I'm never totally successful

So once again I find myself back here in the circle that is my fickle adoration with men. I don't know if any other gay men experience this same feeling; that there is simply no way to fit into the community in an appropriate or acceptable manner. And worse than that feeling is the feeling that no one will ever show up in your life that wants to do more than have sex and leave.

When I first came out and moved to San Francisco just over 9 years ago, my first boyfriend (I apply that term generously to him) introduced me to the bear community. I thought to myself, "if I had only known these gay men existed I would never have hidden in the closet. They look just like me." I had such high hopes of being accepted into the "club". I had spent my entire teen years looking at what the few public images of gay men were, and of course porn images of what gay men were, and well, at 6'5" tall and over 200 pounds, I didn't look like them. Even when I was swimming, I didn't look like them. So I decided, how can I be gay? No one will ever want me.

Flash forward to being in my latter 30s in San Francisco, recently divorced and recently out and here are big hairy men, who happen to enjoy the company of other men. Wow, JACKPOT. Or so I thought. It seems that as I was coming out the bear community was becoming more like the rest of the gay community. If you weren't the perfect belly, the perfect amount and pattern of hair, otterish, muscle bound, or some other derivative, you were no longer an "acceptable" bear.

Recently I have taken to saying I am on the F-list of bears hoping some day to be a D-lister... move over Kathy Griffin.

But here I am again this morning back to feeling sorry for myself. A friend told me to snap out of it last night, and he's right, I should. I have a wonderful group of friends, two men I consider my best friends, and a family that loves and accepts me. Why do I need some lug in my life, messing up my sheets and making me compromise. Because I need, no, I crave, the intimacy and complexity and challenge and love that is unique to a relationship.

Steven Sondheim says, "alone is alone, not alive". Sometimes, like today, that feels oh so very true.