Back to my old ways (had I ever left them?) I recently “met” a guy on Manhunt. He had a hot profile - cute face, great body, and his “about me” basically described him as a bottom who liked sex. I had actually noticed his profile about a year ago. I wrote him then, he wrote back, then he disappeared. He popped up a few months later - we exchanged quick emails, then again he disappeared. The third time we emailed, we actually traded phone numbers, I assumed with the intention to text each other. But we never did.
Until yesterday, when once again I saw him online, and typed a Manhunt-mail asking when we were finally hanging out. I pressed send, and was totally unprepared for what happened 2 minutes later. My phone started to ring. Sure enough, up popped his name, in my phone from 3 months ago.
What? He’s calling?! I panicked. “DECLINE”.
The ringing stopped, and a minute later I had a voicemail. “Hey, it’s ManhuntBoy, just seeing what you’re up to this afternoon. Give me a call.”
I pondered. He sounded normal, if a bit stoned. But nice enough. Maybe I should call him back. It went against my better instincts, but what was so bad? Sure, I’ve never been much for phone chatting, but I thought: maybe he just wants to hear that I sound normal, and maybe we’ll make a date.
I decided to go for it. I pressed the Call Back button. Little did I know I was about to embark on the Sexterview.
As soon as I identified myself, he started asking questions. Where do you live? Where do you work?
I played along, trying to keep the conversation light with my own questions, like Whats up? Hows it going?
He gave one word answers, and immediately went back to questions of his own. Do you workout? How tall are you? Are you an exhibitionist?
I answered, and then again tried to bring it to the conversational: What are you up to? Lazy Sunday?
He avoided my questions, and dove into his serious list.
Do you like to cuddle? You’re more a top? Do you like to suck cock?
I sighed, wishing I had stuck with my impulse. DECLINE. But it was too late now. I answered: Sometimes. Yes. Of course.
He continued, and I imagined him holding a clipboard and checking off boxes.
What gym do you go to? Do you live alone? Are you safe?
I gave up. I decided there was nothing to do but wait until the sexterview was over and the questions finally ceased. I answered, and the barrage continued.
Do you do groups? Where do you like to cum?
And then he got to the truly perverse.
“How old are you?”
“How old are you?!” I shot back, outraged.
“23.”
I sighed, and I swear I heard him flip a page. “So,” he continued, “You definitely like to cuddle, right?”
From now on, I’m sticking to texts.
One Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed to make the trip with AuntPharm to the Brooklyn IKEA. As we navigated the maze of trendy swedish imports with his friend Decibella, (who at various points would bellow “I think I like this... GAAAAYS!! OPINION!!”) we began discussing dating.
“So,” AuntPharm told me, “now suddenly EverybodyLovesAden isn’t talking to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I went on one date with this guy that he’d been on a couple dates with. But I asked him first if it was ok!”
“And what did he say?”
“Well, he didn’t seem to mind too much... at first...”
“Clearly,” I dead-panned, “he minds.”
“I know,” said AuntPharm. “It's totally taboo to date your friends' exes.”
I was immediately resistant. “Why?!”
“Be-CUASE!” Decibella boomed, “It’s your EX!!”
“Thanks, that clears it right up,” I sarcastically quipped. She threw a sofa cushion at my head.
“Well,” asked AuntPharm, “Would you want someone dating XJosh?”
“Someone is,” I replied.
“I mean a friend of yours.”
I paused for a second to consider. Then I said, “but that’s totally different. He and I dated for like 2 years. Aden only dated that kid for what - a month? Three, maybe four dates?”
“Exactly,” agreed AuntPharm, “that’s why I think it’s OK that I go on a date with him.”
I nodded. “It depends on the relationship.”
“Was that EVEN a RELATIONSHIP!?” cried Decibilla. Neither of us answered. “GAYS!!! OPINION!!!”
“It was not,” declared Aunt Pharm. But I kept pushing.
“Maybe the real question,” I said, “is What defines a relationship?”
That remained unanswered for the rest of the day, and I decided to do a little informal research.
A few days later, I was out on the town with some friends, and as we were in a cab hopping from bar to bar, I threw out the question. “When you’re dating someone, at what point is it considered a Relationship?”
“If you had unprotected sex, it's a relationship!”
We all laughed at the absurdity of MinnieSoda’s response.
