Does real love only exist in dreams?

[si91mon]

It's already a while ago that posted here something, but anyway here I start again :p.

I've been with the thought lately that living as a gay really sucks. In the 3/4 years that I'm out of the closet I sometimes wonder if my coming out really changed something in my life. Often while being in the closet I was reading online and watching videos of people who where convincing others to come out. Mainly with the arguments to stop on fighting towards yourself (because it's destructive) and that on the other side you become alive when coming out. Like a totally new world opens.
I must say in the whole time that since I came out, I never felt really like a new world has opened. In some ways I feel like it was better to stay just in the closet (but still think it was the right thing to do ). In the closet, at least I had dreams how nice it would be to have a relationship with a man, to fall in love, to have sex, to be 100% yourself and feeling good in your skin.

Though in reality, it's not like you meet nice attractive men, fall in love, have nice dates, have nice sexual experiences,... Somehow I rather think men are even unattractive. Throughout the years I notice that I feel barely attracted to men, or at least to only a very small part of the population of men. It's like there are no attractive 'gay' men in Belgium. After seeing so many gay profiles I always seem to strand with people from other countries.

I often asked the question to myself: Am I not to picky? Am I looking for 'the' beauty god :p? But if I really answer honest to myself I know I have some rare taste for men (like very hairy, beardy (how longer how better), somewhat round men) and I know just looking to looks is shallow. But for me looks are a part of the attractiveness, but not everything. What makes a man attractive also is the friendlyness, the sweetness that the person sends out and the personality. Though somehow I don't feel like I come across such men and notice that those men who look interesting in my eyes aren't interested in me. In general I feel pretty ugly and notice I don't get much attraction from gays in general.

While being out, I have barely dated. Even with a lot of effort... I had some dates. And in the beginning especially with people who I even didn't feel attracted to. Why? because I just thought I need to be glad that someone likes me. Of course I noticed directly that this doesn't work. It's unfair to the other person and unfair to yourself. In the starting period of my coming out I had pretty quickly my first sexual experience. To be honest, the thought that I had is: sex sucks (and no it doesn't suck dicks). Until the day now, I had an impression of the gay world that sex doesn't exist and that such a thing is only good in porn stuff. I feel almost that gay men aren't sexual and it's seems impossible to enjoy gay sex. I know this is totally not true (at least my head says this). But in real life those people who have sex and enjoy it aren't in my life. I think that I'm a sexual person myself. I'm not the type who searches for hook ups. Though I feel often the need to be closer with a man than just having that nice connection.

After a whole time I didn't find anybody interesting to start some kind of relationship with I've begun to doubt myself. I'm the picky one... shallow... not able to love... Other people (some :p) seem to come across a nice person and really truely love them by heart. Love them even so much that they can spend there live with that person and built a strong emotional and sexual relationship with them.
Here I feel confused..., after the few dates that I had I met a guy from Switzerland. He's an amazing guy. He has a golden heart and soul. And he has something about his looks what makes him so beautiful. He became a real good friend of mine. For a while I even had a 'relationship' with him. But I felt like it was too much like a friendship releationship and not really a sexual(romantic) relationship so I ended the status 'relationship' and decided to approach it like a friendship. Here to the point of confusion: I actually like him so much that I can imagine to live with him whole my life but feel at the same time there is something missing.
Am I able to find a person where I can feel that same deep connection with and still be in a romantical situation? Somehow I'm affraid I will be one of those who will never find his true loved one.

[Rareboy]

At 23, I think you still have time.

And yes Virginia...true love exists. Those of us who have been with one partner for any length of time...or those of us who have had our hearts broken after only a short time can attest that tru love....and passion....can come in the same package.

Keep looking. And try to be the kind of guy that other guys would want as a partner before you start focussing on all the things they need to be in order to pass your selection process.

[Borg69]

True love is something you look backwards at from a distance... not forwards and up close. IMO you need to be in a fairly long term relationship and be able to look back on it and realize you're in love with the guy you're with.

Looking from the beginning of a relationship is only looking at it through lust/obsession/infatuation glasses and a skewed perspective that's too close.

Love exists, but only from experiencing it first hand and having completed all the unconditional trials and tribulations that go with a relationship. "For better or worse".

