05-02-2021, 10:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-02-2021, 10:43 PM by gayprojectforum.)
Hi Project,
I have read the forum far and wide and I also want to bring my contribution on gay couples.
Frankly, after so many years, I can say that I have completely put this concept aside. I speak of many years because I’m moving towards 50, I have exceeded 45 and I’m now at the age in which people begin to take stock of their own life. As a boy, 30 years ago, I was very reserved, very shy, complexed by sex and very attached to a gay mythology, pass me the term. I have fallen in love many times, I would say too many times, and just as many times I have been forced to downsize everything, because my hypothetical boyfriend was straight (it happened several times), he was a collector for whom I was just one of many, or simply because the guy on duty had no intention of building a real relationship with me, more or less like: "Sex yes, as much as you want, but then get out of my way!"
I’m not giving you a catalog of those obsessed with sex of a certain type and only with that, of those Catholics who first have sex with you and then blame you for everything and accuse you of having led them on the wrong path, because "they are not gay and want to have a family etc. etc.", I also spare you those of the worst category, that of jealous possessives, who spy on you, who demand from you an unquestioning obedience and of those possessive affective who want to make you a satellite of their galaxy by dint of emotional or sexual blackmail, taking for granted that they have the right to choose your friends, to decide which movies you have to see, to plan your holidays, etc. etc.. And then there is the category of the chronic undecided, of those who can say no more than “but and perhaps”, or even worst yes but with reserve, and no but with reserve, which is even more absurd, I call these people those of: “Mom! Mark touches me! ... Get busy, Mark, touch me! Mom is looking the other way!"
In the end, when I was 40, I got bored of that strange zoo and said enough! If I ever find a normal guy and something really acceptable really comes out, okay, otherwise it's better to stay alone than badly accompanied!" I have unsubscribed from certain sites and I have deleted certain apps. There is no need to tell you which ones. I limited myself to use some porn and I was content with that, because, let's face it, I have always been a hypochondriac and I have never put myself at risk, that is, when I had sex with a guy I was very careful not to pass the guard limits and when I said no my no was indisputable, and many guys just didn't accept this, for them I was a strange, obsessed, etc. etc.. After putting aside the idea of finding a partner, I did something else, I worked, I started a small private business, very small but that gives me satisfaction and absorbs most of my time.
At 42 I met a guy who was 12 years younger than me, he was a guy different from the others, prudent in speaking and with a way of doing that I liked, never aggressive, he was also a handsome guy, as well as intelligent, but all this observing and reasoning for me meant no more than that there are still beautiful and smart guys, but nothing at all more than that. I thought that that guy belonged to a world far from mine, in practice I didn’t even think that between us there could be more than an exchange of four words of courtesy, I was convinced that he was straight, in short, for me he was and I thought he would remain a perfect unknown.
I met him for the first time in my accountant's waiting room and we talked a little about a lot of general issues, but just to pass the time and, after that episode, we didn't see each other again for a couple of months and practically I had completely forgotten about him, then towards the middle of December, on a day when I had a lot of problems on my mind, I met him by chance on the train, while I was going to Milan for problems related to my little enterprise, he was in the corridor of my wagon, and we started talking. After a few minutes he came to my compartment, it was morning and there were very few people, there were just the two of us in the compartment and the time to spend on the train would be at least of another three hours. I completely forgot about my problems and spent those three hours like I was surrounded by a pink cloud, the compartment seemed to me an enchanted environment, but also substantially unreal.
We were both headed to Milan, he lived in Milan and worked there, but he often came to Rome, where his parents lived. I have never been a conqueror, with the guys I have always been very awkward but with him I felt at ease, let's face it, I was not embarrassed because I simply thought that I would never see him again, I had no plans about him, not even at the level of minimal imagination. I had to stay three days in Milan and I hadn't booked the hotel, because I would have found a hotel anyway and he told me: “But if you have to stay three days in Milan, stay at my house, it's small but comfortable, in the heart of the city." At the station we separated because he had work commitments and I too would not be released before 19.00. We made an appointment for 7.30 pm under his house, obviously we exchanged mobile numbers.
