How are you single?

I came out one night sitting down watching Dawson's Creek with my parents. There was this guy Jack who had just come out to Joey on the show. Mind you I was 16.  I just blurted it out "I'm gay" and then I burst into tears. At that moment all I could think of to do was flee, but my mom got up and hugged me and told me she had her suspicions. She had been in my bedroom and found some poetry I had written. I can't really remember what I had written, but I think it had to do with a man finding his lost lover or something like that. You see even at a young age, I've always been a dreamer when it came to love. My dad just sat there in a state of shock. He is who I was most afraid to find out, being very conservative and close minded, I didn't know how he would react.

I pulled away from my mother and ran into my bedroom. I needed time to compose myself. My face was wet, my heart was pounding, and I was shaking. It was the most impulsive thing I had done in my life, except for that fight I had months before.  At that time AOL had become the wave of the future and I had signed up for every gay chat you could think of, talking to other gay teenagers around the states, though for all I know I was talking to a pervert, but having NO ONE to talk to at the time I needed a resource. My dad came in to hug me and tell me he loved me and I would always be his son. I've never been very close to my father so to have him show affection was a bit strange to me...so I just shrugged him off and said, "yea ok dad thank you" and shooed him out of my room. I could hear them talking in the living room about me, but I didn't want to know what they were saying.

Ever since that day in 1996, I began my journey of dating men and the good and bad of relationships. I compare dating like a fight or flight response. If I'm seriously dating someone I enjoy being with I will be protective of that time I have with that person and fight for it to work out otherwise I will flee like the wind and in some cases it's because I just don't see it working or I close up my heart for fear of it being crushed. When I was a teenager dating was more fun and less serious. I was also naive and impossible to understand like any other teenager. I could fall in and out of love in an instant...well being a gay 16 year old, being in love was as simple as a hot guy smiling and saying hi to you. I felt like Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing when she looks at Patrick Swayze and says, "I carried a watermelon," anyone who has seen that movie as much as I knows what I am talking about. In fact, come to think of it, I still act like that when I talk to a guy I think is incredibly handsome. Every bit of my confidence disappears and I say and do stupid shit.

Now that I am 14 years older you'd think I have learned my lesson by now and in some ways I have. I am no longer naive, but I do wear my heart on my sleeve and sometimes lose sight of what I want from a guy just because I find him physically attractive. I typically have great intuitions about men. If I think they are pricks most likely they are, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt (which I do with everyone I meet), only to kick myself a couple months later for having been right about them the whole time, but like I said I lose sight of what I am looking for just because when they smile I become jello.

Recently a guy had asked me, "How are you single?" Now I know this is supposed to be flattering and all, but it just annoys me. Like, thank you for reminding me that I am single. I will ask the last guy that I was interested in that question and we will see what he says. I'm certainly no saint and I never will lie and say I have never cheated or been ignorant with someones feelings. I most certainly have learned what an ass I was when the same thing happened to me. For instance, I never knew how selfish I could be by cheating until someone cheated on me. I looked at my ex boyfriend, my eyes beginning to swell with tears, and I said, "I am so sorry for the way I acted in our relationship."

Dating is one of the most puzzling things I have ever encountered in my lifetime. Really I find it mind boggling. Now, like I said, I am no saint but I'm never disrespectful, at least I really genuinely try not to be. I think everyone is attractive in there own way...Lid for every pot or whatever. My coworker always tells me I should write a book after some of the dates I have had or men I have dated. Between the guys who fall off the planet after a couple months, the ones who spend an entire date talking about how they aren't over their past relationships and look as though they are about to burst into tears (I wanna charge them for a therapy session), to ones who are flat out drunk when I arrive or high as a kite all the time. Now sure people might laugh and say maybe it was me...I was such a bad date or lay in some cases. I know my friends would cause they are allowed to be funny in that way, but I don't think so. I told my friend Kevin the other day about how I actually leave feeling so much better about myself as a person. Despite some insecurities I have, I'm a very level headed carefree fun person. If someone doesn't find me attractive or I'm not what they are looking for...big deal. I don't become jaded or defensive. That's life. I'll probably even try and remain friends with them or be cordial when I see them out, because there's no need to be a jerk.

