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SEXUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 11-29-2022, 04:20 PM - Forum: True gay stories - No Replies I inform you that today I have put online a new book that enriches  Gay Project Library: “SEXUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS”. It is a text of about sixty pages, which is also accompanied by notes that require the typical layout of a book, and which, therefore, cannot be posted in a forum post. The text is based on a recent and important publication: “The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds”, in the critical edition edited by Amber K. Regis for Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, in the Genders and Sexualities in History series, from which I took the texts of Symonds that I quote in my essay. This is not a generic memoir but the author’s sexual autobiography, written with absolute adherence to the facts and total transparency to leave a document that describes the true sexual evolution of a cultured Englishman, born in 1840 and died in 1893, precisely as he himself saw it. I have translated two important Symonds books into Italian for the Gay Project Library, and I think it is really useful to publish now, both in English and in Italian, a text that illustrates the evolution of Symonds’ sexuality. Symonds’ Memoires are unique, because they constitute in practice the only sexual autobiography absolutely free from commercial interests of any kind that has been published. It should be emphasized that the text was not originally intended for publication because in England homosexuality was punished by criminal law and the text I am presenting to you would certainly have been considered obscene and its publication would therefore have been a real crime. This is not a novel. Symonds in addition to telling the facts explicitly names the protagonists. The book, which required the author a tremendous effort and removed him from the possibility of pursuing greater success in the field of art history and classical culture, which he dealt with at the academic level, is therefore a unique contribution to serious study of homosexuality which in his time was taking its first and uncertain steps. It should be noted that Symonds married and had four daughters, and his marriage story, carried on despite some important and enduring homosexual relationships, is a one-of-a-kind testimony of him. I will be immensely grateful to anyone who reads my work and wants me to know his thoughts on it. You can read the book just clicking on the following link.  I remember that all the material of Gay Project is always and absolutely free and Gay Project never asks for personal data and does not keep any data relating to accesses. http://gayproject.altervista.org/john_addington_symonds_homosexual.pdf   GAY DIARY 2021 Posted by: gayprojectforum - 11-09-2022, 01:08 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies I Falling in love with a guy is not a dream, I can't even say if it's desirable. Of course, first it all seems like a dream, then you realize that it is not even your thing, it is something that has its own logic that you don’t control and often don’t even understand, you realize that you are a part of a larger mechanism that it is not at your service and that, once you are inside, you can only go with the flow, which takes you wherever it wants. I love you, I don't even know whether to say it's true, maybe it is but in my own way that is probably very far from your way of conceiving these things. It is good together, it is good for a while, there is also sex in the middle, I don't know if there is really on both sides the idea of building something in two. A guy, indeed a handsome guy is like a box, you see the outside you like, but you don't know what's inside the box, you don't know if you'll like what's inside, if that box really opens in front of you. Fears, after all, are mental reserves, they are forms of prudence that come from the fact that you don’t really know what you want or rather who you want, after all it is a choice in the dark, and for you it is the same, you too see the outside and I think sooner or later you will realize that the contents of the box are not worth much. I should be happy to have found a guy, a handsome guy who "maybe" is interested in me, but I don't feel overwhelmed by feelings but rather by uncertainties. Having some sex, as good as it may be, just means having some sex. I wonder why we got to this point, if by inertia, by chance, or just because each of us had our dreams of doing it with a guy and by chance that guy was me for you, but he could have been anyone else. After sex, and especially after an evening like the one we have just spent together, one should feel happy, enthusiastic, but no, I feel worried, I think maybe it would have been better if this whole story had never existed. In a sense it was nice, but in the end it is only an experience and we must be careful not to consider it a fundamental achievement, maybe it can happen again, but it will not be a basic choice of life. I know that you will leave, that it was only a moment, it is difficult to accept but in the end it can only be accepted. Even a moment can be beautiful and shouldn't be thrown away, it's just a moment. We do not have a life in common, which doesn’t exist for anyone, we shared a few moments, then each one will continue on his own path that is already marked.   II Dignity is your main virtue, but dignity is, even if not above all, detachment, separation, the de facto claim of absolute autonomy. I understand that you claim your freedom, and you do very well to do so! And you do it gracefully and decisively at the same time. I had set out to never say no to you but also not to look for you and not because I don't like your presence but because on the one hand I wouldn't want you to consider me as a burden and on the other, if this happens, it would really bother me. Then it is better to disappear first, slowly, rather than knocking on the door of someone who doesn’t answer. III Every now and then, when you can't find anything better, you look for me too, you say it's not like that, but in the end the pauses between our meetings become so long that they appear to be the prelude to a definitive goodbye, or rather to a disappearance without goodbye. Maybe we have only a physical communication, or at least we have had it, then everyone remains closed in on himself, I behave this way, we behave this way together, we play the part of lovers together once in a while and then everything returns as before and another very long pause starts again. You have your dignity, I have my prudence and it's all over before we start. Only sex remains, which is still liberating, at least up to a certain point, but then the parenthesis closes and we return to real life. I know absolutely nothing about your real life, beyond a few names. We just have to wait for it to end by itself. IV I’m pleased when I hear from you, in the minutes we spend on the phone on the one hand I’m glad that you are still there and on the other I’m afraid that talking to me could take you further away, or further highlight that I have been only a moment and that moment has passed, perhaps there is still a non-negative memory, but that too is fading. I like your voice. Long ago it would have seemed impossible but you are fading into my memories. You were a need and you are becoming a memory with more blurred outlines day after day. I count the days since the last call, they are now 35, that call could really be the last. Archiving is difficult, I'll have to do it anyway, because it's not even a choice. V Well, after 42 days we met again, some physical contact, to have the illusion of contact. I am left with the idea that you too are a drifter without reference points, with so many frustrations and so many resentments, so many unresolved conflicts that will remain unresolved. Our sporadic being together doesn’t help us to solve our problems, or maybe yes, who knows what we would be like if we were really alone, that is, one without the other, maybe we would be even worse than that. Tonight I had the feeling of a minimum of emotional contact that still aborts before birth, because maybe it's not worth it. I had almost forgotten you and now it starts all over again, the count of days starts again, mine is a life made up of expectations, yours I don't know what it is made of, I'm afraid there aren't even the expectations, VI You turned up after two weeks, we started talking a little more seriously on the phone, just a few words, more pauses than anything else, then another call came, you said: "I'll call you back" but, according to the usual script, you didn’t call back. Our phone call lasted 4 minutes and 26 seconds, then there were other things to do. VII Why did you call me? You joked, you played, you even provoked. What did you have in mind? You looked like another person. Were you happy or was it just an almost neurotic outburst? Because it's not like you to joke like that. I played the game, or what looked like a game, but the atmosphere was tense, almost a way to test how far I would follow you. I fear moments out of the ordinary, I fear unusual things, I wish they were, but I wish they were true. I was expecting you to propose to see us but it didn't happen and the phone call ended with a brutal: "I have to go to lunch, bye".   