So, yeah, I know a bunch of you are going to say, "wow, this is a diatribe from a woe-is-me entitled privileged white guy" and cue the tiny violins to play, however I want to get this off my chest and at least into print so I can read and re-read it myself again over the coming weeks/months. I am hoping that this may even be the start of a bit of therapy. No one is going to read this, no one is going to respond, this blog is my diary anyways, so fuck it and the judgment and here goes....I just really need to write this all out, get some sense of what in my personality is lacking so badly that I find myself in the situation I'm in right now.
Do you ever get so unsatisfied with your life, you feel like just tossing in the towel, breaking all ties and starting all over? I've done it before, I'm sensing a growing feeling of doing it again, except this time I'm getting too old to take a leap, therefore I'm just feeling trapped.
There are so many facets of my life I am unhappy with right now, and I'm not sure what to do. It's leading to depression about my situation that I can't seem to shake off. I have no desire to do the clean break and restart; granted it is very liberating and interesting for awhile, but historically I find that I end up in the same situations with the same type of people that made me want to do the previous clean break (due to the shortcomings in my personality that lead to such predictable conclusions and the bad choices I make, perhaps?). I have some issues I need to deal with and I'm realizing that the 'clean break and run' method is how I handle a lot of the symptoms without dealing with the root causes.
So, in lieu of jumping ship and joining a witness protection program, I am forced to look at these issues head-on and figure out solutions to turn this ship around into the winds that will carry me forward.
Root cause analysis: I have major issues with abandonment and loss to the point of getting major stress and anxiety of even the thought of losing something or someone that is dear to me, even more so those relationships that I've believed are a central part of my being, that I've applied a lot of my own time and effort into growing or nurturing. I can get anxiety to the point that I'm sabotaging that which I'm trying to save.
When the person I hold dear doesn't reciprocate, gives up on me, or jumps ship, it sucks the joy out of the entire experience, and I end up feeling disappointment or resentment over that which used to bring me happiness (or so what I thought was happiness), that I've been taken advantage of, or simply just a fool to believe that something could be honest and unconditional in giving me joy and happiness. I can't even look back fondly after this. At some point I just want to throw my hands up, cut my losses and move on while trying my best to bury the pain of the loss in distractions and self-destructive coping mechanisms.
Part of the mitigation strategy for me over the years has been to try ridiculously hard to make everyone happy around me, meanwhile inside I feel so ugly and lacking, especially when I feel the plan, method and approach to create the happiness for everyone else doesn't work out as I expect it to, which results in a compounding of the frustration and disappointment in myself. And that isn't even considering anything that would bring me personal satisfaction, everything is always for everyone else! ARGH I feel so incapable of knowing how to bring real happiness to myself!! How I've never had enough self-confidence to be stoic in my decisions to say NO sometimes when it's warranted.
I am starting to understand how a lot of this comes from unresolved things from my childhood and teenage years. All those years of sheer terror, confusion, and loneliness of being gay and kinky from the very start but not understanding what any of it meant other than that I was different from everyone else, that I what I desired in my life was only worthy of ridicule, judgment and fire and brimstone punishment, what made me feel good and what turned me on was completely abhorrent and perverse to everyone else, and that the exposing of that truth, the panic of being discovered and exposed, would be the end of me and everything I knew. The only way to mitigate it was to completely shut it all down and lock it all up. To not share anything with anyone. There was absolutely no one I trusted that I could disclose any of these feelings to for years, decades.
I spent most of my childhood living in this fear, somberness, and loneliness.....on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere with no resources of any sort to try and figure this shit out. Just me left with my own thoughts. I could never express how I truly felt, to express myself truthfully was only going to end up in sadness and loss. I had no one to confide in, and my parents - bless them and their limited resources and understanding - couldn't react to my needs in any way that they could understand or that would console and comfort me. I also lost key people I depended on in my younger years including my brother who was my only constant friend and confidant for most of my childhood, and some of my best friends when I came out as gay. Hiding behind escapism (all the partying, booze, drugs, etc.) to try and deal with it, or at a minimum kicking the can further down the road to delay having to face everything and sort it all out.
Again, related to all of this is the fact I've focused on pleasing people my entire life as another protective device - if they were pleased with me, they wouldn't delve any deeper into my psyche because 'everything was fine', or at least if they accidentally saw what was there, I could only hope that they would be able to still tolerate keeping me in their lives due to the fact I was always trying so hard to be nice to them, I'd be a useful asset to manipulate if the need ever arose, but at least having some semblance of a relationship would be a relief to me...at least I didn't have to deal with losing them. Hence my problem ever saying 'no' - how could I say 'no' when there's a chance I'd put everything in jeopardy if people started looking into why I stood up to them?