My best friend told me that he hates dating. I enjoy it. I figure if it doesn't work out at least I was able to meet a potentially nice guy and possibly make a friend out of it. I mean that's how I met my best friend. We had a very awkward short drink at a bar and really had nothing to say to each other, but the next day we chatted and him being new to the city and me being the nice charming guy that I am *wink* *wink* I thought I'd befriend him and let him know that there was at least one guy in Boston that wasn't so bad. Well he came into my life at such a great time because it was right after my ex had broken my heart and I felt abandoned by many of my friends. I seriously don't think I would have been able to make it through that summer without him.

Do I want to be single? No, but I also certainly don't want to be in a relationship for the sake of being in one. I've been there, done that... What good does it do?...I mean the sex will start to be dull and I'll just start fantasizing about other men that I'd much rather be with. The grass will always be greener somewhere else. The relationship will inevitably fail. I could say that being single means I have the freedom to do whatever or whoever I want, but someone recently told me, after I was being pouty and whiny, that you know you've met the right guy when you don't have to sacrifice anything at all, that's when you know it will work. Now I believe him for the mere fact he is happily married with a beautiful adopted son. I've decided to live by this. My friends all laugh and say to me, "Craig stop rushing it. Stop looking." I totally get it and I'm not out to rush anything, but many of the gay men I know have no desire to start a family, they don't even want to date. They are perfectly content with with themselves and having casual sex. That is totally cool if it works for them, but it isn't me. I mean I love sex and I will have it when I want it, but I want more than a quick lay, a short cuddle, and then awkward, "Aright I'll see ya."

I've always been a dreamer when it comes to love. I'm Christian from Moulin Rouge. Seriously I could be singing on a rooftop screaming "Love is a many splendid thing....." I mean I won't, I am not crazy, but I could. People laugh at me..think I really am crazy..but I don't care. I want to find real love. As much as I am an optimist, I'm most definitely a realist as well. I'm an optimist in the fact that no matter how many times I stumble my way through dating or fall hard on the concrete that is love..and believe me I have been broken...I dust myself off and keep on going. I wouldn't say I'm actively looking, though my friends would say otherwise and they yell at me for it. I always believed I'd find the right guy the old fashioned way. I like hearing love stories of how people met...maybe it was young love or maybe at a party after being overseas...something sweet. I don't want someone to ask me how I met my husband and I'd have to lie because anything would be better than saying I met him on an iphone application where most guys go to hook up.

"You two look so cute together. How did you meet," Says random stranger
"Well, my husband asked me if I was "looking" on this iphone App Grindr, " I say.

My ex boyfriend and I met on one of those sites, but it was nothing like the above. On our first date I told him to meet me on the Lagoon Bridge in the Boston Public Garden. I thought maybe if we hit it off and we end up together I could propose to him there...where we first met. SEE I TOLD YOU! I'm a sappy lovestruck dork. But I'm happy being that way. Anyways not having any clue about the Boston Public Garden, he was at TD Garden...wasn't exactly the meeting I wanted, but hey on our second date he got it right. It's a shame we didn't work out as he was the most loyal and sweet boyfriend I have ever had and sexy as hell....but something was missing that I couldn't fix so I ended it whether it was the right choice I don't know. Ironically the one guy I did fall in love with a few years back took it upon himself to blow some dude in a  bathroom on our vacation while I waited for him outside. I guess that is just the way it goes.

My favorite finale of any television show was Six Feet Under...I must have watched it thousand times..sobbing. Truthfully..I sobbed. I felt like Claire the day I left for college, but what really touched me was how David saw his late husband, Keith, playing football, right before he passed away. Something in that moment made me lose it...because I want that so bad. Real love...but I won't settle for anything less. I want a family of my own. I want to teach my son or daughter about life, and love, and happiness. I want to leave a legacy behind.

Anyways "Why am I single?" Because as open as my heart is, there is only one guy who can find his way in, and I just haven't found him yet.