LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray |
by John D. Siegfried |
In Search Of...
I haven't looked at ISOsIN SEARCH OFpersonal ads for ages. I rather thought that they'd been replaced by You Tube, Lube Tube, and Boob Tube. But, to my surprise, there are still some seekers out there who prefer the print media to cyber-space. Recently, while paging through a bar rag throwaway conveniently residing on the vanity next to our commode probably the proper location for such compelling contemporary literatureI found pages of ISOs following articles on gay Meccas like San Francisco, Amsterdam and Puerto Vallarta. "Young professional Male6'2", 171 lbs. well hung, honest, handsome and loyal. Well refined very lonely and in dire need of the perfect companion...." Except for the height and weight it sounded like an ad that could have been placed by my dog, Spot. "...seeking 18-35, slim, boyish, with big heart and broad mind." Perhaps it's a minor touch of dyslexia, or the location of the magazine next to the commode, but I originally read it as "...Big heart and broad behind." "Looking for good-shape, non-smoking, circumcised, hung Sagittarius or Aries (26-32) for roomie/buddy, someone who's honest, responsible, sweet and kind," Add "trustworthy" and the ad might qualify for one of the Boy Scout magazines. There were several additional pages of seekers attesting to the fact that, like beauty, the perfection we seek is in the eye of the beholder. It's been a long time since I sought perfection but I recall that when I met my partner, now of eighteen years, we teased that we'd both found what we were searching for. I wanted a tall blond of Scandinavian origin with a swimmer's body. He was looking for a short gray haired man with lots of money and an Italian heritage. What I found was a black haired, trim gym bunny of medium height and Jewish origins while he settled for a not-wealthy tall senior of Pennsylvania German background. But I do have gray hair. Age, in addition to graying the hair and blurring the edges of vision, also has a way of blurring the borders of our more youthful search for perfection. Lori Gottlieb, in the March 2008 issue of The Atlantic (which resides on our coffee table, not by the commode) writes, "...one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle? My advice is this: Settle!" Her article is titled "Marry Him" and while it is addressed primarily to single women approaching middle age, it speaks to all of us, single and coupled. Accompanying the article is a full page cartoon drawing of the face of a middle-age woman looking at the picture of a past boyfriend and saying, "So you're not Mr. Perfect, Brad.... But marriage means more to me than love ever could!" Gottlieb, who identifies herself as a feminist, writes further, "When we're holding out for deep romantic love, we have the fantasy that this level of passionate intensity will make us happier. But marrying Mr. Good Enough might be an equally viable option, especially if you're looking for a stable reliable companion....It's not that I've become jaded to the point that I don't believe in, or even crave, romantic connection. It's that my understanding of it has changed." The borders of Ms. Gottlieb's definition of perfection have become blurred with age and with the reality of the marriage market for women past a certain age. She continues, "...when I think about marriage nowadays, my role models are the television characters Will and Grace, who, though Will was gay and his relationship with Grace was platonic, were one of the most romantic couples I can think of. What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks. So what if Will and Grace weren't having sex with each other? How many long-married couples are having sex anyway?" The question of how much sex goes on with couples in long term relationships may be the grist for another column at another time, but I suspect it may be more than Ms. Gottlieb thinks. And, ala Elliott Spitzer, who they are having sex with is certainly worth exploring. I've heard many friends both lesbian and gay define a relationship of three years, three months, three weeks or even three days as long term while lamenting the fact that they can't find Mr. or Ms. Right. And if the goal of their search is perfection they're doomed to repeat that history ad infinitum and ad nauseum. That's why I found Ms. Gottlieb's candid approach of settling for Mr. Good Enough refreshing. It's also advice that concurs with the conclusion of a novel by Jay Quinn that I'd recently read. Quinn is a South Florida gay writer and in his tale, The Good Neighbor, he tells the story of a successful gay couple who live at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. A straight couple with two young sons move into the house on the next lot and Quinn records the developing relationships between the two families. Not surprisingly the gay work-at-home partner and the recently unemployed straight father next door have a sexual fling. When the aggressive, aggrieved, straight lawyer wife of the philandering husband discovers the affair, she wants to toss her husband out and end the marriage. "...but then she thought about the emptiness of his absence as opposed to his flawed presence," and she stays in the relationship to work things out. I love that phrase, "the emptiness of his absence as opposed to his flawed presence." It describes what many of us, perhaps most of us, gay and straight, experience as the edge of our definition of perfection blurs over time. We realize that the emp-tiness of his or her absence outweighs his or her flawed presence. And for me it raises the logical follow up question. How unflawed is my presence? Maybe my partner is asking the same question about me. John Siegfried, a former Rehoboth resident who now lives in Ft. Lauderdale, maintains strong ties to our community and can be reached at hsajds@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 04 May 02, 2008 |