karaoke and i usually have the most intense conversations.
that is what i love.
good animals and good talk.
we get into a subject that would open up for an interesting debate today.
the topic was about the future and relationships.
of course.
she said something that made me stop what i was doing.
she said…
“i think i want to be married or at least in a long term “oprah/stedman” relationship.
i’m getting older and being alone is a little scary.
what if i’m in need of a hip replacement?
who will take care of me?
those are things i think about nowadays.”
i think i was silent for a moment,
but i ended up agreeing with her.
now the karaoke from the past was not about that life.
she was down for open relationships and needing space.
she was very much about her independence.
well i don’t know what happened but shit changed.
it’s beautiful to see her changing her opinions and coming into her own.
that being said:
What she said was 110% tho
i don’t want to be 50 years old and alone.
i come home to a big crib that is just me.
i’m on chat sites every night looking for companionship.
all i have a dog named fufu and a cat named golden.
#dontjudgeme
there are so many of “us” who have died alone.
all their friends died and they were the only ones standing.
it was either old age or some disease.
aids had many gays dying in hospital rooms,
only to be surrounded by nurses and doctors.
sometimes that wasn’t even the case.
their families disowned them and they had to suffer in silence.
this is why i don’t get this “cut everyone off/be alone/emo” shit.
i also don’t get the “burn bridges until you are by yourself” shit either.
it all seems sad to me.
Does anyone want companionship anymore?
i often think about what age would be perfect to die.
morbid,
but bare with me.
i don’t want to live an age where i can’t wipe my own ass.
i don’t want to die young also.
i’d like to leave this world where i wouldn’t have to depend on a stranger.
nursing homes seem so scary to me.
shit like that scares me.
Does it scare anyone else?
we can hire anyone to take care of us,
but it won’t feel the same like someone who is with you.
someone who knows you and made love to you.
that is who i want to feel safe with in my future.
i refuse to be abused in some nursing home by a worker named “mercedes”.
makes you think.
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god forbid we were out here really taking a regular pounding,
we def gonna need someone to change our diapers.
what?
you know it’s true.
I work for a nursing home. We just had a Christmas party for them the other day and it was so sad how many of them had no one…to buy them a gift..to even celebrate them at a party..not to mention birthdays..I think about this all the time…I hope I’m not like these people..I call them old…but hell…some of them are just 20-30 years older than me.
It depends on the person. My pastor’s aunt is 85, looks like she’s in her 60’s walks without a cane and looks great. If we take care of ourselves when we’re younger we’ll be better off when we age. I do agree with you though i don’t want to be single in my 50’s but i also don’t want to be in something that’s dysfunctional and i’m just dealing with it because i dont want to be alone. It seems people will sacrifice their own happiness to have someone. I just want someone with a good head on his shoulders, his own career and who has a kind heart. I’m still building my empire but i turn 30 next August and I’m not trying to be on those sites in my 30’s…I want something new and sometimes the biggest step in chartering new territory is doing something different, something new..
Eric Thank you for you kindness. I love reading Jamari’s post and read every one. The last two postings really touched me so I had to say something. It is so hard to believer You Young guys are still dealing with the issues of relationships with the freedoms we fought so hard for, I thought it would be much easier for you. You have a right to Love and to be loved. It is out there..I am a living witness..
I am so happy to see this discussion here. I am sure I am the oldest Man here and have been thru the journey you are speaking so eloquently of. As I am often quoted as saying, “Been There Done That, Got the T-Shirt!” First there is a big difference in being alone and being lonely, cheating is now and always has been a deal breaker for me..Trust issues are very important in a relationship. I have been with only 5 people in my life all long term and except for the last two all ended because of infidelity. I don’t look for it but one thing about cheating, you will walk up on it, you don’t have to look for it. For me there is no discussion, I am out. With no trust you do not have a relationship, and if any of the things mentioned happen to you they will not hang around to be there for you anyway.
I speak from both personal and professional experience. I was 17 right out of high school when I met number 1. First year was wonderful although he was 20 years my senior and married, second year was hell but I was in LOVE. I was 19 when I walked away after he tried to kill me. Left town and went back to school, met number 2 a year later lasted 5 years into the 80’s when AIDS reared it’s head and I caught number 2 cheating and I walked away. I was very involved in the AIDS crisis. I was trying to get some education in the hospital where I practiced to no avail. when the break up happened, I was transferred overseas with welcomed relief. A year later I was transferred back to open the very first AIDS Hospital and research Center as Educator because of my knowledge on the subject.
