I’m a descriptive writer, I love details, analogies, essays and creativity. Someone told me one night that I write because it’s how I come to understand things.  That through my writing I come to terms with things that once tormented me or that continues to torment, perplex or inspire me to journey inward.  I make sense of these things through writing when I can’t put the puzzle pieces together in my head by just thinking about them.  He said that I don’t write just so that I can explain things to other people and tell them who I am, but I write so that I can come to know myself.

I can’t claim to know why human beings are drawn to each other.  I don’t know what really causes us to be attracted to certain people or even what things we collectively look for as a species in one another. I’m not sure if I can even explain what attracts me to certain people.  Though, I have on numerous occasions attempted to figure it out and have tried to dissect it in writing.

I’d like to know what causes me to be drawn to a broader spectrum of people, more accurately particular genders. I’m physically and emotionally attracted to men, but not so much romantically. I’m romantically and emotionally attracted to women, but not so much physically. There are things I’ll do with a girl that I won’t do with a guy and things I’ll do with a guy that I won’t do with a girl. I’m neither gay nor straight.

When I was younger I was drawn to certain girls that I found both physically attractive in the sense that I thought they were pretty and who’s personalities I found favorable. Like any male, I was also drawn to other males, as friends.  Guys to talk to, relate to, have fun with, laugh and joke around with, pick on each other, normal guy stuff.

These are things all kids go through and experience.  But at some point everything changed and I became consciously aware of this change.  A change in perception and desire. At around eleven years old I began to see things differently, I began to feel differently about people.  I still liked girls as friends, but it wasn’t just friends.  There was something else there.  I could feel it, proverbially in my heart. I liked their attention, I liked spending time with them and talking to them and I wanted to be closer to them.  I became jealous when the girls I liked spent time with other guys.

By all accounts that part was entirely average.  Puberty causes physiological changes, charged by chemical changes in body and mind. For me those changes didn’t just end there.  The way I saw and felt about some males also changed.  Sure, I still saw some of them as friends who I could spend time with and talk to, joke around with. However, there were other males that I found myself drawn to in ways that I knew were not normal.

I started to notice things in guys such as attractiveness.  I knew whether or not another male was physically good looking.  For the most part, I have always felt like this was normal for all guys.  Despite many guys being unwilling to acknowledge the attractiveness of each other, most males, if not all, are fully capable and fully aware of how attractive each other are, regardless of orientation.  I think it’s something that comes into play in knowing whether or not another male is a threat in competition for females.

What pushed me beyond that level of new normalcy was that I didn’t just notice how attractive they were, I wasn’t just interested in hanging out with them because I felt like it would increase my chances of being noticed by a girl. No, I was drawn to them because I wanted to become more than friends with them, I wanted to know everything about them, become best friends, even become physically familiar with each other.

You see, at eleven years old, I wondered what their guy parts looked like.  Not because I wondered whether or not I measured up, but because I was turned on by it.  It excited me to think about another guy naked.  When we looked at playboy magazines and the other guys got all worked up about the naked girls, I didn’t care about the girls anymore, I was way more curious about finding naked pictures of guys.

It wasn’t just physical lust or shameful curiosity and I only say shameful because back then I was incredibly embarrassed and ashamed that I had those feelings.  I may have been eleven, but I knew it was not normal.  I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it wasn’t something the other guys around me were apparently going through and experiencing.  I felt like I was all alone in my thoughts and feelings.

Even though I spent the next eleven years of my life hiding and trying my hardest to pretend that I didn’t have an abnormal interest in other guys, those feelings didn’t just vanish from my mind because I wanted them to.  I had to fight them every single day, sometimes I faltered, but who could hold it against me, I was fighting a war that I had no chance of ever winning. Despite the unending curiosity towards certain guys, I carried on.  Luckily for me, I still had an interest in girls.  They still made me feel certain things and even though my raging hormones didn’t make me overrun with the desire to see them naked, I still wanted their attention.

Though I have never been able to understand that aspect of me, it was something that carried on into my adult life.  Even today, I still feel drawn to certain females, especially the more time I spend with them.  They make my heart feel something that is similar to how I feel with a guy.  A romantic and flirty sensation that hasn’t gone away with my attempts to ignore it.

There was one particular girl from my past that made me realize this before any other.  I had always found her physically attractive and her extroverted personality made her enjoyable to be around.  When I spent time with her, she made me feel good emotionally.  I liked having her attention and I liked being with her. The more time we spent together the more drawn to her I became.  I started to see us together in the future.  Dating, a relationship.  I fantasized about what it would be like later down the road, what we could become, what our lives would be like together with a family.

