I'm Gay, Got a Problem With That?

Single But Not Quite Ready to Mingle

I have been single for more than two years now – a period that seems too long for many gay men. My last relationship ended on Christmas Eve of 2008, when my then boyfriend left the Philippines to go and serve the military in his home country. We parted as friends and decided that it was best for us to just part ways instead of having a long distance relationship. We parted as friends.

I became lonely and sad and miserable, but I survived. It was difficult at first because I was so used to living with him (yes, we lived together in two rented condo units – mine and his) and after he left, I had to manage living alone in two empty homes. Homes which were also silent witnesses of our love (and love-making, if you must). My condo’s contract expired 2 weeks after he left so I decided to just wait for it to do so, then moved to his condo. His condo unit still had about five months left in the contract, so we decided that I take over after he left.

In the past two years, believe it or not, I have not longed for a new boyfriend – a new partner. I must have been possessed by some spirit that I was content being single.  It was only recently though that I realized why I was, and still am, content being single – I lived with family again. After the contracts of our condos expired, I decided to rent a house and take care of my retired parents. Believe you me, I never became lonely again.

Perhaps the reason why I was so lonely and depressed before was that I always went home to an empty house.  Whenever I had stories to tell, I didn’t have anyone to tell them to. I would always see my friends who were in relationships and envy them – someone was taking care of them and they had someone to take care of. When I started living with family again, things changed. I no longer longed for a special someone to take care of or to take care of me – I had my mother and father for that.  Of course it still is different to be in a romantic relationship, but familial love is different too.

And what about sex? Many people might not believe me, but I am already satisfied with mere self-help (with the assistance of Sean Cody, Corbin Fisher, Randy Blue, Tim Tales, and their peers). Perhaps I grew tired of going through the motions of random hook-ups. Perhaps I became too lazy to actively seek encounters of the sexual kind. But whatever it may have been, self-help was, and still is, enough. Heck, I don’t even remember the last time I became intimate with someone.

I’m still single, but I guess I’m not that ready to mingle. Maybe in the next few years, I would long for that special someone, but for now, I’m single and I’m happy.

So if you’re one of the few people out there who desperately long to find a boyfriend, look at yourselves and find your own inner happiness. Easy for me to say right? At the end of the day, you make your own happiness. Why bother making your life more complicated than it already is when you can de-complicate it and make yourself happy.

And again, I’m not making any sense.