BAD BREAKS

Neil Sedaka was being a bit of a drama queen.

“They say that breaking up is hard to do.” I think

Yes, I get that whole conflict-avoidance thing. Ghosting may be a relatively new term but the concept has been around forever. And then there are the socially-distanced Dear John letters that can now be reduced to a Post-it or a text. The object is to deliver the message and then make a run for it. As if it almost never happened. History erased.

When you are the one doing the breaking up, you’ve got the power. You decide the time, the place and the manner. (This assumes, of course, that you don’t just blurt “It’s over” in the heat of the moment, a totally justified response when your guy takes the last slice of pizza—without even asking!—or says, “Who’s Donna Summer?”)

Being the one who is broken up with is so much harder. Sometimes it’s completely unexpected and, even when there are plenty of clues, it can feel like being blindsided.

Are you really doing this? Now? Here?!

Right time and right place seem more connected to marriage proposals. If it’s a perfect breakup, it strikes me as being like one of those proverbial trees falling in the forest with no one hearing: did it really happen?

When I decided to end it last month with Daniel, I didn’t waste time. It would have felt disrespectful to stick around in something longer once I knew things weren’t going to deepen for me. Still, I didn’t want to have what I figured could be an awkward conversation—hell, who does?

As Daniel pointed out during our breakup discussion, I have usually been the one doing the deed. (And, yes, he mentioned that as not just an observation but as a slight—like I have commitment issues, like I can’t handle conflict, like I’m just absolutely, indisputably evil.)

Oh, a Post-it would have been so much easier!

Why am I never in a situation where I raise the subject and the other guy says, “This is uncanny. I was thinking the exact same thing”? Not that I yearn for another such situation. Contrary to what Daniel may intone, I despise breaking up. There is no sense of triumph. Relief? Yes. By the time I’ve concluded that the relationship is irreparably broken, my mind and my emotions are pretty fried. But a break means failure. In my head, I hear Freddie Mercury telling me, “another one bites the dust.” It was an epic song during my years attending college football games. (I mainly went to watch the cheerleader routines.) It’s taunting, verging on harassing, when Queen’s classic hit is the theme song for my dating history.

Initially, the breakup seemed to go well. Difficult conversations are always foggy when I try to recall them. Still, I’m rather certain that I led with a direct statement, something like, “I’m really sorry but I don’t see our relationship continuing.” To me, that’s more humane than launching into a long prelude so that the guy on the receiving end starts to sweat while thinking, Are you breaking up with me? And then, Shit, you are breaking up with me! And then, “You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you?” I think it’s incumbent on the breaker to say the words first. It’s part of putting on your Big Boy pants.

Right after I said whatever it was that I said, Daniel nodded and said, “Okay.” There was no change in facial expression. Gosh, this is going well, I thought. It stunned me. I wondered if I could just leave it at that. But I rambled on. Something no doubt about him being a good person, about how I’d hoped things would build and, alas, that just didn’t happen for me.

Another nod. Another, “Okay.”

Okay then…

I got up and gathered a few of his things. There was a patio chair he’d loaned me. I said I’d haul that down to the parking garage. I needed to grab the Visitor’s Parking pass from his dashboard anyway.

I was too hasty. Daniel objected to the fact I’d already parceled up some food items: dark chocolate bars, a bag of chips, nonalcoholic beer—things I would never consume. “So you’d already decided this,” he said. Like an accusation. That’s when it became clear that Daniel expected a discussion, not just about the reasons why, but about whether breaking up should even happen.

That’s when things unraveled. When there’s a problem—maybe about sex, maybe about a difference in values—you try to talk them through. We’d had those discussions. I raised them as I’d been intent on better communication during this relationship. This was not about some Topic of the Week. I just didn’t see my feelings deepening.

Daniel is a professor. He’s a facts guy. He kept bringing up moments—mostly positive ones, along with a few previously identified hurdles. He expected me to counter with facts to show why we were suddenly completely incompatible.