At 7.30 pm I am in [omitted] street and he already stays there with a plastic bag in his hand, he tells me: "I got something for dinner ..." The house was tiny, only one room, but everything was in perfect order, We enter the kitchenette and he goes to the stove, prepares two plates of spaghetti and puts chicken and potatoes from the rotisserie in the oven, in the meantime we talk, but always about very general things. The atmosphere is familiar, for a moment I had the feeling that with that guy as a mate I would have felt at ease, but such an idea seemed a thousand miles away from reality.
After dinner, he washes the dishes in a flash and then tells me that he is very tired and that he would like to go to sleep. In the room there are two beds, he points to mine, we get ready for the night and go to bed, but despite the tiredness we start talking and go on until late at night. It was the first day I talked to that guy, I felt at ease and the situation didn't seem strange at all to me. I swear to you, Project, I was convinced that he was straight and I carefully avoided any reference even vaguely gay. He had a beautiful voice, damn sexy, but in my opinion he was straight ... and the whole discussion remained on very general issues, in practice we never went into private questions. He never talked about girls as I never talked about them, but at the moment I couldn't give the slightest weight to such a fact. He had a few books in the house but they seemed to me the classic straight books, let's say, there were no photographs or paintings, none of this.
In the morning the alarm goes off at seven o'clock. He immediately gets up and goes to the bathroom, I hear the water running from the shower but it doesn't make me hot or cold, then he leaves the bathroom and goes into the kitchen. I go into the bathroom, he opened the window and it's freezing cold, but it's all clean, before going out he dried the whole shower and changed the towel. I shower quickly and then I dry everything, as he had done, when I leave the bathroom I find breakfast ready. He tells me that he would be out ten minutes later so as not to be late for work and that if I wanted I could stay at home, he gives me a set of keys and just tells me that when I go out I have to close the door. He would be back around 7.15 pm, then he waves his hand to me and leaves.
I was alone in his house, I had the keys to the house, I could have poked around a bit, even if there was very little to poke. I choose a different way, I make the beds, both his and mine, his retains a sensitive trace of his perfume. I wash the breakfast cups, fix what little there was to fix in the kitchen and then go out for my meetings of work. At 6.00 pm I send him a text message: "Don't take anything for dinner, I'll take care of it." I go to the rotisserie and buy something, adding also a bottle of Tuscan wine, then I go back to his house, put the water on a low heat and set the table.
A few minutes before 7.00 pm he arrives and seems very happy to find everything settled, a spontaneous smile comes to me, but he doesn't talk about the house fixed and the dinner ready, instead he asks me with a questioning face where I am with my work schedule in Milan, the question sounds strange to me, I interpret it as if he wanted to tell me that if I did what I had to do, I could as well come back to Rome immediately, I stop smiling and with a serious and quite rude attitude I answer that in practice I have done everything I had to do to do and that I could come back to Rome even in the same evening because I would just have to change the ticket. He seems not listen to me and goes on his way as if I hadn't said anything: "I don't work tomorrow morning, if you want I'll show you some beautiful things in Milan." I wasn't expecting that answer and he must have seen looking at my face that my good mood was back in its place. Evidently we still didn’t trust each other, we were looking for confirmations and misunderstandings were still possible.
I make the story short, my second day in Milan was very nice, I seemed to have always known that guy, we had lunch out, we came back in the evening and we talked until late before falling asleep. The third day was short and we only met early in the morning, he had to work until 7pm and I had my train at 11.30 am. I gave him back the house keys and we said goodbye with a handshake. Shortly before the departure time he sent me a text message thanking me for the beautiful days he had spent with me. I told him that I was expecting him in Rome as soon as possible and that if I returned to Milan I would let him know.
I took the train, I tried to rearrange the memories of those hours spent together, and there it occurred to me that this could be a model of life as a couple, but in reality I knew very well that it was just fantasy. Anyway, I assumed he was straight, and I thought he too had taken me for straight. After about 10 days he calls me back, tells me that he will come to Rome the next day and asks me if I can host him, he explains that he had to go to his parents but that he anticipated his departure by one day to spend that day with me, his parents knew that he would arrive the next day and therefore from the next day he would stay at their house, but he wanted to spend one day with me.
