Sometimes it bugs me that friends of mine are getting some more often than I am. Of course, if I'm getting some more often than they are, I don't mind at all ;-)

I definitely have a competitive streak about such things. Monkey see, monkey want more than other monkey. Even if monkey was avoiding it on purpose, now he wants it because somebody else has it. Mine!

This was certainly a problem during my last polyamorous relationship, because my primary boyfriend wanted and got a lot more than I did, so much that I eventually felt squeezed out of the front seat. At least, that's how I felt. Perhaps I didn't like sharing that front seat as much as the others did.

The envy and jealousy probably bother me most when certain people I've offered to sleep with (or even just meet in person) are sleeping with other people after either turning me down or politely ignoring my own request. But, of course, if I do that to somebody else, I don't mind at all ;-)

This is part of being who I am, to occasionally feel envy and jealousy about sex, while living a life that has contained some wild sexual adventures of my own. It's just that many of those adventures happened during a past when I was willing to go to bars, get intoxicated, and pick up strangers, or, go online, get intoxicated, and pick up strangers. I'm just not interested in picking up strangers for instant sex when I'm sober. And how many of those people are still part of my life, still having sex with me on a regular basis? None. One problem I had with those adventures is that very few of those people wanted to repeat them with me! How strange, to have a wonderful time, and then to ignore the person who helped you to have it.

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Lately I've just been busy doing other things, finding happiness other ways :-) But, when I see my friends cavorting happily, part of me worries that even if I wanted to, I couldn't make sex fall from the sky like they do. But, then I'd be having sex with strangers merely to puff up my self-esteem. Which is what a lot of single people do, as well as many people in open relationships. Part of the envy and jealousy I feel is a worry that I'm not good enough to compete. And, a lot of what people get from the afterglow of sex is that feeling of attractiveness, that somebody wants what I've got, that I can have fun giving it to them, and then reliving the memories, and then telling stories to others about what happened, making them envious or jealous, feeling competitive ;-)

Also, lately I've made a decision in my life that I'm going to enjoy relationships with a variety of people regardless of whether they lead to sex. What I'm discovering is that most relationships do not lead to sex, even when I'd like them to. Do I really want sex to be the trump card again? Nope. When I have sex, I want it to be part of a human relationship, not something that is grabbed and then thrown away. And I want human relationships that are based on mutual love regardless of whether sex is involved.

Well before the formalization of the scientific method, humans understood the basics of cause and effect. We didn't know as much about all the various causes and their effects as we do today, but people understood enough. For example, throw your spear a certain way if you want to hit the buffalo, etc.

Humans also understood that lots of things "just happen", without any apparent reason or cause. We would often hypothesize a spirit world of unseen causes to explain these events. Often these unseen causes were (and still are) explained as the powers of one or more gods and their associated angels, devils, demons, and other invisible sentients. Strangely, many wars were fought between humans because they disagreed with each other about how this unseen spirit world actually works.

Over time, as the body of scientific knowledge increased, some people began to see mathematical (logical, reasonable) causality as the only explanatory system worth using, allowing both agnosticism and atheism to spread widely among the literate peoples of the world.

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Despite all our scientific advances, there are still many events we can neither explain nor control, especially if we limit ourselves to "rational" explanations. The desire to understand why things happen still motivates people to make and believe unverifiable hypotheses about gods or spirits, souls, life after death, and intuitive methods of perception (such as psychic powers or ESP).

There are scientists who search for a "grand unified theory" ... some sort of totalizing explanation for all the matter, energy, and interactions between them that occur in the known universe.

The known universe is so large that I doubt whether a single human mind can ever truly make sense of it all. Yet, we try. We model the events that happen within our perceptual wells and we rely on these models to make sense of our lives, to give us direction and meaning.

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Reason is simply this -- an expectation that relationships can be established between contiguous events, and that these relationships will persist into the future, and that these relationships can be extrapolated to other sufficiently similar contiguous events. An expectation that we can perceive patterns and that these patterns will happen in anticipated or controllable ways.

Survival would be damnably difficult if there were no order in the universe. We ourselves are persistent patterns of matter and energy, it is difficult to imagine how we could exist at all if there were no predictable order in the universe. We are good at survival (and reproduction) because we are good at perceiving such order, figuring out its temporal and contemporaneous requirements, and predicting what will happen next. Even if we are only correct more often than not, that's good enough to keep most of us alive long enough until we've raised the next generation and taught them most of what we know.

And each of us is merely one tiny piece of reality. No matter how reasonable we are, we can't perceive everything that happens in the universe, and we can't grasp all the relationships between everything. We probably have no possible concept of how much we can never know -- but that doesn't stop us from trying, from assuming that there is a God in charge of it all ...