Maybe that said it all. I’m a feelings guy. I don’t know how many times I had to say it—in my living room, in the parking garage, on the phone during many distressed calls from Daniel over the next two weeks. It felt like flogging someone repeatedly. “I’m not feeling enough. I’m not in love and I have come to realize I’m not going to get to that point in this relationship.” Please let me stop saying this. Daniel stuck with his facts.

After phone calls, Daniel would follow up with angry, accusatory texts. My phone would ding and ding until I turned off the sound and put it in the other room. At some point the next day, Daniel would always apologize for his texts but by then I felt like the one being flogged.

Payback, I told myself after the first few rounds. Shut up and take it.

I agreed to play tennis with him. I met him for a walk. I hoped to keep things light, to steer us to something different. Friends? But he’d follow up with more angry texts and I’d move my phone to the other room again.

It got to the point when enough was enough. On several occasions, I’d suggested that Daniel talk things out with friends but he dismissed that option, saying that when his twenty-five-year relationship ended a couple of years ago, he’d yammered on and on to them about it. He wouldn’t do that again.

I’d had good intentions in making myself available. Too often, I’ve heard about people not getting closure after a breakup. I’d provided ample time for that over a period of several weeks. My god, this was nothing like his relationship that spanned a quarter of a century. We hadn’t even lasted five months. I’m a guy who should be pretty easy to get over. I’m not all that. I’m not even half that.

Still, I had to get colder. I became direct. I wanted some space. To Daniel, that meant a day off from contacting me before a casual text: “Hey! How was your day?” No, no. Much more space.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like me.

Progress. Let me be the fall guy. Let him finally turn to his friends. Let me be the guy they hate.

It pains me that I hurt Daniel. It’s beyond disappointing when two people put themselves out there with the best of intentions and things come up short. For some of us, And They Lived Happily Ever After remains but a fairy tale.

THE END AGAIN

I suppose I’ve been avoiding this post. Add another former boyfriend to the rap sheet. I’m single again.

And so the postmortem period begins. Cringe as “helpful” people say I’m too picky. Question myself about whether I’m even capable of a relationship. Quash that tendency to flash forward two or three decades: a lonely death, one of those awful stories you read about where the rotting corpse is found weeks later as neighbors in the apartment building report a foul smell.

Postmortems can get dark.

The morning after I broke up with Daniel, I logged onto Twitter and the first tweet I saw was a photo of two gay men hugging, the caption reading, “Celebrating 32 years together!” I smiled, genuinely. I even “Liked” the pic. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve long bemoaned gay men for being plagued with what I call the “Seinfeld” Syndrome, whereby perfectly acceptable dating relationships are ended for seemingly trivial peeves. Remember the close-talker? The author who didn’t use exclamation marks? The woman who ate her peas one at a time? (But, really, just imagine what would happen if she ordered a side of rice.)

I wonder if I am any better. Could I date a guy who wore Crocs? Or someone who pronounced huge as “uge”? Or a guy who turned his guest bedroom into a Britney shrine? Um,...no.

I had more valid reasons for ending things with Daniel. I swear.

Sigh. A failed relationship is still, well, a failure.

I’m slowly making my way through “Schitts Creek”—the show’s name put me off for years—and this week I crumbled as I watched the episode where Patrick gives David a monster cookie to celebrate their four-month anniversary. The gesture seemed juvenile and tacky to the worldly Rose family until David’s helpful sister, Alexis, explains that four months is a milestone: David’s longest relationship. Daniel and I qualified for a cookie moment. Heck, following established mathematical principles for rounding, I could say we lasted five months. That might have called for a large slice of peach pie.

Four months, five months,...rounded or not. Either way, not long. It’s about 1/77 as long as the happy Twitter couple. Daniel and I never even got to “couple”. Just boyfriends. Just dating. But still something. Beyond expectations, if I twist things a bit. (Really, it was only supposed to be a hookup.)

My last post about Daniel mentioned some tension over the possibility of getting a dog in the future. I’d written it a month beforehand. We’d already broken up my the time I put it on the blog. To be clear, I didn’t end things because of a hypothetical pet. While the topic ruffled me, I knew it was a subject too far down the line. I put it aside, telling myself that something else would end things before then.

