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‘To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself’ - Soren Kierkegaard

There was nothing especially unusual about the beginning of the evening. I had been at the 30th birthday dinner of one of my best friends for 6 hours. Those hours had passed while talking and joking with my friend’s warm and jovial Italian family while consuming copious amounts of food and alcohol. I had been tired all day due to lack of sleep the previous night and as a result I was strongly considering going home straight afterwards. Albeit, some of my other friends were at a birthday on Chapel St and another group were at The Peel celebrating another birthday. Tired I may have been, but I could feel the night beckoning me into it like an old friend calling my name. Rest could wait for now.

Midnight struck and much like the shoe losing princess that is Cinderella, it was my time to go. After the many cocktails and unusually substantial canapés I had all but inhaled, I was somewhat surprised that I walked instead of stopped, dropped and rolled out of the house, but I guess that’s just a testament to the resilliance of the human body. After a drive to the station while finishing off the last drops of my ‘traveller’, I farewelled my chauffer like best friend and made my way by train to Windsor, briefly stopping to drop in on good friends and refuelling my level of inebriation in the form of cider. I knew this was still not the end of the night for me. The night was beckoning me further, deeper into it. I was in need of adventures of a more sordid nature.

I tumbled into a taxi driven by a fast driving and altogether unfriendly Indian gentleman who after a night of driving drunken idiots around town seemed much more interested in chatting to friends and family back home, so I reluctantly played on my iPhone, with it’s all consuming apps and always ever-so-close-to-dying battery. After a 15 minute drive that seemed to last for hours, I arrived at my destination, the home of fun and debauchery that is always a favourite of all of my friends ; The Peel. I had had a feeling all night that during this second installment of the evening something was about to happen. As I opened the door of this infamous gay drinking hole with it’s door handle in the shape of a penis, it served as a talisman of at least part of what was to come.

After trying to navigate the bar sans my glasses which I had stupidly left at home, I did a round of walking through the club in search of my friends, who were as per usual dancing while singing along to a nondescript pop song. My friend was with some guys I knew, some I didn’t, and some I get a weird vibe from ever since having a threesome with him and his boyfriend a few years back, so I tried to engage while at the same time remaining to keep a nonchalant distance from the threesome participant. I knew if something really interesting was going to happen tonight I was going to have to source it myself, so I left the dancefloor for the smoke filled haze of the outside courtyard and smoked numerous Peter Stuyvesants with intermissions to top up my beer intake. For once I didn’t know anyone in the smoking area so I was able to observe the testosterone charged headiness out there uninterrupted. The courtyard was filled with the smell of smoke and sweat. There was a lack of any handsome or interesting men and instead the courtyard was filled with the usual mix of ever so slightly desperate looking middle aged men and young twinks who couldn’t handle their alcohol. My willingness to be consumed by the night was fading, so I went to the bar and ordered the never-fail drink to keep a night going, a Smirnoff Ice, which I find provides just the right level of sugar and alcohol, if consumed in small quantities, to keep even the most weary nighttime reveller perky.

I walked through the mirrored hallway back to the dancefloor and struck up conversation with a friend who I invited to come with me to the bar so I could buy them a drink, but they insisted upon purchasing it themselves so I went along anyway to keep them company. The venue was still crowded at nearly 3am and service was understandably taking longer than expected, and when a creepy looking middle aged man came and stood next to me and stared in my direction, I decided to temporarily leave my friend to his own devices and stood waiting against the wall. As I did, I looked up and even without my glasses could see the tall, blonde haired, blue eyed and incredibly handsome man walking towards me. He looked like a straight guy who had either been lost and ended up here after a venue up the road had shut or had been lured here by his girlfriend to hang out with her and gay best friends at a gay bar. The music was incredibly loud and my hearing isn’t good at the best of times, so I was glad when he seemed to take the noise into account by saying directly into my ear “your friend over there keeps looking at me funny”. I looked to my friend who was still at the bar and who had paid no attention to this guy at all, so I inquired, “who do you mean?”. He pointed to the middle aged creep and said “that guy” and I laughed then replied “oh no, that’s no friend of mine”. I looked at his face and he flashed his brilliant blue eyes and smiled a white toothed grin. I started to suspect this seemingly heterosexual Viking may have another agenda, so I said “I’m Jake, and if you wanted to come up and talk, I’m pretty friendly to hot guys so hello is usually a good start instead of a story”. He giggled, knowing I was teasing. “I’m Mitch, do you want to come and sit down?”. Do I ever.

We walked to the lounge area and sat on one of the couches and played the customary game of getting to know you quickly before we start making out. He told me he was in his mid twenties and was in Melbourne for the weekend with friends. Melbourne seems to be lacking lately in the way of handsome men so I wasn’t surprised our fair city has had to outsource. No more than 5 minutes went by before there was a brief pause in conversation and we stared at each other then kissed. I’m not one to wear my heart on my sleeve and trust me, I’ve kissed more than my fair share of men in my time so I knew almost immediately, there was something different about this one. When we retracted from each other, he said “sorry about before, you’re so hot and I’d been trying for a while to think of a good segue to come up and talk to you”. I’m always friendly but can be moderately dismissive to a lot of gay men trying to score, but his opening line had obviously piqued my interest, for which I congratulated him, “well, it certainly got my attention”.

