Jesus. What happened to just being skinny or fat? We have a label for every sort of body type so we can quickly identify exactly what it is that we’re into and then run off with it into a subculture. You have twinks fucking cubs fucking bears fucking daddies. It’s exhausting to keep up. “I’m a vers/top pref into domination and water sports with uncut straight-acting submissive.” Um, what about “I’m a nice person looking for another nice person to grow old with so I don’t die alone”? No? Too broad?
You’d think that with all these different types of gay men, I would’ve encountered a gay guy with a disability at some point, but I haven’t. I know they exist, because I’ll Google “queer crip” (not a gang, although it’d be amazing if it were) and find all these web forums full of gay men who are paralyzed in wheelchairs or have some other debilitating ailment that are looking for a connection. I feel strange looking at their photos like I’m supposed to have found my tribe, because I don’t feel a kinship with them at all. It’s that feeling that I’m not disabled enough to identify with other people who have handicaps but also not “normal” enough to pass in the able-bodied world. If I hang out with the gays who have physical handicaps, I’ll fancy myself functional. However, if I hang out with the gays who don’t have a disability, I’ll feel like such a gimp. When I moved to San Francisco, I became uncomfortable being around other gay dudes for reasons beyond my disability. I was worried they would think I was doing a bad job at being gay. Since I wasn’t having sex or working out or dancing in da club with my giant gay family, I must be a sad slice of tragic.
Nothing made me feel more like a failure than the fact that I wasn’t having sex. I have this idea in my head that everyone is out there living some fabulous gay life except for me. I’m listening to shoegaze in bed while everyone else is getting multiple blow jobs at some amazing elitist gay party. Where’s my invite? I don’t know if I even want to go. I just want to feel included.
If enough time passes without intimacy, you start to become fearful of it. It’s a vicious cycle. You stop having sex until the point where it becomes a frightening concept and then you stay away. Anal sex is an especially intimate act. As far as I’m concerned, my asshole is reserved for VIPs only. Otherwise, sex feels invasive and cheap. I hear about men who will bend over for anyone and anything—vegetable, animal, mineral—and I’m shocked. Part of me is slut-shaming them out of my own insecurities, and the other part is jealous that they don’t attach meaning to every little thing like I do. It must be nice to be able to stop thinking for a second and just do.
That’s why being gay is gay for me. I see so many other men falling into bed with each other, forming their gay groups and going to their gay brunches, and I’m here in analysis paralysis land, thinking too much to participate in any of it. I don’t want to be promiscuous. I feel things too intensely, so it would just be bad for me, but I need to find a balance where I don’t feel like I’m wasting my youth because of fear.
I liked to think that I was special for having a unique set of hardships (“I AM THE ONLY GAY GIMP TO EVER EXIST!”), but the fact is that every gay guy is reconciling how they should be in the eyes of society with how they really are. I’m a gay guy with cerebral palsy. So what? The line forms at the left with the gay guys who feel inadequate.
This was an important thing for me to realize. It’s perhaps the best lesson I could have ever taught myself. Getting it would eventually be the one thing that released me from my neuroses and let me be truly happy.
I’m not special.
Finding Love (and Losing It) in a Sea of “Likes”
IF BEING GAY GAVE me my first inkling that I wasn’t special, then dating made me feel like a basic bitch without a prayer. Case in point: Recently a boy I had feelings for wrote me a handwritten letter. It was four pages long, written on crisp white paper that crinkled like dead leaves. I read every line hoping it’d contain some wild declaration of love, but instead I got the opposite. At the end of the third page, he wrote, “I’m sorry that I can’t love you.”
Deep down I already knew this. We had spent the last few months hanging out together, and every time I would leave him, I’d have a feeling this was going to end in tears. I’m not a clairvoyant. I just know these kinds of things. We all do. People owe us nothing: they can blow through our lives, make us feel hopeful and loved, and then disappear with no explanation or apology. This is just the way it is now. There are so many new and exciting ways to get rejected: getting swiped to the left on Tinder, unfriended on Facebook, and ignored on OkCupid. Are we unlovable? No, but we place all our self-worth in getting a text back from our crush, and if it doesn’t happen, we automatically assume we’re going to die alone.
