Over it yet?
Sex, lies, and butterflies…
Only twenty three years old I was thinking I knew exactly what I wanted in a relationship and the exact kind of man I wanted to be in that relationship with. I laugh now, looking back, on how naïve I was.
In pursuit of my political ambitions, I have lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and once again San Diego all in under two year. Not to mention my military training that took me to Chicago, Austin and Boston.
I’ve never heard the dating scene in Los Angeles described better than to say that every guy is simply looking for the next best thing, with one foot already out the door. Its much like the classic question of, “what do you buy a guy who has everything?“ Like any other gay scene, when you are new in town, Los Angeles is all too ready to eat you up. Everyone has a stake in the new guy.
I arrived in LA with military short hair and in the best physical condition of my life. Before I knew it I was at celebrity after parties in the Hills of Hollywood. Having grown up a lower middle class Latino kid, I marveled at this entirely surreal lifestyle. This was my first shot at finding my first boyfriend and I approached the task eager and ready.
In a city where coke lines are set out next to the hors d’oeuvres and drugs in general are a symbol of having “made it”…the odds simply were not in my favor. This was made perfectly clear to me when:
I kicked it off with a friend’s friend at the beach. He talked about being in college and wanting to go into business administration. After we all had lunch at Hamburger Mary’s and a whole lot of flirting, right before I ran off to wait tables at Mark‘s, he asked me for my number. Feeling unfairly limited (like any LGBT person) to the internet and bars to meet, never mind “the one“, just someone; I was stoked to have met a normal and attractive guy, in daylight hours at the beach.
When it came time to hang out at his place I thought it was awfully peculiar for a guy my own age to be showing me the way to a pent house in the heart of West Hollywood. Oy. As we walked in I was immediately overwhelmed by the enormous oil on canvass paintings of a well known drag queen. “No!”, I thought to myself. Yes…I WAS IN CHI CHI LARUE’S HOUSE! He was staying in the guest room and gainfully employed by Ch 1 productions. FML much?
Ranking only among 10 percent of the US population, finding someone you want to share a part of your life with is guaranteed to be a challenge. The dating pool is small to begin with and a number of individual factors limit it further for each of us.
After an incredible journey through both heart ache and laughter, at 23, I am in my first serious relationship. On day one, I had my mind made up about things I hadn’t even experienced before. I am confident now that success will be a by product of trust, communication and a willingness to make my mind up about things as I experience them.
Lacking the courage to live one day at a time…
Over it yet?
