What do I have? I have today, and probably tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll have that day and probably the next day. If something goes wrong, it will probably just be like a switch flipping, and from that point on, my life either changes further or ends. I can't control that; I can only do what the doctors tell me to try to keep it from getting any worse, and so far, that seems to be on track. There's no promise it'll be this way in a year, there's no promise it won't be a lot better in ten years. It's just a new part of life to deal with.
That, plus getting older, has led me to make some changes, probably long overdue.
- I'd mentioned before that I tend to be way, way too patient with boys who are fakes, or who pretend they don't know me around others, or who think that I should feel privileged just because they're thinking about playing with me.
When I was but a wee lad, I was told over and over that I had no patience and that it was a horrible flaw. As a result, I overcompensated (of course), and now exhibit almost Job-like patience in situations where I should have walked away long ago. The newer (older) me is ending some of that.- For the first time in years and years, I've put some people on my own permanent blacklist - guys who will never come to play here, no matter what they say or do. At present, there are all of three guys on this list. One has played here before, and once upon a time, I cared very much for him - more than I had for any boy in many years, and more than I have for any boy since. I've held out hope for the longest time that he'd conquer his particular demons, but I've finally had to admit that he will not.
I still suspect he has a good heart, but it's completely controlled by his own psychopathology, and I use that in the clinical sense: he has no empathy for others, be they subs, doms, friends, lovers, whatever. He is literally incapable of putting himself in another's shoes. When he wants to submit, it's only about what he wants to do. When he wants to dominate, it's only about what he wants. Whatever you get from him is merely a side effect of him acting on his own desires - if you can orgasm from him fucking you, great, but if you can't, too bad. If he's submitting, he doesn't want to be fucked, so if that's what the dom wants, too bad - it's all about his wants, not anyone else's, no matter what his role.
I've held out hope for years that it was just his time in an extremely repressive closet responsible for all this and that eventually he would find his bearings. After one more teeth-grinding chat last month, though, it's become clear to me that this is not going to happen before I start drawing Social Security, and I simply can't leave him in my heart as if he'll heal. So he's the first one on the new blacklist - he cannot reach me by chat, and if he did, I would not respond. If he arrived at the door, I would not answer. He and I have gone through these ups and downs too long, and he seems to have written me off years ago. I've tried about once a year to see what could be salvaged, and now I must finally admit the answer is "nothing." - The second is a local guy who has never played here. I like him a lot - in fact, I've liked him since the first time we chatted. He's gregarious, interested, interesting, smart, good-looking, friendly, and sympathetic. I've enjoyed our chats. Yet he's been talking about coming here to play "soon" for close to four years, and every time it's supposed to happen, he backs out. He hasn't asked to meet me in different circumstances, he hasn't asked to set limits I won't set, he hasn't provided any reasons why he doesn't want to play - he just says he does and then never actually does. The clinical word for this is "cocktease."
I still like him, but after actually setting a date and time that he backed out of, I came to accept that he's always going to string me along. So he's blocked now, too. I'm sure he will submit to someone, somewhere, someday, and enjoy himself tremendously. It won't be here, and it won't be with me. - The third boy is hardly worth mentioning - a new-but-local boy who has owners and offered and accepted friendship, then changed his mind. You know the story: boy chats dom, boy assumes dom wants him, dom makes clear boy would not be happy with dom, boy assumes that by having said this, dom is pursuing him. I asked him several times if he wanted to stop chatting, and he never said yes or no. In the final chat, he ultimately revealed that he was just being meaner and meaner to me to see what it took to piss me off - treating me like some kind of Sim character for his amusement because he's young and cute and I'm not. That wasn't a difficult call. He's still absolutely convinced he'll hear from me within a month. He doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.
- A fourth one is in the staging area - another local boy, who's been here several times this year, but I find it harder and harder to deal with his immaturity. He's quick to assume the worst about me, he's dismissive of things I tell him based on two decades of BDSM experience (and, I believe, just assumes I'm trying to get him to play here, which I'm not), he's rudely dismissed me on multiple occasions, and the last time I saw him in person (in the real world, not in the playroom), he made eye contact for about three seconds, then said nothing and kept walking.
The only reason he's not out of limbo and onto the permanent list is that I'm fond of him - I have some emotional attachment, even though he's not a permanent-sub type and never ever will be. Let me put it this way: last week, I told this guy's boyfriend, who I've known longer, "I would rather never have sex again in my entire life than feel like a boy is compromising to be here, like he's settling for something or that he's doing me a favor." This boy clearly feels that being here is a compromise, that he'd like the play but with someone he finds more attractive. That's why I haven't asked him about play in several months - combined with the fact that the last time I did, he made it precisely clear that he has a priority list and I'm not anywhere on the first 5-6 pages. (And yet guys tell me things like that and still think I want them here.)