The next two hours were spent on the couches alternating between getting to know each other further, joking, large amounts of kissing, as well as telling each other how much we wished we weren’t in a club. I asked him if he was out and was surprised to be told that indeed he was. His hair looked perfect like a model in a Giorgio Armani advertisement, but it smelt like the trade-off of getting it to look as much was not washing it for extended periods of time. His face was unshaven with half a week of growth, his clothes were that of a young skateboarder or alternative type, and his t-shirt was just low enough to see he had what is for me the prerequisite manly chest hair I love so much in abundance. We had by this point developed an almost routine of kissing, then me kissing down his neck and then him kissing behind my ears. This did not feel like an ordinary club hook-up, there was something more there and the feeling was both tangible and mutual. Despite the present feeling of ’something more’, there was also large amounts of drunken lust and going for a stroll outside of the club was decided upon. As we were about to leave I quickly looked at my phone and he saw that I have Grindr and Hornet and proceeded to say “why do you have those apps, man? You don’t need them. I’d never have them”. Quick, someone pass me some rope so I can tether this unicorn before he gets away.

We walked up Wellington St and discussed the possibility of getting a hotel room ; he was staying in a sublet with friends and my house is 45 minutes away so it seemed like the easiest route. When we got to the closest hotel it was closed for business so a quick phone call was made to another with no response, and it seemed at this point the only thing for it was to do a ‘George Michael’ and go public. We kissed between two parked cars then he gave me a quick yet overwhelmingly satisfying blow job. It was freezing and any continuation here seemed ridiculous, so we decided to call it a night and in the morning discuss the possibility of meeting up the next day before he flew out. We walked to Victoria St and kissed each other goodbye and he said “I’m really glad I met you. I hope we do see each other tomorrow, dude”. I was so attracted to him I felt giddy and was all too pleased I had met him too.

I hopped into a maxi taxi, feeling somewhat guilty in case a person in a wheelchair was somewhere in the city also in the blistering cold and waiting for a ride home, but also basking in the glow of what had just happened. As the taxi tore down the freeway I decided to send him a quick text as my eyes were almost closing so I quickly tapped out on my phone “Hey mate, fucking brilliant to have met you tonight. Would love to see you again if you have time”. Then I remembered an old trick which is always handy which not many people seem to know about ; type his phone number into a search on Facebook to find his profile that way. After I did, I saw the profile match. It would appear he had given me a fake name at The Peel. I felt a feeling of disappointment that he hadn’t trusted me enough, mixed with curiosity as to why he had, mixed also with amusement given I have also done the same thing when I was younger.

The following morning I received a text from him saying it was great meeting me too, and that he wanted to either meet up that day or would I like to fly up to where he lives soon?. I don’t shy from confrontation, so I asked him straight away “bit confused about something, is your name Mitch or Daniel?”. He quickly replied “Haha Daniel. I’ve had a horrible experience with telling a dude my name. Anyway….sorry for the confusion dude. Was going to tell you”. I paused for 20 minutes to evaluate what had just happened and it appeared he started to panic because it wasn’t long before I received a follow up text “is that ok man? I’m sorry mate I just find it hard to tell random strangers because of a thing that turned sour”. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I suspected immediately he was gay and not out and was still stuck in that limbo period any gay man hates to remember, where you’re terrified of anyone finding out. I was a bit surprised he didn't ask me how I had found out what his real name is. I replied “oh ok. Bit weird. Yeah that’s fine. Did you end up heading out for breakfast?”. No harm, no foul.

The rest of the day was spent exchanging up to 100 texts of telling each other how much we wanted and were attracted to each other, the paramount of which from him was “I hope I catch you again hey. Last night was so rad hanging with you. You’re incredibly handsome and cute mate. There was definitely something. You’ve made Melbourne for me”. I couldn’t have agreed with this sentiment, returned to him, any more than I did. Why on Earth did this man have to live hundreds of kilometres away? It’s at times like this I become convinced I surely must have committed some sort of grave romantic wrongdoing in a past life, cheating on then abandoning a defenceless wife perhaps, left alone to feed 5 crying babies or the like. I was far too tired to go anywhere and he was busy with his friends, so we told each other how good it would be if I went up to went to the city he lives in. He asked for my Facebook so he could have a look at my profile which I willingly gave him, I assumed because he knew I had already looked at his. He asked for my Instagram account so he could private message me pics on there because his phone apparently wasn’t capable of sending MMS (in the age of smart phones, is that what’s called a dumb phone?). Before his flight he told me “so keen to keep chatting and see where things go. You seem like a sweetheart man. If ya keen”. I’ve never really jumped headfirst into a romantic situation before in my life, so I thought I’d give this a whirl. As the cool kids say these days ; YOLO. Later that night as we were texting each other constantly he sent me a photo of himself from his Instagram account, the username of which is his first initial and surname. For someone so determined to hide his identity, this was a right step in a more trusting direction.

Daniel messaged me early the next day on Monday morning and the texts continued much like they did the day before. Declarations of wanting each other, liking each other, wanting to see each other. Then a situation for us to meet up again sort of just fell into place. I was meant to fly to his city to stay with one of my really good friends not that coming weekend but the following, but said good friend had since been offered a job for 10 days working in Melbourne so had offered me his apartment from Thursday onwards. I had originally thought of turning it down, preferring my friend to be there so we could paint the town red together, but I had other friends I had also planned to hang out with and now could use the empty apartment as a love nest with Daniel. It was like I had won situational Tattslotto. Daniel and I made plans to catch up that weekend, accommodating for his job and university commitments, and then spoke on the phone for a while that night about our respective days and plans for the weekend further. This guy was absolutely beautiful. We sent each other selfies that night before going to bed, he said “so I can doze off thinking about ya”. Cuteness factor hitting a 10.

I initiated text conversation the next day and it initially continued like a daily routine, idle chatter, more declarations (mostly from him about how he wished I lived where he does or wished I was already there), then he told me he had “never came in a dude before". I took this to mean he had never slept with a guy and asked him as much (and hoped he didn’t ask me what my number was. Why do people these days want to know how many people their partner has slept with?). He told me he had only slept with two guys. Yeah, me too….. Oh lord. His answer piqued my earlier suspicion so I inquired further “I know I asked you this before. However, are you out?”. He replied “not really, but I hardly ever get with dudes man”. Voila! I love it when I’m right. I replied “thought so. So are you gay, bi, or straight and like fucking guys?”. His answer was “bi, but I don’t really get with chicks either. To be honest I Just get with people I really feel it with. What about you?”. I didn’t reply immediately because I was trying to digest all the information he had just told me. He was apparently bi-sexual, not gay like me. And not out. He sent me a follow up message “is that ok?”. He could sense my hesitation for a quick response.