VIII But why are you mad at me? I have tried never to intervene in your choices, or perhaps it seemed to me that I did not intervene. Sometimes I think you don't listen to me and instead you listen to me, but it happens at the very wrong times, and nothing good ever comes to you. After all, we only exchange a few words, how can you feel conditioned by these things? Yes, it is true that you remember the things I say, but you remember them in your own way, you take them for criticism, for ways of dissenting or worse for incoherent sermons. If I think you did right some things, it was anyway you the one who did those things, the one who chose them, I didn't impose anything on you, I didn't condition you in any way. I have never judged your friends, I have not tried to distance you from anyone. Each extra word said can cause misunderstanding. I tell you positive things because I respect you and maybe I love you, even if I feel you are far away. I'm not trying to seduce you, not only I know from the beginning you were going to leave, but I think that basically it has already happened. You consider my behavior strange because I want nothing more from you than what you give me. I don't keep you at a distance to bind you to me, you have to be free. You are a serious man even if very different from me. My frustrations are only mine, I can't blame you for being like that. I keep thinking about you but in another way, I miss you, at least in a sense I miss you, but I no longer have the desire to build something with you that is different from what already exists (and something exists), the rest just doesn't it makes sense because it doesn't exist. You once asked me about some friends of mine that you thought were my ex-boyfriends, but you too are my friend and you are not my boyfriend, you never were, you never felt like my boyfriend and, in my opinion, you did very well, both for you and for me. Friends, even a little distant, we really are, the rest is just some sex, which I don't think was ever exciting for you either, that was just the cover for something more complicated and more convoluted that I can't understand completely, it is that something that is not clear that is probably the real motivation of our relationship, that produces conflicts and problems that are not typical of friendship. I wonder what you think of me, if you've ever asked yourself the problem, sometimes I think you identify me with other people who have had a real weight, I don't know if positive or negative, in your life, and that's why maybe I am worth more as a symbol than as a person. Sometimes I thought that you saw things in me that never really were, both in the negative and in the positive. In any case, the image you have of me is largely a figment of your imagination and I could say more or less the same about the image I have of you. Who knows what you would say if you read this diary. Would you take me for a delusional who fills the notebooks with absurd meditations? Or maybe you would wonder why I write these things? Only one thing is certain, I'll never know. IX I haven't heard from you for a very long time, now I don't count the days anymore. Sometimes you come back to my memory, I think that if you have disappeared it means that you are fine and that my function is now exhausted and this thing lifts my spirits. Would I like to go back and restart our story again? No. I say that without an exclamation point. Thinking about you happy, or at least more serene, reassures me. Who knows if we will meet again. The meaning of things can often not be understood. It's okay to forget me but I wouldn't want you to remember me in a negative way. Having had a negative influence would morally crush me. X When I heard your voice, I challenged all the certainties that I had built up in so many days. I must admit my wrongs: I didn’t trust you, I let my thoughts run on the usual negative tracks and I took for granted things that seemed obvious to me but were not. The pause was particularly long and therefore anxious but it was just a pause, but I couldn't realize it and I ran to the wrong conclusions, and basically it was a pause that you didn't even want. You have not forgotten about me, it seems almost impossible but you are still here, we are still here. That labile and problematic relationship still exists, it hasn't fallen apart. We talked more than usual and in a very quiet way, I don't know if you were happy to hear from me but at least it seemed to me that  you were. At this point even this prudence seems to me out of place, if not completely stupid. You told me that one of these days you will come to see me and I was happy with it, I did not expect a similar speech that was undoubtedly welcome. All the talk, mine and yours, came spontaneously and I wasn't afraid to say wrong things. I cannot deny that I’m happy. It's amazing how a phone call can change a person's mood. It is true, I had given space to my fears, but you have not disappeared, your presence is direct and simple today as in the end it has always been, while I was only inclined to read the worst in your talks, I interpreted your behaviors as destructive, I projected the worst of myself into you, I lived my relationship with you as a relationship between the worst of me and what I believed to be my best and weakest side, I was killer and victim of myself, in you I embodied the indifferent and destructive spirit that I carry inside me, but you are not the worst side of me, you are another person, luckily you are another person. What drew me to you was your weakness and your availability, under a rough skin. The mistake is to project oneself into the other without trusting him, because this seems the best and almost obligatory choice, it is basically a way of believing oneself better, to think that you understand everything, that you are the paradigm of everything. Today I was happy because I realized that you are not my double in the negative but you are better than me, you have your flaws, but you are different from me and you can understand things that I cannot understand and feel things that I cannot feel. The pauses, even the very long ones, were not a prelude to anything, your claiming your freedom didn’t hide any attempt at abandonment. After all, what is the point of asking if you are or are not my boyfriend? You remember me, you look for me, you are the one who looks for me, I just want to be sought. Thinking about you takes me away from the sense of emptiness. You had patience with me because you saw something good in me, not something strange but something good. After all, our relationship has deep roots, I didn't look for other guys, you did it and I always considered it well done and I pushed aside, but our relationship never got lost, I didn’t want it to be lost, even if I feared it, but it was you who actually prevented our relationship from getting lost in thin air. When words were difficult and complicated between us there was the physicality that spoke. I've never wanted another guy, I just wanted you, even with a problematic relationship, even with so many doubts and uncertainties, but I wanted you and no one else. You've had your stories but there has always been a place for me. You know that I pay attention to your words, that I try to understand you and that I’m happy when I see you. We have never acted and we have never quarreled, because the quarrel leads to detachment and we have never lost sight of each other. Today was a happy day. XI I'm fine with you, there is no need for too many words, together we can allow ourselves to be who we are, you a little rough and drastic, I obsessive and sticky, things that we accuse each other of but that we basically accept. I don't even know what I can console you for but I know that you really are there and you know that some of your drastic reactions will be accepted and will not be considered destructive anyway. We put up with each other, but maybe it's not just that. If you wanted to do without me you could very well put me on the back burner, but it never happened and it's so from several years now. I too somehow could do without you, but I'm fine with you, I objectively think I've never found anyone better than you, I dream, I still think in vain, to build a future with you, but it's a dream of my own, I dream of it because you are my private refuge, the one in which perhaps you are not 100% understood but still accepted with that rough politeness that reproaches but without being aggressive, and then your censorship is never radical, in the things I say you at least recognize my good will. You distance yourself but never go too far. Then there is sex which somehow basically represents everything else, it is the will to find a balance and we found it there much more than in words. Sometimes I’m amazed at how, in sex, everything becomes much easier and more direct, I talk about sex with you, because in other situations it didn't happen like that at all. Intertwining hands is a gesture of extraordinary intimacy. There is nothing about you that I don't like and I’m amazed that you find me sexually interesting. Other people also found me interesting from that point of view, but they were people who did not attract me, with you the extraordinary thing was the reciprocity, something that I had never experienced with anyone. Hugging you tightly, feeling that you are really there and that you are comfortable with me is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. Spontaneity and simplicity at the same time create the profound union of two people. You have allowed me to have a place in your most intimate world and this no one has ever done as you did, without reservations and without hesitation. XII You don't just have me, you also have other guys and it's not for a sexual outburst, you have other guys you love and I see it from the very few things you say about them, it's not a whim, those guys are really important to you more or less like me. On this point I can only reflect with myself, on this I cannot have a comparison with you. Is exclusivity important to the point of influencing everything else? Of course it is an underlying desire that is very difficult to keep under control. Honestly I don't have the impression that you love me less because you have other stories, of course you have to share your time, but I've always known this. Do I feel jealous? Frankly no. There is no couple relationship between you and me, I don't feel betrayed or disappointed, everything was clear from the beginning, no lies, no dust under the carpet, and I don't even think you've experienced your stories as conflicting stories. So I should put the problem aside and just forget about it. Even thinking that you can have sexual contact with other guys doesn’t upset me, because it has certainly happened several times since we met and you have never denied it and in any case we have maintained an authentic emotional relationship with a sexuality that doesn’t seem to me minimally conditioned by either side. Maybe I would like a little more of your time, even though I know this would be a form of selfishness. If I have never worried about these problems before why should I worry about them now? I don't have serious, objective reasons to get myself into such problems, even if underneath I tend to interpret our relationship as something that could (should) become exclusive. I know it will never happen but getting such an idea out of the brain is not that easy. Of one thing I am sure: the absence of exclusivity would never lead me to undermine our relationship.   