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GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND FORCING Posted by: gayprojectforum - 06-13-2021, 07:11 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies This post aims to present some thoughts on forcing in gay relationships. By limiting the discussion to internal forcing of the relationship, I will therefore disregard the intervention of third parties. AFFECTIVE AND SOCIAL FORCING “Nobody comes virgin” at the time of trying to build a relationship. By this I’m not referring only or specifically to sexual relations, but to the fact that each one carries with him the legacy of the previous experience, with its load of myths, frustrations and unfulfilled dreams and therefore with a greater or lesser predisposition to create an emotional relationship. Entering into a relationship means in any case starting a path whose conclusion, a priori, is unpredictable. Many young people try to acquire elements to strengthen their decision by seeking information on their possible partner or seeking reassurance from their possible partner himself, but the predictability and therefore the programmability of an emotional relationship remains anyhow, as a rule, minimal. An emotional relationship is not a game of chess that is played "against" one's partner in order to win him over and which can be won or lost depending on whether the right or wrong moves are made. An emotional relationship aims to overcome individualism in order to gain a unity of purpose that allows us to face a phase of life "together". It is not possible to enter a relationship "conditionally", setting conditions already means not accepting the other for what he is, putting him "a priori" some stakes and limits to be respected. Entering into a relationship means accepting the idea that you have to start building in two and starting from scratch, that is, that every form of individualism, every attempt to prevail and to be right must be put aside to start a journey in two. Entering a relationship with too high expectations means setting yourself up for failure. The ideas of total involvement, of 100% satisfaction, of "all or nothing", are the main enemies of emotional relationships, which can very well be serious and important and at the same time partial and limited, non-exclusive and non-totalizing. This does not mean that we cannot aspire to improve the relationship over time, but that the improvement will have to be built in two and may require a long process and in any case will not have a guaranteed outcome. Entering into a relationship means putting aside any judgmental attitude, something that is easy only in words and goes far beyond not pronouncing judgments. In order not to pronounce judgments it is enough to keep the tongue in check, in order not to judge one needs an attitude of substantial humility, a very rare virtue. Not judging involves a profound respect for the other and the recognition of a common nature beyond any diversity. In this sense, not judging involves putting aside the concept of guilt. When a relationship doesn't start or ends it's no one's fault. False, aggressive and abusive attitudes are forms of lack of control that we perceive when they are manifested externally and that we consider guilty in themselves, if considered in the narrow context of the relationship, but such attitudes always find a motivation in the experience of the other who reacts to similar false, aggressive and abusive attitudes towards him. Those who really want to enter into an emotional relationship must understand that they must not forgive anything, but must only accept, because forgiving means first of all judging, that is, feeling in a role that radically violates the equality that is the condition of any true emotional relationship. Entering into a relationship means accepting that the other can retains his privacy. Asking 100% sincerity means running back into that 100% that is the enemy of emotional relationships. The tendency to know at all costs the past of our possible partner actually hides a judgmental attitude that is a sign of emotional dryness and often also a form of insecurity deriving from lack of trust in our partner. Perfect sincerity is not an a priori requirement of affective relationships or even specifically of couple life, but it is an achievement and presupposes a deep trust in the other, which is never a priori taken for granted but is built day by day. Falling in love does not mean looking for something for oneself, but unconditionally trying to do something positive for the other, hoping that at least partial reciprocity will result. Possessive loves are not loves but forms of narcissism that tend not to understanding but to control the other.   Trust in the other does not consist in believing that the other will be faithful, will cultivate an exclusive relationship, will not have other sympathies or other loves, but in believing that the other will do what "according to him" must be done in every situation, that is, that the other, in conditions of moral freedom, can choose what he thinks is the best.   Attitudes resulting in an "aut aut", "or you accept my conditions or everything is over between us", are completely incompatible with an emotional relationship even at minimal levels. In a "true" emotional relationship, misunderstandings are an integral part of the relationship, when they are overcome the relationship is consolidated, when they are radicalized the relationship becomes a competition between rivals who want to prevail anyway.   Cultivating a serious emotional relationship requires time and availability, which means that to cultivate an emotional relationship "it may" be necessary to sacrifice other things. An emotional relationship involves a choice because time is in any case limited. Those who do not want to make choices but only want to add an emotional relationship to their many daily commitments are like those who want to cultivate a huge garden full of plants and, in summer, cannot water them all, with the result that some inevitably dry up.   In an emotional relationship there are no due behaviors, it is not necessary to manage the economic resources together, it is not necessary to have all the friends in common and everyone can very well keep their own, it is not necessary to know or be accepted by the family of their partner. Requesting such things means that you do not aim to cultivate a relationship with that guy, but to cultivate it "in a visible way" or "as long as the economic resources are managed together" or with other more or less restrictive conditions. An emotional relationship is a relationship between two people whose meaning should not be conditioned by external factors of any kind. In an emotional relationship between two gays, one publicly declared and one not, objective difficulties can be created because, in this case, behaviors prior to the couple relationship, such as the generalized coming out of the declared guy, effectively prevent the undeclared partner from maintain his privacy and this represents an objective and not surmountable forcing, because it pre-exists the relationship.   There is also another kind, much lighter, of forcing, which very often one does not even realizes and it is the forcing towards behaviors with a greater emotional content, for example inducing one's partner to exchange gifts, even inexpensive ones or text messages with emotional content. It's one thing to text your partner lovingly and it's a very different thing to expect him to do the same. It should never be forgotten that affectivity is learned above all in a family environment and that behaviors that look normal to some may appear absolutely strange to others, simply because they have never seen them applied in practice. Affection is also learned in the life of a couple. Generally, couple partners who love each other, even if they start from very distant positions, slowly converge towards a common equilibrium point, and with the passing of months and years they end up assuming very similar mental attitudes and ways of reacting, but all this obviously takes time and can only be achieved in a serious and genuinely gratifying emotional environment. An emotional relationship, at any level, exists only to the extent that it is reciprocal. The absence of reciprocity is not a sign of a pathology of the relationship but of its non-existence.   An emotional relationship cannot be one-sided. It is not easy to distinguish between a weak affective response and a non-existent response, because reciprocity is not manifested through words, on the contrary, the absence of reciprocity is often hidden behind words and even behind behaviors that seem to indicate true involvement and an important affective response .   Often our desires generate fantastic projections that overlap with real situations and modify the perception of facts favoring their interpretation according to our desires, in this way we see what we want to see, we lose contact with reality and we get to not seeing what would be evident in the absence of projective mechanisms. In this way we end up carrying on even for years relationships whose existence is entirely internal to our brain and has nothing to do with reality. FORCING IN THE SEXUAL FIELD   It is too often taken for granted that between two gay guys, in the context of an emotional relationship, sexuality does not present any problem and comes by itself as the most spontaneous and natural thing, but experience does not confirm these assumptions. If on the one hand it is true that in the gay world occasional relationships are a common thing (beware of sexually transmitted diseases!) It is equally true that "in the context of a serious emotional relationship" the conquest of a spontaneous and uninhibited sexuality is anything but obvious.   Sexual experiences inevitably tend to validate certain patterns of behavior, which end up becoming habitual and are in fact the code of behavior followed automatically when you are not in conditions of deep emotional involvement: "I have always done this and therefore also this time I do this." Sex lived on an occasional basis with different partners, who you'll never meet again, favors this simple pattern of behavior, a bit like it happened in sex with prostitutes. On the other hand, when one finds oneself involved in a serious emotional relationship, totally different categories of thought take over, because in this case there is also the fear of compromising the emotional relationship and one is much more cautious in behavior. In practice, the "problem" of sex arises, of when to do it, of how much to do it, of proceeding step by step or forging ahead, of what to do, all this because there is the concern that that sexual involvement, which is anyhow fundamental, may appear excessive or on the contrary too fragile to our partner. Somehow there is a fear of being judged. In such situations it is common to find a true block of communication, in the sense that the topic is taken for granted or considered as not explicitly addressable and the embarrassment increases, and this risks undermining the whole relationship.   Within a couple, it never hurts to talk explicitly about sex as well. Not only is it not a taboo subject, but it is a way to overcome embarrassment and open a less filtered communication. It must be borne in mind that in sexual matters the variability of fantasies and points of view is extreme and so is the variability of previous experiences and subjective interpretations of those experiences.   In no thing as in sexuality is it appropriate to refrain from judging and considering one's own behavior or all of one's fantasies as the absolute yardstick for measuring the behavior of others. Listening and speaking honestly creates an atmosphere of confidence and mutual trust. Reciprocity is a necessary requirement of this type of dialogue, which must be a dialogue between equals, if this does not happen the level of dialogue inevitably collapses and one or both of the partners feel judged. It must be borne in mind that while talking about sexuality in general is certainly easy, talking about our sexuality with our partner with whom there is an emotional relationship is often very difficult, at least in serious terms. The risk of trivializing the conversation moving it away from becoming a tool for building a couple relationship is very real. Building a relationship both on an emotional and sexual level is not easy, it takes time, you need to get to know each other thoroughly. Haste is one of the main reasons for failure. Being in a hurry can mean not being able to understand the needs and times of the other and often it is precisely because of the haste that one is induced to "forcing" in sexual matters. These are not constraints, which would be real forms of violence, but techniques aimed at bringing the relationship "almost to the breaking point". Forcing the partner, considered from the point of view of those who put them into being, are not experienced as forcing, but as forms of insistence, of interest in the other and at the limit of love, that is, as ways to bring the other to express quickly the maximum of his potential. But this assessment is totally one-sided. The realization of couple's sexual harmony certainly does not consist in the fact that one of the partners yields to the insistence of the other but in the fact that a balance is reached between the two. Forcing consists in asking the other to make the maximum effort to adapt, believing that we are exempt from doing what would be up to us.   