So confused..

Well, just about the 'masculine/feminine role' stuff
I would personally like to DO the cuddling in a relationship (be the masculine one), but I also would want my guy to be pretty masculine... so... I don't think it's such a big deal

 

This might just be me, but I would actually consider that a turn on if it was a guy I was attracted to. Only problem is I'm fairly shy myself, so I wouldn't dare to make a move if I didn't feel the guy was open to that.

I don't feel a huge desire to try bottoming, I would just consider doing it if my partner was versatile and wanted to try it. If my partner is a strict bottom, then that's great, I feel comfortable as a top anyway.

That sounds like a great idea.

It's possible your straight buddies suspect you're gay or that you're not being completely open with them, which may be detrimental to your friendship. Who knows, they might even suspect you're secretly attracted to them? Coming out to them when you're ready might help with this, as you could then be completely open about who you like. And if they don't then accept you for who you are, then maybe you should try finding some new friends.

See this is completely wrong though. I am very attracted to regular guys, who are a bit on the shy side and have that "nice guy" vibe. If anything an overly feminine bottom that's too outgoing would be a turn off for me (this is just my personal taste, so no offense to the guys out there who might fit this description). I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this way.

Ultimately, what this is all about is that you need to know that you deserve to be loved. If you don't, this will be reflected in how you project yourself to others, and you won't even allow others to feel that they can approach you. It has to start with you, and building your inner strength.

 

Don't feel bad, I get that impression of myself sometimes especially from Roleplay. You're a fantastic writer though, I can just tell. Besides, I'm sure that's just one of a whole bunch of talents of yours

Who knows? Maybe you'll find the holy grail first ^.^

Just look it up on youtube, there's a small documentary from like Animal Planet where they show drunk monkeys.

Wow besides the actually graduating part, that sounds like about how my college experience was. I never really had much of an outgoing personality. I'm pretty internalized, and I have trouble talking to new people. Don't know why, just do.

I skipped Highschool pretty much, jumped straight into college so I'm also lacking the High School experience

 

It's very human to live with a vague sense of dissatisfaction with who we are (*hug*)

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them in not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet. (People Yevtushenko) :eusa_naug

You come over as very thoughtful in your posts. I think some people need a bit of time to get to know, but other people do get a lot of attention immediately. Maybe you are being a bit hard on youself? The ones who get all the attention aren't always well liked and popular- sometimes they just have high impact on others.

[/QUOTE] I loved it, and went twice in a week :eusa_doh: It's good in 3d in the high frame rate.

 

It's possible. I knew a bunch of grammar rules I wasn't supposed to know my freshman year of highschool because of reading books

Also, Half-Blood Prince was where I lost interest in the Harry Potter books. I'm not sure why, but I couldn't will myself through the books anymore.

Oh you will. Everyone thinks they won't, and then they do ^.^

Okay

Yes, we do have some very similar traits apparently

I know the feeling. I always felt awkward or weird when people I didn't know tried to talk to me...I regret not giving anyone a chance though, but that's all the past ^.^

 

I'm happy I could offer a different perspective, really I was just being honest because what you described really doesn't match how I feel.

I will say this though. Finding someone as a very shy guy is not easy. I know, because I'm struggling with how to balance my natural shyness around strangers with showing others (subtly) that I'm interested. So I would advise you to try to open up to guys who reach out to you. Just try to imagine what it's like on their end. Even if he's your perfect man, it's not easy to pursue something deeper, if he just met you and you don't reciprocate after he's shown interest. But I'm struggling with this as well, after coming out to myself not long ago, so I'm not the best person to give you tips on exactly how to act. I do believe that merely feeling secure in yourself goes a long way, and that has helped me in everyday situations.

Really, what do you have to lose by reaching out to other guys? You already came out to one person, and I presume she's not the only one you plan on ever coming out to, so just let yourself go. Make yourself available, try to get in touch with other guys (haven't been to gay bars either so can't help with that, sorry!), and when you feel like you're really connecting with someone, just relax and be yourself. Just from what you shared in this thread, I can tell you're not a "boring" person.

 

Yes, books are great for that. I lost interest in books for the longest time though...Sort of shut down for awhile during my teens. I've been trying to pull myself out of that messy jazz lately though ^.^

And when we do I'll get to say 'Told ya so'

It can be hard sometimes, but if you will yourself into it I think you'll find a better sense of self and happiness

 

About being attracted to shy guys, not looking for a feminine, outgoing bottom etc.

 

Nope, it's not for sissies. Far from it. Honestly, I bet if you polled the EC membership, you'd find a very large percentage, possibly a large majority, who like cuddling. And a fair chunk of those are going to be pretty masculine, although the masculine/feminine spectrum is quite broad so you'd also see a lot of other folks as well, including some much like yourself and others who are rather different.

A guy who 'has sex and then done' probably doesn't get asked for repeat dates much, I suspect. I've been with guys who were fem (to some degree anyway) and guys who were masculine and other than some hookup situations, none of them were in a big hurry to just up and leave the minute we'd both finished having sex. Ok, there may be times when you're both hungry or have someplace you have to be, but if you've got the time to just kick back and relax for a bit afterward, most of the time that's what guys like to do (in my experience).