XIII I spent a wonderful evening with you! I would say far beyond my expectations. There is only one element that worries me and that is the hypothesis that you have mentioned that you can go to work abroad. You mentioned it en passant, as something that could "also" happen, let's say as a remote eventuality. I was afraid to push the speech further and I was silent. You love your job, no problem with it, but you also love some people, including me. If you leave, you don't just put me aside, but pretty much all the people who really matter to you, at least that's what I see. Work is important, I understand it but a qualitative leap in work would lead you to emotional loneliness. You could certainly create an alternate world elsewhere, this is undeniable but it would take years as it took years for you to create the world you have here. In short, I didn't have the courage to tell you what I think and I don't like that. I shouldn't anymore be afraid to tell you what I think and instead that fear is still there.   XIV Another wonderful evening with you and without any mention of a possible change of job. From what you say it seems to me that in the job you have now you feel very comfortable. Again I preferred to shut up. I would have gladly asked you for some more clarification on the hypothetical departure but this time too I was afraid and I don't like this. Tomorrow or in any case as soon as possible I have to try to address the issue. Maybe it's best to wait until the next time we meet. Damn! I still let myself be influenced by you! XV Really beautiful evening with you. I found the courage and immediately tackled the job issue. You told me that the possibility of going abroad had vanished, I had already understood this from the fact that you hadn't talked about it anymore, then I asked you "But if it the chance hadn't vanished and the possibility of leaving had really been there, would you have accepted?" You said to me with a smile: "Luckily I didn't have to choose, but if I had to, I think I wouldn't have left, because I don't just have a job here ..." Then we had sex and it was a very beautiful, very tender thing, with some smile and a few chuckles when it suited the situation. Our relationship, seen from the outside, is incomprehensible but for us it has an enormous value! And I really mean for us, not just for me!   GAYS AND GENERATIONAL REPLACEMENT Posted by: gayprojectforum - 08-24-2022, 04:51 PM - Forum: Gay seniors - No Replies An old man, in whatever position he is in this world, must take note of an inevitable fact: the world goes on, and physiologically old generations give up and new ones take over, because this is the universal mechanism of human society and not only. It doesn’t matter how many steps one has climbed in the hierarchical or social or economic ladder, the rule applies to everyone without distinction, the ages of life proceed, old men gradually leave the productive system, with retirement, then slowly they are marginalized in the context of family organization, because the need to adapt to the changed context conditions involves the progressive exclusion of those who are not quick and efficient in the adaptation process. Youth is an uphill path towards autonomy and development of one's potential, old age is a downward path towards the progressive loss of autonomy and the decline of one's abilities. This is the so-called parable of life. The acknowledgment of this mechanism that admits no exceptions implies the acceptance of decline and eventually even of death, but it can also lead to generational conflicts between elderly people attached to their role and new generations rising in the aforementioned parable of life. The movement is continuous: first you go up and then, inevitably, you go down. I don't even ask myself what the underlying meaning of all this is, because I would enter the metaphysics of ends, but I often ask myself what meaning can be given to the years of decline, that is, if, in some way, even old people are useful and I ask myself this in particular in relation to old gays, because an old gay, with rare exceptions, has no wife, has no children, does not have a genetic continuity to rely on or with which to come into conflict. There are gay couples, this is true, but my reflections will focus on the old gay singles who are still the vast majority today. The problem of young people is "not to miss the train" that is not to miss the opportunities to step forward and improve their role, for old people this problem no longer exists because the train of life approaches the last station, in which all passengers anyway have to get off because the train is at the end of the race. With rare exceptions, old people are less competitive than young ones, are more renouncing and fatalistic, less inclined to face challenges and more interested in a quiet life without jolts and without further worries because little by little worries for their own health end up gradually taking up space in the horizon of old people. The old man is used to the idea of being the guardian of the young guys, the counselor and the guide but he must gradually accept the idea that beyond the top of the parable of life the roles are exchanged and old people are gradually subjected to the protection of the most young people who advise and guide them in a world that is increasingly distant and alien to the old man. The old man is used to being the adult but he has to adapt to a new condition of minority and infantilization. The old man realizes that he is no longer treated like an adult, but that he is treated differently, with respect and attention similar to those used with children. The old man involved in an argument, cannot maintain his positions, he must give in at least a little at the beginning, and then gradually more and more, if he wants to be accepted and listened to again. An old gay must realize that his experience is useless, because after 50 years the world has changed so much that his youth is now almost seen as part of a different geological or technological era. Saying "in my time" and starting to speak using the past time means that those times have really passed and that no one is interested in so old things anymore. Everything ages, even the experience and in particular the experience of homosexuality. In the space of 50 years the living conditions of gays have changed a lot and require new approaches and new interpretative schemes and, moreover, the speed of change taking place is such that old experiences are not only inappropriate but even misleading and counterproductive. In this sense, if an old man wants to serve something, he must first of all learn from young people things he doesn’t know or even imagine about today's world and must try, as less awkwardly as possible, to put himself in the shoes of a young person, not to pretend to be what he is no longer, but simply to understand the problems of a world of which he has no direct experience. The old man who confronts young people realizes that in order to understand something of a world that is no longer his own he must learn to detach himself from his personal experience, which is not easy because in general the individual experience is the basis of relational models of any person.   The old man must always keep in mind that he is old and that his time has passed, he must understand that, if he can ever have any role in the lives of others, it will still be the role of an old man. The low profile, listening, silence, being a complementary element, never the main one, keeping a weak voice, all things that can help not to end up in ridicule and are suitable for the old man.    A gay old man can get along better with other non-gay old men than with gay young men. With the other old people he has in common the inexhaustible argument of old age, with the gay young people he could have in common the homosexuality argument, but often very different meanings are hidden behind the same word. What 50 years ago was a guarantee, a security, such as not being declared and keep staying in the closet, today ends up being considered a remora, something like a social handicap because the evaluation parameters have radically changed. The same authors of literature who 50 years ago were loved by gays and considered the top of gay poetry and fiction, like Pasolini, are now characters whose names are barely known. Today there is the internet that, for better or for worse, has changed the perspectives of gays. Telling the gay guys of today about the life of gay guys of 50 years ago, in a world without internet and without mobile phones, almost means talking about the stone age, or of a world that not only no longer exists but even seems inconceivable. Today things are possible that were not 50 years ago and of which the old man doesn’t have and cannot have the slightest experience, he may still feel gratified by the fact that what he himself could not achieve has been achieved by other people half a century later. Gratification has an abstract aspect as it indicates a general progress of gays, however precarious and fragile, but it also has a concrete aspect because the old man knows the young people who have managed to realize what the old man was precluded from. Today the tendency of gays to cry for themselves is decidedly reduced and this is certainly a positive thing, and the same is true for the tendency to ghettoization-selfghettoization, even if the presence of many gays who have realized their dreams heavily marks the distance from their peers who have not succeeded. Old men, temporarily and in particular cases, can also have a more important role, but these are supportive and substitutive roles with chronological limits and well-defined contours, beyond which the effects would change sign. The old man, in these cases, is like a wooden pole placed next to a small tree to support it, it does not have the task of growing itself, because it is a dry pole, not a tree, but it can allow a green tree to grow. If the tree and the pole are tied with a thin flexible reed, the pole will support the tree for some time, then the reed will dissolve under the effect of the sun and rain, and the tree, having become stronger, will grow in a completely independent way, if instead the pole is tied to the tree with a strong and tight iron wire, over time, the wire will eventually throttle the growing tree. One basic idea can help old people freeing them from anxieties and expectations, and that is to avoid designing things that come out of narrow individual perspectives or that project too far in time.   