When the result of a forcing leads to the fact that one of the two partners gives completely space to the other, the one who has obtained what he wanted feels gratified and satisfied and does not realize that the relationship is clearly weakened because his partner he feels neglected and, albeit good-naturedly, forced to yield. A fundamental case of forcing occurs when, breaking a tradition of "protected" intercourses, one of the two partners demands that the other accepts having sex without protection by "blindly trusting" his partner. This is an extremely delicate issue because here it is not a question of making an effort of psychological adjustment but of concretely exposing a guy to a risk that can be very serious. This type of forcing, it must be said very clearly, is not tolerable in any way and can put the weak element of the couple in situations of extreme difficulty, here we are talking about true emotional blackmail of the worst kind, a kind of test of strength, which in addition to exposing people to serious health risks is a real form of abuse that must be opposed putting apart any doubt or swing. In a true love relationship, the other must never be put at risk, for any reason.   Given the above, true "forcing" that is the forcing that can also be rejected and that, if rejected, doesn't involve the end of the relationship but only its redefinition, can also be tolerated if they are episodic and reciprocal, because they can become a kind of characteristic of the relationship. In these cases, it is a question of relative forcing that ends up no longer stressful and that is usually interrupted well before the breaking point of the relationship is reached. Those who experience or rather undergo real forcing inevitably change their point of view towards their partners and end up harboring feelings of revenge and often do not manifest them until these feelings become explosive and the element that appeared weak ends up presenting the bill to his partner. who absolutely does not expect it.   True forcing is always a pathological aspect of emotional life. It should be emphasized, however, that often, those who suffer because of these behaviors don’t wonder about their origin but limit themselves to judging them negatively. In this sense, the so-called weak element of the couple indulges in judgments that can be misleading. Highly imperative individuals often do not even realize that their behavior can have consequences. In the pact of mutual clarity within the couple it is implicit that the partner who realizes the weaknesses of the other (even hidden behind the appearance of strong gestures) must speak with him, helping him to overcome his problems in the perspective of a clear dialogue. By this I mean that in the face of forcing, in general, the best way to go is neither that of condemning it without reserve nor that of passively adapting, dialogue is always the main way and must be attempted in any case, because it often leads to positive results. Taking indisputable and rigid positions can only lead to further deterioration of the relationship.   It should be emphasized that forcing can be at the limit acceptable and not counterproductive when it aims at overcoming the conditions of embarrassment, but unfortunately there are frequent forcing that, knowingly or not, are aiming to modify or remodel the sexuality of the other by inducing (forcing) him out of complacency to accept sexual practices that are not pleasing to him. On this point we must be very clear: any attempt to forcibly change the preferences, attitudes, fantasies or sexual behaviors of another individual constitutes a form of violence and is inevitably doomed to failure. Thinking of modifying a person's sexuality by inducing behaviors that are not spontaneous for that person means behaving like those who intend to transform gays into straight people through reparative therapies. The techniques used to put into practice the forcing deserve a separate mention, such techniques are obviously related to the degree of forcing and to the attitudes assumed by the partners in the couple.   1) Playful insistence, alternating with a smile, amusing jokes and gestures of physical confidence such as disheveling your partner's hair, giving him a light push, wink at him or simply look him straight in the face with a smile. Obviously this mode accompanies the slight forcing that at the limit is not even forcing and implies that you can very well resist the forcing assuming for granted that there will be no consequence.   2) Forcing proposed within a "serious" moment. This modality in itself arouses anxiety and forces the other to an explicit response, aims to reach a quasi-juridical agreement, placing the relationship on a formal level made up of pacts and obligations, which are obviously incompatible with a purely affective dimension.   3) Forcing proposed as an ultimatum. This modality already has the requisites of violence, it is accompanied by a high tone of voice and by facial attitudes that aim to be as explicit as possible and to underline that any non-acceptance of forcing will not remain without consequences. These bosses' attitudes are intolerable and trying to save a couple's life anyway means in these cases explicitly accepting a relationship of dependence whose limits are a priori unpredictable.   Forcing "for retaliation" deserves particular attention, that is, reacting to a wrong that has been suffered or that you believe to have suffered by responding blow for blow. In this case, the legal category of "provocation" is invoked to justify an aggressive behavior that has a substantially vindictive purpose, that is, it aims to settle the score by applying the old rule of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Retaliation may be partially justifiable if it is short and is not substantially punitive. Otherwise it is a strong sign of crisis in the relationship.   The forcing in the sexual sphere that is perceived by far as the most violent consists in placing drastic constraints on the freedom of the other who intends to interrupt the relationship. This type of forcing, which is an overt violence, could be defined as "possessive violence". When one of the two partners perceives the relationship as unbearable and decides to interrupt it, the other hinders him in every way in the realization of his purpose, with more or less veiled threats of retaliation boasting on his partner a true right of possession, it is a question of a radical exploitation of one of the two partners by the other. These behaviors are highly anxious for the weak partner and keep him in a situation of strong and prolonged stress over time, substantially depriving him of his freedom. These behaviors can lead to real crimes that can be punishable by law. The examples, in the hetero field, are unfortunately on the agenda and can go as far as femicide. In the gay field, episodes of that brutality are very rare but possessive violence and forcing still are nowadays not very rare phenomena.   The most aggressive and devastating forms of forcing take place in the context of cohabitation in conditions of substantial economic asymmetry, because in these cases the forcing is amplified by the substantial impossibility of one of the two partners to interrupt the cohabitation even when he feels its weight as  an unbearable load. Coexistence in situations of economic asymmetry may seem like a way to solve pressing economic problems but it risks, in the long run, turning into a trap from which it is very difficult to escape.   The only way to avoid oppressive forcing is to have an economic independence that allows "in any case" to avoid forced coexistence.   GAY SEX AND PRECARIOUS WORK Posted by: gayprojectforum - 06-05-2021, 02:05 PM - Forum: Gays and sex - No Replies Hi Project, in recent months we have heard several times and I must acknowledge you a credit, you don’t give advice just to say something, if you don’t know what to say, you just listen and try to understand. You know my story at least roughly. My boyfriend, or rather the guy I consider my boyfriend, even if he doesn’t consider himself my boyfriend at all, he frequents (that is, he also has sex with) other guys and I knew this from the beginning, but anyhow, between ups and downs, and being very attentive to prevention, because it’s always necessary to keep prudent with health, a relationship has been created between us that, with all its defects, has been going on for years. Basically, I ended up accepting that he needs also others, for years this was the problem, then slowly this problem lost importance. He is like this: you must choose whether take him or let him go and I decided I didn't want to lose him and frankly I didn't regret it. The sexual understanding between us is total, I must say that it had never happened to me to experience such levels of involvement with anyone. Lately we haven't heard from each other for a long time, due to work and covid motivations, then we both managed to get the vaccine, two weeks later he comes to me, when I really didn't expect him (he always behaves this way, he doesn’t love dating). I see him hesitant, usually our contacts start from the immediate sex, but this time it seemed very different, to which I wonder what happened and since I don't know how to find an answer I try to keep a low profile and mutual embarrassment grows, basically he thinks that I keep myself detached for some reason, as if something has collapsed between us, then he sits down on the sofa, I sit in an armchair and not next to him, he claps his hand on the sofa cushion and says to me: "Come closer", I go and sit next to him and he tries a sexual approach, finds a positive response and from there we begin to have sex. I had the very distinct impression that having sex was of the utmost importance to him at the time. Between us on a sexual level there has never been the slightest embarrassment and so there hasn't been this time either. The participation was very intense, in the end he told me: I really needed it. I thought that sex had pulled him out of melancholy, but no! Afterwards he had a very serious face, he told me that he has big work problems, that he fears that his contract will not be renewed and that he may end up unemployed in the short term and that he doesn't know what to do to try to parry such a blow. Finding a stable job is difficult, and working with precarious contracts means never having a minimum of security for the future. He has sent his curriculum vitae to various companies, among other things he is a graduate technician who deals with “… omissis…”, so, at least in theory, he shouldn't have work problems. He has had interviews but they offer him contracts of a lower level than his current one. In short, this type of problem now affects him a lot. A few years ago, when he was still studying, he was always happy, he joked, laughed, he did all sorts of things but in a goliardic way, now it seems like another person, he doesn't laugh anymore, he tends to get depressed, he's afraid of the future. I don't think his problems are related to the emotional world because he, in one way or another, has achieved an emotional balance that, if you consider it from the outside it seems strange but I think that from his point of view it is substantially acceptable, or at least now he has accepted it as his normality. I tell you, Project, I’m a little older than him and luckily for me I have a stable job and a lot of questions have come to my head, because if he were to really lose his job, for him it would be a disaster, he should go back to living in the house of his parents, who all in all love him, but for him, losing his apartment and losing economic autonomy would be truly destructive. I would do anything for him, but I'm afraid he would take it badly. He would never come to stay at my house, it wouldn’t be like being with his parents but it would still be a very strong limitation of freedom for him, in practice he would feel forced into a coexistence that he never wanted and then there would be the fact that people would begin to ask themselves too many questions and he would feel labeled. I can tell you that I’m really worried. Among other things, he’s not naive and if he has the feeling that his contract will not be renewed, he certainly has his good reasons. He thinks that there will be a downsizing of staff and it will be a drastic downsizing and that they will proceed on the basis of length of service and therefore he will end up in the middle anyway. The idea that he could end up out of work  upsets me. Sex can somehow be a temporary remedy for job loss depression, but just finding a permanent job would really solve the problem. I tried to tell him that with a qualification and with an experience like his the possibility of being unemployed is minimal, but he was very skeptical on the point and he said to me: you say this, but I see very different facts every day. I see him dark in the face and worried, when we are in bed together he gets distracted, it is as if his brain enters a happy pause in which he feels safe, but it doesn’t last long because the malaise is profound and the dialogue between us on these things is risky and all uphill. It may seem absurd that with a guy with whom you have a very strong sexual understanding you cannot talk about work, yet it is so, because he has his certainties on a sexual level, and nobody takes it out of my head that when he came to my house at the sudden, he did it, consciously or unconsciously, to test me, that is, precisely to verify if those certainties were truly certainties, when instead it comes to work, precariousness and instability work under trace and can put him in crisis. I wonder why he came to me and didn't go to some of the guys he dates. In fact, I have the answer, he knew I would never tell him no. Frankly, seeing him so dejected hurts