That is when I learned just how bad things could be for Gay Men. All the fears You guys mention in your post are real concerns. I saw Partners walk away I saw Families walk away, I saw Men with only us to take care of them and learned what Love really is. For 2 years I was totally involved with my work and it was the most rewarding job I have ever had. 2 years Later I was transferred back overseas to set up programs and met number 3, this relationship lasted over 10 years and once more infidelity raised it’s head and I walked away and transferred to another country. Number 4 lasted about that long as well but he had to get married and that ended that although we are still the best of Friends.
The Last Love was the love of my life and it was in my more mature years, I was shot up real bad in Bahrain during the Arab spring and he saved my life and was by my side until they got me out! It took a year of recovery from my death bed to my going back for him. He was shot and killed one week before I got back. We had some wonderful years and I have been single for the first time in my life for more than 2 years for the last 4 and a half years and I am doing fine, I have thrown my self back into life and it is rich and full.
The reason I am writing this is to say if you really want love you are not going to find it in a bar or a gay crowd. You have to be real and open to it. You have to take chances and love yourself first and be realistic in your desires for a mate and just maybe take a look at the men you pass up. Only two of the men in my life had higher education and that was fine with me (they were all fine though! LOL). I am after all a Country Boy at heart. Being fateful to one person comes easy for me because I know the grass is not greener on the other side. I am worthy of love and fidelity and so are you. The moment you become OK with being alone is when you most often walk into love.
If Love comes to me once more that will be a bonus in my twilight years, if love does not come once more, It has been a wonderful journey as a gay man. I have no fear. One more time I am very happy to see this discussion and one thing we should never forget is that in a relationship we are both Men and men handle emotions much differently!!!
Jamari I love you site and apologies for being long winded.
Wow, beautiful! I’m glad you are alive to tell the tale! That’s so sad to hear about your #5. The world is so cruel.
Dignified Thank You, that was very kind of you. Please do not feel sad, My Lover and I both knew the risk and loving him I had to let him do what he had to do..I am fine he loved me and the last thing he would want is for me to be sad..Love is wonderful Guys don’t give up on it.
D W Jazzlover, can you please comment more in the foxhole. I can’t describe what I just felt with reading what you wrote, it was beyond beautiful.
^thank you for posting this Dw!
it was very beautiful and touching!
im glad this topic opened up such a passionate debate.
it’s interesting how everyone is so different and has entirely different views on everything.
This is such an interesting topic. Logically, I tend to think that gay men are free from the need to find companionship, love and sex all in the same person. With no biological need to insist on exclusivity, gay men could use a different set of criteria for a life partner and for a sex partner. You want the person you agree to spend your life with to be kind, smart, stable, funny, curious, interesting etc. None of those things change when he is no longer as hot as he once was, if indeed he ever was. On the other hand, do we ever stop wanting the 25 year old with the hot body? We want him when we are 25 and still want him when we are 70. Am I the only person who sometimes wants to fuck people that I don’t want to wake up next to? Am I shallow for being attracted to attentionistos who have nothing going for them but their perfect bodies? If I fall in love, will I no longer be attracted to such brainless slabs of meat?
Exclusivity is the root of so much relationship conflict. Why cling to it when there is no need? Is it really impossible for two men to say “I love you and want to be with you forever. But, lets be realistic and set up a system by which we can occasionally fuck other people alone or together.”? That would require a level of honesty that most can’t handle. You would need to be able to say ” your most recent sidepiece is making me feel vulnerable.” That is a clear signal to your partner to work overtime to reassure you and/or to drop that sidepiece like a bad habit.
Once a man has decided that he can reject one of society’s biggest taboos and engage sexually with other men, why cling to the heterosexual model of how relationships are “supposed” to work? Aren’t you more likely to end up alone if the only alternative to that is one man who meets all of your needs for 40 years? I hope that those of you who are worried about this can find someone who will agree to be by your side forever, wiping your ass when you no longer can and checking out the bulge of your home healthcare worker at the same time. Fairytales are for children…female children.
^so we are suppose to just fuck each other until we can’t fuck anymore?
it sounds like why most of us end up with HIV and AIDS with this logic.
what about those who aren’t comfortable with one night stands?
are they supposed to do what everyone else doing?
to fit in because “that’s what everyone is doing?”
and furthermore,
after we are used like a blow up doll,
we have to repeat rinse until…?
are we a sexual source of pleasure for randoms or is love ruled out in the life?
if this life is what you make it,
then id rather make it where I have a companion who can stay by my side.
i know an older gay wolf who is in this very predicament now.
he fucked and fucked and is alone.
it was so bad,
he had no one to come visit him besides me when he was ill in the hospital.
no one checked in and he was crying asking why doesn’t he have anyone.
all his friends died of AIDS and he ended up being the last one standing.
no offense to you,
but id like something more stable.
