Email from a gay guy in love with a childhood friend

A couple of months ago, I received the following email from a loyal reader:

Dear GB,

I've been following your blog since the very start.

Now I decided to write to you because I've been so much appreciative of your wise replies.

I'm a European man, aged 30. I've known a guy since we both were 11.

He is gay but, at the time, neither of us knew it. We absolutely adored one another (and still do) so we were acting like boyfriends, although, of course, no sex was involved.

Subsequently he fell in love with someone else, and then, when he was 21, he moved to another city, where he found another partner with whom he now lives.

Still, we kept being friends, and I mean really close, really intimate friends, getting constantly in touch with each other through the Internet and in real life.

Nothing sexual ever happened between us since he is in a faithful relationship, but I know he likes me and it's not something just physical.

I think we both know we are, like, soul partners, but we now live so far away (500 miles) and moreover, like I said, he's got a b/f.

I just can't let it go. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Do you think that maybe one day we could end up together?

Having read this email, my initial thoughts were that the reader was wasting his life by pinning all his hopes for happiness on becoming boyfriends with his old childhood friend, which wasn't very likely. So I sent him an email, in which I suggested that his best course of action might involve finding himself his own boyfriend. Within a couple of says he'd sent me the following reply:

Hi GB,

I did find my own b/f throughout these years. I had a several year relationship which ended some years ago. I did love my b/f, at the time. But, as you can see, this occurrence did not tarnish my feelings for my friend; as soon as I was single again and the sadness for the ended relationship passed, I kept dreaming of him.

I don't rule out finding someone else - again. It's just that I still hope that something happens, one day, with my friend of a lifetime. It's my little, innocent dream. Something sexual? I wouldn't say no. A relationship? Yeah, I'd definitely give it a try. Even if it doesn't work, I know we'll always be in each other's lives.

My question to you was: do you think this may happen? After all, he finds me very attractive. :)

Thanks, GB. I'll be waiting for your reply ;)

At the time, there were a few other "Dear GB" emails to be posted before this reader's email, so I wasn't able to didn't get round to answering his queries immediately. A few weeks went by, and then I received another email from him which was as follows:

A quick update for you, G.B. - I really hope I'm not bothering too much.

My childhood friend, and his b/f almost split up a week ago. He didn't tell me anything but I got to know the news reading his blog (he doesn't know that I found it out!)

At that point, I noticed he started to share suggestive jokes with me and I'm sure he was about to move our friendship to another level; but, very soon after, they reconciled and he went back to his former friendly behaviour.

It wasn't much of a change but, you know, the timing with his private happenings was just perfect. So now I know, almost for sure, I must be his second choice. Wow!

Thanks for reading

xxx

In my reply, I warned him to be careful, because it's very hard for people in his position to be objective. In that kind of situation, whatever the news, people will often find a way of interpreting it so that they hear what they want to hear.

Thinking about his situation a bit more, I'm quite worried that the reader appears to be stalking his friend. The fact that he's worked out that his friend has a blog and is reading it behind his friend's back is strong evidence of this. With that state of mine, I feel that nothing good can come out of this state of affairs. So I think the first thing that the reader should do is to find a way of telling his friend that he knows about his blog. Close friends shouldn't keep those sorts of secrets from each other, and that's even truer of two boyfriends.

I also think the reader has made some dangerous assumptions about his friendship with this old friend. In particular, it's dangerous to assume that they would remain friends if they tried a relationship and it failed. When he reads that, no doubt the reader will say to himself that such a thing couldn't happen, because he wouldn't let the relationship fail and even if it did they couldn't possibly lose their friendship. But his love for his friend means that he can't be objective. Those things certainly are possible.

Even if his old friend does split up with his boyfriend again, it might be better to remain close friends instead of becoming boyfriends. Emotionally, the reader's life would be much richer if he has both this old friend of his to rely on as well as his own boyfriend to love. Pursuing a relationship with his old friend is dangerous in the sense that he's "putting all his eggs in one basket".

The reader needs to be careful in other ways too. He should certainly avoid being the cause of his a split between his friend and his friend's boyfriend, because if his friend then got back together with his boyfriend it might sour his old friendship. Something else which might cause their friendship to sour is if the friend discovers the reader's current obsession for him, and the fact that the reader has been reading his friend's blog.