me, because he is a very good person, we have had and still have misunderstandings but I think there is a profound mutual respect. Sometimes I think that when you share sexual intimacy at these levels, you actually share something spiritual too, because you have to totally trust your partner to be totally yourself in front of him, and this happens between us and I don't know how much the same thing can happen to him with other people. We don’t have sex for fun, it is a profound need, it is the desire to obtain yet another confirmation that we love each other, that despite all the misunderstandings and all the problems we are there for each other, that we are a kind of safe haven for each other. Now in my room and on my bed there is still a trace of his perfume and to think that by being with me he managed to detach himself from his worries at least for a while makes me proud, at least for a while he felt the feeling that life isn’t all a crap that can collapse on you at any moment. At one point he also spoke of his house, that is, the apartment where he lives alone, and he spoke of it with tenderness as of the place where he can truly rest, where he can feel really good and this made me think that he is really terrified of losing that house and having to return with his parents. Since he left, my brain has been in turmoil, I wonder how I should deal with him when we get out of the field of sex. Have I to try to talk to him seriously? But I would stress him worse because the thought of losing his job is enough to lose that little bit of serenity he had found. Avoid the topic so as not to stress him? Well, I think that it is objectively stressful for him to be with me because when the moments of strong sexual involvement are over, we end up talking about something else and the closer we get to those other topics the more his impatience grows and also his tendency to change the subject and run away, up to say abruptly hello and go away. I see so much melancholy in his eyes, once there was melancholy because his emotional life wasn’t satisfactory now at least within certain limits it is and that melancholy gives way to another melancholy, that of not fulfilling oneself in work and in the conquest a stable autonomy. When I see him out of sorts I wonder why it has to happen to him and not to me and I feel like someone the one who has won the job lottery and who is now not afraid of losing his job and I don't know how to behave, because these are damn serious problems, they are not psychological problems but economic problems that can affect life in a very heavy way. I'm afraid he'll may see me as the lucky guy who has job security and only makes good speeches to someone who doesn't have that security. I fear these things could dig a kind of abyss between us that divides stability from precariousness. I, personally, have not experienced periods of unemployment but I can imagine how destructive it can be. I think I will avoid talking to him about these topics, which are basically the ones that now anguish him the most. He still has a few months before the contract expires and will try to do everything possible but, from what little he says, he is looking bad and the prospects are not at all rosy. I also see from another thing that he’s going through a difficult period. When we had sex yesterday (this is the expression he uses) he was not totally focused on sex, he felt in a protected situation, he felt safe, sometimes there were moments of pause and he lay with his eyes closed, almost to enjoy those few minutes of tranquility. They were minutes of silence but also of profound communication, you could see that in those moments the worries were far away. He behaved totally free and at least partly different from usual. I knew that I didn't have to interrupt those moments of silence, that I didn't have to speak, that I had to lie down beside him and that I had to shake his hand. It has always amazed me that we understand each other about these things even without talking. Sometimes going to bed with a guy is really a kind of refuge from the pains of life, a return to a dimension of immediacy, of warmth, of sharing without reservations, in which one is 100% accepted for who he is. You see, Project, when I ask myself why I stay with him despite everything, in the end I find the answer: he speaks little but we love each other, we are also afraid to say it because we are afraid that this happiness is fragile but nevertheless the years pass and we are still here.   AFTER A GAY RELATIONSHIP Posted by: gayprojectforum - 06-02-2021, 12:56 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, I've been reading the forum for a few years now, it's a bit like browsing other people's private lives and it helps to understand that we are not unique, but that basically many experiences that seem unique to us are actually very common. I have found stories of more or less declared falls in love, stories of very complicated relationships, of unexpected fish out, but I have never found a story that was similar to mine in the ending. I think that my story has nothing exceptional and is indeed a common thing, but the ending of the stories is never talked about, and instead I would like to talk about it.   I completely skip the premises and most of the development and go straight to the point. After years of long-distance relationship with a guy, and therefore after years of traveling, jealousies, misunderstandings, back and forth, I arrived, but I could say we came to the idea that we both got bored and didn't have the courage to tell us the truth, because by now the habits were very consolidated and we took everything for granted.   At the end of January, I made the decision to close a shack that was collapsing on all sides. If I had told him what I had in mind the arguments would have started, he would have blamed me, etc. etc., as had happened other times, and so I was silent, I did not say anything, I simply drastically reduced the calls, which by now had become a meaningless duty, we began to not hear each other anymore or almost. He probably expected something similar and things ended like a flame that goes out and in the end we are left with only the ash.   This final breaking up process took a couple of months. We haven't heard from each other since the beginning of April. You will think that afterwards there were second thoughts, nostalgia and things like that, no! Instead, there was the feeling of having regained freedom. I'm not talking about the freedom to find another guy, I'm tired of these things, I'm talking about the freedom of not having to think about any guy, the freedom to be alone!   He wasn't a bad person, basically he behaved with me in a normal way, like so many guys do, but in the end we got together because we had the myth of the gay couple in mind. Before we started being together we thought our life was going to change, but it only changed because there were travels and weekends together, but once the early days of sex and what comes after is gone, if there is not any real reason for being together, coexistence, and even the partial one, begins to become boring. We ended up living in small the dynamics that a straight family lives in large, but without the children, of course. Mutual adaptations, small recriminations, huge wastes of time, extreme difficulty of combining our schedules in order to be able to spend some time together and then, when we could see each other, the embarrassment of not knowing what to say, because basically there was no serious reason to be together.   I have wasted a lot of time with the university, but now I have started again in a great way and I see the university in just another way, before it was a place where you had to take exams but there was at least the possibility of going hunting for some cute colleague hoping he was gay, now there are only exams, I can say that that I feel vaccinated against the epidemics of easy falling in love. My faculty is predominantly male but there are girls and not very few, now I realize that they observe me and try to get in touch with me, one in particular, which is pretty and that, if I were straight, would be an interesting hyothesis to explore, but I'm not straight and I have to keep her at a distance to avoid unpleasant situations.   Some guys offered me to study together, but I didn't accept and I went back to studying on my own, at the end of the semester I passed the exams while they didn't even show up. What happened to my emotional world? I still live with my parents, with them I don't have clear relationships, that is, they don't know about me but at least they are happy that I went back to studying, then I have a dog, but I should say a big and smart dog, a German shepherdess, who is young and which is truly one of the best things in my life. Friends like a friend of the heart I don’t have any, and I can say fortunately, friends for a trivial chat once in a while yes, there is someone, but they are not things that I really care about.   Now I have to think about studying, to regain control of my life and I have to hurry up, because I want to go and live on my own. At my parents' house I have no problems, they are very discreet people and they love me, but at a certain point the need for independence is felt. I want to live on my own, but in a house with only one bed and also a single one. I don't want to receive anyone at my home. Maybe tomorrow I'll change my mind, but I think that in order to change my mind, the effect of the anti-love vaccination should pass first. I see a lot of handsome guys but they don't care about me and I don't care about them.   It will seem paradoxical to you but I would like to know how the relationships of many guys ended up who told on the forum of splendid beginnings and complex developments of their stories, but no one tells how these stories ended up, because in fact, objectively, the vast majority of stories end, some go on, some end really badly but most of them do not end neither well nor badly, they simply end, it is of these that I would like to know what happens next. Some people talk about black depression, frustration and stuff like that, but I think most of break ups are experienced as a release.   I mentioned this talk with a gay friend, who, however, had his scheme in mind and told me that I was "basically" depressed and tried to console myself as in the story of the fox and the grapes, according to him the end of a story lasted years like mine must necessarily be a tragedy. He says it's impossible that I want to simply put the guys aside anymore. I am not saying that I will put them aside for my whole life, I am just saying that now I have to take a vacation period from true or presumed falls in love.   It sounds strange to gays that I'm not addicted to guys and sex, I have lived similar experiences, I don't deny it, I have lived them with all the possible involvement, but then slowly they passed. If they'll come back, they'll come back in an attenuated form, like the flu for a vaccinated man. Experience serves to grow, to demystify. I don’t feel superior to those who take total crushes and want to live together because they expect happiness from those things, I just say that they are not things for me, I have tried them, but in the long run I have understood that you are perfectly fine even without them.   I would be happy if you put this email in the forum because I would like to see if someone answers me and how they answer me and, if you like, tell me what you think. FinallyFree94   DIFFICULT DIALOGUE BETWEEN GAYS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 06-01-2021, 04:02 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, I read your email, you say things that are right but very difficult to put into practice, I'm trying it because I also think it's the only way: "understand my boyfriend's weaknesses". It is clear that he has a life of his own, he did not show up with a mask, he was honest with me and I - on this you are absolutely right - I used what he told me to devalue his image and not to try to understand him as I should have done. That is, he gave me weapons and I turned them against him. Honestly my behavior has been shabby. I didn't try to identify with him but I judged him in a very stupid and superficial way.  Anyway there is the risk that the attempt to understand is totally intellectualistic despite the good will, because basically these are things that I have never experienced and I can only understand from the outside. More than understanding, which perhaps isn't even possible, I would like to be there for him. You talk about his weaknesses, but his are fears more than weaknesses. In this I certainly made a big mistake, I thought that he could not be afraid of anything and instead he may have been overwhelmed by deep, visceral emotional reactions, in the face of things he didn’t know, which he faced with a kind of fatalism that from the outside looked somehow cynical.  In reality there was nothing cynical and I begin to understand what a disappointment it was for him to be somehow scolded by me, who basically I didn’t understand anything of what he was really going through. In this sense, yes, there are weaknesses, but on both sides. Then I should also correct another attitude: I talk too much, let myself go to useless sermons that can be irritating and above all I put myself in an attitude of opposition. I try to juxtapose my attitude to his and to argue that mine is the right point of view. Basically I think that he has understood that I’m a little afraid of him, it’s a fear in the best possible sense, that is fear that my ways of doing, instead of creating a contact, can make him feel even more alone.  