GAY COUPLES BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW Posted by: gayprojectforum - 08-21-2022, 11:26 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, it's just a week that my story ended with the guy I've considered my boyfriend for years, or something similar. Last Sunday we met and we reached the break, with very few words, there wasn't   any need for words .   Today it's the first Sunday I spend alone. It makes me feel weird to be alone, but I don't miss him, if he were here, in all likelihood we would be staring at each other, meditating recriminations of various kind on both sides. Now I’m alone, but I’m no longer pestered and I think he sees things more or less the same way from his own point of view. As for me I'm fine this way, as for him, he certainly will  not remain alone.   Project, I'm over 40, he's a little younger and maybe he feels like starting over or he's fine too, now that I'm still on vacation I prefer to sleep a lot, to rest, I want to avoid thinking and above all dreaming, because the vice of dreaming and projecting led me not to see or rather not to understand the meaning of what I was told in all sorts of ways, that is: "I don't want a relationship with you but only sex!" Basically the message was clear, but I said to myself: “He says so, but this is not what he thinks within himself…”   But when two guys are looking for different things, what can they do? Obviously we exploit each other, he is with me only for sex and I adapt, I play the part of the lover, but in fact I’m disappointed because I don’t find what I’m looking for and he, at his turn, allows me to carry on at least a little bit of my script, and in the end we are discontented in two.   We tried other times to break up our relationship, but then, a little bit him and a little bit me, we ended up adapting ... once, twice, three times ... and each time the situation seemed worsened. Eventually we realized that we were each looking at things exclusively from his own point of view. He tells me that I’m selfish, that I don’t take into account his needs and it may be true, but he doesn’t realize that he does exactly the same things and even worse, he demands, scolds, judges, he always feels a notch higher of me, he always has the ready and cutting answer on everything, but he doesn't understand that his logic only makes sense to him.   I think that to get along you have to find and value what is really common between two people, without trying to impose your own models of life on your partner. He is not exactly declared 100% but almost, and it seems intolerable to him that one could try to defend one's privacy. He has a taste for almost aggressive and certainly disturbing provocation.   One evening in the pizzeria there was a lot of people and he starts talking, I don't say aloud but in a way that you could hear, about sexual things,  not on a theoretical level, but just addressing me in first person and putting me in an absurd embarrassment. I motioned him to stop but he continued to challenge me, to see how far he could pull the rope ... and I left, because in public a minimum of respect is needed. It took us 15 days to get over this misunderstanding, if we want to call it so, and in the end we got back together but I'll never go get pizza with him again.   If I propose him something that he knows I care very much, he calmly tells me that he will not do it because he will never do a thing to please other people. After all, I just asked him to accompany me to buy a bicycle, but he didn't and he stressed a lot that he didn't. This really bothered me, because it is a way of asserting oneself, of asserting one's power, it is the pleasure of saying no.   When he leaves my house, if I ask him to text me when he gets home, he replies that he won't send me  anything because asking for a text message for fear that he may not get home makes no sense.   Another thing I can't stand is the tendency not to understand that one can really be afraid of sexually transmitted diseases, if you want to get to certain behaviors or you have a condom or it’s better to avoid, he can't stand this, he tells me that I treat him as if he had the plague. I tell him that if he goes with other people it seems obvious to me to be cautious and he gets angry and leaves without saying a word and slamming the door (not too forcefully). On the things of sex he insists, I tell him no, but he doesn’t understand and insists, to the point of becoming unbearable.   Now all this is over or seems over, because things like this have happened many times in the past and then we have stitched them up. This time it seems that we are really at the end, but you never know. If this is the definitive break I will put my soul in peace, but if it is not definitive, I don’t know how to go on ... because sooner or later (very soon) everything will start again as before, he will get angry, we will come to mutual accusations, and I, again, I can't wait to be alone.   I expect him to take the first step and I mean a step back, then it will end in inevitable verbal scuffle between us, followed by reconciliation. I have to admit that he is always the one who seeks reconciliation, and this relieves me of the risk of him saying no to me. Of course, even though I know things will continue as before, I always tell him yes, and so we are all over again. I don't know if all couples are like that.   Many times I wished to be alone, but I ended up staying with him anyway. He also has other friends (and not only friends) who keep him company, and it could have been convenient for him to get rid of a ball and chain like me (because that's how he says he sees me), but in the end he always tried reconciliation by his own initiative . They are complex dynamics.   The way he does things irritates me, it makes me angry. He says that I live with a lot of stupid fears, that I’m full of complexes, that I always run away, that I don't speak clearly.   We both have very valid reasons for wanting to free from each other, to free ourselves from a companion, a partner, a particular friend, who doesn’t correspond to our standards but in the end we remain glued to each other.   He says that every time I speak about to get rid of our story I do it just to gain some space, because I would never find another guy like him! Will he show up again this time? I think so and maybe I also hope so ... we'll see.   GAY GUYS AND HOMOPHOBIC LAY PARENTS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 08-18-2022, 12:10 PM - Forum: Parents of gay boys - No Replies Hello Project, I found Gay Project forum last night and I was up almost all night reading it, it's really beautiful, a serious thing! That's why I try to write to you because I need to let off steam. I am 19 years old, I recently graduated from high school and I can't wait to start university because I want to start feeling free! I went to a private school and it was a real torture, but now it's over. I'm gay! I say this with great satisfaction at least here! Because at home I certainly couldn't tell. Project, my real problem right now is just one: my parents! I can't stand them anymore. I have to act with them 24 hours a day, they think they have my esteem and respect, but I really can't stand them anymore. They always have the answer for all the questions, obviously the questions they do themselves. They have such a mass of prejudices and conditioning you  can't even imagine and they feel to be  the living model of tolerance and common sense and then they are of a narrow-mindedness what makes me doubt their own intelligence. It is clear that they were put under by my grandparents and that they did not dare to raise their heads, they got married in an arranged marriage (obviously by my grandparents), I was born not because my parents wanted to bring me into the world but because they had to! They have always lived and still live in my grandparents' house, they are 100% dependent on them. They are deeply convinced that they are the best in intelligence and culture because they have read some books, but if they don't believe in the befana, we are close to it. They have the attitudes of integralist Catholics, but they are very secular and have not even married in church. They think that the laity "never" have prejudices because they don't go to church but they say really monstrous things about gays. They take it for granted that I am straight, also because nothing "gay" has ever entered my house except under a double password on my computer. I leave my mobile phone quietly around, because it is absolutely neutral, indeed there are more names of girls than names of guys, in practice only my classmates with whom I exchanged only school-type messages. I don't have a single gay book, I don't have photos of friends or guys of any kind, I keep my world all to myself! Project, I'm afraid, very afraid, that this trend could continue for years, and for me it would be civil death, the very destruction of my life. At school my conduct was neither straight nor gay but as an average student, also because my male schoolmates, who were only four in number, did not interest me from any point of view, I am not saying that they were stupid, on the contrary they were intelligent but in their own way, which is like saying that they were smart and able to move to achieve what they wanted most, first of all money! But the university must be something different: I have to study, and a lot, to try to free myself from my family as soon as possible, but I also have to look around without fear and without conditioning. I have to start living! I absolutely have to do it, otherwise I burst. Sometimes I find myself fantasizing about being able to study with a friend, who may not be just a friend, even taking him home, then I realize that it would be a dangerous game: I want my being gay to be "only mine", it must have absolutely nothing to do with my parents! They