You're barely out of the starting gate with experience and already looking down your nose at a long road of travel. I can tell you from my experience, Love is a complex thing. It has many levels, and with each guy is a little different. You may not find it until your 10th BF.

[meridannight]

Am I able to find a person where I can feel that same deep connection with and still be in a romantical situation? Somehow I'm affraid I will be one of those who will never find his true loved one.

of course true love exists. but usually it is not something that just falls into your lap. more often, it takes work and patience. the strongest relationships i know took years to work out.

now, it might be different, and you might meet a guy, click instantly and know that you wanna be and make a life with him. that happens too. but don't wait around for it to happen. the 'true love' concept has been deformed and mutilated by the bestseller romantic films and the more superficial skin-deep output from Hollywood -- that everybody knows right away and things just work out in the end, even if you do nothing.

in real life, people even have a problem approaching people they are interested in, not to mention get to the 'seeing each other' stage. it takes time, energy, patience, and willpower to stick through it when things are bad; and it takes putting yourself out there out of your own comfort zone to get anywhere.

if you're waiting for a guy to come and do all the work for you...you may be waiting for the rest of your life. if you're waiting for a guy who is 100% your imagination of an ideal mate....the cold hard truth is that he doesn't exist. as soon as you stop holding people to some ideal and standard, the sooner you can see beyond that. there's nothing wrong with having a certain image and conditions of what you want your partner to be like. but it should be a conceptual draft, rather than a blueprint.

good luck.

[MikeW]

….I must say in the whole time that since I came out, I never felt really like a new world has opened. In some ways I feel like it was better to stay just in the closet … In the closet, at least I had dreams how nice it would be to have a relationship with a man, to fall in love, to have sex, to be 100% yourself and feeling good in your skin.

Though in reality, it's not like you meet nice attractive men, fall in love, have nice dates, have nice sexual experiences,... Somehow I rather think men are even unattractive. Throughout the years I notice that I feel barely attracted to men, or at least to only a very small part of the population of men. It's like there are no attractive 'gay' men in Belgium. After seeing so many gay profiles I always seem to strand with people from other countries.

I often asked the question to myself: Am I not to picky? Am I looking for 'the' beauty god :p? But if I really answer honest to myself I know I have some rare taste for men (like very hairy, beardy (how longer how better), somewhat round men) and I know just looking to looks is shallow. But for me looks are a part of the attractiveness, but not everything. What makes a man attractive also is the friendlyness, the sweetness that the person sends out and the personality. Though somehow I don't feel like I come across such men and notice that those men who look interesting in my eyes aren't interested in me. In general I feel pretty ugly and notice I don't get much attraction from gays in general….

Well, ok… so there are a lot of parts to this. What I know so far is you're 23yo, live in Belgium, are physically attracted to sweet, kind men who are hairy and bearded. However, so far at least, you haven't found many such guys where you live and the ones you have found don't seem interested in you. You also don't feel attractive.

So… do I have that about right? Anything important I left out or am missing?

First of all, you're right, there is a fantasy that a lot of young men have about what a relationship is going to be like. Our heads get filled with these ideas as children -- we "fall in love with" Peter Pan or some other fictional character and have "day dreams" about it. We imagine that some day our prince charming will come into our lives and make everything better if not wonderful.

Yes, that is a dream, a fantasy, an illusion. Real life *seldom* happens like that. Life for most of us (whether gay, straight or something else) isn't a bed of roses surrounded by a white picket fence. It's life, filled with all the glaring details of our moment-to-moment existence. Sometimes interesting things happen, but a lot of the time life is just sort of the same-old-same-old thing over and over and over again.

YES it is possible to have a LOT of what you want -- a sweet hairy bearded man who loves you as much as you love him, and with whom you can build a relationship and perhaps a life together. That IS possible.

The question is, what are you doing right now to INCREASE the possibility of that happening?

If this is something you *really really* want, then you're going to have to *really really* think about it and apply yourself to it -- much like you have to to get through school and build a career.

For example, someone above has already suggested that the best way to attract someone is to BECOME the kind of person you'd like to have a relationship with. Really think about that -- do you want a relationship with a day-dreamer who has a fantasy of what it is like to be "in love" that doesn't work well in reality? Would you want a relationship with someone who has no idea how to make life work for him? Or someone who feels life is kind of boring and not very interesting? Would you want to get to know such a guy and could you fall in love with him?