I know I'm not the most important person for him, but I see that he still looks for me, especially in the most difficult moments and it is precisely in those moments that I go into crisis. When you love a guy, you end up afraid of him and this has happened to me too. I talk about his neuroses and I don't see mine, but he sees them and when he points them out to me I stiffen in a defensive attitude. I have wondered a thousand times why he has never looked for a simple and tender couple relationship, I don't mean with me but with anyone. He tells me it's not true and that he looked for it but never found it. Perhaps it is difficult for me to understand the meaning of this statement because if he had sought an affectionate response from me I would have felt enthusiastic and I cannot understand how other guys could have not felt equally enthusiastic, evidently they didn’t love him enough.  Once he said to me, "Do you remember what I went through? Don’t you?" Such a sentence makes me think a lot, because I tend to homologate him, to consider him similar to me but he is a completely different person, with a completely different past. Yesterday we talked for a while, he told me that he currently has six partners with whom he has sex, but that they are also his friends, with whom he spends days even without sex, he says that everyone knows that he is like this, that he doesn’t want too close relationships with anyone, because he would feel asphyxiated and would have the feeling of losing his freedom, he tells me that I'm obsessed with the idea that he is missing something, that is that he is missing the couple life, but he doesn’t want the couple life and he is fine like that.  He told me about an ex-boyfriend of his, with whom he had a rather long affair, who has now a stable relationship with his new boyfriend. He is happy with this, but says that he is happy for his ex-boyfriend, who thus achieved what he wanted, but he would never want a life like that. He says these things but he also says he fell in love with one of those guys of his, who, however, didn’t like such kind of stories at all because he was afraid of losing his freedom and treated him very badly to shake him off, so he forced himself to pass over his falling in love and reduce contacts to just sex in order not to lose his partner. But all this suggests that at the beginning he tended to create relationships of an affective or nearly type, but that he then ended up adapting to the environment in one way or another, precisely in order not to be completely alone.  He says he needs to change guys or at least he needs to feel free from couple burdens, that basically he has emotional relationships with his guys but such relationships are not exclusive and that he is fine this way. You say: "try to understand your boyfriend's weaknesses!" Ok, but these are not weaknesses, they are just different, or at least apparently different ways of seeing life. Instinctively I think that he has adapted to that mentality, which was the mentality of the environment and that slowly he ended up assimilating it only because in fact he had no alternatives. I can understand that you can love at the same time more than a single guy but this basically means that you don't love anyone of them, that is, that in your life there is not a really important person you can count on.  He says that trusting in an emotional relationship means not being prepared for that blow that sooner or later they will give you anyway. That is, he takes it for granted that an emotional relationship must end in betrayal or abandonment and it must have happened to him in a very heavy way. How do you get vaccinated against treason? You have to putt it all on another level, erasing affectivity or detaching it from sexuality, as if all of this were ultimately an acceptable solution. When it comes to choices, it is one thing to choose a person or a behavior to carry out your own life plan, and a very different thing is to adapt, pretending to choose, in order not to be 100% out of the game.  He says he doesn’t believe in emotional relationships but in fact he fears them, he is afraid of that terrible blow that according to him is inevitable, because everyone answered him negatively and froze him. I think that the gay environment, or rather a certain gay environment, has been deeply conditioning and has induced defensive behaviors tending to spread affectivity on various relationships, none of which really important and all centered only or above all on sex.  At the end of the conversation he had to go to work and I told him that I would like to call him back in the evening, he replied that in the afternoon he had a birthday party and he would probably come home later, I didn't know what to say and in the end he told me: "But you try to call all the same ..." This is the maximum of affective dimension you can get from him. He doesn’t want addictions and obligations of any kind. You see, Project, it's not me complicating things, it's just that things are really complicated. Years go by and relationships remain on this level and I honestly don't think they will change over time.  Somehow what had happened between that friend of his who had replied negatively and him, is newly happening between him and me, practically I risk becoming addicted, and in the end I don't even know what it means because the boundary between loving and being dependent is very blurred. I have had instincts to escape many times because I think that in the long run a relationship or better a non-relationship of this kind can be destructive even for me and can lead me to some form of emotional freezing, but I can't really detach myself from him, sometimes when I succeed and we don't hear from each other for a while I say to myself: "This time I did it!" Then he calls me and all good intentions fade and we inevitably start all over again, I think that in fact, in some respects at least, we are very similar, we never make a choice, we adapt, we go on by inertia and we call that inertia love, or sex, two words that seem different but in the end the first word is worth the second.  I realize that I too risk becoming or at least sounding cynical, but I don't know what to do, I would like everything and the opposite of everything, I would like to be useful to him at least in something and at the same time I would like to detach myself definitively, or at least so it seems to me, that then the story we tell ourselves inside our heads is all a schematization and it can be largely falsified by interpretations or a priori refusals we are not even are aware of. We should simplify everything, bring everything back to an instinctive response that perhaps once existed, several years ago, but has now been buried under a mountain of pseudo-psychological ruminations. We become victims of our own being too much talkative.  I realize that I have a radically ambiguous attitude but I cannot get out of it, because certain things, even if you try to put them outside the door, are not finished anyway, they are too vivid memories, which need years and above all a radical change of life to be truly passed from the present to memory. He told me to try to call him in the evening anyway and I did, but the phone was off the hook and it sent me to the answering machine, maybe it was better this way, because basically I wouldn't have known what to say.  This stop like all those before will last for a while, then we will get in touch another time and the embarrassment will be very great again and I will end up adapting myself to accept the rule, that now seems to him his rule, the rule of low profile and disengagement, so that he may feel free and put aside the idea of permanently cut ties with me. History repeats itself! People change but the logic is always the same. Will this ever change? Thanks anyway for your email, I can see that you put your soul into it, but maybe you are too rational and don't understand that ambiguity can become a way of life. In any case, if you answer me it makes me happy.   GAYS AND DISCRIMINATION IN THE COMPANY Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-30-2021, 06:36 PM - Forum: Gay orientation - No Replies Hi Project, this morning I was reading the entry "Demographics of sexual orientation" on Wikipedia and I don’t hide the fact that I was strongly perplexed by the plurality and contradictory nature of the statistical data that should represent the homosexual population, we go from percentages of 0.7% to percentages above 15 % depending on the various areas but with enormous fluctuations related to the methods of detection, these are obviously data without any objective value, the only thing that is evident is that the LGBT population is afraid of exposing themselves even through a statistical questionnaire, the fear of a possible tracking is there anyway, despite the assurances of those who manage the statistical procedures and this means that discrimination exists and is still very heavy. I'm gay, I’m over 45 and I’m in charge of recruitment for a large international company. In Europe, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is not allowed and it is not even allowed that the employer can investigate aspects of the private life of employees, but anyway this happens, because employees are often naive. It is quite common for people who work with computers to have waiting breaks. Some company computers also allow generic internet access, when this doesn’t happen, it is not uncommon for employees to have their own PC that they can use, feeling relatively safe, by connecting to the Company's internet. These people don't know that company computer connections are all always tracked, if only to see how much time the employee has lost in activities that are essentially not related to his work, tracking allows you to know not only who used the internet from the company computer but also what he was looking for. But there is more, even the connections through the company internet made by a "non-company" PC are tracked, and even in this case the tracking procedure is not limited to measuring the time, let's say, not worked by the employee but registers also his browsing. It is therefore possible not only to track the employee in terms of time actually worked, but even to build a personality profile of the employee starting from the “private” use of the internet during office hours. Over the past year and a half, with smart working the possibilities of control by the company have decreased, in the sense that private PCs are no longer connected to the company network and therefore are not traceable. Given the work I do, I know what the risks of using the internet "not for work" are in a business environment. I never bring anything private into the company offices, that is, not only do I not bring my private PC, but neither my smartphone and I have also invited other colleagues to do the same. On the outside it seems that these are advice given to increase work productivity and therefore my advice is at least theoretically justifiable, should anyone ever ask me for it. Monitoring internet use via the corporate network effectively bypasses or could circumvent privacy protection. The entrusting of well-paid positions and career progressions are linked to the "call" by the manager and I have often wondered on what criteria these calls are based, because in our environment the managers who matter you never see them, they are far from us, in another building and it is they who determine the choices and don’t have to motivate them, because for them only the result matters. Another thing must be kept in mind and it is almost always forgotten, in the company there are surveillance cameras, they are declared and have their own official reason, but through those cameras and programs for facial recognition that are basically rather banal, it is possible to track who speaks and with who and for how long and, perhaps even what they say. I don't think there is anyone who spies for the pleasure of spying, but in the administrative offices and especially in the laboratories and in the technical departments of the company, information circulates that would be tempting to a lot of people and we have to consider that a gay, especially if he is one who counts, is a weak link in the chain because he can be more easily blackmailed and I had some inkling that such an event actually happened. In the company, I, personally, only talk about work, I go to have coffee alone at the internal bar during the break, I greet everyone in the same way and I don't stop to talk to anyone. In my specific working environment there are about twenty people, and we are all "straight" including me! (paradoxical!) Since I've been working here, and it's been several years now, I've never seen a gay guy, they were all straight perhaps "like me"! The others, who I think for the most part are really straight, have tried to involve me, they invited me to their houses, but I never went. You might tell me I'm paranoid, but I might find myself in awkward situations and being labeled is very easy. I specify that I’m not closed in on myself, I have my small group of real friends, who are mostly gay, but they are all people who have nothing to do with my work and are not even from my city, to see them I take the train and I move to a nearby city. Basically I spend all my weekends in that city and that's my real life. There are those who think that gays are all a little neurotic and a lot complicated because of the fact of feeling victims, but those who think so don’t realize how stressful being gay can be, not in itself but for the fact that you are not allowed to be yourself and you feel continuously observed. The fear of being labeled is indeed there because being labeled involves