From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Screwed up and alone again...
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 01:48:26 GMT


In article <1992Nov20.185206.29003@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
golds_ss@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Stuart S Goldstone) writes:

>I feel a little out of place posting this in the middle of
>all this discussion about Colorado, but here goes anyway.
>Maybe someone will see it and have something to tell me.

I'd hope the newsgroup is big enough and provides enough
people who can respond to your immediate concerns in
addition to the other topics currently circulating.

I'm trying to think of an umbrella-like idea here, to
collect all the main points of such times under one general
concept.  A reason for this is that breaking up, as the term
implies, often wreaks a kind of disintegration on our lives,
the rupture in the couple mirrored by rupture in some key
parts of our individual person.

But it's also important, I think, to note that ready-made
solutions are unlikely to be more than suggestive, rather
than complete and useful models.  This is probably a good
thing, for it lets us get engaged in creatively and actively
reintegrating our lives.

>We had a great time together, he was sweet and kind and
>loving and caring (and gorgeous) and everything that I could
>want in a guy.  We went out for eight months, and it was
>wonderful, but last Monday he ended it, we ended it, it
>ended.  I have been very screwed up in the head, as I suppose
>anyone is after their first relationship ends, after they
>lose their first love.

Although there must be lots of different reactions to the
situation, the one you mention seems not at all unusual.  It
has been more than 40 years since this happened to me, the
collapse of the first real love affair.  I mention this to
point out the obvious: I'm still alive, I've had nine more
totally terrific major love affairs, a full and highly
productive life, and every bit of it opened up, in an
important sense, from the period echoed in the hurt and
confusion swirling around you just now.

Let me try to put that more succinctly: the first great step
toward what would become adult living for me was falling in
love for the first time.  It made being gay extremely real
and extremely rewarding.  The next great step came five
years later, when that affair ended; to save myself from
emotional devastation, I set out with incredible
determination on the path of being an artist, in my case
music.  It didn't turn out to be my career, but it did save
me.

So I would say that being hurt and confused, though it may
be hard to see this as good, is at least the source of a
*tremendous* release of energy, an opportunity to realize
that though this is something that happens to an awful lot
of people, it is also something that boots you (maybe a bit
roughly) into your own future.

That first collapse was the fulcrum of everything that has
happened to me since.  Possibly something of that sort will
happen in your case, Stuart.

>Now, the thing is, I think I'm not very optimistic.  What is
>out there?  I don't know.  I have never been to a gay bar.
>I don't think I can find love in a bar.

I would warn you against becoming a fortune teller at this
juncture.  When we're upset, we can't imagine recovering
our poise, we don't see how we can get things back on keel.

But remind yourself of two important things.  One is that
your main resources are *inside* you; though they may be
somewhat in disarray just now, they're not lost, and it
would be good to devote some of your energy to reordering
them in ways that feel productive for you.  The other thing
is that there is really only a present tense: the past is
gone and the future could be anything.

For example, we can hardly know what will confront us -- it
could be a fabulous opportunity -- in a situation we've
never been in, even in a place as seemingly unpromising as a
gay bar.  The plain fact is, we don't know anything about
our lives until it's happened.

>I met Paul here, we are both involved in the theater group
>here.  But I just don't know what the future holds for me.

But no one knows that, really.  One thing I experienced at
such times was a strong desire to revalidate myself, to get
active in doing things that showed me what my own assets
were, to reaffirm that I was interested in many things and
interesting to many people, and so forth.  The extra things
about being part of a couple were wonderful, but they were
not everything.

>Sometimes I feel like I am going to be alone my whole life.
>Does anyone have anything to tell me?

I don't think we're ever too young to start realizing one of
the most fundamental of all truths: existentially, we're
always alone.  I see this as the central fact, the
foundation stone, on which all other personal edifices are
built.  If part of the edifice goes up in flames, as
sometimes happens, still the foundation will always be
there, and we always have the option of rebuilding, even of
putting up something unlike anything that preceded.

>I know I must sound like the most depressing person in the
>world.  I just want to know where I go to look for guys who
>are looking for other guys, not (just) for sex but for real
>love, something that might last for years.

First, it's no sin to be unhappy when something important to
us changes in this way.  The key thing, I think, is not to
get stuck in a bad place, mired in self-pity, trapped with
too bleak an outlook.  Change is inevitable.  On the one
hand, it brought this reverse.  But it will also bring your
next happiness.

It may help, too, not to get too caught up in expectations
about "years," when the *main* thing is today.  And though I
imagine few things vary more than this next, it could easily
be that one of your more casual affairs could build into the
love of your life; it has certainly happened to me, and I
would add that I met seven of my ten lovers in gay bars.

>I don't know, am I just looking for the same thing everyone
>else is?  And if so, does that mean that we are all doomed
>to look for something that isn't there??

I think it's real important to shake yourself loose from any
feelings of doom, or from worries about whether others are
looking for the same things you are.  What counts is what
you want.  With perseverance and some luck, things will as
likely as not, maybe more so, turn out just fine.  Give it a
little time, work on the one thing that's immediately at
hand: you.

And best of luck.

<> Man is a dog's ideal of what a God should be.
<> -- Holbrook Jackson
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
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