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The idea of the monotheistic, omniscient, omnipotent God is the greatest totalizing idea of all. But why do we need this idea? Some people get very anxious at the suggestion that there is no God, and that we can't ever know what really makes the universe do what it does. These people may feel like they have no purpose for living without a God, or that without God there is no moral code for them to follow.

Why must we have a purpose at all? Why must we have a moral code at all? Why must we try to explain the totality of everything when it is fairly obvious that we can't? Even people who hypothesize the existence of one God do not claim to know everything that this God knows. They have faith that this God loves them, takes care of them, and will shepherd them into heaven after they die. The strength of their faith, even when opposed by elements of reason, is often extremely powerful. Feeling like the Creator of the Universe is on your side is quite the support network ;-)

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Does the brain create these concepts of spiritual beings to keep itself from endless anxiety and worry over events it can not explain? Does the brain require an explanation for everything, even if that explanation is God's will?

Or is it possible to lead a healthy life while admitting that there are things beyond our perceptions that we can never know, and explanations for our perceptions that we can never understand?

I remember wandering around during high school with a handwritten journal entitled "Why?" I was a curious and intelligent young man ... and I'm still a curious and intelligent adult ... but I'm less driven to fully understand things. I'm more willing to let go and sit in wonder without judgment or understanding. The known universe is a fascinating place, full of life and activity, full of matter and energy, with many questions to be pursued. But all of our explanations and perceptions are limited. We can not know how correct we are in our models of reality. Sometimes we can't even know that what we are perceiving is reality. Dreams, intuitions, psychosis ... if something happens to me in a private room, and leaves no physical marks, did it really happen? And if something happens to other people, and they tell me a story about what happened, did it really happen? People are sometimes mistaken in their perceptions, people sometimes lie on purpose ...

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I tried not to have too many rules to follow ... the point was not to force a future self to follow rules set down by a past self.

The point was also not to deprive myself of all possible pleasures.

The point was to schedule an entire weekend for spending time by myself, having only incidental contacts with other people. Spending time by myself was not to include surfing the Internet or interacting via LiveJournal ;-)

At first I thought I would turn the computer off for the entire weekend, but at the last second -- as the sun set on Friday evening -- I decided to turn off only the DSL modem, so I could listen to music and watch videos, and I kept the DSL off until I briefly popped back online Sunday morning to look up some information about one of my DVDs (and let people know I was doing well).

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As the retreat began I was worried a little bit, although I knew I needed this, and I knew that it would strengthen me. I was worried that I'd have a panic attack and that I'd either make it worse by forcing myself to remain solitary, or that the retreat would only serve to prove that I could not handle a weekend by myself.

I had a wonderful time, though. I found ways to stuff pleasure into my life without having to contact other people. I wasn't expecting to have so much fun!

Late Sunday afternoon I hit a rough patch. Until that point I'd spent nearly the entire weekend inside my studio apartment. I began to feel constricted within my apartment, I began to feel a bit of the fear that I'd been fearing to fear ... so I escaped into the outdoors for a few hours. I walked for miles, and then I rested while watching the sunset. It was a great day for being outdoors, especially for August in DC!

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The retreat was both mundane and spiritually potent. I did simple things like re-watching a favorite DVD, playing solitaire, going to the grocery store, doing laundry, running, sleeping, and eating. I also did a lot of masturbating. Hours and hours of masturbating. Probably more time spent masturbating than any other weekend of my life. I definitely wore myself out in that department ... though I want to find new toys that will push me even farther ...

Along the way I had several potent insights, and I usually took a break to jot them down on paper. Later I tried writing about some of them in my LiveJournal.

By "along the way" I mean, while I was masturbating. I've entered a space I choose to call erotic mysticism :o)

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Because of the monkish way I lead my daily life -- no boyfriend, no TV, no radio, no mainstream magazine subscriptions, no car, living by myself, no cruising for sex (either online or off), no pets, daily exercise, no regular trips to gay bars -- I am not so used to some of life's pleasures as you might be. So, when I view a popular TV series like "24" on DVD, I'm amazed ... spellbound ... not just by the story but also by the technology and effort necessary to produce the story. For me, the experience of watching a DVD is spiritual, I feel reverent. Each person listed in the credits labored to produce this work of art :-)

When I do step into this foreign consumer culture, I do not feel like a mere everyday consumer who has expressed a mere preference for one activity among many competing activities. No, I feel like the recipient of a magic spell or potion. And, really, that's what it is. The difference between technology and magic is a semantic mirage. If you brought a human forward 200 years ... from before TV, cars, electric wall outlets, cellphones, antibiotics ... she would experience this modern world as a place of powerful magic.