To counteract this constant fear of rejection, I do what everybody else does: I look for validation by outsourcing my self-esteem to the Internet and various apps. I take selfies until I land on a picture where I look semi-attractive. Then I apply a filter, which will graciously take my looks from a five or six to an eight. By posting the selfie, I ask the world, “Am I attractive? Could you understand if someone made the decision to love me?” I watch with bated breath as the “likes” pile up like little ants giving me their tacit approval. But a like isn’t enough for me anymore. I need someone to type, “Looking good!” or “Wow, Mr. Handsome!” to feel fully satisfied.
After posting the selfie, I’ll think of something amusing to tweet. Instagram selfies are meant to make you feel pretty, whereas Twitter is designed to validate your intelligence. That’s why you follow hot models on Instagram and dowdy comedians on Twitter. It’s a necessary separation of brain and brawn. After spending minutes crafting something brilliant, I’ll send it out into the universe like a proud parent watching their child graduate. Seeing it get retweeted hits me with a burst of joy that leaves as quickly as it came.
As I’m going to bed, I’ll make the final stop in my Validation Tour by going on gay sex apps like Grindr, SCRUFF, and GROWLr—which is like Grindr but for hairy chubby people. On Grindr and SCRUFF, I’m completely invisible, drowned out by a sea of six-packs and chiseled physiques, but on GROWLr I’m practically Ryan fucking Gosling. My body type is ideal for bears: soft in the middle and hairy but still lean in the way that most younger guys are. The second I log on I’m inundated with messages by men looking to meet up or swap photos. If I find one of the men to be attractive, I will unlock my private photos, which includes a picture of me in briefs. The guy will usually respond with a “SEXY” or a “WOOF” before unlocking his own private photos. I’ll take a look at them and if I like what I see, I’ll tell him so as I begin to masturbate. The guy will then push for a meet up, but I’ll never do it. This is just free porn for me. I look at the naked photos of a man who lives only 1,263 feet away, and instead of meeting him in person, I jack off alone in bed. I have no interest in having an IRL interaction, because I know the second it’s over, I’ll hate myself.
One time I did meet up with a man off GROWLr. I had just downloaded the app and was feeling extra adventurous. I’d always hooked up with men who had string cheese bodies, so the prospect of being with someone who was big and thick excited me. After only being on the app for a moment, this man messaged me and said, “Hey, cutie . . .”
I looked at his profile picture. His face wasn’t a dream but his body, which was practically naked, was flawless. I wrote back: “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just ran errands, walking back to my apartment.”
“Cool. Where you at?”
“Curson and Sunset.”
Clouded by horniness, I gave him my address and told him to come over. Within minutes, he was at my door. It was so strange. The whole process felt like ordering a pizza.
The man looked at me and smiled. “I don’t usually move this quickly.” He had a softer voice than I had imagined. You think all big, burly men are going to have this throaty growl—hence the name, GROWLr—but sometimes they sound like delicate flowers. Trying to be aggressive and slutty, I grabbed his f
ace and started making out with him. His tongue thrashed in my mouth and reminded me of a disgusting salamander, but I tried to ignore it. In that moment, I was committed to playing the part of someone who could handle empty sexual encounters.
It was in the middle of a heat wave in Los Angeles, so we were both sopping wet after only a few minutes of hooking up. To cool down, we kept taking breaks and having forced conversation. We’d go at it, get too hot, and have to ask how each other’s day was. My gut impression was that this stranger was nice but a little depressed. He was in his late thirties and kept talking about how all of his friends were married and had kids. “I spend a lot of time alone,” he told me. “I use the sites to meet friends, but everyone ends up flaking on me after the first hookup.”
My desire to have a meaningless sexual encounter was not coming to fruition. The more we talked, the more human he became. Eventually we just stopped hooking up altogether. When he left, he kissed me good-bye and asked to hang out again. I lied and told him yes. A few days later, he messaged me on GROWLr, except this time I didn’t respond. Here I was, another person who had disappointed him. Here he was, another person for me to forget.