Red flag.

It wasn’t just a case of chronic lack of confidence or a surge of pessimism. I just sensed that we weren’t the right fit.

I could back up my decision with a long list of reasons, but that wouldn’t be respectful to Daniel. That’s more the kind of thing I do after a single coffee date turns out to be a dud. It makes for a quirky story. Maybe I can even squeeze something funny out of my own misfortune. Oh, the hard knocks of being single!

After investing weeks and months with someone, it seems petty and undignified to list someone’s supposed flaws. Daniel doesn’t deserve that. There isn’t even some bigger issue that I feel is worthy of writing about, thinking that others might connect with the situation, feeling like I might be able to offer some grand insight about (short-lived) relationships.

Things just didn’t develop. My feelings never deepened. I have been lucky enough to fall in love four times in life and that feeling has always hit at three months, if not sooner. I was not in love with Daniel. I was not even falling for him, as people often say first, testing out the waters.

I stuck with things longer, knowing we’d had a wonky start since I’d fully expected to move away at the end of March. I could feel Daniel falling for me. He’d sometimes let down his guard and say how calm he felt around me, how connected he felt. It was nice feedback that only made me feel cold inside. Why didn’t I have anything to say in return? Why didn’t I have have the urge to buy him a greeting card or to even text something more meaningful at night than, “Sleep well”? I can’t fake a feeling.

Before breaking up, I drove up to Whistler for a couple of days. It’s one of my happy places. I thought it would mean something if I missed him. But that didn’t happen. I felt lighter, even a sense of relief to be on my own. The trip gave me clarity. I couldn’t stretch things out with Daniel. It wouldn’t be fair.

Alas, that whole happily-ever-after thing remains but a fairy tale. For me, at least. Right now, I’m okay with that. Let the whining and pining come later. (It always seems to resurface at some point.) For now, I can continue to “Like” other announcements of happy couples on social media while forking through my very own pie from the neighborhood grocer. They make mini pies and sometimes I’m good with being a “Serves 4” kind of guy. A perk of being single is having no witnesses to my weaknesses.

STILL GOT IT

A year ago today, I checked into a group home, beginning a thirteen-week program alongside seven other people with eating disorders, hoping that I might finally end all the self-hatred about my body (and the rest of myself).

My meals were monitored, with portions measured out to make sure I was taking in enough of the right kinds of foods. The program strove to introduce me to a new way of looking at food, replacing four decades of fearing meals and restricting my intake. Through a reduced exercise regimen that permitted only five one-hour workouts per week, my body was supposed to recover from being constantly overworked, part of an endlessly desperate attempt to work off calories, love handles and an oversized belly that existed, I am told, more in my mind than in reality. While some people with eating disorders have bulimia and throw up foods they binge, exercise has been my way of purging anything that I considered to be harmful intake.

With the other residents, I attended a hospital program four days a week, a combination of individual sessions with a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a dietitian and group sessions led by a rotating team of professionals.

A year earlier, I’d belonged to an out-patient provincial eating disorders program, picking and choosing various courses and making absolutely no progress. I resisted everything. My eating disorder had become my way of coping with the uncertainties of life. I may not have been able to control external factors, but I’d mastered how to control my body. If I forfeited my eating disorder, I suppose the thinking was that I’d be left with chaos. Instead of forgiveness and self-acceptance, I would experience a spike in self-hatred. There was no chance I’d make progress in a casual program. I knew I was a complex piece of work and I begged to be admitted to the group home program.

I contend that my eating disordered thoughts and behaviors became deeply entrenched because it took so long for me to be diagnosed. I’m far from the prototype for an eating disorder. My body has only looked like what you’d see on an eating disorder poster a few times in my life. Usually, I feel certain that my body needs to lose weight and that it’s not just in my head...anybody would see that if I ever strayed from the baggy clothes styles that came into fashion in the ‘80s.

I’m male and men are under-diagnosed for eating disorders. I grew up seeing photos of emaciated teenage girls and knowing that Karen Carpenter died from an eating disorder. It was a feminized condition.