have already ruined my life enough! I got the books of the first exams that I will have to do and I started studying. I'm trying hard, my parents see it and think it's a professional choice, but they haven't understood that I started studying now because I want to get rid of them as soon as possible. During the university years I will have to depend on them, but after that they won't see me anymore! I've never had a boyfriend, I dream so much of having one, maybe I dream too much. Reading the forum I realized that there are many gay guys really as I dream of them, and I think I could really make friends with them, but I'm also afraid of meeting people on the net, for me the ideal would be to meet someone at university and maybe study together, then I'll end up accepting what's going to happen anyway. I want to be gay, I want to live my gay life, I want to fall in love with a guy and I dream of being reciprocated. It is difficult, I know, but I want to live my life, I don’t want to be anyone's servant and least of all I would accept being subjected to my parents. From what I have read on the forum there are parents who consider it normal to have a gay son, and this is beautiful, but why didn't such a thing happen to me? Sometimes my father says such nonsense about gays that I don't even hate him, I only pity him. He thinks that being gay is a kind of genetic flaw and that a gay guy suffers a lot from not being able to go with a woman, when he told me this thing, which represented his way of being "modern" and “welcoming” on the subject, I did not retorted, it would have been not only useless but counterproductive, for him a gay guy is one who goes around with lipstick and false eyelashes, and for this reason he never thought that I could be gay. Then my mother is literally spread and glued on what my father says, for her the good wife only has to confirm what her husband says and it is better that she does not have her own brain, because the one of her husband is enough for both, they have never quarreled because my mother literally doesn't exist, she has three or four she friends with whom she is on the phone for hours chatting I don't know about what, because I have listened to the conversations and they don't talk about anything! At my house my grandfather who is 70 years old is in charge and still treats my father like a moron and my father never reacts and makes always as it was nothing, because he is really without dignity. My grandfather is not even rich, the subordination of my parents has no economic reasons, they are subjects by nature, even if they are the champions of secularism. Enough, I can't take it anymore! I'm going to go back studying, at least I do something concrete. Project, if you think it is useful, you can publish the email. Answer me, if you can, I'd love it. Fabrizio (Invented name)   LET YOUR GAY BUDDY GO Posted by: gayprojectforum - 08-13-2022, 02:04 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Following recent contacts through the Gay Project, I think it is useful to study a specific issue and that is the opportunity-need to let go of one's partner when the life of a gay couple becomes problematic and loses the initial enthusiasm.   Gay couples, like all couples, are often born with illusory enthusiasms which then, little by little, are resized in comparison with reality. The mythical atmosphere of falling in love, often not really symmetrical, slowly fades away and habit becomes one of the most important glues of the couple's life, if not the only one. In this situation it often happens that one of the two partners starts to perceive that there is something wrong, while the other continues to lull himself into his own illusions. Thus a state of tension arises within the couple because one of the two either already feels outside the couple or feels tied to his partner substantially out of habit or, perhaps, experiences the couple bond as a very tenuous bond.   The first signs of these forms of asymmetry and internal tension in the couple are manifested in the reducing of the encounters, if the two partners do not live together, or in the progressive formalization of the relationship, if there is coexistence. These new situations, which seem obvious to the most unmotivated partner, are experienced by the other partner as the prelude to a possible abandonment, which creates anxiety and raises a thousand questions to which, however, the most motivated partner tends to give all possible answers, even blaming himself, but avoiding in any case to take into consideration the idea that the discomfort derives precisely from a wearing down of the couple's life. In this way, while the requests for more contact are made more frequent by the more motivated partner, the needs for autonomy are perceived more and more strongly by his partner. One of the two tends to break away, while the other tends to strengthen the couple's bond. Obviously the dialogue collapses to a minimum and the feeling of discomfort increases on both sides.   The vocabulary of love and falling in love is often used to cover situations of possessiveness or even, more trivially, of convenience, in this way the real motivations that lead to life as a couple are concealed under the cover of a love discourse that appears more ennobling. In these situations, the possessive partner (I am not deliberately speaking here of a "more motivated" partner) tries to claim and exercise his possession of the other by oscillating between attitudes of pretension and threat and attitudes of victimization and supplication, things that, in similar situations are both decidedly inopportune. At the base of these attitudes of the possessive partner there is the idea, and I would say above all the assumption and the illusion, of being able to manage the relationship, because the other is seen as an actor who can only be “docile” in the hands of the director. This is obviously is very far from the reality. The life of a couple is by its nature a relationship with two protagonists who must find a dynamic balance between them, the exact opposite of habit; when, for whatever reason, this equilibrium is broken, it must be acknowledged and attempting to strengthen the relationship is in any case counterproductive.   The idea of letting go of your partner may seem like nothing more than accepting the failure of the relationship. Obviously, if behind the expression "letting the partner go" hides a powerful charge of rancor, a desire for domination, if not revenge, the idea of letting go of your partner takes on a sanctioning and substantially negative color, but this is not the meaning of "letting go of your partner" I intend to refer to. Letting go of your partner means giving him back his freedom, removing possessive and contractual attitudes, with a gesture of respect and affection, certainly not to deprive him of our affection, but to make him understand that our affection is unconditional. A free man also has a free mind and is more capable of looking within himself. Real, important relationships, intended to last, they are not strengthened by promises or by the presumption that they must create bonds but by the fact that you choose freely and stay together and that you feel free even in the couple relationship, which should be a relationship of love, not a contractual obligation. A free, unconditioned relationship is accepted with another spirit, it is based on a sense of tenderness, mutual affection, respect, attention to the needs of the other, presupposes listening, an ability and a willingness to understand the other in the complexity of his personality and in his contradictions, it presupposes a profound affective dimension capable of overcoming selfish impulses.   If a relationship is genuinely emotional, it can face moments of uncertainty, and those moments are overcome because the couple's life is not seen as an area in which one must prevail but rather as the place par excellence where one can have the pleasure of giving in.   Letting go of your partner is the exact opposite of a showdown, it is not a moment of vindication but of recognition of the freedom of the other and, in some cases, even of his right to make mistakes. Relationships between couples worsen when possessiveness dominates the scene, when the discourse is no longer a love discourse but a comparison of abstract positions, of assumptions of principle, I would almost say of philosophies of life. It is in these moments that you have to let your partner go, not to push him away but to set him free. The resentment that unfortunately conditions many failures of emotional life is measured through selective memory. A rancorous individual remembers only negative speeches and attitudes, attacks of his partner to highlight his contradictions, reproaches him, judges him.   When you let go of your partner, never slam the door but always leave it open, it must not be a closure and least of all a definitive closure but the recognition of the freedom of the other, the possibility of going back must be always unconditional. It often happens in moments of crisis to feel almost exploited and manipulated. When this happens it is good to ask ourselves if we have really done everything for the good of the other or if, in some way, we have been the first to try to exploit and manipulate our partner trying to make him more like us. The similarities between two people can be profound but they are never such as to cancel the differences. The other, even if very similar, is always another person and any attempt to change him is basically a rejection of his way of being.   Couple relationships have an evolution, it is also possible to realize that what appeared as a couple relationship was actually something completely different. Unfortunately it is not easy to recognize situations of this type, but it is precisely in these cases that restoring freedom to our partner becomes particularly urgent. There may have been mistakes on both sides and  going  each one his own way can be fundamental and liberating for both, but the respect for the other and his particularities must be absolute, especially when partners separate. If a relationship ends, it does not mean that it cannot start again later even in another form. In emotional relationships, definitive closures are rare even in truly critical situations.   