ace in the hole that gay men everywhere have on me.

I mean, yes. In some cases, you can understand the sudden change of heart. For example, if one night you fall asleep with a guy  you’re all about, and then the next day, you wake up and everything in your house has been stolen, okay, do a 180. Or, if you show up at your boy’s apartment and are passed in the stairs by the guy he just finished fucking, perhaps some reconsideration is merited. But, in most circumstances, nothing at all changes. There is no earth-shattering event of major paradigm shift of the proceedings, and yet, poof – gay man gone. Glitter everywhere.

On occasion, I believe this to be happening, and in the end, it is revealed to be little more than my acute paranoia and skepticism I’ve acquired over time. Despite my prior experiences, I still have a rather surprising habit of being quite trusting, and of forming the beginnings of attachment perhaps a little faster than I would like. I panic that my neuroses will scare away everything with a penis in the long-run, and start to envision the rest of my life panning out alone and old and impotent and dead. It’s a horrible gauntlet of a process, I know. But ultimately, I’m waiting for that one guy who will come along and laugh at my insanity, tell me that it’s all okay, and take me off to bed to cuddle me to sleep without me having to explain myself.

I think that’s all anyone really wants, or craves. That feeling, of being wanted. No doubts or questions surrounding it, just clear, concise, and definite attraction. There is nothing more reassuring, not even your oldest and most favourite sweater can rival its comfort. I yearn every day to feel that I am desired by another living, breathing, emotionally competent at-least-half-human being. I had a taste of it once. Not quite, but a tickling of it on my tongue. I miss it gravely.

The theft, glitter, and doubt I can do without. Look past my crazy, make me smile, make me feel cute, and be good at spooning, and I’ll happily grow old (but not impotent) with you any day.

Not to worry, my dear readers. I am still very much as jaded as ever.

Stay tuned.

Anybody who knows me is aware of my fame as an insomniac. I don’t dislike sleeping – in fact, I enjoy slipping into my mini-comas every now and then, oblivious to phone calls, text messages, fire alarms…yet while most take solace in their slumber, when the Sandman comes and carries me off to Dreamland, far too often a van full of my ghosts comes along for the ride.

One in particular.

And thus, I sleep enough to function, most of the time, as to experience as infrequently as possible the cold reality that he isn’t there when I wake up.

It’s a little terrifying, how so much can change, yet such a great deal cannot be changed. There is no amount of conscious exercise that can force him out of my thoughts, out of my core, and especially out of my dreams. To sleep is to lose control over what one is thinking – and it exposes me to things that I would rather not experience, and would prefer not to relive. But again, I am not the dictator over the nightly performances, and therefore am unable to control the course of the play as I am when awake. At least now, I can push him out temporarily from time to time. I can submerge myself in my work, in a book, or in music, and he will subside for a time. His sunlight may be obscured by a cloud, but he’ll be back before long with a change in the wind.

It’s going on two years now since we last came face to face in a substantial way. We had recently mended things after one of our routine and hardly uncommon ‘big fights’, and thus while no longer screaming obscenities at one another, the tension between our personas was still palpable. Near the end, both of us were (are) rather fiesty, always right, and always with one hand on the lever that would unleash the lions. However, the explosion between us prior to our last evening had been more hurtful than some of the others, and I believe that we both had our doubts as to whether or not the bridge could be mended yet again. We were willing to try, though it remained to be seen whether or not this would actually come to pass.

In retrospect, that final night was unlike any other that we had spent together in the entire duration of our relationship-turned-friendship-turned-relationship, I feel because he and I both knew that we had reached the end of the road with one another. Our little beater-car of love, that had weathered so many storms and had brought us as far as it could, had finally broken down, and now it was time to leave it by the side of the road to rust. What I hadn’t been aware of was the shiny new car that he already had waiting to give him a lift, and that I was to be left to thumb a ride back to civilization with whoever would feel sorry enough for me to stop.

The conversation was empty, bordering on formal courtesy. Our banter and interactions with one another were hollow and polite. We had gone from being so intrinsically intertwined to complete strangers, and it had caught us both off guard. Suddenly, neither of us knew how to act towards or treat one another. It is a pathetic end to our story, not because of the style of its ending, but because we both had allowed and even oversaw its writing. It did us no justice, and without justice, it’s hard to sleep peacefully at night. When I left his place, I knew that there was no need to state that it was over, as we had said it without words. The contact stopped entirely and we haven’t spoken to one another since.