The next morning at 11.00 I go to pick him up at the station and take him to my house. Needless to say, I had cleaned up and fixed everything and made all the gay clues go away. Shortly before noon we are home, I had prepared a room for him, but he tells me that he had come from Milan to talk to me and that this would not have been possible this way. That’s why we move his bed to my room, then we have lunch, he notices that everything is prepared with the utmost care, he tells me that my house is much bigger than his and also much older, in fact I live in an old area of Rome and in a building that I think dates back to 1700, a building of only two floors, with ribbed vaults made of bricks, it was a family home when those houses were poor people's homes, then, over time, they became houses for tourists, if opportunely restructured, my apartment needs to be restructured but there is no money to afford a such an expensive project.
In the afternoon we go for a tour of the city and above all of the places where tourists don't go, in the evening he doesn't want to eat out, we go home, prepare a quick dinner and then we go to talk in the the living room. He tells me his story but in a very concise and incomplete way, deliberately trivializing, as if it were a set of obvious things, and I’m listening to him with the utmost attention. I can see that he is at ease, at least relatively or, better, I can see that he is not afraid of me, but he is exploring the terrain, he doesn’t tell me anything particularly significant, but it is in that situation that I start to think that the relationship I have with that guy could be something more complicated than it appeared to me at the beginning, I listen to him but I start asking myself questions, I realize that we have never talked about women and somehow I start to expect that the speech will end with some important statement, but at some point he tells me that he is tired and that the next morning he will have to get up early and so we go to sleep without having said anything at all. I don't understand why he made me bring his bed to my room but in the end I prefer not to ask myself too many questions.
The next morning we have breakfast together, then he greets me with a handshake and leaves. I quickly delete any alternative hypothesis from my brain and say to myself: “But what the hell of nonsense have I been thinking about? Gays see gays everywhere! And I'm no exception." Three weeks later I happen to have to go to Milan again, I call him and tell him, he seems happy, he tells me that he will not be able to come to the station and that we will meet directly at 19.30 pm near his house. The phone call is very short, I feel that he is busy. I think I have to repay him and I buy him a scarf, an object, as a way of saying thank you.
On the journey to Milan I begin to ask myself many questions and even to feed some expectations, I thought that finally we would be able to "perhaps" speak clearly because the whole story had very little of ordinary. At 19.30 pm we meet in his house, and as the previous time he took something from the rotisserie for dinner. At home I immediately notice that he is upset, that he is not in a good mood, I try to ask him some questions but he dodges any questions and talks about something else. A call arrives on his cell phone, he looks to find out who the call came from but doesn’t answer and turns off the cell phone. I think it is a courtesy to me, but he tells me that he has had too much trouble today and hopes to relax at least at home. He behaves strangely, he's not like the first time, he's kind but also unfriendly, to the point where I tell him: "If you need to be alone, no problem, there is a hotel here 200 meters away ... ." He looks at me and says: "No ... you have nothing to do with my problems, they are work problems only ..." But I don’t have the impression that they are just work problems. However, he cuts the speach short. We finish dinner and he tells me that he is very tired and wants to go to sleep. We don’t stay talking like the first time, I feel almost as an unwelcome guest, perhaps not really so, however he remains closed in his world, that is, in his bad mood.
The next day we say goodbye rather coldly. I have to leave for Rome before noon. This time I don’t receive any text messages before departure. On the train I repeat myself many times that I mustn’t let my imagination run wild and that I will do well to stay in my world. I promise myself not to call him when I have other opportunities to go to Milan and on this, at least at that moment, I have no doubts. I arrive in Rome and he calls me on the phone to apologize, it is something that I don’t expect at all, I’m positively impressed and I come to the conclusion that after all everyone can have some dark moments and that his problems come probably precisely from work matters.
We haven't heard from each other for almost a month. I thought he had forgotten about me and in a sense I was also happy, because that way I too could have put a stone on it. Then, quite unexpectedly, he calls me one morning before 7.00, tells me he will be in Rome the next day and asks me if he can stay with me. Obviously I tell him yes, but inside I'm not at all enthusiastic about it. Anyway I tell him yes. I’m tempted to make him weigh the way he had treated me in Milan the previous time, then I tell myself that such a thought is really mean and childish and I force myself to organize everything exactly as the previous time.