Overall, it seems to me that the reader's current fixation on his friend is very unhealthy and could get worse. I think it makes a relationship between the two of them much more likely to fail, if it ever becomes possible. So I'm convinced that the reader's best course of action is to find a way of curing his obsession, so that he can get on with own life and try and find his own boyfriend. Telling his friend that he's found his blog would be a good start. Then if the reader is following his own path and his friend does become available for a relationship, the reader will be in a much better position to make it work if he chooses to go down that route. But it seems to me that ending this obsession and focusing on other guys is the thing to start doing right now.

Do any other readers have any thoughts about this situation?

Email from a guy who's keen on his best friend

A few weeks ago, I got the following email from a new reader:

Dear GB,

I'm newly acquainted to your blog, but from what I've seen so far, your guidance and solutions are marvellous. That is why I'm seeking your help. You see, I have a typical story. I'm in love with my best friend. I'm 18, short, and a bit shy and feeble. He sees me more of a playful little brother. He's smart, sweet, clever, a bit devious, and caring, even to a point where he deals with my annoying antics. My friend has a girlfriend, and not to be rude, but she is completely wrong for him. First off she lied to him in the start for impersonating a guy. Then my friend worries about her to death. From drugs and alcohol to being jealous of her friends, and because of the distance he feels so helpless. The problems are all in his head, plus he's obsessed with her and can go on for hours in detail about her. I'm glad he can show such passion for this but how can I convince him that she's no good and that he'd be better off with me?

Sincerely, a smitten friend from afar.

When I first read the email, the reader's situation seemed quite clear, because it reminded me of the way I felt about some of my best male friends when I was his age. So it was clear to me that he was a young gay guy who had a crush on one of his straight friends. That's never a good idea, because those situations usually end badly, often with a loss of friendship.

However, the reader clearly wasn't thinking along those lines. To help him come to terms with the situation, I sent him an email in which I suggested that the title of this post should be "Email from a guy with a crush on his best friend". Within a couple of days he replied, saying that he wasn't sure yet what an appropriate title would be. The good thing about that comment is that he'd clearly started thinking about whether he did have a crush on his friend or not. I responded by saying that although I'd use the word "keen" rather than "crush", the original title might be closer to the truth. I went on to suggest that he should start thinking about how to find himself a nice boyfriend, in case the situation with his friend didn't work out.

The description that the reader gives of his friend, and especially the fact that his friend worries about his girlfriend, strongly suggests to me that his friend is straight. So the honest truth is that I see little hope that the reader and his friend might become boyfriends. However, although the reader doesn't mention it, my best guess is that the reader hasn't come out to his best friend yet. If the reader feels comfortable with his sexuality, then I think he should come out to his friend. The way the friend reacts should then guide the reader in terms of whether his friend really is straight or not. Then even if the friend is straight, with everything out in the open, it seems likely that at least the two of them will remain friends.

Does anyone else have any thoughts for this reader?

Email from a gay guy with a 'Type A' personality

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me the following email:

Dear GB

I'm 21 years old and I'm gay. I have been out of the closet for almost 3 years now. I'm a full time student in London, but also need to work full time as I have a small but time consuming PR company. I'm a classic type A personality and am 95% extremely satisfied with my life to now.

But I could really do with your advice about sex and sentimentality.

I've tried relationships a few times in the past but they're not for me - they consume too much time and energy and generally I end up resenting and disliking the person I'm dating very quickly.

Cruising, one night stands and plain old sex is way easier and much less complicated. So over the last 3 or so years that's what I've done - and I've tallied up an impressive count of notches on my bed post in doing so.

Up until recently I never minded this - I always maintained that I was simply liberated and could do what I pleased with whom I pleased. However over the last 4 months or so I have started to have severe doubts and insecurities about my sex life.

In some of your earlier posts you talk about hugging and comforting complete strangers with whom you've had sex - the story about the guy whose boyfriend left him to live with the lesbian mother of his child comes to mind. To a lot of people this would seem normal, kind and compassionate. To me it's alien and disconcerting. I don't even like to make eye contact with the person I'm having sex with - it seems way too intimate to me. I can't bear the thought of actually hugging them.

I've been able to have great interactions with people based on sex. Equally I've been able to have great interactions with people based on my sentiment towards them. But I've never experienced them both within the same relationship.