I understand more than most people how difficult the coming out process can be. While my mother, sister and most of my family were overwhelmingly accepting, one of the first family members I came out to was my father. I was briefly living with him at the time. After I did, I asked him if he still loved me and he told me he didn’t know. The next day I was so emotionally devastated that I wagged school and when he got home he knew immediately and asked why I had wagged school. When I told him it was because of what had happened the day before, he pinned me to the couch and beat me. The situation at school was no better. Both during and after the coming out process was terrible. Every day I was called a faggot. Called a poofter. Told I was going to die from AIDS. I was pushed. I was shoved. I was punched. I had rocks thrown at me. I felt like a sub-human and my self-esteem and level of self-worth were zero. Every day when the 8.05am train arrived to take me to school, I had to make a decision whether to catch it or jump in front of it. I wanted to so badly so that the terror I was living could be over, but I didn’t just in case, two years from then when school was over, everything would be better, and it turned out it was. I’m so glad I held on through that. One often hears of right wing religious groups saying that gay people will go to Hell. Thing is, people like me have already been there. If this guy had made it to his mid twenties in this day and age and was still not out, there must be a pretty big reason why. I wasn’t offended he wasn’t out, I was however offended he had lied. Again. I tried to gently reply : “on Saturday night you told me you were out and it’s become pretty obvious since then you’re not”. He told me “it’s just complicated dude. I hope ya understand”. So there is a reason why.

After spending the night sex texting, the next day I became suspicious there may be more he was yet to reveal, so I asked Daniel “just so I know were you honest about everything else you told me about yourself?”. He replied “what you mean man?”. I asked “are you really in your mid twenties? Are you actually from ……..?”. He made a joke of it and said “nah I’m actually from Albania and a 50 year old dude”. I was relieved. I was being silly. Or so it seemed. Trust your instincts. You have them for a reason. We gelled it over though. He said “hurry up and get here babe”. So we were ok. Me : “can’t wait to see you champ”. Him “looking forward to a beautiful weekend dude”. This sort of dialogue is exactly what it had been like 4 days now in about 50 or more texts a day. It was really lovely. But it is probably making people it wasn’t sent to (e.g.. you, dear reader) wish that they were blind.

The next morning was my flight. As per usual, I had misjudged my timing and was running late. Daniel and I messaged each other numerous times in my rush for my flight so he could check I was ok. I finally boarded after the flight had been delayed for nearly 1 1/2 hours. As the flight took off, I thought of my childhood flying routine of grabbing the hand of one of my parents during take off. Half out of fear, half out of excitement I wanted to share. At the end of the day, don’t we all just want someone we can hold the hand of and share with?

When I landed I already had a text waiting for me from Daniel asking if I had got in ok. I didn’t understand how someone so thoughtful, so handsome, so lovely, could be single. And I was absolutely thrilled that for once, this sort of person instead of some the arseholes I’ve dated in the past, was involved with me. After I got into the city by train and I told Daniel where I was he couldn’t believe how close I was to him. He suggested a place for me to have a drink where I met a friend, and by late afternoon was exhausted and considered cancelling my date with Daniel that night. Not because I didn’t want to see him, but because I was so god damn tired I knew my sexual performance wasn’t going to be an Academy Award winner. Then again, I’m pretty good in bed so even if it’s not my best it’s still above average, so in the words of a song from an overwhelmingly annoying pop group from the 90’s, c’est la vie.

Daniel messaged me to tell me “imagine if you weren’t coming up this weekend, how would I cope?”. I teasingly replied “hot guy like you would be able to find it easy”. Him “but I want you. I’m really nothing special mate”. Me “yes you are”. I had feared that once I got there some of the glow may be gone, as if this was a fantasy involvement and the reason it had become so intense so quickly is because we were in different states and it couldn’t happen. I was relieved that once I got there and it could happen, things were full steam ahead.

Later, Daniel came and met me at the apartment I was staying in. When he walked in he seemed even taller than I had remembered. We sat on the couch while kissing and talking about our days despite the fact we already knew exactly what each other had done from all the texts that day. I so badly wanted to finally be naked with him, so after we had another kissing session, I led him to the bedroom, and he asked for the lights to be turned off “in case someone sees”. Bit paranoid, but I’ll roll with it. We did ‘everything but’. Never thought at the age of 30 I’d become an ‘everything but’ (as in everything but penetration) guy, but I wanted to save the main event 'til another day when we had more time. We spent a while afterwards in bed hugging and kissing and being romantic, but it couldn’t last all night as Daniel had to go home to finish uni assignments. Ah, the downfall of being involved with someone younger. We had plans to hang out the next night anyway, and after he had left he texted me saying “wish I didn’t have to go”. Same here buddy. He was adorable.

Because he had come over and spent time with me instead of doing assignments he had had to stay up all night and seemed pretty grumpy the next day, so I took myself off to a plethora of art galleries, then to an art gallery exhibition and auction with a friend. After a boozy dinner I finally dragged myself away from what was potentially going to be a big night. Sadly the second I got to 30, whenever I have a hangover I more or less resemble a placenta that’s been tied to a cart and dragged down a dirt road, so I decided it was in my best interest if I was going to keep this guy interested, I needed to make an ongoing effort to resemble a human.