I go to pick him up at the station, he is visibly happy to see me and I’m also happy to see him again, I ask him if he should go to his parents the next day but he tells me that he has taken three days off and that he has come for me, this raises inside me many questions to which I don’t know and daren’t answer. In practice he would have stayed in Rome for three days, something that I absolutely didn’t expect, he realizes my perplexity and tells me: "If I create problems of any kind for you, just say it, I'll leave immediately ..." I look at him and tell him: "Be quiet! Now I’ll arrange my schedule, please don't make that face!" I picked up the phone and in a quarter of an hour I organized my three days off. This is the advantage of those who are small entrepreneurs like me, indeed I should say very small!
When I close the phone he wants to restart with the fact that he can go away immediately, but I tell him peremptorily: "If you came here you will have a serious reason ..." He looks at me and says: "Give me time ..." He stretches out on the sofa in the living room and I feel that he is about to tell me something important. He says to me: "You understand, isn’t it?" I actually didn’t understand what, according to him, I should have understood and I absolutely didn’t want to say nonsense, but I could not be pretending to be stupid because I would have embarrassed him, and I replied: "Well, more or less, I think yes… ”I thought (I hoped) that he could tell me that he had fallen in love with me, that I was important to him, but it was nothing like that. He tells me: “My boyfriend dumped me ... I was fine with him, but I was deluded and yesterday he dumped me. When you last came to Milan I was already out of my mind because he treated me with indifference, but now he really sent me to the hell ... "
In a few minutes I had gone from the role of the one who expects a declaration of love to the role of the one who has to do as a comforter, however, in a sense, I felt reassured by his statement, even if it may seem paradoxical. I try to let him speak and to intervene as little as possible. He feels cheated by his ex. He gives vent to his bad mood at least a little but then it is clear that he expects some serious answer from me. I do as he did, I completely avoid preambles and tell him: “When a story ends it always seems like a failure but it can be a liberation. It is better to know how things really are than to go on in the dark. You have only lost an illusion. " He looks at me disconsolately and tells me: "I know, but I was hurt and a lot." I decide to get out of the ambiguity and to do, me too, my coming out and I tell him: "Something practically identical happened to me too, he left because he was looking for something that I was not able to give him" After this mutual coming out I fully entered my role as a comforter. I told him: "Come on, help me to cook something better!" He looked at me smiling and said: "Ok!"
I was wondering what he expected from me, what the limits of my role must have been and I was very confused about this. The only possible way seemed to me to act with the utmost prudence, or rather with the utmost respect for him. We still had two days to spend together and I didn't know what to do. We cooked, had lunch, washed the dishes together, then it occurred to me to ask him if his parents knew about him. He replied that his parents are good people and that they always worked hard for him but he did everything to finish his studies as soon as possible and to go to work in another city, because he wanted to have some autonomy and eventually managed to get it. He has no brothers or sisters and also for this reason the relationship with his parents was very close and almost suffocating. He has maintained a good relationship with his parents even if he cannot speak clearly with them, he goes to visit them more or less once every two months but for the rest of the time he stays in Milan and keeps in touch with them only via skype. He told me: "My family is a normal family for better and for worse."
After the talk about the family I didn't know what to say and how to go on and the mutual embarrassment felt very strong. He too no longer knew what to say and how to behave, now we knew that we were two gays who liked to talk together, it was evident that both him and me had thought that we could have taken a step further, but the fear to ruin everything was so strong that it was paralyzing. I propose that we go out in the afternoon to take a tour downtown. He replies that he didn’t come to Rome to be a tourist but to be with me, a very ambiguous expression in itself, but behind which, in those particular circumstances, anything can be implied. We begin to talk about our gay experiences, but it was evident that the talk was only to fill the time, and it was equally evident that there was not much to tell. Some stories, yes, really non very few, but basically nothing serious. I asked him what he wanted from his life and he said he didn't know.