I'm worried that I seem so incapable of forging any connection with a potential suitor other than sexually. Whilst I'm content to sleep around at 21 I doubt I'll be happy to try and do so at 51.

I don't think I'm emotionally closed off or anything - I make new friends very easily and have a very open relationship with them. This is the only thing I just can't seem to get to grips with.

Do you have any advice GB? Am I just reading too much into it? Please don't let me become the guy in the corner of the club who looks like he used to be hot, but now just creeps the fuck out of everyone.

Thanks.

The impression that I get from this reader's email is that he is indeed a 100%++ type A personality. Although I think that the type A versus type B personality theory is too narrow to be taken seriously, it's clear to me from his email that the idea of a type A person was almost designed to describe this reader! The title of the email that he sent me was "sex and sentimentality", a perfect title for what he had to say, and the contents of the email are also perfectly focussed on describing his issue with a view to getting some help. And his last paragraph, painting a picture of what might become of him, was an amusing way to end the email :-).

The first thing to say is that I'm worried in case the reader needs professional help. Although he says that he doesn't think he's emotionally closed off, and that he makes new friends very easily, it could be that a lot of those friendships are quite shallow. Or given his type A personality, perhaps he only makes friends when he thinks that the person will be of some use to him. Indeed, the lack of emotional connection with people that he has sex with seems a bit extreme to me. As a banker, I myself am far more of a type A person than a type B person, but nonetheless I feel emotionally connected with other people far more than this reader does. As a result, I find the reader's behaviour hard to understand. So it's possible that he should talk things through with a psychologist, e.g. it could actually be one of those situations where there's something in his childhood that makes him behave like this. That's all the more true if I'm wrong and that his friendships are not shallow or not usually related to how useful the person may be to him, because that makes his feelings about his sexual partners even harder to understand.

It's true, though, that this lack of a broader interest in one's sexual partners is not exactly unknown when it comes to gay men hooking up with each other. My post titled 'Do you have sex or make love?' discussed that, and pointed out that even before online cruising, guys were still connecting with each other based only on finding another gay guy who could play the right role (e.g. top or bottom, etc). However, as the reader suggests, I'm sure that it is the guys who stay in that mode for too long who end up being the creepy guys in gay bars and clubs.

Some aspects of what I wrote when I got an email from a gay guy who works in the City might be applicable to this reader. Looking at Maslow's pyramid, it seems to me that at the moment this reader is near the bottom of the pyramid, focussing on safety issues. He could be so completely driven to succeed in his studies and with his PR company that he simply has no mental bandwidth for deep emotional connections and relationships. If so, when at some stage he feels secure enough to start trying to move one level up the pyramid to the love/belonging tier, then it's possible that his problem will correct itself. Indeed, perhaps that's the reason that he sent me this email, because he does feel ready and because of his prior focus on career he's not sure how to go about it.

Something else that I said in the post for the gay guy who works in the City was that he should try and become more altruistic. That might help this reader too. If he could force himself to spend time helping other people in some way, then perhaps that may help him develop the emotional and compassionate side of his personality.

Looking at it another way, for the reader to have a PR company when he's only 21 years old and still a student seems quite exceptional to me. Perhaps his problem with relationships is simply the flip side of what he's been able to achieve elsewhere in his life. To some extent the business world where achievement is everything is quite cutthroat and ruthless, so maybe he just finds it hard to turn that side of his personality off when it comes to boyfriends and relationships. To a hard headed businessman it might like seem like a waste of effort putting energy into caring about another person, but as one's life progresses and one suffers occasional setbacks, having a boyfriend who really cares about you and who can help you recover is priceless.

Does anyone else have any thoughts for this reader?

GMFA's Sexual Health Messaging Service in the UK

A few weeks ago, I got an email from GMFA about a relatively new service that they've introduced to help fight sexually transmitted diseases. The idea is that if a sexual partner from your recent past is diagnosed with something, the service helps you get notified so that you can get tested too. Full details can be found on the GMFA Sexual Health Messaging Service web page.

An interesting part of the service is that you can get these notifications through some of the cruising web sites, in particular fitlads, gaydar, recon and manhunt. However, the first three of those will only send these notification messages if such messages are enabled, so I would suggest that anyone using those web sites should enable the messages right away.