The next day Daniel slept in and had to go to work and asked me what my plans were. I told him I was going to a place I was going to take him to, and he said “ah man, you know I’d be there if I didn’t have to work”. I obviously understand he had to work, but this was now the second plan he had to blow off. I’m famously impatient. Need I say more? I made plans with friends instead. Daniel and I only messaged each other occasionally for the rest of the day, including a text that was meant to be reassuring saying “I’m just trying to work out a time to see you - I’m not dogging it I promise”. It would appear the glow was becoming a dimming spark. By Sunday I couldn’t be bothered chasing him anymore, so I just said to him “I thought we would spend a little more time together. Then I got here and you backed off. I don’t get it”. I was surprised and disillusioned by his reply “I understand man - I think after meeting you the other night I bloody loved and froth over you so much man… But I got freaked out because of how much I do and the fact that you’re interstate… To be honest I’m just afraid of hanging out more and liking you more which makes it too bloody hard to deal with when you go back home”. I’m here for a good time, not a long time. Make the most of it pal. I told him the fact remained I did go home tomorrow so if we were going to catch up again it would have to be today. He had more assignments to do so decided to bring his laptop with him so we could spend even more time together and made the hour long train journey from his place to where I was staying.

When he walked in he commented how hot it was in the apartment. I thought that was just the effects of a hangover from a night spent bar hopping the previous evening. I opened all the windows and we sat and talked in bed for a minute before he asked “can we pull down this blind? Those people might see”. The people he was referring to were on the balcony of an apartment in another building 20 metres away, whose balcony was at least 5 metres lower than the level of the window. Unless said people were just pretending to have a barbecue after a hard day working at ASIO and gay hipsters were now on the Abbott government’s list of terror suspects, I was pretty sure we’d be fine, but I complied with Daniel’s wishes. After some idle chit-chat about what we’d each been up to, he pulled me on top of him and asked “are you still angry with me?”. I was pretty annoyed. I had been under a constant impression from him that we would’ve spent a lot of the weekend together, it just hadn’t transgressed that way. We kissed before I replied “a bit” and he retorted “don’t be”. We spent the next couple of hours having sex 3 times with intermissions between. It was pretty intimate and as raunchy as it could be now I was onto my fourth day with hardly any sleep. When we were onto the third time, I noticed the way Daniel masturbates : with his wrist facing towards his body like a tennis left-handed forearm, while pulling his penis in incredibly slow motions downwards instead of pulling it relatively quickly outwards or upwards. I’d never seen this apparent 12th century form of dick torture before and it appeared it was about to make him ejaculate. Well, I’ll be damned.

We spent a while hugging afterwards then he attempted to do some uni work on his laptop, quickly losing interest and returning to hugging me. Hugging in bed is something I love but rarely do because hugging in bed with a one night stand gives me the creeps, but that he was not and somehow Daniel and I just seemed to physically fit together. An hour later when we were nearly asleep, an alarm went off on his phone. Apparently he now had to catch the train home to actually do these uni assignments instead of loitering around in bed with yours truly. He got his stuff together and we kissed goodbye and it felt a little weird, knowing that I was leaving the next morning and unless something major was going to happen and we were both willing to fork out god knows how much on plane tickets, we wouldn’t see each other again until the next time we might be in each other’s cities.

I flew home the next day and everything was fine (apart from the fact I now had double the amount of luggage). We texted each other all day but by the next day, I was flat out at work and there was no communication all day. That night just before falling asleep I sent him a quick text “how was your day, hombre?”. When I woke up the next morning I lay in bed just sort of pondering what would happen next, if anything really, between us. Then it dawned on me ; when I’d found out he’d used a fake name I was so taken aback I didn’t even bother looking at the rest of his Facebook profile, so I looked him up and quickly scanned through some posts. Then I saw when he had graduated high school. It would appear Daniel had also lied about his age and was in fact 3 years younger than what he had told me. You’d think he would’ve cleared that up with me by now. Then I saw the vital missing piece that made at least part of this mystery puzzle click. Him and his family were members of a religious organisation. Given the organisation, I wasn’t surprised at all the lengths he was going to to conceal his identity. Albeit, I was sick of being lied to. Coincidentally, I suddenly received a reply from him to the text I had sent him the previous night ; “Hey man sorry I was at a work event and my phone died. Day was so full on! How was first day back at work?”.

I was unsure how to approach the situation and to be honest, I’m not proud of what I said or the way I acted next. My mind was boggling with possibilities of what else he may be concealing and lying about. And I came to the realisation that, apart from knowing that they are essentially a wonderful and beautiful person, I didn’t know him at all. Looking back I really should have acted far differently, but hindsight is a blessing and a curse. It was one of those sorts of situations much like when you’re watching a horror movie and someone hides in a cupboard and you think ‘what are you doing dickhead? Run down the stairs!’.

I replied ; “That’s cool. Hey so I’ve got a question for you. You’re (insert age here) not (fake age) and weren’t honest about a couple of other things. Why? Are you really that scared of being found out for being bi / gay or is it something else? Are you in a relationship? I’m not angry just a bit weirded out and would like some sort of explanation”. Normally my actions could be regarded as a bull in china shop type of approach to life, so in comparison this handling it with kid gloves. I realised I’d backed him into a corner and became concerned he was freaking out in some way when 7 hours later there was still no reply, so I said “can you just send me a text and let me know you’re ok?’. Shortly I received a response ; “Yeah I’m ok, just not sure what to say… This is why I tried to avoid it all at the beginning and I apologise for that but the fact you have stalked my Facebook (assume that’s how you found out) or whatever has really weirded me out…. Considering the fact I haven’t given you my Facebook”. I naturally didn’t understand what he was saying. If he didn’t know I’d seen his Facebook, how did he think I had found out his name? Plus I had his name from his Instagram account anyway! Who in this modern age would be given a potential lover’s name and not have a quick squiz at their Facebook? It seems almost ludricrus not to. I realised I was going to have to try to gently nudge him further in an effort to try to get him to reveal anything and try, for me, to do it as gently as possible.