In a relationship, if something doesn't work out, the fault is never on one side alone. This common sense principle helps to prevent judge-like attitudes and to keep the door open to the future, whatever it may be.   TWO ARCHIVED GAY COHABITATIONS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-08-2022, 05:53 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, I've been following Gay Project for some years and I decided to have my say on gay couples. It is a field in which I have some experience, I have had two experiences of living together with guys with whom, after all, I have not been bad, but in both cases it all ended in nothing, not for betrayal or anything like that but for tiredness, for different points of view and because in fact it was all too standard, too politically correct to be credible. In practice, we start from the "very wrong" idea that we must necessarily live as a couple and in the name of this idea we start looking for the ideal guy who will change our lives. The desire to see this dream come true, or better this myth, is such that we throw ourselves headlong if not immediately into the first, at least into the second story that happens to us.  We cover our eyes with slices of ham so as not to see even evident realities and we go on building fables, we follow all the so-called classic plots of the love stories we see in the cinema: sms galore, little gifts, sweet words more and more demanding, celebrations of anniversaries, such as Valentine's Day and the like, which should be very important but are not at all, in practice we go far beyond the reality of feelings and recite the script as something real, we enter the part of the lover, and so we go from simple acquaintance to an acquaintance with a little sex, and then, and here comes the worst, to the idea of coexistence, which seems the natural development of our love story, according to the theorem: "if when I am with him once a month I am fine, if I am with him every day 24 hours a day, I will be extraordinarily happy!" But here we must remember that feelings are like medicines, they must be taken in the right dose, otherwise the side effects outweigh the benefits. Everything risks becoming trivial if it becomes daily and ritual, and this also applies to sex which, when it becomes too frequent, becomes a trivial thing that must be done because we did it until yesterday, and which can even become a duty not likely to be appreciated only for the fact that it is required as a must by the time schedule of the day. I say this from experience because it happened to me.   Sometimes, when I hear people telling stories about sublime feelings, I get hives, because in my experience, where, I don’t deny it, feelings, somehow, were real, however, there was anyhow no lack of underlining, little selfishness, stressed distinctions publicly showed  just to point out that my partners disagreed with me, and there was also a lot of meanness about minimal things like as to who has to pay the bill at the bar. In the end, living together seemed more like an utility agreement between two students sharing an apartment who have to share the expenses, than a life choice made consciously by two people who love each other. After all, Mattia and Steven were good guys, I don't hate them at all, I respect them and in a sense I also love them, but there is no need to live together.  And then being in a steady couple also becomes constricting. The heart of the matter is not the freedom about finding another guy or just a little bit of sex as a pastime, the freedom that is missing in a close relationship is almost always about much more basic things: going out with your friends, without taking your boyfriend with you, or staying at home if he wants to go one evening with his friends. I mean, friends don't have to be in common. And then, living together, the defects of people become evident, I mean your own defects and those of others too, like disorder, poor hygiene, easy compliance with alcohol or smoking or even with sweets and foods that in the long run can lead to excess weight, and I'm not talking about worse things like drugs.   Last question, even if it is not the last in importance: coexistence is not just a couple problem but it is a social problem because it is visible. In living together with Steven, visibility had a particular and very conditioning aspect: his parents, who are certainly very tolerant towards homosexuality, thought, precisely by virtue of this, that they were authorized to meddle in our private affairs, more or less like they would have done if their son had fallen in love with a girl, and that bothered me enormously. Many gays consider it a decrease in freedom having to live their stories only privately, but those guys don’t understand that being in public can be very unpleasant, because there are so many nosy people! And even those who are not really nosy but are just friends of your partner, in the end they too end up meddling in your business, maybe they do it for a good purpose but still they do it and, you can tell me whatever you want, but being at the center of other people's chatter it is not pleasant anyway, and then they judge you with completely straight criteria, as if a straight couple and a gay couple were the same thing.  In short, Mattia and Steven were (and still are) ok guys, but not even with them it was possible to create a stable coexistence, I can imagine what a cohabitation with problematic and in any case incompatible guys can be: we struggle a lot to build a pair relationship up with another guy and then, when things start to get heavy, we end up looking for all the means to be able to get rid of him. It happened to me too, it was not Mattia and Steven who were unbearable, but it was the 24/7 coexistence that made them unbearable for me. Now, with Steven, sometimes, we see each other again and sometimes there is even a little sex, but it happens if and when it happens, there is no script and, paradoxically, things are better now than when we lived together. It may be that I am the exception to all the rules, the pathological case that cannot be approved, but for me the coexistence chapter is really closed.   SWAN SONG OF A GAY RELATIONSHIP Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-04-2022, 10:19 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Dear Project, there are days when you have the impression that you have bet on the right things and you see that slowly problems begin being resolved, situations stabilize and true personal relationships are not contradicted, or so it seems. In my life I have had only one companion, only one true friend, only one partner, he has had and has actually also other gays, other friends, other partners, but I have always been there in his real world and not superficially, I consider this a certainty, but obviously in this world the certainties are however hypotheses.  I have had guys who would have liked to be with me but I preferred to be with my friend, perhaps in a lesser tone, even when it was difficult, because I felt that there was something unique between us that would not fail, or at least I thought it would not fail. He wasn't simply a guy, he was the guy who had wanted me, who had searched for me, who had trusted me, who had taken me seriously. I have seen him cry many times, I have seen him go through moments of deep despair but I believed in him because he has never cheated me and because he is deeply honest, this, which may seem like little, I feel I can say with conviction.  Now we are no longer kids, neither he nor I, and I see him, step by step, conquer everything that previously seemed very distant and almost a mirage. To say that I love him is an understatement and in some way sounds inappropriate. He is free, he is not bound to me but he knows that I love him and he treats me with affection, with respect, as only he knows how to do, even this might seem little but I think it is true. There is one thing, only one thing that does not allow me to say that I’m truly satisfied, at least as far as it is possible, and that puts me in crisis: when I look my partner in the eye, I see so much melancholy, even when we are together, even in moments when sex should take away the melancholies. Those melancholies are there and remain there despite a set of things that go well or at least seem to go well.  I don't know if there will ever be someone capable of making him feel really good, that is, capable of dissolving that veil of melancholy that doesn’t go away. When I look into his eyes, I would very much like that melancholy not to exist but instead it exists and then I feel useless, it is as if I were playing a part that does not get to the heart of the problem anyway. At certain times I am afraid of being intrusive, of expecting too much, or at least of wanting to understand too much, I try to reduce him improperly to my categories, I see myself as from the outside and I feel detached because that veil of melancholy does not tear and behind that veil more rigid, more formal, more banal attitudes are built on both sides, which I feel as a devaluation of the meaning of what yet there has been, and perhaps a good part of it is still present, after all it is a way of renouncing to truly understand each other.  Sometimes I think that other people could and maybe can do what I have not been able to do and I hope this actually happens. In that case I would not hesitate to put myself completely aside if he were oriented in this direction, it would not basically be a renunciation because it would mean that someone has managed to make him happy while I, with all my impulses, have not succeeded, that is I haven’t come to truly understand him. In certain cases, retiring in good order is a moral duty more than a sign of affection, it is certainly not him that I can blame for my failure, I respect him, I love him, but I know and I have always known that he has his own world and that that world could really make him feel good. I know practically nothing about that world, all in all I think it is a serious world, probably complicated, if not downright twisted, but certainly not superficial. I don't feel in conflict with that world because it will end up taking my partner away from me, deep down I always thought it would happen.  