He got up seemingly to come and sit next to me, but he didn't, he turned around and went to sit in his armchair again. Then he asked me: "Why do you think I came here today?" I replied: "Because you were very upset about that guy and you wanted to talk a little." But he stopped me and said, "Just for that?" I told him: "I hope not ..." then he came and sat next to me, took my right hand and shook it hard almost up to hurt me, then he leaned his face against it, I passed my hand through his hair, and he said to me: "Let me stay like this for five minutes and that's enough ..." I remained silent to caress his hair, then he leaned on my shoulder and didn't say a word for very long minutes. I felt his warmth, his physical presence, but also his discomfort, his uncertainty.
At one point he stood up, looked troubled, dark in the face, some bad thought must have crossed his mind. I asked him: “What is it? Something wrong?" He only replied: "Nothing ...", then he newly shook my hand hard. I think he too clearly perceived all my uncertainty, then his phone rang, they were looking for him for work problems and he spoke on the phone for a long time, opened his super-tech laptop and got in touch with his office. I left him alone, in the meantime I made coffee and brought it to him with some biscuits, he answered me with a smile and I went to prepare some dinner until the end of the phone call.
When he finished he apologized and I said to him: "But for charity! No need to apologize if you have to work!" Then, one of his unexpected questions came to me like an arrow, or better like a flash, a question I didn't expect at all, he asked me: "Why didn't you try to go further when we were on the couch?" I felt caught off guard and simply replied: "Because I never wish you could feel forced in any way." He looked at me and said: "I thought exactly the same thing about you ..." And we hugged each other very tightly. Feeling the physicality of a guy who wants you is a very strong feeling, they are not words but it is his body. The embrace was very intense, desired, profound, it was already a way of being no more alone.
I thought that after it was all downhill road but it was not so. He was hugging me but he wasn't really happy. I told him: “I see you upset…” He broke away from me and said to me: “I have to tell you… I'm thinking of another guy, and I wish he was here now. Somehow I expected a speech like this and I told him: "Well in a situation like this very few people would have the strength to make a speech like this, I appreciate it very much, because it is an honest speech." I saw myself being brought back into the role of the comforter again, but it didn't seem to me like a secondary thing at all. After all, a relationship of total clarity had developed in a very short time, which is something more unique than rare. But that clarity had not put anything in crisis, on the contrary, it had strengthened a bond that was now taken for granted by both sides.
We cooked together and the harmony was perfect. We looked like an affiliated surgical team. After dinner he told me that he was feeling very tired, even though it was not yet ten o'clock. He goes to the bathroom and then gets on the bed, calls me, wants me to put the armchair next to the bed and to sit in my armchair, he says: "If you want ..." I smile and tell him: "Of course I want!" and I sit next to him. He has two wonderful eyes, the kind that steal your soul. I stroke his hair for a few minutes and he falls asleep. He evidently felt safe and did not feel conditioned in the least. I go to sleep too. In a very short time our relationship had become very important, I was happy that he was there and he had come from Milan for me. I thought It wouldn't easy to get asleep because of the crowding of thoughts but things went differently and I slept very well.
I got up in the morning at 7.00 and made breakfast, then I went to wake him up, he stretched like a cat and gave me a beautiful smile. I told him: "Breakfast is ready!" He got up and came to the table in his pajamas. At a certain point he said to me: "Aren't you mad at what I told you last night?" I motioned him to shut up and eat and he nodded yes. I tell him: "Today I'll take you to the Pigorini Museum at EUR and I think you'll like it a lot!" I briefly explain to him what it is and he seems very interested. The visit to the museum gave me a clear idea of the cultural depth of that guy. He is an engineer but he knew a lot of things about prehistory, Neanderthal man, geological periodizations and a thousand other things. Ours was not a running walk through the museum, but a decidedly careful and very selective visit, especially oriented towards the prehistoric sector and less towards the ethnographic one.
We got home when it was almost three in the afternoon, but we had taken something to eat from the rotisserie and lunch took a short time. Just after lunch, a moment of mutual embarrassment took over, it was necessary to break the ice. I didn't want to do any damage and neither did he, but then he took the initiative and I followed him immediately. I hadn't had a lot of sexual experiences in the true sense of the word but I too had minimum of experience (and he too), but, as far as I'm concerned, being with him was just a totally different thing, it was all spontaneous, of course, there wasn’t the slightest embarrassment, in short, with him I was "fine" I felt serene, understood, accepted, important and I saw him at ease.