I waited a while, then sent him a message that said : “I didn’t mean ro weird you out at all and if I have I wholeheartedly apologise. I have an overwhelming sense of curiosity so when you wouldn’t answer many questions about yourself the other day I became overly curious and looked up your Facebook this morning. Again, not in a creepy way, but because I suspected by your lack of forthcoming information that there was something behind it. And it turns out I was right. And now I really don’t understand. I don’t understand why you lied about that, and I don’t understand how you can ever really become close to someone if you do lie about that. It’s ok though, I’m ok, I just don’t understand unless you explain it to me”.

I think anyone else would have plonked this situation in too-hard basket days before this, but I was temporarily blinded by feelings. And now I wanted a little something. A little explanation. A small tidbit. Anything. I’d had so much contact with and spent days with this person and didn’t know them at all apart from what I’d discovered myself. I also realised I’d completely backed them into a corner to do this. Come on Daniel, take the bait, take the bait! Tell me about how you can’t come out because of the religious organisation and the predicament you are in, and that’s why you’re so scared about your identity being revealed to anyone. Then he said “Dude you need to relax about this whole thing. I’m not used to sharing my whole life on a platter for a guy I’ve just recently met! I feel like the whole situation with you and I has become too serious for you, and I understand that I’m at fault here because I was feeding into it all with the texts the week after we met. This is what I was afraid would happen. Look dude I’m sorry but I don’t really feel comfortable chatting”.

What? WHAT? What on Earth just happened? I don’t think someone’s name and age could really be classified as someone’s ‘whole life on a platter’. This guy was being more dramatic than Meryl Streep in an Academy award-winning leading actress role. The fact that he had then turned the entire situation around as if I was at fault in some capacity and had belittled me and our involvement thus far to be one-sided, when he had been the one bombarding me day in, day out, with messages about his feelings and yearnings, was absolutely infuriating. I had been trying to be nice about it. Now I was just plain angry and if he was going to act like a twat, I was aborting the mission faster than Hussein Bolt does the hundred metres. I responded the best way I knew how to when my head was exploding ; “never contact me again”. I was so angry at this point I was really hoping he never did, but then he replied “mate I’m really upset at this - I’m sorry”. Oh no you didn’t. This isn’t all about you, mate. I took the bait, easily as always ; “I don’t understand you, what you have said or what has happened at all. It hadn’t become too serious for me, I was mirroring the sentiment you supposedly had. If you just wanted to get your dick wet, you should’ve just said so”. Yeah, take that. I went to walk away from my phone but then it beeped with another text from Daniel ; “Dude I hope you know me more to assume I think like that! I’m an idiot and immature I understand man. I just don’t want you to become bitter at me please”.

For the next day or so, I was bitter. I was so disappointed I had finally had feelings for someone, I had actually expressed those feelings, and ultimately it was eventually thrown back in my face. I was disappointed with the ridiculous way Daniel had acted at the end. I was annoyed I had spent weeks making an effort with someone, and lets face it, in gay male terms : that’s years. But then I stopped being so wrapped up in myself and thought about the situation he is in. He is a beautiful young man in his twenties that lives in a democracy like Australia in 2014, and despite this, because of his own family’s religious affiliations, he has to conceal who he is. To everyone. He has to create a fake persona just to be even some of what he could potentially be if his situation was different. And that is so unbelievably sad. And I really do hope, for his sake, that somehow his situation changes. That somehow he is able to live the life of an ordinary human being. Not have two parallel lives, or even three. Sure, coming out is hard. And everyone’s experience with coming out is completely different from the next person’s. But 15 years on after I did myself I can safely say there is now way I would return to living in the shadows. Not for love, not for a man, not for anyone or anything. And nor should anyone have to.

When I think about the involvement and situation as a whole I almost giggle at all the possibilities of what it actually was ; was I used as the human equivalent of a cum-rag in a bi-curious guy’s real life wank fantasy and once he had got his rocks off, he was off? Was I romantically involved with a lovely guy, up until the point he realised the impossibility of it continuing because of his own situation, then he had freaked out once he thought I would somehow reveal his identity (which I obviously would never do) and I had become collateral damage in the process? Was it just a brief fling until the situation, for whatever reason, became impossible and he lost interest? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions and I probably never will : they’re trapped inside a man hundreds of kilometres away and a sunny Spring sojourn I once made to another city. What I do know is that for once that when it came to my feelings, I had dared to lose my footing.

And it felt really good.

Is Home Where The Whore Is?

I'm in a bit of a state of confusion. I had decided that in my dating future I would wait to get to know someone when dating before taking the leap and having sex, but then what are the potential ramifications of either having sex straight away or waiting? The answer lies in whether gay men want their prospective partner to be a whore or virtuous and if you do have sex straight away, are you a whore? How long is too long to wait? And which one is right for me?


Allow me to provide various case studies from the past :


A : We met through mutual friends on a dancefloor. He was artistic and incredibly handsome. When we kissed I wasn't aware that it was even on the cards, it just happened. God he was a good kisser. Not long after our lips parted he told me I could either go home with him now or take his number. Woah! Slow down there tiger, I hardly remember your name. I politely declined to go with him, partially because of the way we knew each other and instead opted to stay and dance at the particular drinking hole we were at. A couple of days later, we arranged to meet for drinks which went quite well and I went back to his house, except by the time we actually arrived at his house, I was so drunk I could hardly stand up. Once in bed we sort of fumbled around like confused teenagers. To give you an idea of what this would have looked like thanks to my thin frame and his incredibly tall one, imagine a praying mantis and a tarantula being thrown into a fish tank and attempting to fornicate while intoxicated. All legs and elbows. In the morning, my hangover was so horrendous I could hardly will my eyelids to blink let alone do the royal rumble between the sheets. Over a period of time, we made arrangements to meet up which we did few and far between but the more contact we had, the more it became apparent that he still possibly had residual feelings for someone else. In a situation such as this, sex is a weapon and when he got that feelin', I should've given him sexual healin', but by the time a correct situation actually arose in which sex could have happened, we were so sexually disconnected from each other that sex between us would have actually been weird, even the concept of it.