being discriminated against, often in such a sneaky and subtle way that it is also difficult to realize it and when even one realizes it, in reality he cannot do anything, because discriminations for reasons related to sexual orientation are practically always hidden under other cover reasons. I would love to be myself, but it is objectively risky. Everyone would tell me it's not true, but the fact that my colleagues are all straight (!) speaks volumes. Believe me, Project, I have no persecution complexes and have never found myself in situations of discrimination for being gay, but it didn't happen not because my environment doesn't discriminate but because I'm formally straight if this were not the case, there would be certainly discrimination. Lately I have been entrusted with the very delicate task of interviewing those who could be hired, I’m not speaking of illiterate people but of graduated and highly specialized guys, among other things they are almost all men, with some of them an instinctive sympathy is created even just looking into each other eyes. To avoid any form of involvement, I follow a standard interview, always and only on strictly technical content, there are also, necessarily, because it cannot be done without, questions relating to previous employment relationships and the levels of collaboration between Colleagues. There are guys who trust the business environment a lot and would be willing to talk a little more openly during the interview, but it is an unconsciously self-destructive tendency and I always try to stop them by premising that they must respond strictly to the questions, without broadening the discussion, and this serves to evaluate the skills of self-control. Since the outcome of the interview can be decisive for the recruitment and I wouldn’t in any way want to weigh in one way or the other for reasons unrelated to the selection criteria, I ask the guys to write down their answers on the questionnaire in a summary way, so that it remains an objective document. A while ago, one of the new hires I had interviewed looked for me because he wanted to talk to me but I didn't receive him, because if I did, it would be noticed by his colleagues and executives. He was very upset because he didn't understand the meaning of my refusal. I couldn't look for him to apologize to him. I met him a few days later by chance and in a very short time I clarified the reason for my behavior, he wanted to talk to me, I said to him: "Not here, if you can get there, I'll see you on Sunday morning at 9.00 on platform 5 of the station [omitted], he just said "Ok". On Sunday morning we met and I pointed out that a company like the one we work in is not the home of freedom and that prudence is never enough. With this guy (an engineer) we understood each other immediately and there was no need to give too many explanations, we basically only talked about the company but I think that it was just a cover story. We discussed calmly and reasoning on every even minor issue. No need to say that we ended up agreeing on everything and obviously on the opportunity of keeping our conversation at the level of maximum confidentiality. The young engineer is a handsome guy, I can't deny it, but he's 20 years younger than me and I feel a bit like a tutor who has to teach him not to get into trouble. I don't know if he's gay, but looking at it, I think it's at least very likely. How did he detect me I don't know. We only met at the interview and I behaved with him in the standard way, that is, as I always behave with all those who do the interview. Even for that boy having clear ideas on how to survive in that environment can be useful, because he will have to keep a behavior always controlled and this is stressful. If instead of finding me he had found someone else, with his will to speak he would have burned himself immediately. I have lived in such a climate for years and have learned to clearly distinguish my private from the work environment. I’m aware that there are completely different environments, where a friendship with colleagues is also possible, but not everywhere. With the young engineer, when we meet in the company, just a minimum wave of greeting is enough. Outside the company we haven't had a chance to talk anymore, but I think it will happen again sooner or later.   QUASI-FAMILY TYPE GAY RELATIONSHIPS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-29-2021, 07:11 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Dear Project,  I can understand that relationship problems are fundamental for many gays, sometimes they have been fundamental for me as well, but I don't think that the underlying problems of gay guys are very different from those of all the other guys.  I have a boyfriend, so to call him, with whom a bond has been created, a twisted, complicated bond, etc. etc., but in the end there is something serious. I’m 36 years old and he is 32. We are not a couple, in the sense that he also needs more, I mean other guys, but there is anyhow a relationship between us. Between us there is sometimes a bit of (protected) sex that I like very much because there is also something else, otherwise it would seem superficial to me. We often talk on the phone, sometimes we only talk about sex, but it's more a way of playing than anything else, sometimes we talk very seriously, and then I feel really gratified, almost more than when we have sex, because he ends the serious speech with a "I love you!" and this is fundamental for me. I don't know why you fall in love with one guy rather than another. We seem very different, above all because he sometimes tends to go into crisis easily and sometimes he begins to preach nonsense and never stops, even if I must admit that he does it to correct me and never to accuse, I instead speak a lot of melancholy and of depression but these are things that I have never really tried and I start from the principle that you must never give up and that the positive, if you look closely, is always much more than the negative.  Sometimes he currys me very strongly, he tells me a lot of seemingly aggressive speeches, he tells me that I'm depressed, that I put him in a bad mood and other similar things and he says it because he wants to get me out of what he believes to be a state of prostration, which however, in my opinion, many times at least, is only appearance. Other times he calls me when he is down in the dumps, and he does it because he knows that I’m there for him and I will always be there, and so we talk for a long time and I in turn try to shake him and get him back in a bit of a good mood.  When he looks for me I feel alive, important, I feel I worth for something in his life, and this is a very beautiful feeling. I'm not his boyfriend, or at least he doesn't see me that way, but there is a relationship between us. And then sharing sexuality with a guy is important but when beyond this you get to share with that guy also the soul, the melancholy, the critical points, the weaknesses, then one gets the impression that the bond is much deeper. I am immensely pleased when he takes the initiative, when he calls me to talk to me, because he gives me access to his fears and melancholies, it is in those moments that I feel that he truly welcomes me into his world. I think I'm a bit like his real family. There is sex, yes, but it is mostly a pretext, maybe something more, but sex is still easy to find, but I think the reasons for our being together are really more complex.  He has never been very expansive, almost as if he were afraid of affectivity, but slowly he recognized me a role, which is not that of the lover but something of a middle ground between a friend and a brother. He doesn't act with me, he knows that I love him and he knows that my opinion of him is much better than his opinion of himself. When his self-esteem fails he calls me to replace his image of himself with my image of him. And he listens to me, he doesn't shut me up, he's not used to people giving him positive answers. I believe that he is among the humanly best people I have met. He considers himself neurotic, unstable, unreliable and according to the common way of looking at things he is a bit so, but what I see is quite the opposite. He never brags, he doesn't sell smoke, he minimizes his results, he's not a man of the theater. He seems neurotic when he gets anxious and is not calm, as for being unstable and unreliable, I don't understand why he judges himself this way, I think that only those who don't really know him can accuse him of this. Of course he is not one who can be reduced to schemes, he is not the type who adapts for convenience.  When he calls me I perceive that it is not just me the one who needs him, I feel that I can be close to him, that my presence is perceived like something positive and not like a ball and chain. Lately he is more patient with me, before he listened to me less and scolded me more, now he listens in silence when I try to make him understand that he is no less than anyone and that he must not let anyone put him in crisis. He doesn’t listen to me passively, that is, he doesn’t passively accept everything I tell him, he is very selective, if there is something he doesn’t share he reacts and sometimes even badly, but he likes to be encouraged, he likes to be reminded of the things he has done and that he would tend by himself to forget.  When he feels troubled in the competitive environments in which he works, he tends to throw in the towel and get discouraged easily, and it is precisely then that he seeks me, because he needs someone who truly believes in him, who makes him understand that he is not an uprooted but one who has his moral support points and his inner strength, far beyond appearances. For me too these aspects of the relationship with him are fundamental, also for me they are an opportunity to create almost familiar relationships. I try to make him understand that his presence helps me not to fall into the black hole of isolation, because if it is true that I have many friends, it is also true that he is the only guy to whom I would say I love you, and I say in fact. I would live with him, perhaps as a true coexistence, this thing will probably never happen, but on a sexual and spiritual level (a strange combination!) There is already coexistence.  Sometimes when he calls me because he's stressed and tired, I get hot and start talking in bursts, he doesn't stop me and then I start to think I'm exaggerating, he understands it and gives me some unexpected answers, to show me he wasn't distracted and that he was following word by word, when then the minutes pass, sometimes quite a lot, I notice from the tone of his voice that he’s calmer and I feel really happy. In certain periods of our long relationship, if you want to call it so, I had the impression that these moments of deep communication had vanished and I felt very distressed, because it seemed to me that I had lost the most important half of our relationship, then I realized that those moments were still there, even if they were rarer, and I no longer felt excluded from his life.  I don't think that his doubts and anxieties really derive from couple problems or from stories that he would like to start but that take different paths, because after all he has friends who are more to him than friends, even if in reality he sees that those friends change over time, some move away, with others the interference of work problems ends up distorting the relationship and new friends also arrive whom he welcomes in an increasingly disillusioned way. Then there is me too, for many years now. He really considers me as something different, yes, a bit like a family member who is there when needed and who basically, quietly, still has a role to play. I have seen him grow year after year and he has helped me grow and get rid of so many complexes that I carried around since adolescence.  The relationship I have with him has evolved over time, now it is a relationship between adults who each have their own world but who esteem and love each other. For many people sex is a constraint, for us it is not, it is simply a way of communicating, a way of saying that we still love each other, that we trust each other. Neither he nor I want a closer relationship, at least I think it is so, maybe things will change over the years, if it happened I think it would still be pleasing to both, not as a project to be pursued explicitly but as a simple fact.  What strikes me about our relationship is the stability, many years have passed, when we met we were just young boys, we had many reasons and opportunities to lose sight of each other, yet it never happened. What would I have done with my life if we hadn't met? I do not really know! He always tends to discourage my expectations about him because he thinks that deep down I can dream of living with him a real life as a couple that he probably would like to live with other people, but in fact, then, this does not happen, other people more or less quickly they leave his horizon and the problems of work are also joined by melancholy, abandonment syndrome and feelings of inadequacy.  Being with him I understand how difficult his world has been and how hard it will be for him for a long time, and therefore how important it can be to find support in someone like me who loves him without conditions, or at least tries to love him this way. I must not delude myself to become the center of his world, for him I can be the antidote to the worst melancholy, I can be a kind of mood restorer, capable of giving him courage and desire to go on, but I know that I have to let him free, even if I miss his presence.  