So I'll have to think about him for a while. He's quick to say things to hurt me when he doesn't like something I've said, and I just have to wonder how much of my post-medical-change life I want to spend accommodating people who obviously and repeatedly assume that if I say something that can be taken two ways, that I meant it in the way intended to hurt them. Why would you even think I wanted you in my life if your default position is that I intend to hurt you?
- For the first time in years and years, I've put some people on my own permanent blacklist - guys who will never come to play here, no matter what they say or do. At present, there are all of three guys on this list. One has played here before, and once upon a time, I cared very much for him - more than I had for any boy in many years, and more than I have for any boy since. I've held out hope for the longest time that he'd conquer his particular demons, but I've finally had to admit that he will not.
- As for the last post, well, ignore it. I've been running searches on gay.com for guys into BDSM, and much of the time, gay.com is wrong to the point of being random. The search seems to be inclusive rather than restrictive: if you say you want guys who are "Receiver/Bottom" and into "Bondage/Discipline" and "S&M", it seems to include everyone who matches one of those criteria, not the ones who match all of them. I get that to a degree: you want it to return matches for guys who check "BD" but not "SM" and vice-versa, but it also means a lot of the matches are guys who just checked "Receiver/Bottom". A great many search results are guys who don't have any of the criteria checked - they're just guys in the right age range and specified geographical area. That's worse than useless.
I've tried saying "hello" to some of the ones who seem more likely to actually be interested in BDSM, but probably 2/3rds of those get no reply at all. Some of the ones who have responded have seemed to be very good boys, but in the end, they turn out to be fakes or flakes - they either fess up to being complete frauds, or they simply stop talking. Three boys in the past two months who proclaimed my ownership have been that way, including the subject of the last post. He may still be for real, still mean and believe it - but since he stopped talking after saying he was mine, there's no way for me to tell. (It seems that every boy who claims to have a BDSM hypno trigger is a fake, as far as I can tell. I used to be pretty good at figuring out the fakers who just wanted cybersex, but clearly my skills need sharpening.) - I should mention, however, that I've had some fruitful chats by searching for young doms online. True, many of them just ignore "hello" because they're young and hott and I'm nott, but a lot of them actually start to talk about experiences, desires, BDSM theory, application, and other great topics. It's obviously not about cybersex but about sharing the safe, sane, and consensual interest. That's kept a little faith going for me.
- As part of the pullback, I'm harder to reach by IM. Most of the time, as far as most people are concerned, I'm not even online. I open up IM to others for an hour or two a day, and if I don't hear from anyone, I close it off again and go on with other things (it's not like my day is organized around chatting - it's something I do when a machine/screen space is available). I reworked my gay.com profile to contain the password necessary to chat with me on that service, so horny assholes unwilling to read the profile no longer make it past the gate by pretending they have. (However, since I haven't subjected myself to the drama of a gay.com public room in two years, you still have to be a premium member to initiate chat with me on there. If you want to reach me but can't, reply to the profile. It works.)
- It's not all bad - one new boy played here this season, and seems to have enjoyed himself, though he's putting off coming back and I've stopped asking him. Another boy whom I consider a friend started to come play again but stopped about ten times, so I stopped asking him as well. Maybe in January or February he'll figure out how to drive 35 miles without needing GPS help or a survival kit.
And I have talked to a few local guys who are not yet obviously fakes or flakes, though I'm obviously not ruling that out. One local boy seems ready to try most everything except that one thing. I neither blame him nor rule him out for that, but it seems to be a big sign of the "I'm not going to play if the result is something that, if seen by the kinkiest person in the world, might make him guess that I was kinky myself" problem. I'm not going to re-enter that particular closet. I have no desire to make a boy of any age (18-99) wear a leash in public with the word "slave" written on his forehead, but neither do I want every single act of submission or dominance caught in the "could someone possibly imagine these results came from kinky actions" filter. That's like trying to have sex in a cold shower.
So, there you go, after one year and a lot of changes. Much remains the same, much is different with no going back. What I said in chat last week to that one guy is true, though: I'd rather do without from now on than feel that another guy was "compromising" to be with me. If you'd rather be somewhere else, I'd rather you be somewhere else too. I don't care how big your cock is, or how tight your ass or your abs or your calves, or how much experience you have. If you'd rather be doing it with someone hotter or younger or more like your fantasy man, I'd rather you do that instead.
I don't know how much time I have left, but even if it's several decades, it's not enough time to be anyone's second choice, much less somewhere on page 7 of the things that interest you. The list of things to love in life beyond being someone's backup or "default choice" is far too wide and wondrous to spend time hoping you can't find what you want. If I'm not what you want, you're not what I want. Whether you believe that or not does not change its accuracy.
Currently playing in iTunes: Lyin Eyes by The Eagles
