Genuine Love

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any gay man in a relationship longer than two years, must not be getting laid enough. And so, the notion of getting your sexual need met night after night just because you now have a boyfriend is really, a huge misconception, if not an urban legend.

But, if you are still having mind-blowing, soul-shattering, sex every night with the same man, after a couple of years together, then congratulations, you deserve a medal. Seriously.

Sex with my boyfriend waned gradually after two years for reasons that I won't divulge here. Other gay men who had heard of it often wondered, with raised eyebrows, how I, or my boyfriend, had survived in this asexual, almost a decade long, relationship which some homosexuals may find disastrous.

In fact, some had quite frankly told me, though not quite in my face, while chatting, that "He is not a boyfriend. No. Not without sex." But, if you have been with someone for 9 years, or longer, then you'll realize that there is more than just sex in a relationship. 

The day I found out the sms that's suggestive of my boyfriend's infidelity, I could have kicked up a fuss the force of a Richter scale-10 earthquake. There could only be two reasons why if I had made such a scene out of it: 1) being a bonafide drama queen, 2) I wanted to end the relationship. But I didn't. I had my emotional limbs in check and trodden the dark hours carefully.

We had a good talk before bed. And at the end of it, he said, relaxed, "You know, this is the best conversation we ever had after being so long together."  Before that, I assured him that I would not, under any circumstances, be leaving him. But he, had the absolute freedom of walking out the bedroom door, if he thought that the guy who sent him the amorous text was the one he would rather be with. That night, I'd made a choice: to be together Till -- well -- Death Do Us Part.

It was a conscious decision without the influence of the irrational, adrenalin rush of a newborn relationship. And I'd like to believe this clear-mindedness is the manifestation of "Love", because here is a quote from M. Scott Peck, the author of the book, "The Road Less Traveled" -- a book, me and my boyfriend happened to be reading at the same time when we met each other 9 years ago after September 11,

"Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present...Conversely, it is not possible but necessary to a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love."

Dial-A-Butt-Hole

At about 130am last night, my phone rang. Someone I had been exchanging messages with on another gay dating site for a week decided to call, finally. After a short chat, I turned on the light, got changed and rode to his weekly apartment, a sort of apartment for short term rental from several weeks to few months. And in my case, four months to be exact.

Before leaving my apartment, I decided to put on a jacket. It wasn't that cold, but since I was stirred from my sleep which I'd gotten into just hours before and at 37 years old, I wouldn't want to take any risk and catch a cold. At 2am, I arrived at his doorstep. Three hours, an ejaculation and a massive amount of  nipple play later, I was back in my apartment at 530 in the morning, but not before taking the wrong turn and ended up in an almost dark and empty alley which took me an extra 5 minutes to get back on the right track.

I showered, slept and woke up two and a half hour later to go to work. After work, I bought a new 5-piece futon set for the apartment I was moving into, schlepped it all the way there, did some groceries shopping, made myself some yakisoba, chatted with a sexy Australian on skype, took a nap and woke up feeling extremely hungry and realized I am no longer young -- every old bones I have felt as if they were dislocating in me.

Midnight/early morning sex is for the 20s. At 37, sex at a more civilized hour would be more age-appropriate and healthier. What happened last night was, like that Elton John's song, "a sad sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd." I won't deny that I'd had a good time last night, especially when he and I were talking and cuddling up. But, somehow, leaving his apartment at dawn, I also felt a wad like some guy named, probably Ricky or Ethan, whom you suddenly decide to call up one night out of horniness, at Dial-A-Butt-Hole. I felt cheap. and what made it worse was I wasn't even getting paid. It was mutual, remember? And I thought: Is this what I am still gonna do -- running around in empty cold streets at 2 in the morning for sex -- when I turn 50? It made me feel even more pathetic. I should have waited until more adult hours.

My Australian friend related a few past incidences that had turned him into a better man that he is today -- less critical, less bitchy and more fun to be with. Maybe what happened last night was a good thing after all. It makes me realize the kind of man I would allow myself to age into -- someone who understands that delayed gratification is a sign of maturity, someone who will not be out in the dark searching for sex, and definitely not someone by the name of Ricky or Ethan.

Saving all my...

If you read this month's Reader's Digest, a 20 year-old who saves 100RM a month will have 83,000RM at his disposal when he turns 50. I used to be that 20-something. I used to save a certain amount of my salary each month. That's before I met my boyfriend.


I believe in regular monthly saving for whatever purposes -- unexpected life situations, rainy days, golden years -- but the only thing my boyfriend believes in saving is his hair. Oh, and the extensive gay pornography he downloads online each day.


He spends as if armageddon is tomorrow, while I usually think and calculate at least thrice before making any purchases. Sometimes, I don't even do that. I just leave empty-handed.


