There was a guy online that was nice looking. And his information said he was a physician and he relatively recently moved to the City.
Now, I have a rather long history—professional and social—with physicians, surgeons mostly, and I have found that I have a lot of rapport with them, at least intellectually. For awhile there when I was an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon in Biological Sciences, I gave serious thought to becoming a physician myself.
I would have been a surgeon, of course. People who know me, for better or worse, who both already knew and didn’t know I was considering Medicine as a career, would see the fit.
So anyway, there were very basic pleasantries exchanged in messages and I, wanting to get out more, wanting to meet new people, wanting to stir things up a bit but above all, carrying no specific personal agenda other than what I’ve already mentioned.
And certainly the little information exchanged so far was so generic as to be approaching total fungibility.
Then I asked if he might want to meet up for a coffee or a beer. Translation: “would you like to maneuver a scenario where your person and my person might both be in the same place at the same time where we might consume caffeinated or alcoholic beverages and say hello, like people have been doing for thousands of years?”
His response, which I got the next day, which I’ll paraphrase, included that he was quite busy, which physicians generally are, save for dermatologists and radiologists typically. But then he added, which I will quote, because I just have to
for the sake of being upfront, i have a partner in boston who i am trying to move here, and, with his permission, am kinda seeing a guy here, too. just wanted to put that out there..
and not because i thought you were interested in dating me or anything, just wanted to make sure you understood where i was coming from. hope that’s cool and didnt come across weird!
JesusFuckingSkateboardingMockApplePieMadeWithRitzCrackersChrist.
He thought I’d think he was weird because he was making the assumption that I was looking to date him.
So he wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t available because he was already seeing someone out here, but he was already partnered to someone else back East but he had permission from the partner back East to date the guy here and heaven forbid he’d “cheat” on the guy he was dating here.
Or would he be cheating on the partner back East if he met someone new over a coffee without having put a ring of emotional-unavailability orange traffic hazard cones around the event first?
I fucking hate open relationships. There’s nothing good about them. They’re houses of cards propped up by the energy they steal from people outside those relationships. They’re dysfunctional. They’re not self-sustaining like real, healthy relationships. They don’t keep themselves alive by energy put into them by the two people involved in them.
No, they’re turned outward, scavenging for emotional energy from the rest of us by each the two in the open relationship, taking more free energy and good will and high quality emotional egress from the social/cultural system than they contribute to it.
Scratch the surface of any of them and you find emotional nebbishes and flibbertigibbets who hide behind sexual braggadocio or worse, that throbbingly ugly tedium they pour forth, one hypocritical platitude after another about being sexually “enlightened” and having moved past petty jealousies and that their openness is about a bigger “trust”.
Ugh.
When none of those tacks work, tantamount to clinquant cat-toys anyway, no substance and all distraction: shiny! shiny! meant to end scrutiny, more platitudes, this time on the offensive: Who Are You To Judge!
I’m Me, that’s who. And I need no other credential. (See? Surgeon material here!)
You’re welcome to your open relationship and I’m welcome to observe. I’m welcome to recount my own history. I’m welcome to think for myself. I’m welcome to follow the paths of friends and others.
I’m welcome to remember.
And I’m welcome to use my brain to put it all together for myself and draw conclusions when the conclusions are there to be had.
I’m also welcome to change my mind.
Why? Because I dare. And because I tired of all the glozing over that small men with small souls do. So many opportunities to learn ignored and so people go on being hurt over and over. In the same ways, often by the same people. New men getting hurt by the same men.
I could say that I’m tired of waiting for things like decency and candor and trust and honor and emotional investment to come back into vogue again, but that’s only true and nothing more.
It’s not as if saying it makes it any different, hastens making it so.
I follow the notes and the blogging of the Prop 8 trial and I read the testimonies of gay and lesbian couples and I find them heartbreaking all over again. And then doubly so, because, in moments of weakness—or, moments of candor—because at least these men and women giving testimony each have a true, if not legal, husband or wife to lean on in their suffering.
And I feel like I’m surrounded largely by men who are pissed off at the Yes on 8’ers and who want same-sex marriage for no reason other than it’s something that other people have that they don’t, a playground sandbox fight over a dime0-store pail and shovel set.
Where have all the good men gone? Never mind the gods.
Sometimes what we want doesn’t come in the package we want it in, and so it gets ignored.. Or a variety of other things.
It is my experience that there are good men out there, and that they are available and I am sure my path and theirs will cross one day. Or if not, I can at least believe it’s true for now.
I guess I see myself as a good guy, and I know I am not that special and therefore there must be others.
HUGS
OR given the nature of so many of these things, he is being upfront and honest rather than being accused of leading someone on and being dishonest… I think if I were him, I would be more apt to do that given the state of things in SF these days..
of all that’s going on with that guy, he thought i might find it weird that he made an assumption about ME?
That’s what I’m talking about.
Making an assumption is no big deal. That doesn’t make anyone weird, even if it’s wrong, which it was.