I bring myself backward and forward through time, to experience my surroundings with a sense of wonder and reverence.

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The erotic part of this mysticism is more difficult to write about, but it has the same magical flavor, for the same reasons, the main difference being that I become the work of art, my body, my nerve endings, my internal responses to direct stimuli. I'm not merely masturbating ... I'm a descendant of two billion years of successful life pursuing pleasure for myself ... I'm wired to feel this pleasure, I'm allowed to feel this pleasure regardless of whether I have reproductive goals, I'm giving myself pleasure, and I'm using magical modern technology to extend this pleasure in extreme ways ... modern manufactured toys, lube, intoxicants, porn, and even a comfortable, private, climate-controlled apartment.

Again, I transport myself backward and forward through time to experience this pleasure as a new thing, not to experience it as a modern day gay consumer, but as a newly constituted being of present wonder.

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I don't own a television, and I don't miss it at all. I haven't watched any TV shows on a regular basis in five years. Occasionally a friend will recommend that I watch a particular series that has been published in DVD format -- I've watched some Sex and the City, the Simpsons, Six Feet Under, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and South Park via DVDs.

Many of my Queer friends have been talking about the new Bravo show called Boy Meets Boy -- a so-called "reality" dating show where one guy gets to choose between other guys over the course of several episodes of beauty-show elimination. The secret catch, kept secret only from the gay guys on the show, not from the audience, is that about half of the contestants are straight guys being paid extra to pretend they are gay.

Some of my friends have complained that this kind of practical joke is hurting-people-as-entertainment. Well, yeah, but isn't most TV a bunch of exploitative crap? Especially all the reality shows.

Why would somebody expect to find true love via this kind of scheming TV show anyway, even if they hadn't mixed in straight guys? Plenty of less-than perfect people can pretend to be great while the cameras are running. Or, in real life, while the crush is running ...

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Our culture feeds the idea that, for each of us, there is waiting, somewhere, a perfect romantic match who will make our lives complete. Many pop songs, movies, and novels feed this idea. There is even the occasional couple who appears to be a perfect match (though you never really know how they treat each other while nobody else is looking).

The marketing of the perfect couple meme causes a lot of distress among the average non-perfect people who think that if they keep searching, they'll find The One, or that maybe this guy they are currently dating is The One, or that maybe they should dump their boyfriend so they can find The One, or ...

People who try hard to emulate a role as one of a perfect couple sacrifice a lot, in time, money, and worry, imagining fantasy settings and making them appear in reality for their lovers. There is a lot of gift giving, poetry, candlelight, special music, flowers, candy, jewelry, loving notes, dinners, massages ... some people measure the value of their relationships by the amount of sacrifices both people are making for each other -- and the most important sacrifice of all is strict monogamy. By giving up sex with all other potential partners, the perfect boyfriend shows his partner how much he values this relationship above all others. This sacrifice forms the basis of the shared fantasy/reality of mainstream coupledom.

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The fantasy is so strong, that we become deeply attached to people merely on the basis of our own hopes that this relationship will "work out" in the future. And when the relationship doesn't work out, for whatever reason, we feel extreme pain. We feel like the relationship was a failure, we feel angry, we feel sad, we blame the other person for being an asshole, we blame ourselves for our shortcomings ... we rarely blame the fantasy itself for being unrealistic.

Sexual desire is caught up in this mess, making it much more addictive, pleasureable, and painful.

Yes, romantic relationships are definitely a form of addiction. When they are taken away we go through withdrawal pangs that are often worse than those any drug could cause. We don't view them as an addiction though, or we would have treatment centers and 12-step programs for people with broken hearts. No, no. Our culture is not so kind as that ... typically we tell the survivor of a broken relationship that they need merely try again, that someday they'll find Mr. Right and enter the equivalent of heaven on earth.

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Talk to a typical couple who has lasted several years, and if they are honest, you'll typically learn that long-term relationships are "a lot of work" and require "commitment" and that the honeymoon doesn't last forever. Many will tell you that they rarely have sex after the first year, and that the pressures of work, church service, and children make it difficult to get away, relax, and focus upon each other in a romantic way. They'll tell you about the fights they have over money, sex, and chores. They'll tell you about the crushes they occasionally get on other people, and how they've dealt with those (sometimes by cheating, sometimes by cutting those people out of their lives). They'll tell you that the rewards of a long-term relationship are worth it, but they've lasted this long because they are good at putting up with each other, not because they are living out a perfect couple romantic fantasy.