Now I find myself preparing to move half way across the country. I’m leaving my native province behind and looking to start anew, and yet all I can think about is how my last memory of he and I will be sitting together on his bed at a loss for words. I wrote him directly when my departure became official, asking if he could find the time to get together for a coffee or a drive or anything at all before I leave. That was several months ago now, and to date I have not received a response. Truthfully, I don’t think I had been expecting one, but I’ve spent every day since I hit ‘send’ hoping for one, with all my heart. He played such a large role in my life here that I know leaving it on such a note will continue to haunt me, no matter where in the world I am residing.

Thus, I am riding out my dwindling days on this island, sleeping very little and counting down to my divorce from a place that has been my home all my life. And while, in one sense, the story of he and I remains painfully incomplete, it is becoming increasingly clear with each passing day, and with each passing hour of the sleepless night, that the chapter is, most definitively, closed.

Farewell and sweet dreams, my Rose. Be it in flesh or in sleep, I’ll be seeing you soon either way.

After all, I’m addicted to the stomach flip – that sensation that conquers you from the inside out, when someone you fancy fancies you, too, and shows it for the first time. I’m a junkie for that cool, tingling rush that pulsates through your body when you make that first contact on the dance floor. I crave that giddy excitement created by a returned phone call, or by that glorious initial moment of intimate eye contact. The kind that makes you smile with your eyes before your mouth.

If only there were a way to make all these sentiments survive beyond the start-up phase of a new crush. Over time, that feeling can be lost, and replaced with frustrated contentment and, potentially, emotional entrapment. I was always under the impression that relationships were supposed to strengthen with time. Fan the flames of your love with your familiarity and genuine compassion for one another. However, in my experience, one of us either gets antsy and unsatisfied, or just plain bored, and off we go again into the sunset in search of that lone cowboy who tosses stomachs around all day like a roller coaster.

I’ve burned in the past, and I’ve been burned more often than that. Yet through it all I continue to invest a considerable amount of my time and cognitive energy on my new potential leading men. Perhaps it’s unfair, for both parties, however, it’s how I’m programmed to function, and thus I automatically carry it out time and time again as though it were perfectly normal. I have a horrible habit for projecting these unattainable fantasies, where everything falls into place, and life is lived happily ever after. It usually doesn’t take very long for my nouveau beau to start chipping away at the base of his bronze statue, and before you know it, I end up being squashed by the weight of my own imaginary creation toppling down. Thus, obviously, after years of dating, I have not changed my ways to something more intelligent – like, for example, entering a dating scenario with a mind free of expectations, but rather, I’ve conditioned myself to simply look the other way instead, and hope that the shadow over me doesn’t grow any bigger.

It’s sad, really. I know that I’ve given up hope on many a good guy to date as a result of my own crazy mind working overtime like it’s Madonna’s personal gay shopper. It’s just one of those things that’s hard-wired into my brain, and can be tagged onto the end of the list of things that I would like to change about myself, but cannot. We all have ‘those things’, and therefore I expect you all to feel my frustration surrounding my desire to rectify this naughty habit, yet the changes never amount to anything more than a fleeting thought of ‘well, I’ll just know for next time’, which is dismissed within six seconds of the end of days and condemned to the dungeons of good intentions gone awry. In most people, I enjoy learning about their bad behaviors. I think they can be defining characteristics. Without our flaws, wouldn’t we all just be humans? Our world as we know it is built on the basis of making mistakes, and, in some cases, learning from them – but not all.

And I get so angry when I start falling for the other person faster than they are falling for me, and I can recognize the situation as it is, but am not capable of altering its course. I find it upsetting when I start clearing my schedule to make room in my life for someone who isn’t interested in occupying it. I feel sad when I make the effort to call or message or poke or visit, and yet am never called, messaged, poked, or visited, myself. Essentially, I don’t cope well with rejection, possibly because I’m used to succeeding at attaining whatever I work towards in every other aspect of my life. Even with people I take an interest in, I can always get the number, get the date. Holding onto them afterwards, while still clinging onto that excitement of the new is the part I need to work on.

Then, just when I’m about to give up hope, I’ll get a message. Or a poke. Some little gesture that probably means nothing from the other end, yet to me, completely resets the chess board, and it’s a whole new game all over again, taking it from the top. And I’ll create more drama and imagine situations of the person being ignored by my persistence, and, upon getting a response, the story will be changed from irritation to elation to hear from me, and I continue living in my little fantasy dream world where everything is going just as it should. The cycle continues until eventually we are a couple or we go our separate ways.

I’m addicted to that stomach-flipping, conquering, cool, tingling, rushing, smile-with-your-eyes-before-your-mouth ecstasy that comes with winning the attention of a new possible leading man. And plus, you never know – with all the drama surrounding me at all times, one of them might even eventually win an Oscar.