Eventually the fluttery emotions turned to physical desires and one particular day when we were standing close to one another I became consciously aware that I wanted to kiss her.  It confused me because by that time I had assumed I was gay. So, I didn’t understand how I could feel that way towards a girl.  I had no intention of dating women anymore, I had no desire to have a sexual relationship with one and yet here I was feeling romantically drawn to this girl and suddenly craving physical interaction.

Periodically that same bizarre feeling would come back to me in moments with other girls.  Over the years I have found that who the girl is plays a major effect on whether or not it happens because it didn’t just happen with physically attractive women.  It took much more than looks to spark that feeling inside me.

The most recent time was different, I hadn’t spent time with this girl, in fact we didn’t know each other at all whatsoever.  Just the mere sight of her face caused that reaction and it was the first time that it had ever happened without interaction or familiarity. For the first time a girl whom I did not know personally, caused the same physiological reaction inside of me.  Suddenly I found myself being sexually aroused by this girl I knew nothing about.

It baffled me, it caused a lot of confusion and inner conflict.  It didn’t make sense to me at all.  How had this happened, why did it happen and what did it mean, were just a few of the questions I started asking myself.  I didn’t have answers for any of it. It was a fundamental moment for me.  It made me rethink who and what I was.

Since 2008, I have encountered similar situations that made me or others think that I wasn’t gay at all.  I’ve dated men who told me I wasn’t gay, some told me that I was bisexual, others told me I was straight and confused.  I’ve even had girls tell me they found it difficult to believe that I was gay.  But at the time I was so convinced that I was, that I just brushed off their words as them simply not knowing me well enough.  They didn’t know the thoughts I had since childhood.

Despite these momentary lapses of confidence in my orientation, I was still sure that I was only really into men.  That was until this girl made me put all those pieces together and I realized that I wasn’t entirely gay. In my article “Ubiquitous” I outlined that orientation is not always so black and white.  Human attraction is a fluid thing, not everyone is just gay or just straight.  In reality, I think most people are somewhere in between those two things, whether they ever act on it or not. What draws or attracts us to some people isn’t always what attracts us to others.  It changes with the individual we’re looking at.  Sometimes we have to find different people who attract us before we realize the differing aspects of what we find attractive.

It was a sobering truth and even now I don’t know what to call myself when faced with a situation where I have to pick an orientation. Recently I was asked and I simply said that I didn’t know and that I was following my heart wherever it led me. I’ve looked back across my past relationships, attempting to figure out where I was the happiest.  Hoping that in-so-doing I would figure out which gender I should be focusing most of my attention on and looking for a partner in. Truly, I don’t know.

Most of my relationships with males and females were fleeting.  None of them ever lasted more than three months from the point at which we met.  Granted many of them were detrimental relationships that crumbled due to their lies, their cheating, their addictions and a lack of their willingness to commit to a monogamous relationship. The one guy that was good, I lost interest in and no longer had a physical attraction or romantic feelings for, which led to an inevitable break-up.

The girls I dated were those who asked me out.  None of them I actually went out and pursued.  I will, however, say that a couple of those girls I held an interest in for years after our relationship ended.  It was just one of those things, where we were not compatible. There is this one girl that I have always had an interest in ever since we met in high school.  She’s so loving and gentle, she’s extremely beautiful, compassionate and caring, funny in a subtle, innocent and adorable kind of way.  She’s creative and artistic, expresses herself with her style rather than with words. She’s short, has stunning eyes and perfect porcelain skin.  She likes keeping her hair short and it just accentuates her beauty.  She could always make me smile or laugh with her dorkiness, even when I was having a bad day.  She made me feel safe and comfortable and I always enjoyed the days when I got to see her and spend time with her.  And not to mention we both like tattoos, cats and the same kind of music.

I don’t know if she and I could have ever been together romantically, but I know that if there had ever been a girl in my life that had everything I looked for, it would be her.  She is the standard by which I compare all girls that come into my life, she is literally the epitome of the perfect girl in my eyes. She and I can never be together, she’s married these days and I doubt she ever even knew I had feelings for her.  She seems happy and honestly that’s all anyone ever wants for someone they care about.

Why have I been so hell bent on finding a male partner when I am capable of having romantic feelings towards girls?  Why haven’t I been looking for a girl the same way I’ve been looking for a guy? Those are huge questions for me.  I have considered the potential answer to be that I spent so many earlier years holding those feelings in and feeling repressed that once I was liberated in 2008, I didn’t want to focus my attention on just girls anymore and they fell to the wayside of my focus.

But just because a guy is physically attractive and catches my attention doesn’t mean he’s actually going to keep my interest either.  I have a very specific type that gets my attention and is able to keep it. Sure, physical appearance makes me initially notice someone, but if he doesn’t have the right personality or collection of traits, then I will not be able to maintain interest in him.  Even if he looked like a model.  Without the right behavior, he’s just another guy on the street.

Something I’ve often found consistently true is that I’m much more likely to be interested in or fall for a straight or bisexual guy rather than a gay one.  Which as you might suspect has been rather problematic.
I’ve often wondered why that is and I’ve attempted a few times to decipher an explanation.  It really boils down to appearance, personality, and behavior.

There is an undeniable physical and psychological difference between men who identify as strictly heterosexual and men who identify as strictly homosexual. The difference between the two is not just something I’ve noticed.  This is something most people, of all genders and all orientations have noticed. The real question for me is why I find one more attractive than the other when either could be equally attractive in terms of physicality?

More than likely it has to do with my past.  Childhood probably.  We come to understand who attracts us or what type of traits both physical and psychological we find most attractive when we are children.  We observe, socialize and come to know and understand people throughout our lives and these people help us come to understand who or what we find attractive later in life when we are able to act on those feelings.

These traits, physical and psychological, are also traits that we exude ourselves or traits that we would like to see in ourselves.  Eventually these traits become externalized within our perception.  By that I mean they become traits we project on to others and wish to find, naturally, in our romantic partners.

As a young kid, I idolized super heroes, I was obsessed with all kinds of characters from different cartoons, video games, movies, books.  I collected all kinds of action figures.  When my girl relatives would come to my house, they would bring their barbies or whatever type of dolls were in trending at the time, we would play house together. But I never wanted to play with their Ken dolls.  I never liked the way they looked.  I used my actions figures, so that when we’d play house, I’d be Conan, Tarzan, one of the guys from the Masters of the Universe series such as He-Man, a Marvel or DC Comic character, toy soldiers, ninjas or some other masculinized and testosterone driven action figure from some cartoon or video game.

I idolized these characters as a kid (as do many young boys).  I wanted to be like them.  As I grew older, I never really lost that idolization.  Most guys don’t, we still base our understanding of manhood on the same basic principles we learn as children. Because I was born with the ability to be attracted to other men, when I became a teenager my interest in males reflected my perception of self and of manhood in general. Now that I’m an adult, my interest has not changed.  I’m drawn to men who reflect my childhood and teenage perception of manhood.  Physical and psychological traits that I associate with masculinity.  They don’t have to be big and buff like Conan or have the skills of a ninja, but they still have to meet my perception of what a real man is in their appearance, the way they think, and how they behave.

Based on research into the cause of homosexual feelings in men, as I explained in my writing “Ubiquitous”, the theory about the hypothalamus suggests that varying degrees in testosterone during prenatal development causes varying degrees in male behavior later in life. These variations in the hypothalamus not only explain differing orientations, but also differing personalities in the men within those orientations.

Being subconsciously and now consciously aware of these differences, I fully understand why I’m more attracted to certain straight and bisexual men than I am to most gay men.  They reflect something that I was drawn to growing up, both outside of myself and within myself. Why am I trying to get into a relationship with a male that reflects my childhood ideology of manhood? For love?  Without a doubt I can and do develop feelings for men that I’m drawn to.  When I think about what I want from a relationship with a guy it really cuts away all the nonsense that people fluff up romance with.  Regardless of orientation, everyone has this idea of what life would, could, or should be like in a relationship, or especially marriage.

I don’t abide by the standards of other people, I walk my own path and live my own life.  As I said before, I follow my heart and my heart doesn’t feel like it’s been leading me down the path of what society stereotypically deems a relationship between two men to be. Mostly because society depicts that type of relationship to be exactly like that of a man and a woman.  Even with gay couples, there seems to be this need to fulfill that male and female dichotomy.

When I was a kid and played alone with my action figures, of course they had girlfriends.  Sometimes the girl would be the damsel in distress type who always got captured by the bad guys and I had to go and rescue her.  Sometimes she was the kickass heroine type who would fight alongside the guy.  Sometimes the guy and girl would be married and have a kid or two and live out the happy family fantasy.

Regardless of the initial dynamic, there was also always another male action figure involved.  A best friend, a side-kick, a loyal companion who would fight beside the other guy and even be willing to die for him. As I grew, this two-male dynamic became more prevalent in my action figure fantasies.  The girl action figure ended up staying at home or at the hero’s base of operations or hideout with the kids, while my main character and his male pal would go out and fight crime or go on adventures together, whatever my imagination created.

Eventually, the girl action figure no longer got played with unless she was the bad guys’ prisoner.  Even then she was no longer the girlfriend or the wife, just some random hapless victim that needed saving. Sometimes I would even make her the villain, the one that came between the two guys and tried to separate them by trying to seduce one of them.  For some reason I became fixated on the two guys being together against the odds they faced.

In cartoons, games and movies I experienced this same fixation.  I would focus on two male characters that appeared to be best friends and thus very close to each other.  I would become upset when one of them died or when they were forced apart for whatever reason, or would even become angry when a woman would come between them and cause conflict in their friendship. Perhaps this obsession was some form of prepubescent subconscious desire for deep and intrinsic male bonding?

Whatever the reason, it was the turning point for everything after.  As I went through grade school, the action figure scenarios were reflected in real life.  I sought that same male-to-male friendship where two guys were inseparable, and faced things together. By the time my teenage years came around, my interest in having a best male friend became more than us just being best pals.  I wanted to go beyond that.  Best friends was no longer enough.  I wanted to know all of him, emotionally and physically.  To swear absolute loyalty, to never let anyone come between us, to be unequivocally honest, and to finally cross over the forbidden boundary and be the source of each other’s physical release.

I was too scared back then to actually find or create a relationship with another guy that involved sexual experimentation, but years later I would eventually find a group of males that I became very emotionally close with.  It definitely helped me grow in the understanding of what I wanted from a male-to-male relationship and how to go about nurturing that type of close friendship.

Sometimes friendships are the best teachers in showing us how we should approach relationships and what kind of people we should be in those relationships with.  I’ve always sought after a guy who I could see as my best friend.  To this day, I haven’t found that guy in my relationships, only in my friendships with heterosexual men have I found that type of emotional connection, where trust, loyalty, honesty and love were present.  But without need for mention, they were not interested in becoming anything more than just friends.

A culmination of childhood and adulthood experiences led me to this point and even though I find myself with yet more questions, such as why do I see male-to-male relationships more important than male-to-female relationships, I have at least found some sense of resolve in the fact that I’ve yearned for male companionship since I was a kid and that it’s not just some phase or momentary fracture from who I’ve always been.  It is in fact who I’ve always been.

Even if I were to get into a relationship with a girl, I still would not lose my intense desire to form an unconditional bond with another male, inseparable and primary to any other relationship within my life.  No girl I’ve ever met wants to get into a relationship with a guy who considers his relationship with her secondary to his relationship with another male.  And I suppose for that reason alone, it is in my best interest to continue searching for a male worthy of my companionship.

Love between two guys is real.  My friendships with straight guys over the years has proven to me that two men can love each other just as much as a man and a woman.  One of the best places to find and understand the bond between males is within the military or some other similar profession.  These guys spend a lot of time together, face profound struggles and traumatic events together, and in-so-doing get to know nearly everything about each other.  In some cases they know each other better than their own spouses.

It’s been a long and arduous journey trying to find a guy who understands all these things the same way I do.  Who has traveled through his life with the same perspective shaped by the same experiences that I have and wants the same things that I do.  A guy who realizes that love between two guys is more than the superficial nonsense that society tries forcing on us such as the notion that we have to behave the same way a man and a woman act in a relationship, where at least one guy needs to be effeminate or where both guys somehow lose their manhood by becoming physically close.  Or in more modern times how gay men are assumed to act.

I’ve loved men before, we never held hands and skipped down the side walk.  We never did anything that people stereotype gay men to do.  In fact we weren’t in a “gay” relationship at all because he wasn’t gay and apparently neither was I.  And yet he loved me and I loved him and we both told each other as much.  My aspiration is to find the same kind of love with a guy who’s willing to commit to one another and not let anyone come between us.  The final complexity for me is in crossing that love over the forbidden boundary of physical contact through whatever ways both guys are comfortable with.

Conforming to what other people think or want you to be is no way to live your life.  Whether you’re an effeminate gay man, a masculine gay man, or you’re a straight man or a bisexual man, or if you’re not even a man at all, just be who you feel that you are and look for someone who just tries to be who they are and that has the same perspective on life and love that you do.

I want to spend a lot of time with the guy I’m involved with, be his best friend, the first person he’d confide in. I want us to play around, horse around, lounge around, go on adventures. Be loyal to him and defend him unquestionably. I want to be the most important person in his life. I say this outright because I don’t like wasting my time or other people’s feelings by talking to or getting involved with someone that I already know can’t meet me where I’m at in terms of my perspective.

At times I go years without going on a single date and I’m fine with that.  I avoid physical intimacy outside of commitment. Only once in my life have I done the one-night-stand thing, I learned that it’s not my style. I view such things as pointless and meaningless, fleeting primal desires that weaken one’s integrity and dignity.

My sexual orientation is unknown to me and I’m not concerned with being labeled anymore. Most of the girls and guys I’ve been involved with in my life couldn’t figure me out. I’m a mystery, even unto myself, but one I no longer concern myself with solving. I’m content to be as I am.

What I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that since childhood, my heart has compelled me to seek another male’s companionship and loyalty.  And I think I’ve established that not just anyone will do.
I’m only interested in men who behave a certain way, but they can label themselves as gay, bisexual, pansexual, str8, truly straight, or FTM’s (female-to-male transgender), labels are irrelevant to me. I mention all of those orientations because I believe human orientation is ubiquitous.

However, any atypical femininity in a guy will not attract me. I mean no offense, I’m just merely being honest. I am not physically or sexually or emotionally attracted to men who display effeminate traits, mannerisms, or behavior. It immediately turns me off.  There are plenty of other guys out there who do like that sort of thing.

What does “dating” a guy even mean to me? I hesitate to use the word “dating” as it may not be the right word. My perception or perspective is a little archaic. Like 11th century archaic. When I notice a guy, I see his body structure first and the way he behaves, how he carries himself, his attitude and mannerisms. I look at his height and if he’s physically fit. If he passes that test, I look at facial features to see if I find him attractive.

My perception is archaic because I look at a guy to consider whether or not he would be good in a fight, if he’s healthy and strong enough to hold his own or defend others if need be. I prefer men of my own fitness level. I want to be impressed by his abilities, but not be outdone, I’m competitive like that. I’m kinda bizarre really. I choose my partners in life the way I would choose a partner in a video game. What is he good at, what skills does he lack, do our strengths and weaknesses compliment each other? Do we make a good match in standing against adversity? How badass is he, do I like the way he presents himself, what’s his attitude like, what are his interests? What kind of fighting style does he prefer, stealth, warrior, or mage?

That last question may not transition directly into real life, but you can learn a lot about a guy by the way he chooses to fight in a game or what type of characters he chooses to play as. In all seriousness, can I make his life better? Can he make my life better? These are important questions. Dating is such a trivial word, open to opinions and interpretations. After the experiences I’ve had at attempts to find romance with other men and women, I’ve realized that modern society’s concepts do not fit me.

To me, gay romance is overrated and probably unrealistic. For some, it may happen, but most of what I’ve observed for the past 12 years is that it usually ends in cheating, lies, open relationships with multiple sexual partners or bitter break ups. Even straight couples these days seem to meet this same endpoint. I’m not okay with any of those. I see dating more as a brotherhood, or a pact if you will, where two males become inseparably close, both emotionally and physically and transcend modern concepts and go beyond any traditional male friendship. I’d give a historical example, but I really don’t know one that didn’t involve the men also being married to women.

Most guys like me are not open about their deep interest in other males. Either they express their interest discreetly through one-night-stands or they repress it and spend their entire lives pretending like it doesn’t exist and just get married to a woman either because they’re lonely or because they finally find one they have an emotional connection with. And those that are open, or who pursue discreetly, only seem to just want to fool around in some type of friends with benefits agreement. That’s not what I want. But I’m also not looking for a gay romance.

Being with another male for me doesn’t mean holding hands and skipping down the sidewalk while kissing. It doesn’t mean having a glass of wine while we pet our lap dog in its cashmere sweater and pink bow as we discuss recent romance novels we’ve read, Lady Gaga’s latest album, or how much we’re just dying to go see some new musical. It doesn’t mean that we spend excessive amounts on clothing or look like we just finished a GQ photoshoot, go tanning, or carry make-up in our handbags just in case. It doesn’t mean we wear thong underwear, jockstraps, or dress like we just walked off a New York fashion runway. It doesn’t mean we discuss our latest sexual encounters with men we met on Grindr or Tinder, harass straight men about how we want to see their dicks and then cry homophobe when he gets offended, complain about how people judge us as we only moments later judge everyone we know, or scold those who support masculinity and not promote the feminization of men.