Hrm. See, what I'm mainly hearing here is low self-esteem talking. People's ideas of what is 'cute' or 'attractive' can vary hugely. There is no one single standard that everyone agrees on, despite what the media and advertisers may try to tell you. Whether at first look or after getting to know the 'total package' that is you, there are guys who will find you attractive and who will be happy to cuddle with you unasked once they know you like that sort of thing.

It really made me sad. I wanted to be her. I don't know if I necessarily wanted to be a girl, but I wanted to be in the position she was in. Having someone to hold onto her must have been such a nice feeling, but I know the likelihood of that happening for me is next to zero.[/QUOTE]

I've actually been in the position of both the guy and the girl in the scenario you describe. I've held someone and had them lean into me while we talked to our friends or just enjoy the moment and I've had a guy wrap his arms around me as I just leaned back into his chest with my head under his chin and we talked (we were on barstools at the time which took a certain amount of skill to stay on while doing that )

If you put yourself out there and meet folks the likelihood of this happening for you is much greater.

Thank you It took a while, but between my efforts and those of friends I made in college, and a fair bit of life experience, I'm vastly better now.

More importantly, I'd like to suggest that if I can crawl out of all that and be happy, then it could be worthwhile trying to change your stars to be the sort of person you want to be.

Unfortunately, that sort of thing almost never happens anywhere but in movies. It can be hard for LGBT people to find each other outside of specific environments, and many of those don't lend themselves to relationships. Straight society has a huge infrastructure and societal expectation that supports people 'just meeting' and hitting it off. And even with all that, they still often have a hard time finding someone (why do you think they have all those dating sites and speed dating, and self-help books, and talk shows, and magazine articles, and so on and so forth? We have a lot less of that.

It's not a question of you being 'worthy' or not. It's partly a matter of luck and partly a matter of putting yourself out there and taking a chance. Won't always succeed but eventually you will.

Then it seems like a worthwhile project to try to find out. And if there are parts of yourself that aren't as you'd like them to be...many times you can change those bits.

There are parts of the gay community who are vain and superficial. There are parts of the human race as a whole who are vain and superficial. No one group represents all of us.

Re your second statement here - If I'm understanding you correctly, we've established that I'm masculine as you define the term. I've topped and bottomed both (although anal in itself doesn't really excite me), and I'm going to dispute your statement here, at least as it applies to me. First, because as mentioned earlier, different guys have different tastes and definitions of what they consider 'cute' or attractive. Second, because my particular tastes are not so narrow as to be limited to 'cute as a button' anything.

I am attracted to guys who exhibit a combination of traits that generate feelings of attraction and sexual desire (aka lust). About the only really consistent trait for me is hairiness. Even then, I've dated a smooth guy and he was a total sweetheart and we had a lot of fun together (including cuddling - btw he's an ex-Air Force bodybuilder with a shaved head). A second, less consistent, but still pretty strong, trait is guys who look 'real' to me. That means they look like average guys who wear what is comfortable, maybe look a little rough around the edges, at least in day-to-day life (everyone needs to/may like to dress up sometimes), and don't spend all that much time on primping. This having nothing to do with whether they are masc or fem or anything in between. I want a man, not a Ken doll. Could a guy who's into all that stuff get my attention? Maybe. Have they so far? Not really.

The moral of the story here is: Don't assume that a masculine top guy will only be interested in 'cute as a button bottoms'. He will have tastes and preferences and they may very well be for qualities (both physical and personality) that you have. To him, YOU may be 'cute as a button' .

Or maybe they liked you but were shy themselves and nervous about approaching you. Or maybe they thought you weren't interested. Can you prove to me that neither of these scenarios is possible?

Todd

 

Don't have anything else constructive to say besides much love and peace to all.

(&&&)

 

Don't feel bad I do the same. I'm trying to get over that though. I recently read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins and it re-inspired my passion for reading a bit. So maybe I'll be book nerding it again soon

Same here

You will

 

Not in my experience. Cuddling is just another form of intimacy, so why shouldn't males want it? They may call it different things (e.g., body contact, making out, foreplay),all of which can be rather broad terms and defined differently by different people. But even so the desire to be close and touching is a common denominator in all of them.

To come at this from another direction - when you saw the male/female couple that you mentioned earlier - did the guy look like he wasn't having any fun?

There are lots of gay guys who have sex with lots of different guys. But that's just one part of the overall 'gay community'. And even those guys may engage in cuddling as part of being with a given guy. Also, guys who like to sleep around don't necessarily choose to spend their whole lives doing that. A good friend of mine has (by his own estimate) had sex with hundreds of guys. Eventually he got tired of that and wanted a committed relationship, which he eventually found. He and his partner were together for 13yrs, until his partner passed away last year.

Other people want to meet someone ASAP and settle down with a single partner for the rest of their lives. And there are a whole range of people somewhere in between.