I have to complete my part, however small it may be, because, despite doubts and insecurities, I want to leave at least one memory, I don't say positive, but at least not negative, or rather I just want to go out on tiptoe without causing damage, just fade away, I want to close a long parenthesis of life without tearing so that it remains a memory of it, I do not say good, but at least not negative. The symphony must be closed with a slow diminuendo, so imperceptible as to seem natural. I think this will be the best gift I can give him. The reason for this slow goodbye is not in anyone's power. Everything makes relative sense, even the best of things. Inability to communicate is a characteristic of human life that cannot be overcome, the claim to understand another person is precisely a claim that ultimately manifests itself for what it is.  It is as if there was a destiny, as if everything was already written and ineluctable, you can live your part in a more or less participatory way, but you cannot change it. Facts have their own logic, beyond people. To love is only to seize the moment with the awareness that it is ephemeral. Loving a guy means understanding that you can only love him if you accept that he will not change your life, that he will go his way, that you will never fully understand him and that he will be another center of the world similar to yours only partially. All love is precarious and it must be understood before it ends up in order to consciously accept the course of events. Loves without illusions are always waiting for the conclusion that may never come, but must be lived with the awareness of an imminent conclusion.    A HAPPY GAY MAN Posted by: gayprojectforum - 02-21-2022, 11:35 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, there are moments in life when you understand that your choices were the right ones and that you were right to follow your path, that is your instinct, to the end, without being distracted by anything or anyone. At nearly 40, I feel like a happy man. I've been in love with a guy for years, sometimes being near him kept me anxious, sometimes I didn't know what to do, but now, 15 years later, I think our story was not the fulfillment of my wishes but I would say a lot of more. He made me understand what it means to love each other. Lately our relationship is something indescribably beautiful, we love each other, between us there is an excellent sexual understanding, I never thought that such happiness could have been achieved. I've always been looking for guys, but it had never happened to me that someone really fell in love with me, that is, that he loved me as “he” did. My happiness is not my merit, I tried to escape, to get away, sometimes I did not understand him and I was almost afraid of him, but he has curbed my escapes with sweetness, he is a truly unique man, with a sweetness that displaces you, he is generous, when we are making love and he looks into my eyes I melt and I think I never imagined I could find someone like him. I had had other guys, but for both them and me it was a way to fill the time, it was a way to build a relationship because then I had the myth of the gay relationship and I had other myths of various kinds in mind too, in layman's terms, I didn't understand anything about love. I have my limits and my flaws, I've never been a nice guy, at best passable, normal, but nothing more, but he fell in love with me just the same. He understands me, he knows that I have my limits and he accepts them, when he is with me he is fine with me and I see it not only when we make love, but also when we talk about something else. He feels that I love him and there are moments of intense communication between us. When we met we both felt a powerful attraction made of sex but also of personal esteem, he seemed interested in me above all for sex, I, even if I tended to run away because I thought he would never take me seriously, I was strongly attracted to him because I saw that he instead took me seriously in an absolutely unique and special way, even if apparently everything seemed to be based on sex, besides, he was my ideal model of guy and I instinctively felt that I wouldn't want anyone else if I couldn't be with him. At first, being with him seemed like the classic pipe dream, because he's not only handsome, but he's sweet and he's a man, not a puppet, he has his own brain and soul that make you fall in love. I have always been in love with him, but at the beginning with some hesitation and anxiety, now instead I feel totally fulfilled, you know, precisely those things of physical instinct, when one strikes you deeply, because perhaps what amazed me most it was the fact that he was really attracted to me, and it was the first time I ever felt attracted to a guy who really wanted me. It was as if there was something between us that prevented any possible breakup of our relationship, whatever happened there could be a break but never a breakup. He never forgot about me, anyhow I always let him free and kept myself a bit on the sidelines, but he always looked for me. We have had our stories with other guys but none of these stories have ever really pushed us away from each other. Over the years, slowly and not without jolts, but progressively more and more seriously, I learned from him the value of sexuality, which I tended to belittle and he learned from me that saying "I love you" may not be a saying. We progressively adapted to each other, we learned from each other and we kept our relationship strong even in the difficult moments that were inevitable, because we both had other ideas on our minds at the time, then we did not have the perception that what held us together would become the determining force of our life. Then, month after month, and even day after day, so many other things that previously seemed fundamental vanished as our relationship strengthened because we realized how important we were to each other, that is because we realized the fact that relationships with other guys could falter and collapse, but our relationship would have remained strong and would never collapse because we really loved each other. I feel him extraordinarily close, being with him seems to me the most beautiful thing in the world. When he calls me I feel in Heaven just seeing his name on the smartphone screen, I feel happy just hearing his voice, when he comes to see me I feel transported into a dimension of total involvement and at the same time I don't feel anxiety but only a sense of gratification, because there is no longer the fear that something could go wrong, because now misunderstandings are a memory of the past that little by little has vanished into the mists of memory. Note that we are not dependent on each other, we are not attached like oysters to the rock, we are totally free, even if we love each other. Freedom and loving each other are two things that can coexist very well. Our love is not a kind of half loving each other. I am deeply in love with him, he does not use these words, but when we are together he feels totally involved, understood and accepted and I can see it clearly, he feels at ease, he does not play a script, now I am part of his daily life as he is part of mine, but this means that I consider him as a part of me and I see that I’m really important to him. At the beginnings, he did not like gestures of tenderness, or better he accepted them and perhaps he desired them but he didn’t like to put such gestures in practice himself, now he has learned to understand them and has developed his own non-verbal affective language. It is beautiful when, remaining silent, he looks me straight in the eye as if to say: "Come closer!" or, after sex, when he stays with his eyes closed and makes the gesture of sending me a kiss or when he stares at me, squints and laughs, or when he hugs me with all the strength he has. It is beautiful when he allows me to stroke his hair or squeeze his hands tightly. It is beautiful when he calls me to propose to meet at my house, basically to have sex together, and you feel that he is happy with my clear and always positive and indeed enthusiastic response. I trust him and he is totally aware of it, there is no need to even say it, he has never disappointed me and he has never told me one thing for another. I try to make him feel that I love him but he knows it very well. He is much taller and stronger than me but he is extremely delicate, when we shake hands he adjusts his strength to mine. In sex our mutual involvement is total, there is not  even the least embarrassment, everything is spontaneous, there is nothing due or taken for granted. When we are in bed together we don't talk, there is no need for words, we have our own language made up of minimal gestures. After sex we stay naked on the bed talking about other things and I see him calm, determined in his facing the future but not anxious, I see him operational, rational, capable of managing problems and also of giving me confidence, and he understands how much I need it. Our physical contact is not only sexual, we often caress and shake hands even as a simple gesture of tenderness. Between us we don't talk about the problems of everyday life, each of us handles his little problems as he wants, we talk about the more serious problems instead, but we don't talk about them obsessively, but generally we don't even need to talk, we sit on the sofa and stay hugging each other to feel each other's warmth and to caress each other, many times this way we get to sex but many times we don’t but we feel good anyway, I know that he is there and that he wants to be there and he has the same certainties about me. Even just five years ago, I would not have imagined our relationship developing up to this level. I wished that things could take this path but I still had doubts that it would actually happen. The past five years have been the real flowering of our relationship. I got rid of conditioning and preconceptions that held me back a lot and I saw that he was really happy, because in some way I too was making his dream come true. He radically changed my life, he was a ray of sunshine, a rush of spring that entered my world and transformed it into a beautiful world. I try to follow him, I take him as a model but above all I need his presence, I can't wait for him to call me and come to me. When I think the day is approaching, I polish the whole house, wax the floors, wash the window panes, iron the sheets and pillowcases and perfume them lightly, so that the day when he comes to me he can find everything perfect and in order. He encourages me not to let things go and to keep everything in order. My secret dream would be that he would stay at my house for one night, because that way he could feel my home a bit like his home, I would like to cook for him, let him find dinner ready when he gets back from work, but he lives far away and these things are difficult to put in practice. We are no longer boys and I am sorry but at 40 I can say that I am a happy man.    