Cool post and I have to agree. Made some of the same observations regarding open-relationships and dating in general in my dating days in SF. And yeah with most folks it all about them.
You know, this entry made me take a moment and think. I’m in the process of moving to San Francisco and have followed this blog off and on for a few years. I can’t remember how I tripped upon it. Links leading to links, a slow day in front of the computer, etc. Who knows. But one of the things I am looking forward to with respect to moving to SF is possibly getting to know you in person. I don’t really know you outside of your blog, and that alone is weird. You don’t know me, which is even more unbalanced, but still, you seem interesting. And finding myself in a new city, isn’t that a viable way to make a friend these days, saying hello after reading someone’s blog who you have a lot in common with? But I was tentative. I too have a partner. And while I have no designs on anything besides a coffee and some conversation with you, I was still concerned about how approaching you would seem. Lately I keep running into the situation that guys are suspicious of me approaching them for friendship. Here I am, a 40-something, intelligent guy moving to a new city and using the Internet (among other things)to find people who share similar interests. Granted, some of the sites I use also cater to a “cruisier “clientele, but still, people are apprehensive of someone with a partner looking for FRIENDS, because that generally means a guy in an open relationship looking for a fuck buddy. Now I know that’s not the point of your blog entry. The guy sounded shady and clearly was being flirtatious without disclosing all the pieces of information that he thought he should. Whether that information was important to you, however, was a different story. But, I was curious, if someone approached you and said, ‘Hey you seem cool and I’d like to meet you for a drink and it’s not a date because I’m partnered,’ what would you really think? And somewhat related: the relationship I have with my partner is closed, but there is an ongoing discussion of whether to open it. Like everything else, we check in about that subject to see what feels relevant and go from there. And for us, for now, closed works best. I think monogamy doesn’t fit all and sometimes people outgrow it. But for us, it works. And again, that has nothing to do with you or my interest in you. I just think you sound smart, talented, and you seem like you’d be enjoyable having a beer with. Thoughts?
WillingandEmil,
Of all you said, the part I think I’d find most improbable would be someone saying to me, “I’d like to meet you for a coffee or a beer, but it’s just to meet for a coffee or a beer because I’m partnered.”
I’d welcome that most of all.
It’s not a matter of people opening up relationships or not, it’s a matter of hypocrisy, a matter of selfishness, defensiveness, self-centerness and assumption on the parts of all those in these blessed, elevated, illuminated, open relationships. You can tell the open ones by their interlucent quality: amidst the dull dun of the mundane rest of us, they merely glow with the achievement of that higher plane of sexuality.
Yeah, I need to stop. This is an expensive MacBook Pro and I don’t want to ruin it with vomit.
You can’t inquire, you can’t challenge. You can’t oppose. You can’t do anything but accept at their word that their relationships are what they say they are.
And no one bothers to measure the toll that these relationships take on the rest of us. At least the ick of the 1970s swingers had symmetry to them: wife-swapping they called it at first, then swinging, but it was almost always couples sharing with couples and they left the rest of us alone.
The open relationships I’ve been subjected to—and almost every one I’ve just observed somewhat up close—are greedy creatures. They’re takers. They’re cold-blooded things, drawing heat and free energy from the social system and from others in order to keep the engine of the relationship going: they’re taking from others what’s no longer present within.
I’ve heard plenty of arguments in favor of, usually by those who are in the open relationships and they just don’t hold.
But generally speaking, I’m not permitted to have such an opinion without penalty, because open relationships are the norm and they’re always the favored status.
Case in point: several years ago, a friend approached me and told me that so-and-so thought I was hot and wanted to mess around with me. As I began to speak, but before I gave any indication as to whether I was about to agree or protest, my friend said, “he’s partnered, but he asked and it’s fine with [partner’s name]”.
“Did anyone think to ask if it was ok with me?” I returned.
A pause, for far too long. And then, “So that’s a no, then.”
No apology for presumption on anyone’s part. And it never even got to the point as to whether the attraction was mutual.
And yes, I’d love to have a beer with you. Are you here yet?
I am and I’m not. So much for being one of those decisive people. We moved at the end of December into the SF and then after New Years, I came back down here to do some small repairs on the house and rent it. Then I was offered a freelance (temporary) project and it seemed convenient to stay here while I did that. And then the project was extended and—to make a long story short—I abandoned my partner in SF and haven’t been back there since. I’m sure he’s wondering if I’ve taken off to Mexico. After four weeks, the house is now rented, the repairs are done and I’m just waiting to close out the project. But as soon as I do, I’m heading back up there. And that beer is my treat. And I’m really really looking forward to meeting you. —-Emil
Great rant.
Daigan, SF is full of ‘honest’ people, as in: “I am totally flaking on that big commitment I made at the moment most convenient for me, but at least I am being honest and telling you about it.” They are honest, because honesty is saying what you do.
There is this other concept called integrity. Integrity is doing what you say…following through, being reliable, making and keeping commitments, not giving in to each and every self-indulgent whim, no matter how ‘honest’ you are about it.
sigh. Integrity is scarce in relationships here.