B : B and I met at Big Day Out incredibly briefly then bumped into each other by chance at a gay bar. I thought he was very cute and sexy and taking him back to my house was easier than leading a horse to water. The sex between us was always fantastic : albeit the first time we had sex far too quickly and the second time during sex, he actually sang 'By The Rivers Of Babylon' to me. During sex. I felt like I was guest programming a bad episode of Rage. However, I knew during our entire involvement that he was having sex with other people. Secretly, so was I as we weren't actually officially dating as of yet. The difference being he told me. What's with men that needlessly disclose that? We were involved for quite a while afterwards and instead of the hills being alive to the sound of music, they were alive to the sound of us, but in this case, the chase was the most important factor. Because we had had sex on the first night, the chase was already over and instead of a feeling of desire and wanting existing between us, it was one of availability.


C : I dated C for a wee while, roughly a month. When we met I was instantly attracted to his humour, intelligence and wit. He was also, undeniably, sexy. On the first date I had asked him if he wanted to come back to mine for a drink and ultimately have sex. An offer which he declined. Afterwards I messaged him to which he responded that he was quite confused as he had thought I wasn't the least bit interested in him. This then confused me, hadn't I put forward the right message? What did he expect me to do, write 'fuck me' on a napkin and attach it to my head as a makeshift bandana? I had actually put forward the correct message, I just didn't know it. Herein lies a lesson that one should know oneself a little better. We went on 4 subsequent dates, each one nearly mirroring the last. Still no sex, not even a kiss. He even told me that he was getting sex from elsewhere (so romantic!). It took me a while for me to catch up to myself and realise that first night I would have happily had sex with him because I was drunk and horny and ready to go. But I was not on the whole filled with a sexual desire for him. I wasn't waiting, I'd just made a new friend.


D : I met D on the dancefloor (reoccurring theme much?). He was cute in his own peculiar way but lets keep this one brief : he was a whore. I knew he was a whore, he told me about his whoreish exploits and as a result, I treated him like a whore. When he asked me months later if I would like to date him I nearly laughed. I know that sounds terrible but in a potential dating scenario one must put ones best foot forward and all this young man had shown me was that he had an understanding of how to open a condom packet and liberally apply lube.


E : A few months later when I sort of started dating E, a similar scenario happened. Intelligent, humourous, witty. Yet this panned out a little differently. The first night we met we were in bed together. We didn't have sex but there was lots of canoodling which was exacerbated by the fact I couldn't sleep thanks to the loud whirring of the filter in the fish tank next to his bed. I'd even spotted a dead fish floating around. We, also went on subsequent dates. One particularly lovely one which ended with us spooning on the couch and falling asleep holding each other. When we woke, E tried to initiate sex and I denied him. Why? What was wrong with me? He was really cute and I was horny but at the end of the day, it just wasn't there. I could have had sex with him but for me it would be meaningless and I didn't want that. Since when? Since when did I attach emotions to sex? It was at that moment I realised meaningless sex for me was no longer a priority and I was, in essence, after something more. Couldn't have been more of an awkward time to have an epiphany such as this than when I was actually in bed with someone I had been on a date with who I didn't see any future dates with. My problem, which had been reoccurring, is I just love attention and the more I get, the more I get drunk on it. It was so awkward at the time, I looked to see if the dead fish was still in the fish tank.


F : What happened next was in retrospect for the best because it made my intentions no longer a whimsical idea, it cemented them. I went out for a wonderful drunken night with my best mate at our favourite gay bar, during which time I met F. We hit it off straight away, he was cute and funny and in my drunken state I remember actually thinking 'I could totally date you' which was a deciding factor in why I went home with him. When the question arose as to whether I should go home with him, I said yes. Well, I didn't but the 5 shots of tequila I'd had did. He had actually even hinted at what was yet to happen but I was too tipsy to realise and took what he said at face value. After going back to his place and starting to have sex the weird factor very quickly accelerated from zero to Dennis Rodman in the space of 5 minutes. A line that will sadly be with me forever is : "I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO STOP PLAYING WITH MY NIPPLES!" I want my comfy pillow and a hot chocolate just remembering that. For the next 5 to 10 minutes I actually wasn't allowed to take my hands off his nipples. I knew I wasn't allowed to because I tried to and he spanked me. I had never been involved in a sexual situation like this before and this is probably the point where any normal person would've grabbed their clothes and run from the house while still getting dressed and potentially set his house on fire to prevent him from ever committing sexual hate crimes again, but instead I was in some kind of strange almost S & M type situation and his dominant hoodoo voodoo mind games of making me feel like I had to please had sort of worked. Not long afterwards he said the most disgusting words and did the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced : 30 seconds before he ejaculated he asked me if I "liked his cock in my boy pussy" then he spat in my face. Let me repeat, spat in my face. Spat in my face. As if this wasn't enough, because I hadn't (and now definitely wasn't going to) ejaculate myself yet, he suggested fisting me to "loosen me up". I'm not a scientist or a medical practitioner but I understand space and my own body rather well and there ain't no way someone's hand is going there. Ever. It's at times like this I wish I had the phone number of the head of the U.N. to let them know my human rights had been breached according to international law. I lay there frozen. I felt so incredibly violated. I asked if I could have a shower and he grabbed me a towel and led me to the bathroom and I insisted upon showering myself. I left as soon as I possibly could afterwards and went and met my best mate who was now at work. To give you an idea of how I was feeling at this stage, when my best mate asked me "how did the rest of the night go for you?", I replied with "hold me".