I have an older gay friend who fucked and fucked and fucked and lost friends to a AIDS because they fucked without condoms. AIDs is a disease not a judgment from God against men who like sex! This older gay friend just left for a year in France with the man he has been partnered with for 30 years. They have fucked each other and others for all of that time. I can’t tell whose nieces and nephews are whose because they have been a unit for so long that it no longer matters. For his partner’s 62nd birthday, my friend gave him a 28 yo Latino for 4 days at a resort in Florida. They are the most stable couple of any gender combination I know.
To each his own. Do you. Just make sure that your relationship preferences are based on what you want not what your churchy upbringing has convinced you that you should want. Insisting on all or nothing is one way to get nothing. But, then again, Prince charming might come along and whisk you off to his palace to live happily ever after. I hope he does.
LOL Jay, your opinions on this topic really make me think on my toes about this, because I’m more on Jamari’s side in this one, but I definitely understand your perspective, and I believe it’s a solid argument to make. My question is though, where does that leave me? (and the many like me?) Where do I fit? I want more than sex, I am thinking long term, but I don’t think I’d be okay with side-pieces. What you described with your 62 yr old friend having a latino for his birthday, that bit doesn’t bother me much, but I don’t think I’d be okay with my partner sleeping around with people I don’t know.
At what point do the lines blur and it becomes one of those open-relationships? I feel like I need more context in this.
It’s hard to figure out what realistic expectations are. I don’t want to get caught in the trap thinking that “my man wouldn’t cheat on me…” etc, because that’s just not realistic thinking all the time, but at the same time, I can’t create an environment where he’s free to fuck whoever, then what’s the point in being with me?
I agree with you in “not conforming to hetero norms (get married, 2.5 kids, picket fence ,dog,)” we are not bound by the same “inevitable existence” of the straights, but what’s a reasonable future for a gay man? What does that look like? What is realistic? That has always been a mystery to me.
This topic is one of importance for all gay men. So many of us in our teens and 20’s think we have forever and we’re immortal so we party and engage in reckless behavior with little concern for our futures. We spend those decades trying to have a life, jumping through the hurdles that come with being gay, all while ducking and doding hiv/aids. For those that make it to their 30’s unscathed, most times we’ve had to watch our closest friends die. Like I have. I’m in my mid 30’s successful,attractive and Im alone. Sadly, this lifestyle is predicated on youth and physical perfection and once u get to a certain age in this lifestyle, for some reason your devalued by other gay men. I’d love to be in a committed relationship with a guy in my age group but most of them are chasing 20 year olds or have “paid companionship”. I never want to be the proverbial “old man in the club” but once u get to a certain age, alot of your dating options dry up. Couple that with the fact that this life doesn’t exactly produce long term relationships. Lots of gay men desperately want love but stay curving other guys. Everyone seems to be waiting for that “ig model” or “attentionisto” to fly them out. Im grateful and blessed to have made it to this age but the downside is that I’ve lost so many friends including my best friend to hiv/aids. At one point it was 2 -3 close friends a year. It makes u respect life and really think about your mortality and it’s scary. Aside from being single, I have one parent and I’m an only child. I do often think whats going to happen to me. Is it too late to find real love? Will i be blessed with a child? What if I’m blessed to see old age but unable to care for myself? Will my distant relatives throw me in a nursing home and forget about me? I went to a close cousins wedding recently and had a moment. I Iiterally balled in the restroom at the fact that this may never happen for me. I may never find love or be able to gather the people mosr important to me in celebration of my love for someone. I’m a realist. I realize that love may never come my way but I’m still hopeful..
Caz
Speechless after reading this everything you wrote was nothing but truth
If there is one post that anybody who stops by the foxhole should read it is this one. I dont think that most gay dudes get this, we all are going to age and get old if we keep living, and we are going to be hit with diseases that come with age. So many gay dudes from the past never reach the milestone of even living to 35. As I have gotten older I often wonder what is the end going to be. We already got so many hurdles as gay men that we face that often times we put ageing issues on the back burner and say one day I will get to it. Many straight people do have the advantage over us with kids, but at the rate we are going with this new generation of selfish children, I doubt many Str8 people will even be better off than we as gay men are without children. Many of my friends grown children have proven to be selfish and spoiled and their parents are still healthy, so I dont see any improvements once parents start to go down and get sick. Although I am in a good space right now and have a good relationship, I have to face reality that people change and what is good today may not be good tomorrow, so we all need a back up plan because at the end of the day, all you have as Queen B so famously said in one of my favorite songs by her is “Me, Myself and I”. You gotta be prepared to take care of you because more than likely no one else is going to do it.
Since the foxhole represents so many different ages, I would encourage all the young readers in their 20’s to start making provision now about their older life. As I get older, I try to take better care of myself so that I can be independent as long as possible and not have to depend on anyone. I would advise all to draft a will, find you a good circle of friends, and save your coins. It is little things that you can do today, that will make all the difference tomorrow. We all should strive to live a good healthy life until it is time for us to punch the ticket on the Glory Express.
Love this comment Tajan
Your me myself and I point struck home for me. I’m sometimes hopeful for love but as I get older I’m starting to see that while I’m looking for love and a long last relationship I need to face reality and be comfortable being alone. You m not saying I want to alone but start to come to gripes that might be a future for me and learn how to deal with it.
I’m at the point where I no longer care. For so long my self esteem and self worth was determined know whether or not someone wanted me like. Wanted the. And if they didnt, I’d be depressed and sad. Part of the reason I have so many emotional issues now. I’d rather be alone than to wonder if somebody loved me or not or to have to deal with cheating. It’s hard because I still feel sad alot over all the failed encounters with guys I liked but I’m learning not to give people the time of day who wouldn’t give it to me.
^”It’s hard because I still feel sad alot over all the failed encounters with guys I liked but I’m learning not to give people the time of day who wouldn’t give it to me.”
i relate with this so heavy.
I feel the same right as Karaoke, I am so tired of being alone. I am currently sitting in my place right now ALONE. I didn’t comment on the foxmail yesterday since I have no experience being in a long time relationship but it’s alot of reasons why people stay with their ain’t shit partner which I am going to tie in this post. About a month ago I was talking to these vixen. Her and her husband had met when they were 18 or 19 and has been married for 10 years now. She told me that her husband cheats on her a lot, I asked her why does she stay. Her answer was “I am not starting over, I don’t want to have to get back out there and meet another guy, I am not giving up my house for my husband to have some other girl in there.” I then asked has her husband brought any STDs back to her and said replied no. I also asked why does he constantly cheat and she replied because he is a man. When I was in my early 20s I always said cheating is a deal breaker, now that I am 27 and single cheating is not a deal breaker for me lol. Now, if my partner is a cheater like the girl husband my ass is out the door. If my partner and I are together for some years and he goes out and cheat, I might not necessarily leave. I would be pissed and would have to get his trust back. What, I am getting is that your never going to meet a perfect person, you have to deal with the good and the bad. Now, I am not saying stay with a cheater, abuser, etc, but just keep the communication line open between you two. Love, is a beautiful thing, and all of us deserve to have someone love us, as I am currently seeing no one wants to be alone.
^wow this is really deep.
do we sacrifice complete companionship for a partner who cheats?
hmm.
Sadly, A LOT of people will stay in a relationship where they are dogged out, just for the sake of saying they are in a relationship. Bump that…if you’re not there for me, you can go on your merry little way. I don’t chase after a person. If they want to cheat, feel free…but don’t expect to come through my door again. Not gonna happen.
I love this comment Eric! I have always thought about the cheating thing in the same way as you do. A “one time fling” might not necessarily be a deal breaker, but I would probably need my space for a while, and I would have to already be pretty damn serious with this guy to forgive something like that, because loyalty is EVERYTHING to me. I would not tolerate a serial cheater. That’s just gross.
Agreed!
I think about this often. The older I become the more I struggle between just building wealth and being about to afford a great old folks home when I get older, versus pairing up with someone for the sake of kids or life long companionship. I say that same thing you said man as far as being able to wipe my own ass but I only want to live until a healthy 65…68, or a sexy 70 max. I don’t want to live forever. I just want to retire early enough and long enough to be able to fully enjoy life for a decade or 2.
^110%
Omg I think about this allllll the time! I fell out the shower one night (don’t laugh) and as I laid on the floor I couldn’t help but think “damn I got no one here but my puppy. This is sad.” So I definitely know what u and karaoke are feeling
^see!
that’s important shit to think about!
im not even laughing because that is serious.
im in this empty apartment alone and all i wonder is who will rescue me if something goes wrong?