He may have many guys, of course, but it is not easy for him to find someone who truly and permanently loves him. I hope it will happen to him, only his memory would remain for me, but I think it would be okay anyway. Giving up on an impossible thing is not even a renunciation but deep down I think our relationship would not be lost even if he found a perfect match in the guy of his dreams. I understand that my attitude may seem that of a sixteen year facing his first crush, if not that of a loser, but I don't feel like a loser. I have found my stability and I think he is finding his. Unfortunately, on many really important things in his life, such as those related to work, I cannot do anything, perhaps at the moment I am writing he is with another guy, indeed it is likely, but this does not take him away from me, such a thing never happened. I don’t want to end with a rhetorical slip, I simply conclude here.   GAYS AND COUPLE LIFE DECISIONS Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-27-2021, 12:12 AM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Four words about decisions Complexity, contradiction, inconsistency and ambivalence are among the most typical categories of human behavior, however what appears to be a defect has its reasons, because those categories are an adaptation to equally complex, contradictory, inconsistent and ambivalent environmental conditions. We can only make a decision in strictly logical form when it comes to deciding on strictly logical procedures. A “functional” decision-making criterion must always correspond to the environmental reality in which it is expressed. When we talk about the consistency of a decision we generally mean the consistency of that choice with other behaviors of the same individual and we affirm that an "individual" is inconsistent if his decisions don’t always follow the same criterion (consistency of the person), but there is a another criterion of coherence, that is functional coherence, which is the coherence of the response with respect to environmental inputs. In this sense, an "individual" can be strictly coherent, even if his behaviors are clearly dysfunctional because they are not coherent with environmental inputs, as long as they are all dysfunctional in the same way. Individual inconsistency is often a virtue because it can be the manifestation of an ability to adapt, that is, ultimately, the ability to identify functional responses in the face of changing environmental conditions. There are right or wrong decisions only when it comes to deciding rationally, that is, when the consequences of the decision are strictly logical and predictable. Obviously, there are no rigorous decisions of this type except in theoretical or prefabricated scenarios. The first step of a decision-making process is the analysis of the facts, which is not the simple knowledge of the facts but already involves a probabilistic evaluation of the possible consequences of the various decision-making hypotheses. The probabilistic uncertainty derives from the fact that the interpretative schemes of reality are not immutable standards but are individual characteristics that are also subject, in each individual, to vary radically even over time. A functional answer is not a yes / no answer but an answer that consists in crediting higher or lower levels of probability to the possible consequences of the choice. Basically every choice is guided by a probabilistic prediction of the results based on behavioral models. When behavioral models are reductive and schematic the choices are rigid, when they are flexible the choices are less determined, they remain open to a plurality of potentials and, from the outside, they can appear contradictory, inconsistent and ambiguous and essentially dysfunctional. Anyone who says that another individual is contradictory, inconsistent, or ambiguous judges that individual's flexible choices based on rigid patterns of behavior. He therefore judges the choices of an individual with parameters that don’t belong to that individual.   Alarming behaviors and redefinition of the relationship Let's try to get out of the theory. Let's examine as a first example a classic decision that each of us, sooner or later is called to make one or more times in life: how to react in the context of a couple relationship when the partner engages in behaviors that we consider alarming. An alarming behavior of the partner leads to an overall re-evaluation of the relationship aimed at an adjustment of the relationship itself, an adjustment that can involve both the abandonment of the relationship and its archiving with various types of labels. It should be borne in mind that the evaluation of a choice as more or less functional has nothing objective. In the same situation, a choice that can be dysfunctional for one subject could be perfectly functional for another. For example, severing a relationship in the event of betrayal is neither functional nor dysfunctional in itself, it is functional if the dissolution of the relationship takes place without aftermath, and is followed by feelings of satisfaction and liberation, it is dysfunctional if after the break depressive states and regrets take over. In any case, the consequences of the decision do not derive from the decision itself but from the decision "taken by a specific person" which also largely determines the consequences. Couple relationships are mediated by the image of the partner that we have built for ourselves by mixing objective facts, personal needs and desires in the most varied and complex ways. It often happens that representations are not very realistic and projective elements are prevalent over the objective ones. In the context of a couple relationship, all the “non-projective” evaluation criteria are based on the knowledge of the partner acquired through his speeches and above all through the acknowledgment of his behaviors. This knowledge is not static because the evaluation of the other's speeches and behaviors is subject to a continuous re-evaluation, which highlights some elements and devalues others, in this way the image of the other continuously changes and the elements of knowledge more recent or more frequently confirmed acquire greater importance. The evaluations of the partner's behaviors are the result of a mix of selfish evaluations and altruistic evaluations, i.e. evaluations in relation to what I can hope to obtain from my partner (selfish possessive attitude) and what I can do for my partner (selfless affective attitude). The balance between these two components defines the individual attitude towards the partner. The evaluation of the partner's speeches presents critical points related to the use of different communication codes and to the different scales of values of the two subjects. It often happens that we notice that the partner who "in words" says some things, then denies them in his behavior, as summarized in the classic statement "says one thing and does another" which raises doubts and perplexities. If one knew exactly the communicative code of the other, the doubts and perplexities would be less. Too often we take it for granted that our partner has an emotional history, a scale of values and communication codes similar to ours. Most of the dysfunctional choices are dictated by haste, that is, basically by taking a decision without the necessary elements of knowledge and on the basis of a momentary short-circuit reaction. However, it also happens that the phase of acquiring the elements of knowledge is expanded to excess and leads to the perpetual postponement of the decision, waiting for "elements of certainty" capable of eliminating any doubt. It is the classic “deciding not to decide” which, however, runs counter to the fact that no new element of knowledge can definitively dispel any doubt.   Revocability of a decision and consistency Since a decision is an adaptive response to environmental situations and these situations are subject to change and re-evaluation by the individual, it is evident that any decision should in itself be revocable. Irrevocable decisions, that is, considered definitive from the moment they are made, can also be functional, but when they are not they lead to very painful regrets. Personal "consistency" is often invoked as an argument justifying the irrevocability of a decision with expressions such as: "I am consistent! When I have made a decision I don't change it!" but in some cases such a statement can be translated as follows: "When I made a mistake once, I keep making the same mistake." This rigid attitude is not the result of coherence but of "prejudice" or rather of an evaluation given "a priori" by refusing to take note of the facts and therefore in a radically formal way, regardless of any emotional evaluation based on the real knowledge of the other. The "prejudice" is the typical sign of affective indifference. To revoke one's own decision appears to some as an act of weakness, that is, as a renunciation of one's own affirmation, a surrender to the other. Such an attitude is a sign of the low self-esteem of an individual who seeks confirmation in clearly marking what he considers his own victory over the other. The "irrevocable" decisions of abandonment are often strongly emphasized, while those of recovery of the relationship are passed over in silence. The emphasis on abandonment through the denigration of the other and the attempt to blame him for the breakup of the relationship often serves to underline very weak motivations if not even to create non-existent motivations through the affirmation of one's own alleged consistency compared with the defects of the other. The recovery of the relationship, with the overcoming of the crisis, when it is really functional, is profoundly gratifying and leads to the re-evaluation of the other, previously belittled and misunderstood. In this case, statements such as: “I was wrong” are not seen as capable of diminishing self-esteem because they have a deep emotional and relational basis.   Decisions on the life of a couple in the gay field In the gay field, decisions relating to couple life sometimes follow paths that are very different from those typical of straight couples, first of all because there is no problem of children and birth control and secondly, because the internal relationships of gay couples are usually much less conditioned by social reactions than those of heterosexual couples, because in general heterosexual relationships are not only a matter limited to the two partners but also involve their families in a very significant way. In the gay world, there are attitudes towards sexuality widely shared ad accepted which, at least in terms of visible behavior, would not be equally accepted in heterosexual environments, I am speaking for example of open couples. The concept of a stable and rigidly monogamous couple is clearly in crisis even among heterosexual couples, but among gay couples it has never found wide application. There are certainly stable and monogamous gay couples, but we are very far from being able to consider this behavior as the rule. It should also be remembered that among gays there are generally more intense levels of stress related to sexuality than those detectable in the heterosexual environment. Identifying oneself as gay, coming out and above all coming out in a familiar environment, something quite often impossible given the closed attitudes of parents, objective difficulties in looking for a partner and often in keeping a relationship absolutely private, in many cases create a state of strong emotional tension that can last for many years. Such state of stress can't remain without consequences on the life of the couple, which risks being mythically seen as the panacea for all ills or, on the contrary, as a substantially denied possibility. When a gay guy begins to build a "serious" relationship with another guy he realizes that he is experiencing an important and "rare" event, and he tends to load it with expectations and projections often beyond what an objective analysis of the facts would allow. The disappointment produced by the contact with reality can be heavy precisely because the expectations are oversized. Building a stable relationship is difficult even when there is maximum availability on both sides, it is difficult in itself and for everyone, it takes time, partners need to know each other well, they have to inevitably proceed by trial and error and the emphasis on your own mistakes or on your partner's mistakes risks undermining the relationship in the bud. Perfectionist and hypercritical attitudes are dangerous in this sense. The search for "certainties" often denotes impatience, a hurry to have clear ideas immediately, and leads to request verbal confirmations, which are inevitable but not very credible, precisely because they are solicited by the partner. The classic question: "Do you really feel like starting a 'serious' relationship with me?" where the adjective 'serious' sounds more threatening than reassuring, should be answered in terms of possibility and sometimes with a little embarrassment, one could speak of hope, of desire, rather than of certainty, because in the emotional life there is nothing more deceptive than the "certainty" affirmed in words. A couple relationship is always a bet on the future, it is not a decision to be made in a strategic way or in the abstract, and it still follows a "couple" logic rather than an individual one. The typical problem of gay couples is represented by the "relationship level", because in a more or less improper way we speak of a "gay couple" both for relationships that are little more than superficial acquaintances, and for relationships that are quasi- matrimonial cohabitations. Also on this point we find ourselves having to make decisions and the idea that each of the two partners can make a decision on their own is substantially far from reality. You cannot be in a couple, at any level, if you don’t accept the idea of deciding together and when the decision concerns precisely the level of the relationship, it is a crucial choice. An error of choice made in good faith by the two partners can be easily corrected without consequences, while any attempt to impose one's own judgment is a substantial negation of the couple's life.   