G : G and I went on our first date on the day of my friend's wedding. I'd been putting off going on a date with him for ages as I had been incredibly busy and what better time to go on a first date than when you're suited and booted with a bow-tie to match? We met up for drinks at a bar. He was sweet, so cute, smart and obviously sociable. Ticking all the right boxes so far. In the 45 minutes to an hour of the first date I was asked so many questions in such a short space of time that I have since referred to that first date as 'the interrogation'. It was while dating G that I decided to put my new found dating structure of waiting for sex into play so before the second date, I made it very clear to him I wasn't going to have sex with him. Not yet. As soon as he sat down on the second date I regretted my prudent decision to be frigid. How could someone become cuter in 5 days? We got along really well and had our first kiss at a tram stop of all places. It was very clear to me by the end of the date that I liked him. Afterwards however, I became really busy and we didn't see each other for a week. I was so excited we would be having sex on our next date, then 2 hours beforehand my eyes started weeping, my nose started running and I looked about as healthy as Skeletor from He-Man. Except with nice hair. I didn't want a cold! What I wanted was for him to take me home to bed and in the somewhat altered words of Rihanna, make me feel like I was the only goy in the world. He was so lovely that to make me feel better he even complimented me on how nice I looked. The date ended with me insisting upon going home to which he expressed his disappointment, no one was more disappointed than me, but I really didn't want the first time we consummated our dating relationship to involve me saying "can you stop? I need to blow my nose immediately". The next date I was still overwhelmingly afflicted with the flu that never ends and when he asked me to go for another drink after the movie we had seen, I knew that would likely mean sex. But I had taken enough cold and flu tablets to sedate a rhino and thought it would be, again, best to go home. I felt like telling him I would love for him to just take me home and hold me but thought this would just be sexually teasing, plus he had a major event not long afterwards and I really didn't want him to get sick because of me. It was very clear that while he was completely understanding, he was becoming sexually disillusioned. The following week when I finally came good, he became unavailable due to the event and I became perplexed due to the distance that was now placed between us when I was finally ready. I did not realise that it was me, not him, that up until this point had been distant. We arranged a date 3 weeks after the last time we had seen each other to go for dinner, drinks and see a play. During the day beforehand my mind was swamped with various questions : did I still like him? Would he still like me? I even went to buy him a bottle of Bollinger champagne to congratulate him on his event but decided not to because I didn't want to because I didn't want to come on too strong, I was overthinking the entire situation so much so that by the time I arrived at the date, I was a nervous mess. It even started terribly, he went to kiss my lips, I kissed his cheek and I couldn't concentrate. On our previous 4 dates he had been exceptionally sweet and affectionate, yet this time he seemed slightly disinterested, even at one point borderline rude. Because I was so nervous and kept thinking about the fact we hadn't had sex yet, the potential consequences of that and the feelings involved, I had walked into it on the wrong footing and sadly when I feel things aren't going the way I would like to on a date I can be really despondent and aloof. I wanted to kiss him but instead of expressing this, I internalised it then stupidly wondered why it wasn't happening. Later during the interval of the play, while we were talking, mid conversation he turned and checked out a guy for so long it was awkward and told me he was "checking out incoming talent". I don't care how badly a date is going, that is rude and I told him as much. We ended up going for a drink afterwards but the night had gone so badly romance wise up until this point that it just wasn't happening. Because we had left it so long before having sex we were nearly completely sexually disengaged and as it turned out because of the time we had spent apart, my nerves on the night and other potential variables, it would appear romantically disengaged as well.


Does having sex straight away make you a whore? Absolutely not. But it does ensure that the chase is over immediately and does not allow for feelings of desire and want to be instilled in either you or your prospective partner to the same extent as if you had have waited. No one wants to date a whore, albeit no one wants their partner to be frigid, there couldn't be anything more dull. But if you wait too long to have sex in a dating scenario you run the risk of either you or your partner becoming disengaged. At the end of the day, a lot of gay men treat their sex like their shopping : if one shop doesn't stock the item you want, do you wait until that shop has the item in stock? Absolutely not, you plod down the street to a shop that does and if you wait too long that is a risk you take. I've decided in my findings that in my opinion I shall treat date number 3 much like a fire plan : get down low and go go go.

Ode To A Cat

Farewell Suzie, you moody neurotic cat, I never quite knew where your head was at. You'd annoy me endlessly til I'd want to yell 'kill her now', But we couldn't eat you, you weren't a cow. If food went missing on my shoulder a blaming finger would tap, Then I'd point at you, you took the rap. You slept, hissed and meowed from under mum's bed, Coming out only to terrorize, creep around and be fed. You'd devour can after can of Whiskas albeit never got fat, You really should be quite proud of that. I'm grateful that never was there a mouse, Thanks to you inside our quaint beach side Seaford house. Im glad that we eventually became friends, Even if it was so close to your very sad end. Farewell Suzie, soon to be but dust, Go to kitty heaven, it is a must.

I want to get physical

If Eric Balfour who played Gabe in Six Feet Under and Lee from 90's pop group Steps somehow had a love child that grew to the age of 27 then didn't eat for a month, surviving only from the sustenance of Cooper's Pale Ale, that'd be me. I have the body of a pregnant praying mantis.
Once upon a time back in the days I was a fitness freak, I had a lovely lean body with abs of steel. Oh those were the days......
I've been trying to drag myself kicking and screaming back onto the fitness train (toot toot!) with about as much sucess in relation to results as trying to teach a hippo to do a cartwheel. The abs are coming back but I can't say much else is happening, apart from of course my butt is looking a bit more bubbly and lets face it, that's pretty near the top of the list of 'most important'.
My routine has been as follows : 50 push-ups, 50 sit ups, 50 lunges and anywhere between 25-50 chin ups depending on when my arms give way and then subsequently find it difficult to even lift a pen. All this followed by a 5km run.
I'd have to say the run is definitely the most enjoyable part, apart from one small factor. I CAN NOT listen to my iPod while running. I generally run along a track that goes between scrub land and the beach that is used by many a jogger, so if I'm listening to said iPod when someone runs up behind me without warning, of course my instant response is to nearly scream and go into the battle position of a gay ninja. A positive of running along this track is when a middle aged woman starts catching up, my instant thought is 'you're not beating me menopause-central' and pick up to a Speedy Gonzales-like pace.
Fitness hasn't been the only thing I've been self-improving on : I've also shaved all my hair off. My original hope on shaving the hair off was to have the look of a sexy bad-boy European who had escaped from a correctional facility, but due to a nasty case of hayfever and lack of sleep, I'd wager right now it's a tad more akin to looking like Sinead O'Connor after having gastro.
I'm giving it a week to adjust to the new hair. As for the body, maybe by summer 2017 it'll be all sexy?

Lets go outside

In the 12 years I've been sexually active, I've been engaged in various degrees of sex in lots of different places : on a bed, on the floor, on a chair, in a kitchen, in a lounge room, in a bath, in a shower, in a car, on a car, on a slide, on a swing, in a park, at a beach, waiting for a train and my personal favourite, at a zoo (watching Australian Fur Seals swim makes me horny).

For example, "Dave" and I have had sex outside on numerous occasions. Not only have Dave and I had a tendency of having sex outside, we also tend to get caught.

Many moons ago in the land of gay I went to Dave's birthday at his parent's house. Enough alcohol was consumed to kill a brown dog, naturally the hormones kicked in and Dave and I snuck off into the billiards room. He pushed me against the billiards table, pulled down my pants and proceeded to give me what would've been a good blowjob, except approximately 2 1/2 minutes later his best mate walked in. I found out later it was at that moment his best mate fully accepted that Dave was gay. So glad I could be part of the healing process. Given that we'd been busted but were determined to finish what we'd started, we decided to go somewhere private (note sarcasm). So we went out the front of the house. In the driveway. Then we had sex against a car facing the road. All was going well until the man across the road decided to pop out and mow the lawn. Fear not, there were no long faces in the burbs after that. Finally common sense prevailed and we scampered upstairs to his bedroom. About 30 minutes later I was provided with the best orgasm of that particular year.

Fast forward a couple of moons to a particular evening when Dave and I were walking home along one of St. Kilda and subsequently one of Melbourne's busiest streets. I had to stop and pee so went around a corner and did a quick slash and came back, at which time Dave said "but I didn't get to see it", so I got my dick out right there and then and showed him. Did anybody see, I hear you ask dear readers. It was 6pm on one of Melbourne's busiest thoroughfares. I'm guessing my penis is up there with Luna Park as a recognisable local identity.

A couple more moons after Dave and I were walking from catching up with mates to one of our favourite pubs and took a short-cut through a park. Hands got busy and before you know it fellatio was involved. It would've had to have been one of the most short-lived blowjobs in recorded history : a rather keen pedestrian walked up. Lets all have a moment's silence in honour of this poor man, I believe he nearly screamed. After he was gone there was no way I could continue. I was too busy on the ground laughing. 


Another example of sex outside happened with "Daniel". We'd been out with friends and were on our way home in a cab when Daniel asked "Are you horny? I am" and got it out right there and then. The things the man and women that drive those convenient yellow cars must see. Once we were inside, one of his friends was staying so we decided on the lounge room as the place for a little somethin' somethin'. This would've been an advantageous decision except we'd woken his flat mate on the way in who walked through to go to the bathroom. I was mortified, I had to have dinner with her the following night and there's only so long you can avoid eye contact with someone during an intimate dinner for 4. Daniel and I only had one option left :the concreted courtyard. It was sex outside and it was good sex, but it wasn't ALL good : it was on concrete and my knees bled for days. I don't recommend it.


One place I've never had sex is at a restaurant. Should you be an eligible sexy beau dining with me one night and I get all winky, I haven't developed crazy eye. That's a signal that means BATTLE STATIONS! Meet me out the back in 5 minutes.


Oh and I was joking about the fur seals.......

The nagging former trainee nun from Nambour

As the grandson of someone who was in two concentration camps as well as wrongfully arrested, detained and very nearly almost executed by the Gestapo, I'm bitterly offended that I should be called part of a 'global gay gestapo' as a supporter of gay marriage and general marriage equality.

During the Second World War, millions were killed as a direct result of the actions of the Gestapo and more broadly, the Nazis. This included 100,000 men being arrested between 1933-1945 on suspicion of being homosexuals, mostly in Germany, which had previously been the world's most tolerant country. Of these men, between 5000-15,000 were sent to concentration camps. Roughly 60% of them perished in extermination.

The label of 'global gay gestapo' is an even harder pill to swallow when you consider it is being given to gay marriage advocates by Loree Rudd, a divorced former trainee nun who didn't fulfill her own marriage vows according to the traditions and right wing Christian values that Ms. Rudd holds so dear.

All I want is one day having the option of asking Mr. Right (whoever the hell he may be) "will you marry me?". There's nothing even vaguely similar to the practices of the Gestapo in wanting to do that. Gay marriage has nothing to do with hate crimes and everything to do with equality, inclusion and recognition.

Not to mention a whole lot of love x

For the sake of it

My mind says for now.

My body says why not.

My heart says just a little longer.

It's not like every nerve ending in me is screaming no, but it's definitely not an emphatic yes either. It's not what I wanted.

My conscious and subconscious separate from their awkward union and I'm temporarily a ship without a captain, waiting to see which one will take hold. Deciding whether or not I will do it.

Just for the sake of it.