taking myself off the market

consider me unavailable. consider me out of print. consider me out of stock. a line from ani difranco's knuckle down stuck with me when i got the cd a month ago; i wrote about it in this very 'blog:

"i am high above the tree line
sitting cross-legged on the ground;
when all the forbidden fruit has fallen and rotted
that's when i'm gonna come down."

ironic, isn't it?

i went out with ricky in washington this weekend. i should say, i forced myself to go out in washington this weekend, because all i've wanted to do for a week is sit in my apartment. despite the support of my east coast (and chicago) family, and the fact that they've done nothing but listen to me bitch and moan for 8 days, i still find that all i'm interested in doing is nothing. with ricky's prompting, i reluctantly took the first step toward accepting my new status: single faggot.

i don't want to be back on the market; it's not that i can't accept this new reality, it's that i hate what being on the market means. being a yuppie fag means a string of bad first dates, a string of regrettable one-night stands, and re-adopting the hard bitch exterior one has to wear if he doesn't want to get eaten alive at the gay bar. i don't want any of this. i want going to bed with the same man every night and waking up with him the next morning, and arguing about lunch and who's going to take out the trash. i'm not someone who's cut out for perpetual dating, and even when i'm at my most doubtful or pensive in what we gay guys call a "ltr," the comfort and security is something that i never take for granted.

looking around the gay bar on friday night, i couldn't help but feel like an outsider. though i looked like any other person there--tight polo with the collar 'popped,' tight, expensive jeans, spikey hair, cute enough face--i just felt like i didn't belong. i stood there thinking, does anyone here besides me realize that there is more to life than this? am i the only one who feels like i'm wasting my time, getting drunker and drunker and making small talk with strangers? does the fact that i'm even thinking this make me old, or someone who is destined to sit by himself in his apartment, or start playing dungeons and dragons, only to develop an obsession with karaoke and eventually have the queer eye guys do the second-ever 'QUEER EYE FOR THE GAY GUY?'

when i was with terry i felt like i'd achieved a nice mix. i wasn't smug and married, nor was i a go-out-all-the-time bar slut. now i'm not quite sure into which category i fall, so i'm aiming for injured hermit.