The fantasy is always the same. Bruce climbs on top of me, our eyes facing each other as I glide my hands across his muscular and hairy chest, feeling the V shape of his lats beneath the edges of my fingers. My palms spread wider across his torso. He begins to rock back and forth, his blue eyes staring down at me, our faces locked.
And yet, I know this erotic vision will never happen. You see, this fantasy is about my best friend Bruce. Years ago, when we first met, he pursued me but I wasn't interested. However, we fortunately maintained our friendship and after several years, feelings for him have grown from best friend to, well, desire.
We've opted for the draw of a positive and a negative (quite literally, actually) that Bruce and I together equals nothing. Oh sure, friendship, but when the fantasies creep into my brain and between my legs, I know I've once again added the numbers incorrectly and that the equation is wrong. My question is simple: how do you tell your heart to listen to the boundaries of mathematics when it wants to soar with endless possibilities of a future?
Well, I think I now have some answers to my question.
First, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Call it the gay God of intervention, the lavender karma, or the rainbow of fate- but sometimes by NOT getting the man you want is EXACTLY what you need.
I look at Bruce and my heart still goes pang, but I also see all the reasons beneath his beautiful body why we've never slept together. He may be attractive physically, but emotionally our connection- while strong- is not based in...well, love. He can be controlling, opinionated, giving, stubborn, selfish, sexy, charming, rude, mean, and egotistical. Take the good adjectives away from the bad and what do you have? Opinionated, giving, sexy, charming versus controlling, stubborn, selfish, rude, mean, and egotistical.
Mmmmmmm...perhaps this isn't the man of my dreams. Perhaps on one level I saw it the first time when I said no. And now while I'm sexually interested, what would that do to us if we were to explore that? It would change EVERYTHING. We're already co-dependent on each other on one level- confusing it with sex would help no one.
As much as I would love for my fantasy to become a reality with him, as much as I visualize our connection- I know in my soul it is better for us to remain friends. I love him with all of my heart and guess what- that's enough. I don't need to love him with my pelvis as well.
Bruce says he's single, but he's not. His "ex-boyfriend" and him spend time together. And we're not talking about looking at scrapbooks while getting together over coffee. Another ambiguous gay dating-not-dating-sex-parter-ex-boyfriend which, believe me, I've done before. Geez, when are gay men like Bruce and I going to grow up?
I refuse to be the third wheel or the "other man," though in many ways I already am. He gets his emotion from me and his sex from his ex-boyfriend. And yet, on a recent departure of mine on a gay vacation, Bruce quietly told me at the airport that he hoped I wouldn't meet anyone. There was truth in his eyes. And while that may be from his heart, maybe it's for all the wrong reasons. Would he no longer be able to eat this cake that he's enjoyed for years? He's told me point blank that's he not sexually attracted to me. Ouch. And the way I see him look at and cruise other men, I realize he's not lying. And yet...I catch him staring at me. My hands, my face, my ass, my cock, my biceps. I'm no God, but I turn heads and am what some friends have deemed "a catch." What's funny is these same friends have told me I could do better than Bruce.
Tell that to my heart, particularly late at night as I'm going to bed. Recently I've started to cry a little more, processed my question of heart strings versus mathematics, and am beginning to see the beauty in what Bruce and I have- nothing more, nothing less.
It IS enough. The bottom line, we AREN'T right for each other. I know it and he knows it. And yet, the fantasy still comes, for both of us. It will always come- and perhaps that's to be embraced because we will have the real thing with someone else.