In high school and college, I didn’t have to go on the Internet to get my sexual fix, because I dated real, live boys who spent the night in my apartment and got coffee with me in the morning and met my friends and knew my history. Boys who, in my eyes, actively tried to love me but couldn’t because I was fighting them every step of the way.
One such boy was named Corey. We met my senior year of college at a close friend’s dinner party. (A dinner party in college meant drinking cheap wine instead of vodka and someone attempting to make a kale salad while wearing a sophisticated polka-dot dress.) Corey came late to the party, drenched in sweat from biking over the Williamsburg Bridge. I had stalked his Facebook profile before and thought he was cute.
That night we all got very, very drunk, and Corey and I ended up kissing in the hallway of my apartment. I convinced myself that I liked him. I was doing that thing people sometimes do when they trick themselves into having feelings for someone just so they can feel more a part of things. For our first date, we got stoned and went to a midnight showing of The Shining. He came home with me afterward, and we made out until our faces melted off.
“I am obsessed with Corey,” I told my friend Alex over lunch the next day in the East Village.
Alex scrunched up her nose as if she’d just smelled something rotten. “Babe, are you sure? He’s an urban studies major and interested in, like, sustainable organic farming. I don’t think you two have a lot in common.”
“That stuff doesn’t matter,” I protested, stabbing lettuce with my fork. “He’s cute, smart, and funny. I have a good feeling about it!”
Corey and I spent the whole week after our first date texting each other flirty nonsense. Meanwhile, I started to project all my fantasies onto him. In my head, Corey was a dream man. He had all the desirable qualities one looks for in a mate. I mean, I thought he did. I didn’t actually know because we’d just met, but I had a hunch!
After a few days of texts and light LOLs, Corey invited me to a party on his rooftop in Bushwick. Ecstatic, I texted back a nonchalant “Sure, sounds cool” and immediately began planning the night out in my head. I’d arrive with a nice bottle of wine ($12), in a pair of shorts that provided easy access for hand jobs, and instead of spending all my time talking to Corey, I’d focus on his friends and get them to fall in love with me first. Then, when the party would start to peter out, I’d swoop in and make my move.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly the way I imagined them. By the time I showed up to Corey’s rooftop, he was tripping on mushrooms (rude!) and mistook me for a snow globe. I wanted to be like, “Um, Corey? Remember me? Your future boyfriend?” but it was clear he was dunzo. Frustrated and medium-drunk, I finally grabbed Corey by the arm and made him take me downstairs to his bedroom.
“So, listen, I’m gonna go, but thanks so much for inviting me,” I said enthusiastically, rubbing his arm.
“Oh, okay.” Corey stared at me with a sleepy grin slapped across his face.
I sighed in annoyance and turned to leave, but then Corey grabbed me and enveloped me in a bear hug. We stood there in his room for almost a minute with his head buried in my chest and our limbs lazily linked together. The balmy fall breeze wafted in and tickled our necks, and I rubbed my palm in circular motions on the curve of Corey’s back. His hair was matted with sweat and he smelled like a garbage can, but I didn’t care.
“Goddamn,” I thought. “I love loving men.”
After that night, I knew I had Corey. I wanted him to be my boyfriend, and now he was. It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks in that we had less than zero things to talk about. Oops!
Corey and I dated for four, maybe five, months, but the entire time I felt like I was putting myself through a series of tests. “Ryan, let’s see if you can have someone sleep over at your apartment three times a week without it freaking you out.” “Ryan, let’s see if you can go to the opera with this man and meet his friends and his dog.” Every time I accomplished a task, I would give myself a pat on the back. Every time I failed to do something (I never once spent the night at his apartment, for example), I would feel like a defective human being.