“Guess that explains why you’ve had so many boyfriends!” I quipped.
“Shut up!” he cried. Then, “Ok, seriously... three dates. After you’ve gone on three dates with someone, that’s a relationship.”
That satisfied the rest of the cab-full, but seemed a little cut-and-dry for me.
A week later, the subject emerged again when I met up with J-Blo at Vlada.
“How’ve you been?” I asked as the server presented 2 Absolute Madras, J-Blo's drink of choice.
“Well, Bazooka and I broke up,” he replied.
“Aw, I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it - I knew that J-Blo really liked him.
“Yeah,” he said. The he looked me in the eye. “All I ask... is that you don’t sleep with him.”
“WHAT?! Why would I... I wasn’t going to... I would never...”
“I didn’t mind,” he continued, “when you slept with Shirley Temple.”
“Wooooah!” I exclaimed, suddenly so far on the defensive I didn’t even gulp my cocktail before rebutting. “First of all, I didn't just ‘sleep with him.’ That was a full-fledged Summer Fling. Gay Pride to Labor Day. That’s the closest I’ve been to a relationship since... well, never mind. And speaking of relationships, you and he were not exactly...”
“It was a relationship!” J-Blo exclaimed.
“It was a threesome,” I reminded him, “that turned into some kind of crazy thrupple, that then went on to...”
“To become a relationship.”
I sighed. And downed my drink. Clearly J-Blo had defined that relationship. And clearly friends' exes were off limits.
It shouldn't have come as a shock to me. It wasn’t even 2 months prior that I’d hooked up with a cute twink, who had recently broken up with another twink, my cute-trick-turned-friend Kenny. For some reason, I thought that Kenny either wouldn’t find out, or wouldn’t care that I’d slept with his ex. And for a while, he didn’t find out. Then one night at 3am the chiming of my iPhone woke me up. It was a text from Kenny. “You fucked my ex boyfriend!?! We’re very mad.”
My first thought was: who’s We? I almost replied, but made the wise decision to leave it unanswered. In the months that followed, Kenny never brought it up, so I assumed he’d let it go... but his feeling at the time was very clear.
I was almost ready to report back to AuntPharm with the results of my research, when I found myself out one night in a group with a rare manifestation: two gay brothers. Both were very smart, very charming, and very attractive. Of course, they were also very popular with all the gays, wherever we went. As the night of drinking went on, I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to question one, in between my flirting with him.
“So,” I asked, as innocently as possible, “do you two ever fight over guys?”
“Yeah, we occasionally cross with the same guys,” replied Tweddle Cute. “There’s a rule.”
Jackpot.
“The rule is, as long as one of us hasn't had sex with him, its ok. The other can... whatever. But if a guy has had sex with one of us, he's off limits to the other.”
I should have known. As in so many cases, it all came down to sex.
I told AuntPharm all my findings, ranging from three dates to wacky relationship to just sex.
“Overall,” I said, “You were right. Dating a friend’s ex is totally taboo.”
He nodded solemnly. Then he said, “Two gay brothers?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Hot brothers?”
“Mmmm Hmmmmmm.”
“Just sex?”
“Just sex. If someone has sex with one, he’s totally off-limits to the other.”
“Wow,” mused AuntPharm. “Imagine if you had that rule - anyone you’d had sex with was off limits to all your friends. We’d all have to turn straight just to get laid.”
A couple weeks ago, I left work early. I was feeling awful – sore throat, headache, chills. As I walked home, for a moment I thought how great it would be to leave work at 1:00 every day. I could spend the afternoon finding hot boys to have sex with! But at that moment, I had no interest in sex whatsoever. The only thing I wanted a hot boy to do was to bring me soup, wrap me in blankets, and cuddle with me.
Cuddle?! I was definitely sick.
Last week, I had to have minor surgery on my hand. I somehow developed a ‘retinacular cyst’ under the skin of my right palm, and removing it required surgery. Though it was minor, it was full-blown surgery: arrival at the hospital Friday morning at 5:45 am (!), made to wear nothing but the loose – fitting hospital gown with my butt hanging out in the back (they wouldn’t let me keep it, I asked), and full anesthesia while they sliced open my hand in the O.R. to remove the alien cyst. Because of the anesthesia, I was required to have someone accompany me home.