THE REAL DAY OF A 31 YEAR OLD GAY Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-23-2021, 12:14 PM - Forum: True gay stories - No Replies Hi Project,   this is the second email I’m sending you and it is the chronicle, almost hour by hour, of my day, that is, the day of a 31-year-old gay guy, who fortunately has been working for two years in an business consultant firm. If one wants to understand how a not unsettled, not depressed, not distressed gay guy lives, it is good to read this diary page.   Monday  May 17th 2021, wake up at 6.30, shower and breakfast, reordering of papers to take to the office. Today I have to work staiying in person in the office, because with the covid we take turns. I pack my computer, cell phones, the one private and the work-phone, which I must always have with me, and leave the house at 7.25am. I look at my private cell phone to see where I parked my car, put on mask and carry the hand gel with me, lock the door and go to get the car. It usually takes me 15 minutes or more to get to where my car parked. Fortunately today it doesn’t rain and it’s not cold. I get in the car and open the radio on Radio 24 – The Sun 24 hours, a well-known channel dealing with economics and  not on another channel, because if there are significant news at least at hypothetical level, knowing them in time could be very important. Usually I can escape the worst traffic, now, with the problems of covid and smart working, traffic is less crazy, but there may be surprises. If I’m 10 minutes late leaving the house, I get late at work.   8.15 am - I enter the office, the boss is already there with an avalanche of cards on his table, I greet him with a nod and enter my room, because I have a room to myself. At 8.30 am I’m already at work. My work is parallel to that of the boss, I mean that, when we are not overwhelmed by stupid jobs, that in any case end up mostly to others, the boss exposes me a problem he is working on and puts me to do legal research about it. I try to do things in the best possible way but many times I stop because I don't know how to go on and so I have to contact the lawyers consultants of the firm, the notary or other experts in very particular sectors depending on the work we are doing at that moment. The office has a very good secretary, whom I’ll call Daisy here, she answers the phone, filters the calls, puts them on hold, informs us of who called and what the customer wants, before passing the communication. Fortunately, I usually get a few phone calls, but when the important tax deadlines approach it is a bombardment, there is not even time to breathe.   8.45 am - I find a possible solution for a problem on which the boss is working now, but I know that I have to give to him a schematized report, with all the legislative and regulatory references. I get to work preparing the report as required. I finish at 10.13, a bit with my heart in my throat, because the boss always calls me at 10.15 sharp to clarify the outstanding problems.   10.15 am - I enter my boss's room who is absolutely informal with me but speaks only of work. I give him my report, he reads it and tells me: “Yes, but you have to make the customer accept this and you have to make him understand that this way he pays more but avoids any risk. How to deal with him it's up to you! If you convince him you are good professional, but you have to convince him."   10.20 am - I call the client, I explain the matter to him technically, he absolutely doesn’t want to accept, he says that we don’t know our job (which is absolutely not true) and that "another business consultant told him that the problem can be done in another much less expensive way ... "I answered the objections in a technical and punctual way and he said: " Do you really think someone is going to go check it out?" At one point, with my heart in my throat, I told him: "You can do as you want but we cannot engage the firm as consultants and endorse such a thing ..." then I was silent for a few seconds. If we had lost a customer like this, the boss would have killed me, but by now I could no longer pretend that I had not said what I had said and I could not even change my mind, because the credibility of the office was at stake. In the end he replied: "Oh well ... do as you like, I don't want trouble anyway, and remind dr. ... the story of the Bank, he knows what it is." I told him: "I'll prepare the documents immediately and you can come and sign them whenever you want." And that's how it ended.   At 11.10 - I enter the boss’s room and I nod him that it went as we wanted, I was expecting at least a thank you, but Daisy had just passed him a very important phone call and so he beckons me to leave.   11.15 am - I prepare all the documents that must be signed by the client and they are a mountain. Here there is no coffee break, there is coffee that comes from the bar and they bring it directly to your desk with a croissant, because you don't have to waste time anyway. At 13.00 the whole file is in order for the hundred thousand signatures it takes. The client should come and sign but he doesn't. At 1.30 pm I should go to lunch with my colleagues in the pizzeria below, but there is the covid and people cannot eat inside and the place has no outdoor tables. So lunch too arrives directly on your desk, in essence it is lunch time but you must work also at lunch time. At 1.40 pm I remember that I didn't tell the boss that our client wanted to remind him of the bank problem, I call him with an internal phone and tell him and he just answers: "Tell him I'm working on it."   2.00 pm - the client arrives, I take him to the meeting room and I submit the documents to him, he doesn't even read them, he signs everything blindly. He asks me if I reminded the owner of the Bank problem and I say with a very reassuring face: "He's working on it."   2.15 pm - the customer leaves. I begin to eat my lunch but the boss calls me and mentions the question of the Bank. He gives me two phone numbers of very important people and asks me to contact them directly on the phone and remind them of the auction date, then he gives me other minor but very complicated assignments to manage. I just reply: "Ok!" and I go to get to work.   I work until 19.10, I should go out at 19.00, but before I leave, when the boss has already left, I get a call from one of the two important people I had notified about the auction, who tells me that he wants to be called back "immediately" by the boss. I call the boss, but he doesn't answer, and it's strange because he always carries his phone with him. I decide to go look for him and I reach him before he goes up to his house, he sees me and gestures to me as if to say: "What do you want?" I tell him about the phone call. He looks for his cell phone but cannot find it, his face is terrified, he sends me running to look for it in the office where he thinks he has left it and takes my work cell phone. I rush to the office and his cell phone is actually there, I bring it to him with the utmost urgency, he has a much calmer face now. He hands me back my phone and simply says, “Thank you! But now go! " And I go home.   9.45 pm - I get home and finally open the social networks. Two of my friends want to go out with me: Dominik and Luke, a gay couple who is very nice to me, I call them because I would love to spend the evening with them, but they are already out with other friends and have already had dinner.   10.00 pm - I warm up the leftovers from lunch, watch 30 minutes of television and then go to sleep because I'm dead tired!   This is a real day of my life. You can tell me that there is nothing gay. But when you have to work, you can't think of anything else. To the boss, the fact that I’m gay or not in absolutely meaningless, he just wants us to work and there is not even time to breathe, but this situation also has advantages, at least at an economic level. I live in a house that I am paying for and for me it is essential because I no longer have to stay with my family, assuming and not granted that mine can be called family.   What's gay in my life? There is a lot of imagination. Now I’m building my foundations, and then it will come "maybe" time to have a partner. I say maybe because it might very well not happen, partly because of the stressful job, which I can't change if I want to finish paying for the house, and partly because I'll only get in love with a guy only if  it will be something very important and reciprocal. The half solutions I don't really want to take them into consideration. If you start off on the wrong foot, you are screwed! I don’t like at all situations of adaptation, maybe then it will happen, but right now the idea of a compromise on the emotional level I don’t really accept it at all.   Am I happy with myself? Yup! Clearly! Am I happy with my current life? No! But I think things will change. If I found a guy who suits me and above all who really loves me, I think I would change jobs to be with him, even if there is anyway the question of the mortgage. However, working at the pace of now, the mortgage times can be shortened a lot. This is my reality and I have been very lucky, I am perfectly aware of it, I just don't have time for psychological problems.   GAY DIGNITY Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-21-2021, 01:41 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, I have been reading your forum for years, but now it’s taking a turn that I don’t like, all or almost the stories you publish seem to start from the idea that accepting that your boyfriend goes with others is normal, I don’t know if it’s normal or if it’s almost inevitable, but I have to tell you clearly: I don't like these things! I don’t like them at all. If I have to find someone who has sex with me and uses me just for that, I prefer to stay on my own, I feel much better alone than this way, and I also take fewer health risks. But, tell me, if one has sex with me today and the next day with another, what kind of relationship do you want me to create with him? Basically I would have to adapt, I’d have to put up with everything and that's it. No! I don't want a guy like that! I want one that truly loves me and allows me to truly love him. It may seem paradoxical but I'd prefer to be with a girl "who loves me" (and I'm not bisexual!) because at least she loves me, but I don’t’ accept at all to stay with someone who likes to have sex with me today, and tomorrow with another guy. In fact, it never happened to me, but it didn't happen to me because I avoided like the plague situations that smelled of such things. I believe that many times the idea of being a Red Cross nurse of "affective" love also comes to guys and that is the idea of being able to remove the obsession of random sex from the head of the partner, to transform him into one capable of Love with capital L. But these are not good intentions, they are bullshit! As soon as a guy makes strange speeches to me: Goodbye ! As soon as I catch him saying one thing and doing another I fly him down the stairs! You are free to do what you want, but not with me! Sex ok, it’s important but if it becomes a fixed idea it becomes a pathological thing, a true form of addiction. One says: where am I going to find the guy? On apps and sites! It sounds obvious. But what do you find there? I went there too, but it was a thing to be obsessed with. One says: but if I go there just to look for a serious guy ... Mh ... and you find him there? Apart from the strange and dangerous people that it is better to lose than to find, there is a tide of frustrated, obsessed of the most strange things, drifted people, who don’t know what they want, who complain, who feel victims of the world, but instead of committing themselves and working hard, they stay on the apps from morning to evening. Now after this premise, one expects me to tell my story but I cannot tell stories because I have no stories to tell, they would be stories that "in theory" could have even started if the guy or I had been different people, and I think that such stories would have come out very similar to those I read so frequently on the forum. I don’t have a boyfriend, well, do you think it’s not a good thing? Is it a good thing, instead to have a guy who pests you, who has sex with others, who tells you lies or who complains on the phone from morning to night? What is worse? Getting a boyfriend, ok it's fine with me, but if and only if he's not a pathological case, if and only if he's has only sex with me and doesn't claim to have sex with other guys while he stays with me. No! I can't stand these things! I should write a nice post about how good it is to hang out on your own, with friends, about how good it is to plan your life and try to build it, about how good it is to play sports, about how nice it is not to be emotionally dependent on anyone, not to de addicted to anyone, not to be anyone's lackey, not to be what it takes just to fuck ... but how can you accept such things? Many guys say: I accept such things because I love him! But that's not true, you accept it because you are weak and you stick like a leechto the first one you find, and then sooner or later you the time will come to pay for these complacencies, because those who say these things refuse to reason and see the facts for what they are. But gee, do I have to go after a guy who has sex with other guys? No!! For no reason, I'm not anyone's doormat! Project, but is it possible that nobody writes to you to talk about positive things, normal stories? Gays don't just think about sex and looking for a guy, they also have a social life, they study, work, it seems that all of these things are second-rate compared to painful stories of weird couples. In short, Project, if you have other content but “of a different kind”, put it in the forum, but don't make the guys believe that accepting to be with a guy who has other guys while he stays with you is normal, because it is not at all! It almost seems that the forum has entered an atmosphere of decadence even in the contents, but we have to wake up! We must seek the best! Without being satisfied with the first one who passes by, our dignity depends on us.   FREE GAY LOVE SEEN FROM THE OTHER SIDE Posted by: gayprojectforum - 05-18-2021, 01:45 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies Hi Project, I’m 34 years old and for the first time I fell in love with a guy. I've been with several guys and had sex with them but I wasn't really in love with them, but a little over a year ago I fell in love with a guy and it's a completely different thing. Before my first and real falling in love I used to think about what I could have from those guys, while now I think about what I can do for the guy I’m in love with, I’m not looking for a reciprocation from him also because that reciprocation already exists, and is also superabundant, without my asking, at least for the moment, however I'm really happy that there is someone like him. He’s not a saint, he has his faults, sometimes he treats me roughly but with love, at least I think so. He doesn’t make calculations on feelings, he isn’t hypocritical, I found him close to me every time I needed him, he took me seriously right away, three things about him won me over, intelligence, respect for others and immediacy.   He’s a handsome guy, but that is not the note that characterizes him, there are many beautiful guys. He had a difficult life and has a singular ability to penetrate the human soul, to read the feelings of his interlocutor. He doesn’t judge, he doesn’t condemn, he needs to understand, he’s capable of loving in an adult way which for me means in a non-possessive way, he has always left me completely free, he has never forced me, not even in the most light od adulatory way. He doesn’t try to put into practice a code of behavior learned from pornography, but pays attention to his boyfriend, or rather to the guy he is with at that moment and tries to understand him, to go in his direction.   He knows that I’m in love with him and he isn’t afraid or seems not to be afraid that my love for him could be a brake for him. He knows that he is loved for who he is and not for what he does or could do, that there are no conditions of any kind. He knows that I only expect spontaneity from him, without obligations of any kind, and that is why we love each other, it is our choice from moment to moment. The choice of being together as a couple is always reversible, that of loving and respecting each other is absolutely irreversible. He’s the type of man I like, and I’m not just talking about the physical, a guy like him is a model to follow, yet he’s a person who has his frailties, his insecurities. He is not a model of courage or fortitude or even of consistency, but he is a model of balance, in him I find everything I need, or almost: the compliance and the ability to stop me and say no, the common sense in decisions, the patience but up to a certain point, and above all the sweetness, the total absence of aggression, which is something that I appreciate very much.   He told me that he wasn't like that before, that he used to snap, that he reacted very badly but then he changed when we started being together because he saw that I never got angry with him, and then he says that now he is not aggressive because he feels pacified inside. We have never actually quarreled, we have never raised our voices. He wanted me and I didn't even understand why, he really wanted me, or rather me too, not just me, but neither of us ever thought of abandoning the other, at least that's what I think. There is an unwritten rule between us: neither of us asks the other about questions concerning his sex life beyond our relationship, this doesn't mean we don't talk about other relationships, if we can to call them so, that we have or have had, we talk about such things spontaneously if we like, but if we want to keep our private we can also keep it for ourselves and nothing will collapse. In reality we talk or rather we have talked a lot about such things and there have never been jealousies either on his part or on my part. I know that he has had and perhaps has other guys as well, he has never hidden it from me. The only problems (and they are not small problems) arise for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases but on his honesty on this point I would put my hand on the fire. When he had some doubts he told me and we didn't see each other until he took the test, currently he doesn't talk about other guys anymore, I don't know if there are still other guys in his life, but I would be inclined to think that there are none. He knows that I've only had no other guys than him for four years now, and he's okay with that.   I had never desired the presence of a guy as I desire his, perhaps it's for sex, I don’t deny it, but more than anything it’s also for that form of wordless complicity that grows up on the sexual ground, for that immediate and reciprocal understanding, for that knowing each other thoroughly and trust each other. When we meet, which, after all, still happens  a single day a week now, we dedicate a lot of time to sex and the bare minimum to sleep and eat. Generally we are unable to talk seriously in those situations, it is as if sex was an automatic thing and talking to each other was much less so, when we separate it is the worst moment, but not in the sense that we are sorry to separate, because we got used to it, but in the sense that we never fix an appointment for the next time and not because it’s something obvious, but precisely because it is not at all. An appointment is a constraint, a point of reference, let's say a limit to freedom, and we must mutually guarantee our freedom, today we are together, but it is not taken for granted that we will be together again next weekend.   If there is one thing I lack in my contact with him, it is precisely the fact of speaking without fear, I mean fear of breaking the rule of freedom. If I told him "I love you!" somehow I would give the impression of wanting to tie him to the fact that I love him, demanding something in return. I miss his daily presence, the conversation about banalities. We hardly ever talk to each other during the week and we only see each other on Saturday nights. I would also like to do trivial things with him, I would like to share everyday life, but I don’t miss it for objective and external reasons, I miss it because I’m afraid that trying to share all aspects of everyday life could shift the axis of our relationship a little from sex, which now is the very center of it, and I don't know if he really wants such a thing.   When I'm with him a reflection comes to my mind, the statements made in words have a general value, they are like theorems, on the contrary sex is a physical, concrete thing, it is the application of some of those theorems to a particular case, this means that exceptions matter more than rules. Sex doesn’t obey general rules, it’s absolutely subjective, it concerns our relationship with a single person and in a precise moment, it’s not repeatable, it’s not generalizable, it’s not predictable. The variables are so numerous and so little known that in the end one has to put aside all projections and predictions.   Many consider sex as a way to understand another person, but in reality when you truly experience sex with another person, you realize the complexity of sexuality and its substantially incomprehensible dimension. In the end, I don't even know what pushes me to live my sexuality with him, how can I understand what pushes him to be with me? With me and not with another guy, at least at that moment. And even if I can say that there is real sharing and reciprocal transport, spontaneity is anyway held back. It is never possible to truly understand your partner's desires and limitations. Hence the uncertainty, the tendency to slow down not to rush too much, the sense of limit, and this could be one of the reasons that makes our relationship stable anyway.   It is beautiful when we meet on Saturday, they are moments of enthusiasm, sexual harmony is there, but it is very difficult to go further, and then when we separate, the days of waiting begin every time, days that are of real solitude, in practice long pauses between two days of life, empty days, in which a thousand thoughts come to the surface, days in which I think that what I want is something else, that I would like to see him happy to be with me every day, I wish I could wake up and find him next to me, I would like to prepare breakfast for him, I would like - it seems a paradox - even to argue with him in a strong and aggressive way and then make peace, and instead there is the fear of making mistakes, of exceeding our own rules, and so nothing is said, because there is always the doubt: would or wouldn’t he be willing to build a different relationship, more affective, I don't say less sexual, but just more affective?   I feel the detachment between the moments of sexual participation in which he is totally involved and the much colder after-sex moments, in which we never joke and talk very little, almost as if we thought "both of us" that we have done something that basically we shouldn't have done. I have observed over the months that there have been changes in our sexual relations. At the beginning the limits were very tight: no pampering that tastes too much like affectivity, but only sex and nothing else, he didn't want me to run my hands through his hair or touch his beard, then slowly he overcame these things, now he allows me to caress him, but he doesn't do the same with me, if the caresses are explicitly sexual then he accepts them, but if they are simple gestures of affection, I have to be careful not to insist too much because it might bother him.   It's not that we don't love each other, but I think he's not used to affectionate gestures, that those things somehow frighten him, that he feels them as something aggressive, too free, not codified, that he feels them as an attempt to create an obligation, a close bond, capable of taking away or restricting his freedom. The small changes I've noticed in the way we have sex make me think that something is really changing, but I don't deny, Project, that I'm not at all sure things will move forward in this direction. He can't bear to be told that he is a handsome guy, he is almost annoyed by it, he considers these speeches a parody of the speeches a guy uses to seduce a girl. When he talks about us he never uses the word love but only the word sex. But one thing I wonder, but if he is really just looking for sex, why did he choose me? He could have found so many guys better than me, who wouldn’t have created problems of any kind and would have easily adapted to his way of seeing things. And it's not even a problem of exclusive choice, he knows very well that he’s free to go with another guy too, but if he doesn't, as I believe, even if he claims the freedom to be able to do it, in the end he must have a serious motivation.   He tells me that I stimulate him a lot sexually, but in my opinion it's something that doesn't really have any foundation. In sex it’s me the one who follows him and not the opposite. I thought he might really like me because I hardly ever say no to him, and try to understand him. When I see him sad or distant I feel really bad and I think he has noticed it. When we have sex, he’s completely involved. I had never seen guys so involved in sex. In those situations he totally trusts me and seems absolutely and deeply participatory, but after sex he looks like another person, he gets dark, becomes more aggressive in his ways, more ironic, but with a bitter ironic, not towards me but towards himself.   I have a fundamental doubt, now things are like this and I think that the problem lies in the distance and in the fact that we see each other one day a week, the solution, in theory, would be to try to change jobs and to be able to really live with him. For him it is undoubtedly more difficult than for me, then I could also try to change jobs and move to his city, but I would have to sell my house, for which I still have to pay several years of mortgage, and move to his house, but he proposed it to me only in a very vague and probably unconvinced way, and I don't know if it is really what he would like, but I wonder if this living together, instead of making things improve by sharing everyday life, it cannot actually undermine that relationship that now exists and that maybe is based right on the fact that we are 150 km away and that we are both free anyway. Honestly, I don't know how to make a decision, going on as has happened up to now is an unsatisfactory option, but the other option, that is to bet everything on coexistence, I fear it could even be destructive. What do you think about? Pages (55): « Previous 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7 ... 55 Next » Jump to page: