Love and Relationships

*Photo courtesy of HarryD*

I was having an interesting email discussion with a Canadian friend this morning about love and relationships, listening to him write about his desire of having a deep and meaningful relationship with someone, which echoed my own feelings. He talked about gay guys not wanting to develop a friendship first, where their main concern is physical and how he doesn't just want that. He wants a real relationship which is emotional and sharing and loving and able to face the positive and negative aspects of relating to another human being. This requires more than a shallow relationship and that he does not want.

I realised that as I re-read these sentences that it is fundamentally what most of us want, not only from our lovers, but also from the important people in our lives. It is usually framed in a lovers perspective because they are the ones that will be there for us, fundamentally all along the way, or as romantic novels phrase ... down into the sunset ...

Since we shared similar values on love and relationship, I felt empathy for him and for anyone who feels that way about love and relationships. I have come a longer way and I wanted to share my own experiences here ...

And so I wrote, like you, I was waiting for someone to come and sweep me off my feet, just like those romantic novels, gay or straight. I didn't want to go to bars to meet anyone because somehow I felt them unworthy of me. I wanted to bump into them on my way to anyway, at the library, on the shopping aisles, anywhere but the venues where gay men pick up.

After all, I wanted to fall in love and didn't just want to engage in the shallow acts of sex, which the community seemed to be easily tagged with. With beats, saunas and all the stories you hear about sex venues, who could blame us for believing that gay love is all about free sex and the careless mind. I voted consciously when I first came out to be different. I judged and I prayed that I would not fall prey to such temptation. I didn't want easy sex. I wanted to make love and wanted to be made love too ... so I put myself on a pedestal ... so high that no one came around, and I wondered why?
There are not many places to meet gay men, and at that time, internet dating wasn't popular. I wasn't interested in online chatting because that seemed like another avenue to gain anonymous sex. So, tied with little options, I eventually went to some bars. I didn't feel like I was betraying my beliefs then because I was looking for a friendly face, one that spoke of true interest in me as a human being, not of pure sexual lust. Of course, I soon realised that it was not the place to be, and that not everyone who put sex before conversation was a bad person. I soon realised that many of my close friends were the "demons" I pictured in my head, and I loved them for who they are. They are still nice people after all. So, I set out a change. A change in me to stop judging people just because they have different needs and priorities from me. They are no less desirable just because they want sex on the first date or just prefer sex than having deep and meaningful relationships. If we all wanted the same thing, then the world would not be as colourful as it is. We would probably have more therapists to help fix all the relationship problems we have too.

We all need some comfort and loving sometimes, which is why we have designed places where we can find them. Sometimes, we can hold a stranger and for moments, fantasize that we are in love. Sometimes, this is the first step towards a relationship. Others, we can just walk away having our needs for belongingness met. The most important thing is to know what you want and how to get it. The gay world operates on a different level where sex is viewed as less of a taboo, so we can express ourselves more freely and sexually, and there's nothing to say or indicate that one cannot start a relationship by having sex first. I have a few friends who met their respective partners that way and they are still together . So, relationships that start with sexual encounters do work.

We have been living by certain rules that bind us to certain guidelines, which can be too restrictive. I respect your views and I know how you feel, but sometimes, I think we need to step down and enjoy life, love and perhaps even sex in a fun yet honest manner.

We all have needs and the best way we can approach it is to be honest about them. That is the first place to start. I believe that if we start off the wrong ground and prefer to play games, then we are going to get nowhere. With every relationship failure, we blame sometimes ourselves and build walls to ward off anyone ever hurting us that way again, but we are the ones that lose out eventually because we desire to love and be loved. So, the only way is to open our hearts and take whatever comes along.

I have been through a few hardships, but I learn from every lesson and I make sure that I stand strong and love myself more after each time, because if I can't love myself, who's going to be able to love me. Some might say I have been lucky to find that one special person, but I believe I grew up in the process of heartbreaks as well. Learning to accept and to love all the good and the bad times, accepting that they are all part and parcel of life. The roller coaster ride ...

He also spoke about monogamous relationships and if that is only fictional. For me, an avid reader and lover of romantic movies and novels, I like to say Yes, but it will take a lot of determination, communication and design. For what is monogamy? A wrong and a right? I have learned that it is up to us to design the relationships that we want. To be honest in the relationship and state what we both want, and make compromises, so that we are both happy with the end result that we have. We both grow in the relationship and the needs will change, so the design will need to be flexible. Relationships are difficult things, and sometimes when we feel the hard times, we wished that we are single because it is unbinding, but relationships are useful for helping us understand ourselves more as well, if we both put in the work.

Reflecting on these life experiences made me realise how much I had grown in my view of love and relationships. The fundamentals have remained but with time and education, I am less judgmental, more accepting and definitely more keen to try on new adventures. Life is a wonderful journey with love as a fundamental. Relationships and friendships help add the colour to every chapter ...