Why not? Because I don’t do any of those things and I wouldn’t want to be involved with someone who does. When it comes to holding hands with and kissing other men, these things are of no interest to me.  Why not?  Because they’ve not been generally effective on me.  What does that mean?  They turn me off, make me uncomfortable, like I want to crawl out of my own skin, they do not reinforce any sense of bonding or affection.  When guys want to do this stuff with me they transform into girls right before my eyes, and suddenly lose the thing that once attracted me to them.

I dated a guy once who whispered in my ear that he wanted to give me kisses and the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I wanted to vomit. It just gave me the creeps. Femininity in males repulses me.  When it comes to kissing girls and holding their hand I have a completely different physical and emotional response and actually like doing these things.

You won’t find me referring to any guy I’ve sworn my companionship to as “babe” or “baby” or “boo” or any other related pet name that heterosexual and stereotypically gay couples use, nor can I stand being called them by another guy, as it makes me feel incredibly awkward and emasculated. Those names are fine when a woman is involved, but when it’s two dudes, no thank you. You also won’t find me in gay bars, gay clubs or at drag shows. Not comfortable at those kinds of places or anywhere else gay men flock like pidgeons.  Again, not saying there’s anything wrong with that stuff or the people who like it, just saying that I personally have no interest in them.

So how does a man who doesn’t fulfill a gay steretype “date” another man? The only way he can, by becoming his best friend and allowing his genuine and down-to-Earth friendship-based love grow into something even stronger and deeper, without the fear of breaking physical barriers. If you remove the awkwardness that society forces on male-to-male relationships, you’ll be surprised at how deep, strong, meaningful and fulfilling they potentially can become. Two men do not have to act like a man and a woman or two women to be together.

Guys that are drawn to hands-on work are usually the type I’m interested in the most, mechanics, construction workers, redneck country guys, blue collar, but I also like social outcasts and rebels. I also appreciate a guy who is intelligent and can acknowledge he has emotions and can express them one way or another without fear.

With candid honesty, when it comes to physical intimacy, I’ve often not been sexually aroused by the men I’ve dated, or I simply just lost interest in them, because they turned out to not be as masculine as they initially led me to believe they were.
I’ve been alive long enough, been out long enough, dated enough girls and guys, to know who I am and what I’m looking for. I’m not going to settle for the first person that winks at me, that’s how mistakes are made. I’ve made enough of those.

I’ve gone beyond looking for delusional momentary lust-based romance where it only involves getting naked every time we hang out. That’s not love and in the end it will mean nothing. If a guy is after that, he’s come to the wrong person. In the past I’ve gone several years without so much as touching another guy. I have no qualms with being sexually abstinent either, butt sex is such an awkward and complicated thing. There are better ways to find physical release.

I want something deeper, stronger and longer lasting. Let me explain what a real bromance is because it’s more than that “friends with benefits” stupid shit that too many gay/bi guys get duped into or have delusions about. Love only exists between two guys that are intensely loyal to each other, who make each other their number one priority, that confess their fears and dreams to each other, who protect each other, spend their free time together, who laugh together, endure sorrow together, who form a committed bond that cannot be undone by others or broken by time.

The best male relationships I’ve ever had were with straight guys, but I’m pursuing one that crosses over that physical boundary few of them would even consider crossing and pushes the relationship to that final step of physical connection. I also believe in marriage, not for religious reasons, but as an act and testament to commitment and loyalty.

One of the guys I’ve connected with the best in my lifetime on a personal level was, of all people, a self-described straight Christian Evangelist. He was the first man to ever tell me that he loved me. He was a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, is now married to a woman and has kids. That might sound wildly unbelievable, but the reality is a lot of men yearn for emotionally close male friendship, and over the past twelve years I have ran into them time and time again.  But they are often afraid to pursue bonding of this type in fear of being labeled by society as having gay feelings.

In the end, what exactly do I want from another guy? To share life. Someone I can go hiking and camping with, lay on the couch and be lazy with, sleep til noon with, go out to eat with, go see movies with, go to the park with, someone to join me when I spend time with my family, go on trips with, laugh with, endure pain with, bond with in ways others only dream of.  A life-long male companion, my partner in crime, my final best friend, another man worth dying for.