Written by: Langston John Blaze
Somewhere it registered in society’s mind that all gay men want to be women; as if we should be stripped of our masculinity and be tolerated instead of respected, if not understood. Then, it dawned on me. Gay men (particularly black gay men) don’t like each other. We want society’s acceptance, however during social events, we commit the ultimate shade in rude stares, no communicational skills, and validating ourselves through the opinion’s of others. Gay dating is confined to the internet and some gays definition of date is different. A true date is when two people, who perhaps are still getting to know each other, engage in conversation while in neutral environments such as restaurants, parks, lounges, etc. This should not be confused with a hook up; defined by two people, who may or may not know each other, engaging in sexual activity with no means of exclusivity.
So with all my Dawson’s Creek views on love, romance, and devotion, I found myself giving into the darker side of dating; the hook up. His name was Collin Brooks, a PR person in Atlanta I’d known of through Facebook but had never interacted with. Somewhere between my first love, Porter, the 18 year old, highly experienced, Libra (yikes!) I dated when I was 21 years old, and Donovan, the 28 year old, medical assistant, Leo (yikes again!) who ended up dumping me for his cheating ex-boyfriend, and marrying him! The irony was Donovan had been the best date I’d been on. In fact, he was the only real date I had ever had. Yep, my dating cobwebs were getting thick!
Frankly, I knew I was a man, and if women were ever right about anything to do with men, then they were right when they said, “All you think about is sex!” I had played the role of doing everything picture perfect choir boy style far too long.
To be honest, I wanted to disrobe from my white choir gown; of course being safe. Collin and I briefly chatted here and there for a whole year before I decided it was the right time to pursue anything. I had a thing for light skinned guys. Porter wasn’t particularly light but I feel in love with his beauty and brains. Collin had bad boy ways to match his pretty boy raspy voiced persona. (Sidebar: I loved the fact that he was older, 38 at the most but I never asked his age.)
Nevertheless, even though I knew I was interested in less talking and more physical activities, we talked first about our past dating and relationship experiences, but we both knew what we wanted. To be honest, I was hesitant about the entire thing especially since we had planned to meet up at his place earlier, and for some reason, that did not happen according to plan. Yet outside my feelings of love and inside every lustful intention, I drove over to meet Collin. He was beautiful.
After months of sex talk, we built up to that moment. His kiss was passionate like love should taste but it had nothing to do with love. We laughed. We touched. We teased. We made each others’ body a playground, and when recess was over, no one cried or felt heartbroken or devastated. As I recalled, I didn’t even text him the next day or the next day.
Nevertheless, we had an understanding. We were both adults. No strings could be less complicated if both people knew what they were getting themselves into and considered each other enough to know each others HIV status and enjoy recess. Collin called me last week and I couldn’t help but remember his sexy voice in every passionate moment we shared. Funny, huh? Why couldn’t love be this easy?
