WHOSE ANNIVERSARY IS IT ANYWAY?

WARNING: Grumpy old-ish man post. 

Sometimes I know I shouldn’t but I do anyway…

 

 

 

I suppose public displays of affection have always been a struggle for me. My family is repressed and I spent my adolescence and college years in Texas during the late ’70s and the ’80s. Gay. Closeted. Any public expression of affection—words, actions, the slightest glance—was not within the realm of possibility. Affection itself, even in private, was not part of my world.

 

I hated Valentine’s Day. Still do…especially after this year. 

 

I think I’ve grown some. Seeing a couple hold hands as they take up the whole sidewalk is cute enough to keep my annoyance in check while stepping into the curb to pass them. They have a dog on a long leash and a baby stroller, too. Still holding hands. Kinda wow.

 

When it’s an older couple walking hand in hand, I’m even more touched. Maybe Martha and Richard are newly dating, having finally dumped their now-insignificant others, Henry and Betty, but I make the assumption they’ve been together fifty or sixty years. It makes the handholding more astonishing. Still connected, still loving each other, still able to amble about without compulsively checking phone screens to see the latest Facebook posts about grandchildren and Fran Hofstadler’s runner-up pickleball trophy.

 

Over the course of my relationships, I’ve learned to relax when a moment arises to hold hands, hug or even kiss in public. At first, it would only happen in the gay ghettos like West Hollywood and Vancouver’s Davie Street. Even then, there was an unspoken mutual agreement to let go if three or four straight-looking dudes approached. A hand felt nice, but the prospect of a punch made it prudent to create a bit of distance between us. Blame a strong survival instinct and a gut feeling I wouldn’t look so good with a broken nose. 

 

In my most recent relationship, open affection was more common and most welcome. Still, I would occasionally flinch. A reflex. I’d spent a lot of time in my past fretting over being gay bashed. I was subjected to verbal hate, enough to make me ever-aware someone might take things to another level. 

 

To be clear, physical touch is good. Let people be affectionate.

 

And you thought this would be a cranky post.

 

Ready…set…go!

 

PDA, okay. PPA, not so much.

 

What I don’t like are Publicized Pronouncements of Affection. On Valentine’s Day, why do people log into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and every other social media account they have to post a photo of themselves as a couple or just a shot of their love bounty—a box of chocolates, some roses, maybe a new toaster oven? (Who am I to say what’s the right way to say, “I love you”? I am single, after all.)

 

I’ve said it many times…I don’t like obligatory expressions of love just because the calendar indicates it’s the 14^th of February. I also don’t like how the day feels like a flaunting fest, the Haves triumphant, the Have Nots sheltering in place, ordering Domino’s and watching Netflix in a lamplit living room. Definitely no candles! 

 

At least we Have Nots can anticipate all the love in the air. One day. A chance to binge-watch Project Runway or stream Ryan Reynolds movies. Maybe eat lunch in the car on the 15^th as people compete/share what their amazing lovers did for them. (“He kissed me and then asked me to make him a panini in the toaster oven!”) By the 20^th, the Have Nots can visualize roses wilting. Post a pic of that, people!

 

Valentine’s Day comes and, whew, goes.

 

It’s anniversaries that blindside me the rest of the year. I honestly don’t understand the public pronouncements about anniversaries. Maybe that’s rooted in lingering repression. Still, excepting silver and golden anniversaries, I always thought a wedding or relationship anniversary was intimate, something planned and shared for two. Dinner. Romance. Cards with beautiful words, handwritten rather than scribed by some guy in a corner cubicle at Hallmark headquarters. Thoughtful gifts that try to incorporate the year’s theme—paper (1^st), tin/aluminum (10^th, yeesh), steel (11^th). No toaster ovens allowed. 

 

So I don’t get the social media posts:

Happy 4^th anniversary to the love of my life who 

shows true love by watching all televised 

golf tournaments with me.

 

It’s our 32^nd! Through lies, affairs and that two-year 

stint I had to live in the garage, we’ve exemplified 

“for better or for worse.”

 

17 years ago, I met this man at a monster truck show. 

It’s been a passionate love of trucks, tatts and each 

other ever since.

 

Why? 

 

Does the tweet or Facebook post excuse forgetting a card (and a gift)? Does the fact the post got 253 likes, with an especially strong pro-anniversary contingent from Tennessee, make one’s partner swoon? Is this what we’re calling romantic in the social media era?

 

Again, I do not get it. Growing up, my siblings and I didn’t buy anniversary gifts or cards for our parents (except for their 50^th). We didn’t even say, “Happy anniversary!” It would have felt odd. It was theirs, not ours. I assume my parents exchanged the sentiment and did something. They didn’t make a spectacle of it. 