After the surgery, I was overjoyed to see the Photographer, giddy in fact, and greeted him with a huge, dopey grin. The anesthesia clearly hadn’t worn off. He got me in a cab, stopped with me at Duane Reade to fill my Percocet prescription (good stuff), and took me home.
The next 48 hours were a blur, filled mostly with drugs, sleep and Domino’s pizza. There were, of course, times that I again wished I had someone to take care of me (suddenly not having use of your right hand makes the simplest tasks insanely difficult), but overall I managed pretty well. Until Monday.
My instructions were that on Monday, three days after the surgery, I could remove the mountain of bandages wrapped around my hand, and begin simply covering the incision area with band-aids. Monday night I sat on my bed, took a deep breath, and began to unwrap the sticky ace bandages. It wasn’t the pain that concerned me (it had mostly stopped hurting by then), it was the fact that I am somewhat squeamish about things like cuts, blood, and general bodily grossness. And by “somewhat squeamish” I mean I’m a huge baby.
I managed to get the outer layer of ace bandages entirely off, and then remove the two larger gauze pads. Then I saw what was left: a small square of thin gauze, which was discolored from dried blood. Another deep breath and I began to peel it back. It stuck to the skin.
“Ahhh!” I cried. I realized I was being foolish. “Stop being a baby,” I told myself. “You’re an adult, it’s just a little dried blood, and it probably won’t even hurt. Just do it!”
Once again I began to peel back the gauze, forcing myself to keep pulling as it slowly separated from the skin. I grinded my teeth and kept peeling... until I saw the first of the stitches. They had used black stitches, and the way the ends stuck out from the purplish wound make it look like a big dead bug on my hand.
“AHHHHH!”
I grabbed my cellphone.
XJosh answered on the 2nd ring. “Hello?”
“Are you home???” I cried.
“Uh... yes...” my ex-boyfriend answered cautiously.
“I’m coming over!” I exclaimed. XJosh and his current boyfriend, Marabou, had recently moved to a new apartment in Hells Kitchen, just 2 blocks from my place.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because!” I raced through an explanation in one breath, “Friday I had my hand surgery and today I’m supposed to take off the bandages and I took off the bandages but now there’s a piece of gauze and it’s stuck to my hand and I think it’s from dried blood and it’s stuck to the skin and I looked underneath and I can see the stitches and they’re grosssssssss, and I’m afraid to rip it off cause what if it starts bleeding again and what if it hurts and I need some help and ... and your sister’s a nurse!!”
XJosh signed, knowing full well my ridiculous inability to deal with anything icky. “We’re finishing dinner. Give us 20 minutes.”
Nineteen minutes later, I was pressing the buzzer to his apartment.
“Everything you need is in there,” I said dramatically, handing my messenger bag to XJosh as he opened the door.
Marabou opened my bag and began inventorying the items. “Band-Aids … and vodka?”
“Start with that,” I ordered as he pulled out the half-empty bottle I’d brought.
“What do you want it with?”
“Ice.”
After I downed half my drink, I let XJosh examine my hand.
“Can you get it wet?” he asked.
“Yes, they said that’s OK today.”
For the next ten minutes, XJosh tended to my hand, carefully dripping warm water on the gauze and lightly peeling it back, then gently applying several band-aids, all while Marabou tried to distract me with the video game he was playing.
“There,” XJosh announced, proud of his work. “All done. Didn’t even hurt, did it?”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I handed him my empty glass. “I’ll have another.”
We hung out for another hour, and then I went home, leaving the rest of the vodka as a thank-you. Walking home, I reflected that going there was probably a little ridiculous. But sometimes you literally need a helping hand. Still, it was the third time in as many weeks that the idea of having a boyfriend seemed less appalling and more appealing.
A few days ago, one of my colleagues came in to work very upset. When I saw her crying at her desk, we went to the supply room to chat.
“My boyfriend and I broke up last night,” she told me, new tears coming to her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to comfort her. I listened for a while as she let out her I-can’t-believe-I’m-single-agains, and her I-really-thought-he-was-The-Ones. I handed her tissues, and patted her arm.
Then she exhaled a long sigh, looked at me and asked, “Why are relationships SO HARD?”
I shrugged and shook my head – I certainly didn’t have the answer to that one.
“Don’t ask me,” I replied. “I’m perpetually single.”
“Well right now,” she said, laughing through her tears, “I’m thinking that’s not such a bad thing!”