So there I was, sat at home alone again. I’d come in from seeing friends, we’d had a few drinks – OK, a lot of drinks. But not too many, not so many that I needed sleep, but enough that I was feeling horny and restless and needed some company. So I did what I guess a lot of guys do, I went online and found someone to invite over. A man.
Maybe this isn’t too big a deal for you, I guess this is a gay website after all so maybe you’re used to it. But, see, I’m not gay. Or I don’t really think I am. I mean, I’ve never really been interested in women that way; and I am interested in men. But being gay seems so much more than that, I see gay people sometimes and I don’t think I really have anything in common with them. Yes, I like other men, but I don’t feel any other connection to men who call themselves gay.
All my guy friends like women, and none of them know I’m not the same. To be honest I’m not sure how they’d react if I told them, so I’ve kept this to myself. I love hanging out with them, and I love them as friends. Hanging out in bars or going to the cinema; a few now are getting married and I’ve been to their weddings. Some of them I’ve known since school. I don’t know if any of them suspect about me but they’ve never said anything; although I’m close to my friends I’m not sure how they’d take it if they knew, if they’d still want to hang out and if I’d still have this life I have with them. I think maybe I like it that way. I like things the way they are, mostly.
Still, there are moments, I guess, when I wish things could be a bit different.
Like I said, I was sitting alone, and wanted company. I invited a guy over, he was a bit younger than me and shorter, with a furry beard and a shy smile; it was nice, he was sweet and we fooled around a bit. He didn’t stay the night, though. Most guys I invite ‘round, don’t want to, and even if they do, I usually want them to go. I live alone so I’m not worried about anyone finding out about me, but I don’t want to wake up with someone there. In the daylight things can all look so very different and I don’t want to have to talk with them and maybe make them breakfast, to get to know them. I don’t want to do that because that feels scary, feels like I’m taking things too far. If I get to know them will I start feeling more, needing more? Then where will my life be?
But then I go to my friends’ weddings, or I just see them with their girlfriends, and I get a little envious, I guess. I might get sex easily enough, but it’s always under cover of night, and wordless. It scratches an itch, but it’s not truly fulfilling. My friends have a true partnership, someone to love, and sex isn’t love.
It’s scary, you know? Because I end up thinking I’m missing out on a part of the world and a part of myself, but I don’t want anything to do with that gay world which I see around me. I just want things to stay like they are, with my friends who I love, and keep on doing the things I love with them; but to have that little something extra. To have a real partner in the world.
Of course, I guess I’m still young – I’m only 27 – lots can change, and life can take you in unexpected directions. Maybe in 10 years things will look very different for me. Maybe then I’ll be happy in that gay world, or maybe my friends will know about this other life I have and nothing will have changed. The uncertainty is scary, but I suppose uncertainty always is scary.
But until then I’ll keep going out with my friends, and keep having amazing times with them and keeping this secret, and sometimes going home and needing company just for the night. I don’t know what I’d do without the internet – but also, I don’t know what I’d do without my friends.