My family doctor missed it—even when I said outright, “I think I’m anorexic.” The doctors and psychiatrists in the psych ward missed it, even as nurses complained about me refusing to eat and doctors assigned me daily consultations with dietitians (whom I stressed out) and brought in a cardiologist due to abnormalities with my heart.

I was well beyond my teens when I was finally diagnosed; I was fifty-three. This was not part of some midlife crisis. My symptoms first appeared before I reached my teens. I offer this background information to illustrate why I’m still conflicted over my eating disorder diagnosis. I’m the “wrong” age, “wrong” gender and “wrong” weight.

While in programs, I glance at protruding collar bones and frail arms of young women sitting across from me and I have to fight the feeling that I’m an impostor. Most programs have wait lists and I feel I’m taking up a space that should be for someone with more urgent needs. I regularly share this with professionals and they always assure me that I belong. (Gee, is that a good thing?) In fact, they denied my repeated requests to be put on the wait list for the group home because the team felt I wasn’t ready. I would fail without first being admitted to a more intensive seven-week in-patient hospital program. That required another wait list. All along, I asserted that the hospital program was wrong for me and it was with a twisted sense of triumph that I went through that whole thing making zero progress.

Ha! Told you so.

As it turned out, the group home experience didn’t work out either. My mood crashed. I battled with the dietitian. (Taking away my cottage cheese and forcing me to eat peanut butter felt very threatening!) Just as in the hospital program, I lost any sense of independence, my writing routine—my life’s passion—almost disappeared and other immature, attention-seeking personalities in the house became a huge distraction. I made the decision to leave after five weeks.

And now, a year later, my eating disorder is on autopilot. My one slight victory was that, since the hospital admission ended in May 2019, I’d stuck to a slightly reduced exercise schedule—much more than allowed in the hospital or the group home, but a bit less than my prior standards. All that slipped away a few weeks ago. I’m relishing exercise, even as some injuries have popped up recently. Just do it, my brain says. (Thanks for that, Nike.)

All ties to the professionals at the hospital ended the day I withdrew from the group home. I attended one more course as part of the provincial out-patient program but, per protocol—largely due to funding, I presume—I was exited from all supports connected to that program last December. After a three-month “stepping out”, I was allowed to refer myself back into the program, but I didn’t do so because I’d planned to move out of province...until COVID-19 came along and sidelined all that.

With more than six months passing, I now require a completely new referral for any kind of support. I’ve decided to wait on that. I could still move so it doesn’t seem the right time to re-invest. Moreover, the services would like be through Zoom and, while convenient, I know I need to physically show up if I’m really going to commit.

And that’s the biggest issue. I’m not ready to commit again. I know I still need help but I’m not ready to change. Another program would only mean another failure and that would only be a win for the pesky eating disorder. More entrenchment. You can’t beat me!

As I write this, my stomach is calling for food. It’s not even a growl as my body has gotten used to prolonged periods of fasting. A meal is still hours away. A big run comes first. (Weirdly, when I exercise, all feelings of hunger disappear.)

One year later. No better, no worse. I could say I’m learning to live with this, but the truth is, I accomplished that ages ago. I hold out hope that the time will come when I am tired of all this—thought I’d reached that point by the beginning of 2019, but I was wrong.

Change is possible. Someday.

VOTED OFF THE ISLAND...OR NEVER LET ON

I recognize my dismay this week at seeing Fire Island celebrants forgoing social distancing and face masks goes beyond a health concern. In any other year, similar pics would still ruffle me. Oh, the frivolity! The shallowness!

And, yes, in any other year, they could snap back, “Envious much? Looks like someone doesn’t know how to have a good time.”

If the retort stings a little, it’s because there’s some truth to it.

No one has ever thought of me as one of the fun gays. And never ever has a gay stranger asked to have his picture taken with me—And here I am with a hottie. A real sweetie, too!—in an attempt to boost his likes on Instagram.