 

I truly like the idea of an anniversary being private and intimate. A table for two. A dessert for two. A celebration for two, with personal expressions of love, door closed. 

 

Why am I writing whining? Because it’s that “Mary Tyler Moore Show” song every single day, but in a bad way. Love Is All Around. 

 

Yes, every single day someone on social media gets to gloat. Still together! Still in love! How true or deep it is happens to be irrelevant. It’s the unwanted blast of another seemingly successful love story that adds to the sting that I have failed. Over and over again. Never a tin/aluminum gift; no steel. Silver is becoming remote according to actuarial tables and gold is impossible. 

It's not enough that I’m aware of all the anniversaries within my family—not necessarily the exact dates or number of years…thirty-something, almost twenty. Every day I’m blindsided by strangers. Ruth and Eddie together forever! (Sixty-five years is BEYOND forever.) Luke and Diego, 22 years! Sara and Samantha, 8!

 

Five times, I’ve been in love, but I never reached Sara and Samantha’s milestone. Gee, thanks for that daily reminder. Have your cake and eat it, too. Me, I’ll pull out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, no sharing, no “Can I have a taste?” 

 

No consolation.

 

  

ORDINARY WORLD

Calendar says March 6. I don’t have anything marked on my iCalendar app. It wasn’t like I was going to forget the significance of the date. Now, I only wish I could.

 

Two years together. Happy Anniversary!

 

But we didn’t quite make it. We flamed out three weeks beforehand. I’d bought the card. I knew how else I’d mark the occasion, with him in Denver and me in Vancouver. A special day, but it didn’t seem essential we’d be physically together on the actual day. Such is the nature of long-distance relationships. I always knew there’d be more. 

 

Scratch all that. I’m the fool. I fully believed we were on solid ground. We’d worked through our differences as they came up. This was the one relationship where I didn’t hold on to things said and done in past conflicts. I seemed to blank on them immediately after the fact because the particulars didn’t matter. We’d gotten through. I felt secure enough to stay in the present. 

 

When enough time passes, I’ll be able to finally look back. When people ask how long it lasted, I’ll unequivocally say, “Two years.” The three-week deficiency won’t matter. Mathematically, it’s a no-brainer case of rounding up. 

 

Today, of course, rounding is a faulty exercise. It stings.  

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of special days on the calendar. I never have announced my “balloon day” on Twitter. I see how these posts generate lots of likes, but I don’t need that. It’s not an achievement when I have another birthday. "Still here." 

Technically, I did a few things right to still be around. I regularly look both ways before crossing the street. I wash my lettuce (or, more accurately, because I’m lazy, I rarely buy the stuff, even as a vegetarian). Skydiving will always be a firm, “Hell no!” I made it through the AIDS crisis. Doctors successfully removed my melanoma thirty-five years ago and it hasn’t come back (that I know of). I haven’t fainted upon seeing a grizzly while hiking. (Worst fainting injury: broken foot—in my home, not on a trail.) 

 

So birthdays…meh. Call me a humbug—it fits—but I don’t get excited about getting drunk on New Year’s Eve. (Do I even have to finish the obligatory flute of champagne?) Easter? I’m not much for chocolate. Pride? Too often it feels like people wanting to call maximum attention to themselves wearing as little as possible instead of a rally to consider what rights need our vigorous support locally, nationally and globally. Thanksgiving? I do love a pumpkin pie and I always make one sometime within a six-week window of the holiday, but it’s rarely on the designated day. Christmas? Yay, “Rudolph.” Yay, shortbread. But, personally, it feels like the loneliest time of year. 

 

I prefer ordinary days. Basically, I do better on days like May 17 and November 3, random squares on a desk calendar. Maybe it’s National Pizza Day somewhere or Polka Dot Sock Day. I prefer randomness and quirkiness to obligatorily hyped days laden with expectations. Let me make something of May 17. Let me occasionally make ordinary extraordinary, all my own doing.

 

This is also why I don’t like Valentine’s Day. Hallmark, the flower industry, chocolatiers and primary school teachers have done a masterful job grooming us to acknowledge the day. Considering what happened to me this Valentine’s, I like the day even less.

 

But an anniversary has always seemed to matter to me. It’s not just the passing of time that makes an anniversary happen. This milestone is a result of commitment, communication and doing the hard work that allows a relationship’s continuation. There are lots of perks, of course—support, feeling seen and understood, sex, spontaneous laughter, truly connected conversations, a companion to do things with you wouldn’t do for yourself like make pasta from scratch or splurge on a stay at a magical hotel in a national park, someone to nudge you out of your comfort zone, getting you to ride a roller coaster or go to an EDM concert. An anniversary is a celebration of the work, the joy and connection that two people are invested in. 