What I'm getting at here is you really need to think about this seriously. For another example, you say you don't feel attractive. Well, how much of that is something you can work on? Do you take care of your body? Do you go to a gym and work out? If not why not?

Another example, do you go to places where "bear" type men hang out? In daily life have you seen men you find attractive and have you let them know in some way that you find them attractive?

People say "anything is possible," but that isn't exactly true. At any given moment only *some* things are possible for us. Yes, it is possible to have a donut with my morning coffee -- but only if I've gone out and purchased the donut. If I haven't done that work, no, it isn't possible for me to have a donut. See what I mean?

If you want your dreams to become real, true, it is *remotely* possible they'll just happen with no effort on your part whatsoever. But its far more likely if you want your dreams to come true you're going to have to think about them and dedicate time and resources to making them more likely to come true.

[CellarDweller]

Yes, true love exists. Always be open to it!

[Lexington]

Sure, true love exists. But what people seem to think of when they think of "true love" doesn't exist.

True love doesn't mean the guy will look precisely like you always imagined him.
True love doesn't mean you'll know he's "the one" from the moment you lay eyes on him.
True love doesn't mean there won't be doubt.
True love doesn't mean the road ahead will be problem-free.
True love doesn't mean that there won't be disagreements, arguments, or even fights.

True love just means it'll be worth all that crap.

Lex

[jimcrackcorn]

Hello si91mon,

In your last paragraph,,, you wrote about a guy that you really liked,,, and said you felt that you could spend the rest of your life with him. You became friends and even started a relationship with him, but then changed your mind about the relationship status because it felt more like a friendship relationship instead of a "sexual (romantic)" relationship.

You realized that the relationship was missing something and not going to the next level where the two of you would become sexually intimate in a romantic way. When you reached this point where you realized the relationship was not going in the right direction,,, did you talk with your boyfriend about what was going wrong? and why the relationship was not moving forward? No relationship can survive unless you work out your problems together. Not having this conversation with your boyfriend will leave both of you with unanswered questions and unresolved answers as to what went wrong and how to correct these problems in the future.

Allow me to make a bold statement here: If you are able to find friends,,, you are also able to find love. Don't sell yourself short!!!

The first couple times you have sex,, it is lousy for almost everyone. You can expect it to get much better with practice. Don't forget to communicate with your partner when he's doing something that doesn't feel good or is a turn-off....

What you find attractive in men right now,, will change over time. Be patient with your own expectations and allow yourself to be flexible. I've seen guys who I wouldn't have given a second glance at,, turn out to be very attractive once I got to know them a little. The outside appearance can hide a real gem on the inside. And trust me, when your with someone for 20 or 30 years, the outside appearance will fade, but in inside will remain beautiful. Pick wisely grasshopper, for the real person of your dreams is the one who has beauty on the inside..

I'll close this by saying I think you have a great deal of potential, and if you will be patient and allow yourself to be happy and enjoy life,,, the right guy will come your way when you least expect it.

Sincerely,
Jim

[Virge]

To answer your question about real love only existing in dreams........

No. It's real. The concept 'real love' that exists in your dreams does not and will not ever exist. That's a big part of your problem. You are looking for something that only exists in your dreams.

Go this this thread and read what I and others said about how we met the ones we have found real love with. [MENTION=13210]Beaux[/MENTION] has some great insight.

And I think I've given this advice 100,000 times in here... but it's worth repeating....

Instead of spending your time looking for the man to spend your life with....
Become a man you can spend your life with....
When you've become a man who's happy and content within himself...
There will be a line of men waiting for their chance to spend a life with you.

In other words..... spend your time making yourself whole and "better.' Trust me and everyone else... once you've done that men will be bothering you more than you want.

[MakeDigitalLove]

Sure, true love exists. But what people seem to think of when they think of "true love" doesn't exist.

True love doesn't mean the guy will look precisely like you always imagined him.
True love doesn't mean you'll know he's "the one" from the moment you lay eyes on him.
True love doesn't mean there won't be doubt.
True love doesn't mean the road ahead will be problem-free.
True love doesn't mean that there won't be disagreements, arguments, or even fights.

True love just means it'll be worth all that crap.

Lex

I agree with a lot of what has been said, especially this.