Of course, I’m way past Fire Island prime. My Best Before date would have been somewhere around 1992. A few spritzes of Carolina Herrera cologne might have masked any sour milk stench until 1995.

It wouldn’t matter how much tinkling I did with a time machine. At no time have I fit the Fire Island brand. I’m more of an Island of the Misfit Toys kind of guy. (If you think I’m putting myself down, read this, my second most-read post ever...after the one about Ricky Martin, coincidentally a quintessential Fire Islander candidate.)

I’m pretty sure if I’d ever shown up in my twenties or thirties to board the ferry to Fire Island, they’d have refused my money and kindly suggested I spend my day at the Long Island Aquarium instead. A different kind of otters. Penguins, too! Let the overload of cuteness assuage the pain of It Gay denial.

Yes, even in my prime, I’d have been better suited for a spot on my very own Arctic ice floe than standing poolside in a Fire Island crowd, asking the frenemy beside me, “Do you think if I chew this ice cube it will make my abs look less defined?”

Abs. As if.

It’s a little too convenient for me as an “ancient” fifty-something to roll my eyes at the waxed and buffed thong strutters and say the party boys have their priorities out of whack.

Morning selfie, stepping into the shower. Low-fat smoothie. Work.

Another smoothie. Tweets about the Kardashian du jour. Work.

Tanning appointment. Gym. Post-gym selfie. High-protein, low-carb

dinner. “Real Housewives of...Salt Lake City”?? Resting-in-bed selfie.

Nighty night.

God, even without Trump and the coronavirus, 2020 seems like a mess.

Still, back in the day, my life wasn’t all that different. Sure, we had “The Real World” instead of “Real Housewives” and photos had to get taken to the drugstore or little drive-thru huts to get developed. (If anyone pointed a camera toward themselves and pressed the button, they would have looked utterly ridiculous and, dare I say, vain.)

There was no shortage of gym divas who madly tanned and toned between circuit party weekends. I attempted some form of parallel play, showing up without fail to Sports Connection for step classes, a weekly ab-cruncher session and extended weight workouts. My abs stayed absent and my butt never bubbled. For all my curls, I never managed to coax a bicep to come out, come out wherever it was. My impressive leg press load failed to add definition to my chicken legs. It was all pain, no gain.

If I couldn’t muscle up, I figured I could at least lose my love handles. The quest caused me to have a falling out with Ben. And Jerry. (I might not have turned my back had I known that they’d one day discontinue Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.) My fridge was full of nonfat products and six-packs of Tab. For a while, I think I was personally responsible for a resurgence of celery in Southern California produce sections. Num-num.

Alas, the love handles loved me too much.

If weights, twelve hundred sit-ups a day and nonfat cottage cheese had done what they were supposed to do, I might have become a different kind of gay. I would never have fully crossed over—always a geek and never a pill popper (rarely even Tylenol for a migraine)—but I might not have stood out for all the wrong reasons when I was It Gay-adjacent. I might have gotten a little recognition for all the time I’d put in and all the sacrifices I’d made in pursuit of the body beautiful.

I realize how sad that sounds. Pathetic even. I’d come off as so much more evolved if I claimed I’d always focused on what’s inside and if I’d easily accepted my body, flaws and all, never tearing up as Christina Aguilera sang “Beautiful,” never once calling Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” My Song. But I’m committed to being honest on this blog, even when it exposes the ugly parts of me (and, here, I’m talking about what’s inside). Truth is, I wanted to look good. I wanted to be looked at. My goal was always to find love but I thought, if I looked hot, I’d have options instead of defaults and booby prizes.

My friends crammed in extra sessions at the gym in the weeks leading up to the annual White Party in Palm Springs. I silently marveled at how their extra sets added the right kind of bulk while my body stuck to status quo. As they headed for the desert, I stayed home, sticking to my line that I couldn’t handle the heat.

Peripherally, I knew gays who showed up at Halloween balls dressed as shirtless firemen one year and gold body-painted Adonises the next. My most memorable gay Halloween party costume was as a Crayola crayon. I rocked it in head-to-toe yellow felt.