Looking at the list of web sites though, I can't help wondering why ALL the gay dating web sites haven't signed up to this? Grindr and gay.com in particular are conspicuous by their absence!

Email from a guy who wants a relationship without sex

About four weeks ago, a reader sent me the following email:

Dear GB,

First of all, let me say that your blog is really great. It's good to see such advice in one place without all the regular nonsense mixed in. I have been reading through all of your posts, they have helped me a bit, but I have a question I was wondering if you would know more about.

My question to you would be: Is there a way of finding out if a person is interested in a long term relationship without sex?

I'm 20 and I identify as Asexual. I am one of the homoromantic types; I like other guys but not on a sexual attraction, if that makes sense? I like the look of some, and I would like to be in a relationship with one, but I just don't do sex. Masturbation is my limit I guess. My problem is that I meet a guy that I like, but then pretty much every time it ends in a messy way when they find out I do not want to have sex. I have tried so many approaches: I have just gone with the flow (which ends with the person normally getting bored with me), I have told them I am asexual during the initial meetings (most don't know what that is, or just say that I am in denial), I have also tried stating that I do not want sex early on, which never works as it either scares the other person away as it sounds like I think they just want sex when they are not, or they do just want sex and a fling.

I have read through your posts but have seen nothing that helps me in this situation. I have read the post "Is it really possible to be an asexual human being?". Although I'm happy that most that you know have ended up away from asexuality, for me I am living in the present and was wandering if you have any advice for me? Like is there a good way of having the no sex conversation and at what stage? Are there any signs to look out for that show that a person is just after casual sex when seeing them in person? My experience of the gay scene is limited. I have had no good experiences of it unfortunately. I'm also pretty rubbish at spotting a gay person or making it known that I like the look of someone; although what you have written about body language and eye contact has helped! Online attempts at finding someone also do not work for me. I guess I just sound too boring!

I really hope you can offer some advice!

I found this email fascinating because I've never thought about asexuality properly before. The point of the post about asexuality that the reader mentions was that all the people that I knew who seemed asexual were in reality just gay guys who hadn't yet come out. However, this reader doesn't seem to have a problem being gay because he's clearly tried dating other guys, so he's in a different category to the 'asexual' guys that I knew. Furthermore, the way that the email is written leaves me in no doubt that the reader is being sincere.

Unfortunately, I don't have much idea how to help this reader. All the guys that I've ever known who go on dates with other guys have wanted sex to be part of any resulting relationship, and often the sex is all they want! I certainly don't think there's any way of finding out if someone would be happy to be in a relationship without sex without a discussion on the subject, not unless they've said so in e.g. their online profile somewhere. The problem is that for every guy that I've ever known, apart from this reader, sex in a relationship is like breathing and eating. It's a natural part of life, and completely mandatory. My best guess is that there are very few guys in the world who are like this reader :-(.

I asked boyfriend T what he thought, although he wasn't very helpful:

"I've had a reader write to me and ask how he can find a gay relationship that doesn't involve sex," I ask, "do you think that's possible?"

"I've never heard of such a thing," answers boyfriend T, sounding quite surprised, "sex is a basic human need."

"But this reader is sure that he's asexual, apart from wanking on his own. He really does want a relationship without sex."

"If you ask me," replies boyfriend T, "he just hasn't met the right guy yet!"

I can't help wondering whether the reader's asexuality is just some kind of irrational fear, because if so, overcoming it would another solution for the reader. I've had a few irrational fears in my time, the biggest of which was fear of water and drowning, which for many years prevented me from learning how to swim. However, recently with boyfriend T's help I did learn how to swim, although I'm still not particularly comfortable in the water.

My only thought that might help the reader directly would be for him to advertise for an asexual relationship. So if he's looking for guys to date online then he should specify his preference on his profile. He could do the same if he ever uses personal ads in magazines. However, I don't think it's much of a solution for him because most guys want sex, so the most likely result of that strategy is that no one ever contacts him.

Does anyone else have any constructive thoughts that might really help this reader?

Update 3-Jul-2011: At the London gay pride event yesterday, I picked up a leaflet with the following two links that are relevant to Asexuality:
International Asexual Awareness week (facebook page)
Asexuality.org