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A minority of couples really do seem to live a storybook existence. Does this mean that you should dump any partner who fails to help you create such a storybook existence? That's a toughie. Maybe you only get to the storybook level if you first fight your way through. Or, maybe not. Studies have shown that the people who stay together, even though they have problems, are more often happier 5 years down the road than the people who break up. But how do you know you'll be in that happier majority? Some people are happier when they do break up!! A generic study can't tell you which group you personally will be in. I don't think anybody can predict the outcome for you.

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I sometimes think that I'm still susceptible to this relationship fantasy ... but I'm no longer consciously pursuing it. Instead, I've made a commitment to love others and myself, without consciously engaging in the pursuit of fantasy. I've made a commitment to love myself as I am, even if I'm single, and a commitment to love each person I meet as he is, even if he doesn't want to become my boyfriend.

Heh, if someday people find this page via a Google search, they'll be disappointed. This is not a page about how to write a novel ;-)

No ... last November my father died, and at the same time one of my favorite LiveJournal friends was writing a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month -- NaNoWriMo -- and I suddenly decided that I wanted to write a novel also. I figured I would take part in NaNoWriMo 2003, and I blocked out the month of November in my PDA for this task (the idea is to write a novel in one month, no matter how bad it might be, without stopping to edit every little sentence along the way).

I suppose lots of people think about writing a novel, and some of those actually do so. A minority of those get their novels published somehow.

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However, this goal soon took on a life of its own.

I don't merely want to write a novel. No ... I will want to master the art of writing a novel to the best of my ability. There is no way I can do this in a month, as part of a mass exercise of word counting. No ...

It will take as long as it takes. And the story will be as long as the story needs to be. Perhaps the story-telling will continue for as long as I live, once I begin ... how will I be able to kill the characters I create?

By making this project into something I want to master, something I want to do seriously, while both entertaining myself and whoever might want to read along ... I've caused great inner turbulence. I've opened myself to wells of creativity I'd never have believed existed. I've given myself a form of second sight.

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I told myself that I would not write anything down about the novel until November 1, 2003, that I would spend the year prior to that time preparing myself mentally, brainstorming, doing light research about how novels are written.

I've read a few good novels, though I haven't immersed myself completely. I probably read more LiveJournals than anything else ... though reading LiveJournals might be good preparation for a novel as well ... these journals have opened my own perceptual well to the inner and outer turmoils surrounding scores of lives I would never have touched in real life.

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A couple times I've broken radio silence and have written something down about what I want to write. I even started writing a story back in June, and for a few days my obsessive thoughts paid attention to nothing else. That was a trial run, of sorts. I might return to that story in the future, but I don't think it will be my first novel ... though my first novel is still unformed, completely unformed, I have a completely open mind about where it will go, where it will take me, how it will transform my life.

And it will transform my life. I'm realizing more and more that this project will transform me at least as much as it might transform any readers who might stumble upon it.

I'm realizing more and more that this will become the most important struggle and achievement of the next year or two of my life. This will be for my late 30s what law school was for my early 30s -- the defining characteristic of my intentional life.

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If I were holding auditions, which I'm not currently doing, I guess I'd have certain criteria for people who wanted to become my boyfriend. Presumably they have their criteria also, and they've already decided that I meet most of them. But, if I'm to undergo the stress of adding somebody to my life, making room for him, considering his needs, listening to him, loving him, putting up with all of his foibles and bad moods ... which I would do, of course, I've got years of experience doing those things ;-)

My own list of non-negotiables would include:

You don't already have one or more boyfriends, and you've been single long enough to get over him. Although I appreciate polyamory, I'm not interested in being one of several "boyfriends". If you already have one or more boyfriends, I'd be happy to hang out, become friends, possibly have sex, but I'm not going to make you my #1. Plus, you need to be single for a while before latching on to a new boyfriend.

You have time for a boyfriend -- for example, you aren't married to your job(s), you don't have so many extra-curricular commitments that scheduling time with me would be a chore. That's cool if you like being involved in lots of things, but ... I don't, and I won't always want to be dragged along, and I'd like you to have some energy for us, alone, playtime :-)

You won't dump me if I have sex with somebody else. Just as I wouldn't dump you if you had sex with somebody else. We can talk about when and whom we might do, and discuss ground rules, but if the ground rule is zero, then I'll probably break it someday, given my past experiences, so let's move on.

You eat a mostly nutritious diet and you enjoy exercise often. I don't require you to look like a fitness magazine model, not at all, I sure don't, but if I'm supposed to invest time and energy into a relationship with you, I expect you to maintain yourself for us! Plus, some of my favorite activities involve moving my body, and if you'd rather eat, sit, and watch TV we're not going to have much in common.