My relationship with Corey—and any other boy I dated during that time—was never about him. It was always about me. I was deeply insecure and narcissistic, which is a lethal combination for anyone attempting to have a real relationship. Being with boys was a way to see if someone could actually love me despite my handicaps. And when I realized that they could and I felt my self-esteem tank getting full, I’d sabotage the relationship and get rid of them. Granted, maybe I would’ve cared more about Corey if we had something in common. But finding a guy I was compatible with was always an afterthought. I just needed somebody, anybody, to date me. I lacked all the qualities necessary to actually have a meaningful relationship, which were selflessness, desire, and the ability to compromise. I realized this after I graduated from college, but by then it felt too late. Dating postcollege is like entering the Wild West. Ditching your narcissism and growing up won’t guarantee you a relationship with someone. It won’t even guarantee you a text message.
There are ten thousand rules instructing Millennials on how to date, many of which contradict each other and make no sense. Here are the ones that everybody follows:
1. Know how to give good text message. The definition of a good texter is someone who knows the difference between sending someone an “Okay!” versus an “OK” and who would never dare to send something flirty without consulting a team of experts first. See the following thought process for reference: “If I text this guy I just went on a date with, ‘Let me know if you want to hang again sometime,’ do I leave things too open-ended? Maybe I should be more assertive and just text ‘Let’s hang out sometime. What’s your schedule like?’ That would force him to respond, right?” Every word, grammar, and punctuation choice means something. We spend more time composing the Perfect Text than we do working on our résumés.
2. The phone call is a major leading cause of terror in twentysomethings. It’s best not to call the person you’re dating unless you’re dying, and even then it’s a little unclear. I mean, do you really think you’re dying? And if so, is it really worth jeopardizing something that could be special with a human-to-human phone call? People would rather text an ex, eat glass, and self-identify as a hipster than dial numbers on a phone that will lead you to a person’s voice.
3. Until you have the exclusivity talk, you must assume that the person you’re dating is still sleeping with other people. Even if it’s not true, it’s always better to minimize expectations to avoid being disappointed. Back in the day, someone was considered a gentleman if they opened the door for you or paid for your dinner. Now it’s chivalrous if someone doesn’t give you an STD from the person they’ve been fucking on the side.
4.
DON’T BE DESPERATE. If your crush knows that you aren’t too keen on dying alone and want to find a life partner, they’re going to think you’re a clingy psycho, so take it slow. First, open the lines of communication by Gchatting them brief, funny thoughts throughout the day. Pretend the Gchats are like mini–hand jobs being used to get them ready for the main event. After that, you progress to creating inside jokes, which gives the illusion that you are super close. Make sure when doing this, however, that your crush is actually aware of the inside joke. You can’t just text something nonsensical like, “Okay, DUMPSTER BOY. Ha ha!” when there’s no context. The final step is exchanging favorite songs/YouTube clips. By the time you do this, you’re basically fucking through the screens of your MacBook Pros. You don’t even really need to meet IRL if you don’t want to!
5. Make sure your Internet persona is in top-notch condition. If you give someone your name and number, the first thing they’re going to do is Google the shit out of you. EVERYONE is a Nancy Drew Internet detective, so make sure your Facebook and Twitter are not a colossal embarrassment. Be a minimalist rather than an oversharer. Keep your Facebook photo album limited to your profile pictures and resist captioning them with descriptions such as “At lunch with my friends” or “Skiing the slopes of Mammoth! So lucky!” Potential mates don’t need to know everything about you before the first date. Also worth noting: Don’t be that person who lists themselves as “in a relationship with so-and-so” on Facebook. It’s tacky TMI, and you’ll have a lot of fun changing it back to “single” if you two ever break up. Not only will you be living in a bell jar with a broken heart, but you’ll have to read comments from people you barely know saying, “OMG, what happened, girlie? CALL ME ASAP!”
These rules are dripping with self-sabotage, aren’t they? We’ve created a dating culture in which we never say what we really feel. God forbid we admit we actually want to be with someone and call them up on the phone instead of waiting six hours to return a text message. We’re constantly afraid of being ourselves. Even when I get comfortable with someone, I’m paranoid that my craziness is going to shine through and I’ll get dumped. The whole process is so exhausting. And for what? The people we date when we’re young are usually awful. They don’t deserve our obsession, tears, and neuroses! If you’re in your twenties, chances are you have dated one (or all) of these terrible people:
I’m Special Page 10