Whenever I confront him, "What have I spent on? Only food...plus I don't smoke. I only buy DVDs sometimes." he'd say, rolling his eyes. But the amount of pirated DVDs that he buys from pasar malams all over the city, if ever found and convicted, will keep him in jail for several lifetimes, I'm sure.


I usually turn a blind eye to his unsound spending behaviours and accept him for who he is. That's what you do in a relationship, isn't that? To accept, for richer or poorer, your boyfriend's unwise money management and all. But lately, I discover I've more than just accepted his bad spending habits, in fact, I've unconsciously embraced it.  


While I still keep a part of my salary each month, the amount has shrunken beyond recognition and I realize how meagrely I've saved in the last 9 long years. And, in addition to that, I am buying things without thinking thrice like I used to. I just buy like my boyfriend these days -- without any considerations. It's tempting to justify my new spending habit by saying that I purchase mostly books -- online or in a bookstore -- and because of that , it is, relative to my boyfriend's DVDs, a "healthier" way of spending. But, sadly, in a world where every cent counts, it isn't.


It is eerie how, when two people have been together for a long time, they begin to act, think, smell, or even look like one another. No scientists, I believe, can really explain its mechanism, but I suspect, an obscene amount of spittle exchange is usually involved in the transformation. Isn't it dangerous? The giving up of a part of our identities in the name of something as insecure as...love? When it comes to relationship, is it prudent to reserve a tad of ourselves in order to save us from getting hurt in the future -- distant or near?

Say I Love You

Unlike my boyfriend, I don't use a lot of "I Love You"s in my relationship.

Even when headlocked, I wouldn't give in. "Say you love me", he'd command, his arm twisted around my neck.

"You love me", I replied.

"Say: I love you", he asked.

"I know...", I'd say, and his head would then collapse onto my chest and he hugged me even tighter.

It is a mischievous little game that I love playing with him. And I believe he enjoys playing it too. Otherwise, we wouldn't have carried on with the game for almost a decade, would we? But as with all the games that gay men are fond of playing, there is a catch.

Until recently, we've always respected each other's privacy for the last 9 years. Certain areas are out of bound: a drawer whose internals, like a liver, never see the light, his mobile phone and the deepest corner of his mind.

One day last week, I ventured outside the boundary and found myself in an unfamiliarly new frontier, an hour after speaking on his brand new Nokia with a mutual friend. That afternoon, I wandered into his message inbox and two elaborated, grammatically wrong sms-es later, I was thunderstruck.

My friends used to ask if I'd be worried about having a third party in the relationship or my boyfriend leaving me for another guy or having casual sex. My answer to all these, thus far, hypothetical questions have been rather consistent: a perfunctory "No". But with hardcore evidences that there really is a real someone who has entered his inbox and our life now, I begin to reexamine my reply.

Later that night, we had a talk and my boyfriend allowed me to step inside the intricately complex neurotic synapses of his mind.

"Who's that guy who sent you kisses and calling you 'my hubby', huh?" I asked looking at him in a I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer kind of way, trying to be funny and absorb the head-on collision impact at the same time.

"You checked my messages?" he said, wide-eyed.

I tore away from the bed and didn't know where to go in our bedroom. I paced about at the edge of our king-sized bed.

"He..he...I am glad I did. Tell me quick!"

"Don't be silly. You know I love you"

"Who is he?"

"Stop it. Please don't stress me."

I got back to bed deadpan and he slithered up next to me, holding my hand and staring at the ceiling.

"I'm going to be 50 next year. I'm losing my hair. I'm stressed up. I sometimes can't even get it up too."

He didn't answer my question.

"You know. It is ok with me if you need another guy to care for you, to tell you he is concerned if you've taken all your medications"

"Don't be crazy, darling. There's no one else. I love you. You know that."

"I know. But maybe I haven't done enough and there is something lacking here? And I failed to be a good boyfriend. And you need to find another guy."

He laughed.

"This is not about you. Focus here", he pointed both my hand and his on his chest.

"I'm the one going through mid-life crisis."

Still no answer on the identity of the mysterious guy. But the next morning when my boyfriend voluntarily showed me his Nokia inbox again, I knew, he wasn't just my boyfriend's imaginary friend; he physically existed, not just virtually because the earlier messages had been deleted.

I never believe in invisibly handcuffing someone in a relationship. Instead, I believe it is either pure love or plain masochism that keep people together. If one is bent on walking out of the relationship, forsaking the other, frankly, there is nothing to do except for accepting it gracefully after an exchange of good wishes.

All of us have our own different needs in life and in a relationship. Perhaps my boyfriend needs me to verbalize my love more often than I am comfortable with, instead of perpetually advising him how to control his blood sugar and by being with him. My aphasia in love may possibly cost me exclusive claim on his soul but perhaps, there is still enough room for another person in our oversized bed and my heart as long as it makes him happy. To this serenity to accept things that I cannot change, our mutual friend told me, "...then, it means you love him more than he ever knows."