But there was a moment that deeply troubled me. When we finished he had wet eyes but I didn't dare ask him why. The next day the thing was repeated, even if in a minor tone, I tried to explore the ground, he smiled at me, stroked my face and did not speak but his sad eyes spoke for him. On the afternoon of the third day we said goodbye very warmly but he was serious, thoughtful and I could say sad. I sent him a text message to say thank you and he replied with a phrase that made me tremble: “I don't know if I did well. Forgive me." I calculated the time it would take to get to Milan and called him. He told me he had just arrived home. I told him I was worried about those phrases and he said to me: "I must not deceive you, because you could feel terrible ... "I told him that I’m not deluded at all but that I love him, that he was 100% honest with me and that he should not feel bound in any way, because his freedom, for me, it is sacred. He added: "But when I told you that I wasn't thinking about you but about my ex, well I think it was like a stab for you ..." I told him: "No, it's clear that you keep thinking about that guy and that you might also think of other guys, but it's not that I can love you less for this, I love you for who you are and for how you treated me, nothing like this had ever happened to me ... "He replied:" Well , but you have to keep in mind that I can't guarantee you anything, because I'm a very fickle guy… ”I told him he doesn't have to guarantee me anything, God forbid! At the end of the phone call he told me he didn't know if he would call me in the future and I replied: "If you don't do it, I'll do it for you, you just have to answer ..." And he said to me: "You can count on that!" and the phone call ended like this.
He didn't show up for a week so I called him. He was happy. He told me that he had seen his ex-boyfriend again and that they were trying to get back together. But the tone didn’t seem to me that of a guy in love, he insisted a lot on verbs like try, strive to and so on but in fact the enthusiasm was not there. I had to be careful not to intrude on his important stories, but I had many doubts as to whether those were really important stories. However, I felt out of the game and I retired in good order, I didn't call him for a week and then he called me, he seemed more serene, he had no problems to talk to me, he just assumed that his getting back together with his ex-boyfriend wasn't going to shatter our relationship.
For me the situation was embarrassing because I thought it was such for him and for him it was embarrassing because he thought it was such for me. We were talking for a couple of hours, the presence of his ex-boyfriend was not felt at all. We also joked and said nonsense, then the conversation returned to a serious tone and he told me that he felt observed by me when we had finished making love and he felt like crying and he told me he felt like crying because he wanted to make love like that with his ex-boyfriend and he felt like he was deceiving me and added "like now I'm deceiving my ex, because I don't feel in love with him anymore" I asked him: "So why did you get back with him? " And he replied: "He insisted a lot and I wasn't able to say no to him, and now he has deluded himself another time and I'm cheating him."
I asked him: "But what do you want?" and he told me he would like his ex to be like me, which made me very proud but also held me back a lot. He continued to be with his boyfriend with the hope of being able to change him at least a little from the inside. The contact with me was never interrupted, but he didn’t come to Rome until the following Christmas, in practice for 10 months, and I didn’t go to Milan, or rather, I went there for work, but I went to the hotel without telling him anything, so as not to intrude on his sentimental projects. On December 11th he calls me and tells me: “Tomorrow I'll come to you…“ I understand what that sentence means, I try to ask him what happened, but he answers me. "Don't ask questions, see you tomorrow, I'll arrive on the 11.00 train."
I go to pick him up at the station, I'd like to take him out for lunch but he's holding me back: “No! Let's go home!" Once inside, he hugs me very tightly and says: "I missed you so much!" The rest you can imagine. Almost 4 years have passed since then. He is trying to move to Rome but it is not easy. One weekend I go to him and one he comes to me. Living together with him, even if partially, I can say that it seems to me that I am living a fairy tale and at the same time a situation of total normality. We are not a cohabiting couple, somehow we are cohabiting but we are not a couple, we simply love each other, there are no bonds between us, as long as everything works by itself, ok, otherwise we will continue to love each other in a different way. I stop here. If you want, put this email on the sites, I made him read it and when he finished reading he told me I shouldn't mythologize and gave me a kiss on the forehead.