 

Today was supposed to be a genuine day of pride, not just Pride in the LGBTQ sense but PRIDE, all-caps, and appreciation of all we had experienced and an excitement that much more was to come.

 

Not to be. 

 

This March 6^th represents failure in the absence of a card or call. My parents have been married for sixty-three years, my sister for thirty-seven, my brother for thirty-four. Once again, I didn’t make it to two. And that’s not even counting time from the point of a ceremony. Weddings aren’t a marker for me. I didn’t even have the right to marry in a place where I lived until I was thirty-eight. It wasn’t a part of what I envisioned as a long-term relationship. I don’t need the hype of it. It’s not a must for me. Right now, of course, that prospect feels as ludicrous as it did when I first came out and was trying to find a relationship that stretched past two weeks.

 

I long ago stopped counting my relationships in two-week intervals, but now it’s two years that feels woefully short.

 

So today is just March 6^th. An ordinary day. Cue Duran Duran. On any other day, ordinary would be just what I asked for. But on this day, it’s not what I want at all.

 

 

 

  

FIVE AND THEN SOME

Yeah. I’m the kind of guy who forgets an anniversary.

I let the day marking nine years being single pass right by without playing a song by Linda Ronstadt, Eric Carmen or Gilbert O’Sullivan.

Today marks twenty-eight years of being a vegetarian, but I only stumbled upon that fact as I began writing this. I have no special plans with tofu tonight (not that I ever do!).

Mid-June marked the fifth anniversary of my Rural Gay blog. That is indeed a milestone. I began with a short post explaining my love for quieter, scenic surroundings but ruing the fact that I was losing my gay identity. My thoughts are as true today as they were then.

I felt the blog provided an original point of view—what middle-aged fool goes from urban to rural as a single gay man? What compelled me to play The Opposite Game? Isn’t it a law of nature that all small town gays must move to the city as soon as they attain some semblance of independence? Aren’t the suburban and nether-land gays the ones who have found a partner and want to explore gardening and daily nature walks? I’ve discovered that we fools are few and far between, but I am not alone, at least not in spirit.

Five years ago, blogging was new to me. I didn’t really get it. I’d write something, post it and then nothing would happen. Did anyone read it? I figured it was my online journal—if nothing else, a way to save paper as I worked through random, often self-absorbed thoughts.

It took sixteen months before I received my first comment. Eureka! A reader! Comments have come sporadically since then, but they’ve never been as much as I’d hoped. I wanted the blog to be a meeting place, particularly for other remote gay men, a way for them (and myself) to feel connected and to reaffirm whatever it is that makes us gay.

Eventually I got a Twitter account, using the Rural Gay name and it has proven to be a better connection to The Disconnecteds. I’ve also received far more feedback regarding my posts through Twitter. I suppose a quick Tweet is easier than posting a comment under an account and affirming you are not a Spambot by typing one or two blurry, usually nonsensical “words”.

My greatest dilemma in keeping the blog current is having something to say. If I want, I can Tweet about cutting my toenails or burning a piece of toast. These “events” are not blog-worthy. (Really, they shouldn’t be Tweet-able either but there are thousands of people who lack Twitter sense. I’m talking to you, ArizonaDaredevil4. I don’t care which McDonald’s you are at for lunch.) A key aspect of being Rural Gay is that nothing much gay happens. Perhaps the blog concept was inherently flawed. Still, I’ve somehow managed to write 227 posts. My apologies for the more inane ones. Rest assured, I’ve rejected even duller ideas!

A few years ago, I decided I needed to abandon rural living. I needed the sound of sirens, I’d come to appreciate traffic lights and, yes, I wanted to eat at restaurants that featured a single cuisine. (Still haven’t tried the Greek/Indian/pizza place in my neighboring town.) With the house up for sale, I figured the blog’s days were numbered. I’d go from “Rural Gay” to “Gay”, maybe even with a celebratory exclamation mark. As one of many urban gays, my life would be happily unbloggable.

And yet I blog on. The house is off the market. I’m here to stay for the foreseeable future. The blog has gone from Is anybody out there? to a modest but growing 3,000 visitors a month. I am glad you are with me, Dear Reader. Even when you lurk in silence and are nothing more than a number on my blog count, you provide me an audience which is what every writer desires. More importantly, you make me feel less alone, more connected and a part of something bigger.

Thank you for reading. I am immensely grateful!