Even on ordinary Saturday nights at Rage or Studio One in West Hollywood, there’d come a point when the It Gays would send each other stud signals and shed their shirts to show off firm pecs and washboard abs glistening in sweat. Yes, their sweat was sexy. The stares they got were just rewards for all the time they’d put in. I served as a harsh Wall Street lesson: not every investment pays dividends. I kept my shirt on. Always. Once my pit stains got big enough from decidedly unsexy sweat, I’d slip out and walk far too many blocks back to my car alone, trying to shake that pesky Janis Ian song from my head.

Who knows what may have happened if my body had ever become Fire Island-worthy or even Friday night Santa Monica Rooster Fish-worthy (a spot for the non-West Hollywood gays). I’d struggled with an eating disorder for a decade before moving to Los Angeles and coming out. The gay scene didn’t cause my condition but it certainly made things worse.

Sometimes I wished I could somehow magically wake up and be straight. Among other things, it would have meant feeling safer walking alone at night, having less fear about getting AIDS and not having to edit my mannerisms. More than that, it would have taken off so much of the pressure to look a certain way in order to be looked at in return. It would have meant Fire Island never being on my gaydar and maybe a few photos of me lying shirtless by some Club Med pool, downing another Budweiser with one hand, proudly patting a Buddha belly with the other.

Blech. No Club Med. And no Fire Island. At fifty-five, I’m still adjusting to my own little island. Sometimes it feels good knowing my supposed prime is in the past. For many of us, “It gets better” gets even better with age.

ON AN ISLAND, NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY

I saw the pics of party boys crowded together on Fire Island over the Fourth of July weekend, face masks ditched along with most other accessories and articles of clothing. My first thought was a combination of horror and shame. I’ve always gotten defensive when a gay person or a group of gays does something that makes it easy for haters to cite while claiming we are a deplorable lot. It’s as if gays have to always be on their best behavior. No gay man can be a COVIDIOT. It’s a doubly damning when a gay group comes off as hypersexual and vacuous.

I suppose my defensiveness comes from growing up in an era when homosexuals were regularly labeled as perverts and recklessly lumped in with pedophiles and other societal pariahs. With so few openly gay men forty years ago, the public actions of one was easily deemed the actions of all. It’s why I resented and despised the only gay organization I ever read about in media: NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association). It perpetuated the notion that gays were pedophiles and, lo and behold, there wasn’t a throng of “regular” gay men coming forward to state otherwise.

Despite all the gains the LGBTQ community has made, I remain wary that acceptance is far from universal and there are intolerant factions emboldened by the occupant of the White House who look for fodder to fuel their campaign to return to a reign of straight white men.

Maybe I should just chill and tell myself that the “good ol’ days” won’t come back just because a group of gym-primed gays lets loose after months of lockdown, drinking and doing party drugs while cramming together like sardines at some party venue. There have been plenty of photos of predominately straight people flocking to beaches and bars, face masks and social distancing recommendations be damned. There’s a contingency of humans that flocks to It places—crowded spaces—eager to see and be seen, excited to post that they were part of The Happening on social media. Look at me, bitches! I’ll bet you wish you were me!

Actually, no. But then I’m an extreme introvert whose daily life didn’t change a whole lot as the planet shut down on account of the coronavirus. Still, I get that many people have felt like they’ve been cooped up for too long. Lockdown fatigue has led to many episodes of shortsighted, selfish behavior.

As I pass septuagenarians and octogenarians, I take wider detours to give them space and I hope for their continued wellness. I would be shattered if I somehow passed the virus on to them through my action or inaction. I wish more people would remain cognizant of the people most vulnerable to this epidemic.

I truly hope that the Fire Islanders do not contract the virus. I have my doubts though, considering how badly New York was hit. I worry the attendees will return to households, workplaces and communities, unknowingly spreading the coronavirus to elderly and immune-compromised people they come across. It takes a little reminder, but I know their actions do not represent most gay men. Stupid people come in every race, gender, social class and sexual orientation. It’s just when they are COVIDIOTs, the stakes are so much higher.

Be sensible, people. And stay healthy.