You are more intelligent than average. I've got genius-level intelligence, so it would make sense if you had an I.Q. at least one standard deviation above the norm. We'd have more interesting post-sex discussions ;-)

You have long-term relationship experience. Well ... I might try dating somebody who doesn't already have long-term relationship experience ... but I'm not optimistic about it. I'm much more comfortable knowing that you have the temperament to make it past the first anniversary. Why you haven't had a long-term relationship before will be an important question during your audition period.

That's about it.

Today one of my LiveJournal friends posted a list of dating Do's and Don't's ... it was amusing, but it reminded me once again how far from the mainstream I am with regard to sexual/romantic relationships.

As I've been saying for quite a while now, I'm more interested in fun than in trying to find the best possible mate for me and then trying to make our relationship "work". I haven't had a mating-crush in over a year. As time goes by, and I continue to feel happy and satisfied as a single man, I find myself more and more amused by the efforts others make at trying to date, at trying to find a person "with eyes only for me" LOL.

I've also learned not to blame my occasional bad moods on my relationship status. It would make as much sense to blame my more prevalent good moods on my relationship status ;-)

I'm in a weird kind of place, compared to most of the eligible gay bachelors I've known. I'm not at all interested in sexually hooking up with strangers. I'm also not interested in dating strangers. Nearly all of my social time this year has been spent with friends and family, people I've already met, people I already care about. If I met an interesting and attractive stranger, I'd definitely want to get to know him better, but not in the emotionally supercharged "dating" arena. Not if he were auditioning me for the starring role of his lifetime -- who wants that much pressure? I'd want to get to know him better because it pleases me, and I'd start caring about him because I'm a natural empath. That's all, no particular expectations for the future.

I was thinking today that my life is busy enough without trying to stuff in dating, or a "boyfriend". When my life isn't feeling busy I reach out to family and friends, people I already know, or I add a new hobby to the list of activities I'm pursuing.

I find it strange, even though I used to do this, I now find it strange that single fellas even try to turn complete strangers into their next husband, no matter what list of Do's and Don't's they construct along the way. I think it is irrational to expect strangers to bloom in that way. I'd rather get to know somebody first. Turn him from a stranger into an acquaintance. Then, if he's got time, relationship skills and emotional stability, make him into a friend. Then, if he's not caught up in the mainstream idealism about coupled relationships, if we've got similar interests, maybe see him on a regular basis. Eventually, maybe it would make sense to live together. Whether I have sex with him is irrelevant, actually, though I'm generally open to having sex with any of my gay male friends.

Nowhere along the way must a "date" happen. Nowhere along the way must we label each other "boyfriend". Nowhere along the way must we progress to something more "serious". We'd allow our interests and attachments to flow naturally, while practicing mutual awareness.

Well, I've written a lot, especially in my LiveJournal, about what I see as the irrational desire for monogamy among many gay males.

Although the occasional reader might think, "Hmmm, that's interesting," or "Yeah, that's how I feel!" I doubt that my writings or arguments change any minds. I think that many people prefer monogamy for reasons related to their spiritual upbringing or their emotional intolerance of jealousy. Talking about it doesn't really change things. They know what they want and they see me as the strange one who is unable to commit.

So ... I have two choices: (a) I can give in to the majority rule and accept (serial) monogamy as my own desired lifestyle, or (b) I can stick with my own analysis that strict monogamy is silly and accept that most people will not want to even try dating me.

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Haven't I already made my choice? Long ago? Am I regretting this choice? Am I really wishing for a new standard-monogamy relationship? Why? Because I don't like rejection? Because I'm tired of living alone? Because I think it would be easier to find than an open (at some level) primary relationship?

I know that, in general, I was happy being in open relationships, despite the additional risks and problems. I think that such additional risks and problems can be addressed by couples who have relationship experience and communication skills.

I just feel like sometimes I make this all too difficult for myself. Why not find a nice cute boy and settle down and live together and all that stuff? I could do that. For some reason I refuse to pluck the low-hanging fruit, instead I make life more difficult for myself because I think the dominant ethos is irrational.

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No ... I'm allowing the dreams of others to infect my memetic space, rather than accepting what is right and best for me. I just don't think I'd be happy in monogamy land. It feels like one of those compatibility issues that must be dealt with in the beginning. Like telling somebody you have HIV or Herpes or some other incurable and contagious disease. Not that non-monogamy is a disease, but it is an important deviation from the mainstream, so it should be identified for the potential mate as soon as possible. If he's truly got no interest in either of us ever having sex with anybody else, he's just not for me. And I have to accept that, and stop feeling defensive or rejected about it.