GAY COUPLES AND TENDERNESS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 12-15-2021, 11:40 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies A strange thing happened today. He calls me and asks me if I would like him to come over, which in other words is a proposal to have sex together. That's not the weird thing because it has been happening and also pretty regularly for years, the weird thing will be the way. I was dead tired, but I cannot deny that I missed his presence and I immediately said yes. In short, when I see his phone call appear on my smartphone ... well, let's say that it’s never indifferent to me, I’m pleased, but sometimes it makes me a little anxious, but lately the anxiety tends to disappear and the reaction is totally positive . Following the usual script, therefore, I knew more or less what I could expect, however pleasant things but with some doubts about how the evening would end, that is whether or not he would go away in a bad mood, as it had happened many times, not to say almost always, except perhaps in the very last period. On the phone he seemed to be in a pretty good mood and that encouraged me to say yes right away, and then I honestly missed him and had noticed several times during the day that he hadn't been in touch for almost two weeks now. He arrived after half an hour and was smiling, maybe not exactly smiling, but he seemed calm, he behaved with the utmost ease, because he knows my house very well, evidently he too felt reassured by me and by the fact that I immediately said yes. In fact, if I think about it, I must say that other times I have made too many stupid problems instead of saying yes right away and this must have been one of the most frequent causes that made him change his mood. Being answered evasively to a proposal to have some sex together must be really unpleasant, however this time it didn't happen. This time I was tired but very well disposed towards him, and in particular quite well disposed from our last meetings which I liked a lot and left a very positive impression on him too. In short, when he arrives, he immediately goes to the bedroom, undresses and gets under the covers, because it is actually cold in the room. I turn up the heat and go into bed too. We hug, naked against naked, is a very strong but above all very sweet sensation. I’m very impressed by that hug, because it’s very long and because it’s the first time we have hugged each other like this. In general, he doesn’t let himself go very easily to affectionate gestures of this type, then we move on, neither of us says a word but he is very sexually involved, which however, practically, almost always happens to him, after a while I begin to feel tired and I tell him that I need a break, he sits up in bed, meanwhile the air conditioner has warmed up the room a little and it is not as cold as before, I also sit in bed and ask him “How are you”, he replies: "Good." And I can see that it’s not a way of saying.   I take his hand and kiss it. Generally he doesn't like these gestures too much, but this time he accepts them, he has no comments, his eyes are a little red, then he closes his eyes and I lean resting my head on his shoulder. He asks me: "Would you like to continue?" He clearly refers to sex. I answer him: "Of course!" And I add that I had been waiting for his call and I wouldn't change him with anyone else in the world and that when he’s by me I feel happy, he says nothing, comes out of bed because it starts to be hot, he stretches on the blanket and I look at him … well, he's really very beautiful. I also go out of bed. I think maybe  in those moments some very emotional thought is crossing his mind, maybe he's thinking about people I don't know or I know only by name, or about some memories of when he was child or boy. I didn't ask him questions, I just told him he had wet eyes and he made a minimum smile, then he closed his eyes. After we finished having sex, usually, he looks at his cell phone to see what time it is and tells me that he has to go right away, this time it didn't happen, he took his cell phone, he looked at the time and said: "It's late but I don't feel like going away ..." I told him: "Then stay here and you’ll go tomorrow morning." He replied with a lift of eyelashes, he seemed quite possibilist, then he added: "No, tomorrow morning I must be at work very early, I really have to go home ...". But it was the first time ever that the idea that he could also sleep at my house crossed his mind. It was very late, much later than the other times, but he didn't go immediately anyway. I caressed him a lot, something he is beginning to understand, something that at first was totally out of his mind, he replied with a very light kiss, a gesture more hinted than done and told me: "Let me go otherwise I'm too late. ... when I’ll arrive at home I’ll send you an SMS so you don't worry." Even that of the SMS was an absolute novelty. In other moments, if I asked him a similar thing he would answer me that there was no need and it would be over, today he was he the one who proposed it. When he left I felt happy, not of the fact that he had left, it is obvious, but of all the evening spent together, it seemed like a dream, the realization of something I had wanted for years. I felt he was by me, close as it had never happened before. I felt more clear than usual that he also loves me, in fact I knew it, even if he has never been very expansive, but today I had the impression that he let himself go to some form of more spontaneous and free tenderness. When he was completely dressed to go away I watched him carefully and he was really beautiful and I felt in the seventh heaven because years ago I would never imagine an evening like today.   The man who loves me is the only man I have truly fallen in love with. With him I would never have tried anything, it seemed to me an absolutely unattainable goal, but he did it all. He understood that I would probably have run away and he prevented me, he had patience and above all he trusted me. Before knowing him I had other stories but with him it was different from the beginning, everything was much more problematic but also much more serious, when I met him, the 2.0 period of my life began, he put me in crisis but he loved me in another way, in his own way, of course, but he loved me on another level and above all he really cared about me, he never said it with words but showed it with deeds. He had to face my stupidity and my reluctance to believe that something really important could exist between us, he treated me as someone who really cares about him. It didn’t allow me to let my stupidity prevail, it broadened my horizons, it demolished my stupid myths, it made me grow, it made me understand that there were so many things that I judged but of which I understood absolutely nothing and this applies primarily to sex. Having sex with him was not a ritual, with the other guys it was all already codified, with him no, sometimes he displaced me, he gave me answers that made me freeze, they were moments that put me in crisis and that made me think I was inadequate, but all this left no trace. The next day he would call me with his way of being a bit brisk, to make sure I hadn't taken it too badly. Sometimes he would go through moments of deep crisis and he wanted reassurance from me and asked me to go and get him in the most incredible places and at the most incredible hours, and those were emotionally intense moments for him and for me. These are things that have not happened to me with anyone else, we probably had a deep need for each other, together we felt we were building a world capable of resisting everything. Now we talk little but not out of reticence, now we understand each other at the slightest hint, it wasn't always like this but now it is. Today I felt happy, I have not even the slightest fear of the future because he is here, for me it is a certainty, between us sex has a very particular meaning, it is something reassuring, and above all true, it has never been a game, but a form of dialogue, a way of understanding each other, at certain moments there are exchanges of glances that don’t need interpretation and that express feelings better than many words. Today, for me, the most beautiful thing was the after-sex, those twenty minutes in which you can say "I love you" maybe with other words and you feel happy because you just need to look into his eyes to understand that this expression has a value for him too. Today I tasted for the first time what living together with him could be, but there must be no pressure, because living together could also be destructive. Today that's okay, because we really love each other. I must not want to take away his freedom, he must be free, without constraints of any kind. I feel him like my boyfriend, maybe it is not completely so, but this doesn't matter at all, we love each other and this is the only thing that matters. In certain moments I see that he is really happy to be with me and for me it’s a great satisfaction. If I hadn't known him, my life would have been much more empty. Today I can't conceive of a future without him, and I'm not even afraid of losing him. Years ago I had this fear, today no more, there is deep esteem between us, I don’t see him as a sexual partner, but in a sense just as a life partner, not a casual companion, but one who chose to stay with me, and for him it was an uphill choice, but he made it, he wanted to do it and he also led me to believe it possible. I know he won't go away and I know we won't get tired of each other. Today I experienced moments of profound serenity and I’m already waiting for when we will meet again. Pages (55): « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 ... 55 Next » Jump to page: