What now?

I have a new flatmate. The smell emanating from his room seems to get worse every day. When he’s here he does nothing except drink and smoke all the time. It’s hard to imagine him without a can of Fosters in his hand. I don’t know if he is an alcoholic – his life seems manageable enough. He gets up and goes to work every day, and he seems relatively happy. He isn’t rude or uncouth when he drinks, and he doesn’t barge into my room and make scenes. He just can’t seem to live without booze. And it smells. He must have had a heavy one last night, as the bathroom this morning stank to high heaven. I had to hold my nose to stop myself from puking. Only once I’d blasted the room with Febreze could I take my hand away from my face. It wasn’t nice.

I don’t think I disapprove of his lifestyle choice. I lived that way for years myself. It’s how it reminds me of those years that I don’t like. When I was drinking I never thought I smelled, but I must have. Poor guy. How is anyone supposed to have a relationship with him? They’d have to pry the can of Fosters away from him just to get near him.

The stereotypical gay man drinks a lot: it annoys me that this one seems so unconcerned about falling into that category. I’m sure he’d argue that he is a free agent, allowed to drink as much as he bloody well likes, which is why I never plan to bring it up with him. It’s none of my business, in the same way that my not drinking is none of his business.

But when you live with someone you can hardly help noticing their habits, especially the habits that don’t agree with you. With my old flatmate it was the constant noise; with the new one it’s the smell, and the sight of empty beer cans in the recycling bin every morning. I haven’t lived with alcohol for years, which is probably why the reminder has come as a bit of a shock. God, I was just like him. How fascinating it would be to get into his head, find out whether he really is happy or not. I know some topics are designed to remain off limits forever, so I don’t expect to ever have this conversation with him. In reality I’m not sure I really want the conversation.

It just shows the bizarreness of human nature. The things you must never talk about, the importance of letting others self destruct without interference, the elephant in the room: I’ve known these things in my life, and with my innate tendency to see things from the outside, I can’t help but find them quite odd today. No, odd’s not the word. Sad – that is how I find them.

*****

Last weekend I went on a couple of dates with a much older AA. Both occasions were nice enough. Then he e-mailed me on Thursday, to break the news that he didn’t think we could or should become lovers. He would like us to remain friends: to share our ups and downs in sobriety with each other, platonically and faithfully. “You don’t need an old codger to keep you warm at night,” he told me. “You need a virile young man who’ll sweep you off your feet, wear you out in the bedroom and make you breakfast in the morning.” Perhaps he’s right. It doesn’t make me feel any less dejected. I think even before he sent me the email, I was beginning to realise that we weren’t matched sexually. In spite of his sobriety, he would have been another false father figure. I didn’t need another one of them.

Why should I be dejected? I’m free, once again, to find someone who can make me really happy. Well, technically, yes I am free, but in my heart of hearts I don’t feel free. I feel as tied by fear and loneliness as I ever did. I don’t believe for a minute that this guy’s prediction of a ‘virile young man’ will ever come true. I’ve never believed it, and nothing that’s happened this year has made me any more likely to believe it. Perhaps my refusal to believe even in the possibility of it is precluding it from happening, but my ability to believe in it is severely restricted by the fact that the type of man who has been described – a young, fit and healthy male like myself – would never approach me. In my world, young men don’t approach me. It’s always the older, caring types who at first seem very appealing, until I realise that we have nothing in common. The men I have stuff in common with – the young 20- and 30-somethings who like the same music and books as me, wear the same clothes as me, think the same thoughts as me – are put off by our similarities as much as I am.

I find young men so much more threatening than older men. The years have only intervened to convince me more and more that I should find them threatening because with them, I stand a chance of happiness. It is the chance that threatens me – it is the slight possibility of real romance that I am put off by. Older, hairy men with big arms and other fatherly qualities are a fantasy. I am attracted to them because the tired fantasy scenario that I envisage with them is all I know how to do. With someone my age I’d be lost! I wouldn’t know how to behave. Should I be the older or the younger one? Should I be the man or the woman? These choices I conveniently don’t have to face with older men because with them I can automatically relax into the role of the passive, effeminate boy.

My friend’s advice has struck at my heart and I am tempted to hate him for it. But I can’t because I know he is right. In sobriety I can’t help but recognise the truth when someone tells me it: to carry a resentment towards that person is illogical. What will I do? I feel as stuck as I ever did. I crave and need love as much as I ever did, and I feel as far from it as I ever have. I don’t know if I will ever kiss a man again, to be perfectly honest. The thought of taking any action to bring a man into my bedroom seems as alien and impossible as the thought of walking naked through the streets. How could I do it? After all this time, I have become safe in solitary celibacy, using porn most nights. I’m frozen. I know the truth of what afflicts me and I can’t change it. I can’t.

*****

My sexuality is like an illness that I have ignored for fifteen years. I don’t particularly want it, but I am stuck with it. I have no fricking clue what to do with it any more. In recent years it’s gone through a change: I’ve become interested in younger men, i.e. men of my own age and constitution, which is novel and somewhat concerning. I’ve started to believe that my only chance of true happiness lies with someone in their twenties or thirties, with whom I have many things in common, someone I can engage with on a cultural, emotional and physical level. And yet I’ve also started to believe strongly that true happiness is a lie that has been made up by a sick society, propagated by Hollywood and the pop industry to keep us unconscious.

The conflict in my mind between the two ideologies outlined above has scarcely abated since I’ve begun to grow and evolve as a sober gay man. No, it’s become worse and worse, thanks to my growing self-awareness. What am I to do? God says ‘let go’, again and again. But I can’t! Letting go – truly letting go and accepting potential celibacy for the rest of my life – seems like suicide to me right now. And yet God keeps telling me to do it, because it’s the only way forward. To let go and accept that God knows best, that I can’t control my future any more than I can control other people, is the biggest personal challenge of my life. It is very easy to write about it, here in the safety of my quiet bedroom on a Saturday night. To practise it in real life is akin to pulling teeth on a daily basis. Mental torture.

I have been obsessed with love, relationships and sex for more than fifteen years. It has filled everything I’ve ever written in my journal; nearly every day has brought some new romantic disappointment to me. Nearly every word that I write seems to scream out with need. This need to be loved is my most human trait, and it does not get fulfilled, because for fifteen years I have got in the way of it. In my sickness I have blocked anything truly fulfilling from ever happening to me. I am still blocking it. This sickness in me – this constant fear-based refusal to let go of the future – has to die. I have to forget about love, relationships, sex and romance entirely. I know it in my heart of hearts more than I have ever known anything. I have to swallow fear and embark on the future as if anything could happen. As if I don’t need anything except the validation of my higher power. As if I don’t care for men. Killing this obsession – letting go of my sick need – blindly moving forward in the face of fear and possibility – will be my only salvation. Not knowing and not thinking about what might happen is the only route to happiness. I have no proof for this, except the conviction which is swelling in my heart and in my soul right now. The future is ahead of me, and I shall have no say in it. God will decide.

Advertisement