I'd also point out that straight society also has a large percentage of people who want to sleep around as much as possible. Straight society actually glorifies promiscuity and infidelity to a huge degree, when you really look at it. We could also look at the straight trope of having strippers dress up as under-age school girls (pigtails and giant lollipops) and such, and wonder what that says about the culture, but I digress.

Yeah, you put yourself down about 4 times just in these three paragraphs. Stop that :eusa_naug

If I could ask - why do you have such issues with your self-esteem? You haven't mentioned anything about yourself to lead me to think you are stupid, or anything else negative, in any way. I don't think you're stupid, and I don't see why you should feel that you are.

Is leaning off a barstool into the arms of another guy who's also on a barstool comfortable? It has it's moments Although, it's also kind of awkward. I think that the pleasure of doing it sort of balanced the discomfort of trying not to fall/slip off the barstools.

Hrm. I'll admit I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I've made two major moves in my life as part of hitting the giant 'Reset' button on my life. Once when I graduated HS and moved from AK to AZ to go to college, once when I moved from AZ to VA. So, I'm actually something of a fan of the idea of moving somewhere else as part of 'remaking' oneself or one's life to something that is more fulfilling or makes you happier.

OTOH, I'd also say that there comes a point where you have to live your life as you wish and as you are, without worrying about whether other people approve of it. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps they should be more worried about whether or not you approve of them.

I guess I'd say that if you want to move and hit the 'Restet' button on your life, then by all means go forth and conquer But don't necessarily cut everyone you know out of your life and in the longer term plan to come out to them once you've built the life and foundation to feel strong enough to do so. Some will have a problem with it. Others won't or will even be actively supportive. You might be surprised

I'd also suggest that if you simply exit all of your loved one's lives...they won't just sit and remember you in a positive light - they will be saddened and confused and hurt. And you may be hurt by your actions as well. Here's a link to a thread started by an EC member who did this kind of thing - it didn't really work out for him until he ended up restarting contact again:

http://emptyclosets.com/forum/famil...84180-please-help-me-i-dont-know-what-do.html

No, it's not being rude I met my partner online in a gay chat room. This was 17yrs ago or so, so there weren't things like dating sites or apps or anything like that. The internet was still based on dialup and such.

I'd just moved to VA and was staying with my best friend and her husband. She introduced me to the internet and chat rooms. I was sort of kicking around the web and came across the 'GayVA' chat room. Started talking with different guys, mostly just general conversation and getting to know each other. There was some flirting going on, but mostly just talking. One member had a strange screen name and so I asked him about it. Turns out it was the postal abbreviations for several states he'd lived in. Which led to talking about places we'd lived, including AZ. He'd also gone to college there, although he did grad school and at a different time from when I did my undergrad ed. That eventually led to a couple phone conversations and then dinner. I got home at 4:30 the next afternoon We dated for about six to eight weeks before I moved in and we've been together ever since.

As far as the other guys I've had relationships with (as opposed to hookups, which I've done some of as well)...

a) Met two of them when I rented a room in a house with 5 other guys living in it. Over the period I was there, I had a brief (but VERY intense) relationship with one guy, and another relationship with a guy who moved in after the first guy moved out. The second guy and I ended up moving into our own place after I graduated and were together for three years.

b) Met one guy that I dated for a year (and still send Xmas cards to - I count him as a friend now) after I broke up with the 3yr guy and moved into a house with 3 other gay guys. He was the ex-boyfriend of one of my roommates (and his roommate/best friend was dating another one of my roommates - although they broke up shortly after I moved in). He came by to visit one day (they were still friends) and I thought he was very attractive. A month or two later, we were both at a party that someone in the larger group was throwing and I actually flirted with him (something I rarely ever did). We ended up making out in his car for a good bit (I thought it was funny to learn it is actually possible to steam up the windows in a car) and I went over to his house a week or so later and stayed the weekend. After that, we were a couple until just before I moved to VA (our breakup was due to distance - I'd been transferred to Phoenix by my job - and very amicable)

c) I met one guy via one of the aforementioned personal ads. He was a 'friend with benefits' or 'f**kbuddy' (take your pick) rather than someone I had any kind of romantic feelings for (and this was a situation he clearly stated as the only thing that would happen on the first night we met - and I was OK with that). But he was a really nice guy and the first guy I ever topped with. In some ways it was kind of refreshing knowing from the start that it would never be anything more than having some laughs (we went to the local gay bars and once or twice to a movie) and having sex. I stopped seeing him when I started seeing the guy mentioned above who I had a three year relationship with.

I'm not sure if any of that helps in any way, but hopefully it does. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.

Hmm. Given that the new year is coming up, perhaps it's a good time to resolve to work on that? As you say, failing is part of life. There will be people who reject you - not because you are a bad person, but just because you aren't their type. Some of them will be nice, some will be assholes, but it's just a part of life. I also take losing really badly, but I also know that this is part of my personality and have learned to work through it when I encounter that sort of situation.

Happy to help Looking at your situation as you've described it, I'd like to suggest that learning to love and accept yourself would be a worthwhile first step toward accepting that someone could be interested in you. Could even love you.

Hope this helps,

Todd