I still feel this way about my relationships today, and feeling complete frustration with what looks to be self-sabotage in many of the things I've been doing recently. Being the eternal people-pleaser over time leads to more and more frustration and dissatisfaction as I get older. I feel more and more being taken advantage of by people in general over the years....all the meanwhile not dealing with trying to figure out what would make me feel happy and satisfied and why I need to focus on everyone else's happiness so much. I've been trying to be more true to my feelings and my desire for true connection with all the vulnerability required to make those connections, however I feel that once again I am being rejected, just like all the times before.
I tried to reach out for help several times in my life to people I felt I had a real connection with, only to be shunned, declined, or ignored due to the discomfort of the topic at hand, the lack of understanding and empathy by everyone involved. Each time I tried to reach out for some support, it ended up being a disappointing rejection. This happened again and again; eventually I just gave up, a hopeless case, something I'd only ever be able to deal with myself. I couldn't even get any reassurance that I was okay and everything was going to be okay, the only one I could depend on was myself (good lord, now that is a recipe for disaster!).
More specific to the current lay of the land, I cite some relationship examples in the next section. Please don't look at the individuals in the scenarios below as monsters, they are in fact loving and caring people who have probably been more hurt by me than me by them (maybe).
Root cause analysis: I have major issues with abandonment and loss to the point of getting major stress and anxiety of even the thought of losing something or someone that is dear to me, even more so those relationships that I've believed are a central part of my being, that I've applied a lot of my own time and effort into growing or nurturing. I can get anxiety to the point that I'm sabotaging that which I'm trying to save.
When the person I hold dear doesn't reciprocate, gives up on me, or jumps ship, it sucks the joy out of the entire experience, and I end up feeling disappointment or resentment over that which used to bring me happiness (or so what I thought was happiness), that I've been taken advantage of, or simply just a fool to believe that something could be honest and unconditional in giving me joy and happiness. I can't even look back fondly after this. At some point I just want to throw my hands up, cut my losses and move on while trying my best to bury the pain of the loss in distractions and self-destructive coping mechanisms.
Part of the mitigation strategy for me over the years has been to try ridiculously hard to make everyone happy around me, meanwhile inside I feel so ugly and lacking, especially when I feel the plan, method and approach to create the happiness for everyone else doesn't work out as I expect it to, which results in a compounding of the frustration and disappointment in myself. And that isn't even considering anything that would bring me personal satisfaction, everything is always for everyone else! ARGH I feel so incapable of knowing how to bring real happiness to myself!! How I've never had enough self-confidence to be stoic in my decisions to say NO sometimes when it's warranted.
I am starting to understand how a lot of this comes from unresolved things from my childhood and teenage years. All those years of sheer terror, confusion, and loneliness of being gay and kinky from the very start but not understanding what any of it meant other than that I was different from everyone else, that I what I desired in my life was only worthy of ridicule, judgment and fire and brimstone punishment, what made me feel good and what turned me on was completely abhorrent and perverse to everyone else, and that the exposing of that truth, the panic of being discovered and exposed, would be the end of me and everything I knew. The only way to mitigate it was to completely shut it all down and lock it all up. To not share anything with anyone. There was absolutely no one I trusted that I could disclose any of these feelings to for years, decades.
I spent most of my childhood living in this fear, somberness, and loneliness.....on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere with no resources of any sort to try and figure this shit out. Just me left with my own thoughts. I could never express how I truly felt, to express myself truthfully was only going to end up in sadness and loss. I had no one to confide in, and my parents - bless them and their limited resources and understanding - couldn't react to my needs in any way that they could understand or that would console and comfort me. I also lost key people I depended on in my younger years including my brother who was my only constant friend and confidant for most of my childhood, and some of my best friends when I came out as gay. Hiding behind escapism (all the partying, booze, drugs, etc.) to try and deal with it, or at a minimum kicking the can further down the road to delay having to face everything and sort it all out.
Again, related to all of this is the fact I've focused on pleasing people my entire life as another protective device - if they were pleased with me, they wouldn't delve any deeper into my psyche because 'everything was fine', or at least if they accidentally saw what was there, I could only hope that they would be able to still tolerate keeping me in their lives due to the fact I was always trying so hard to be nice to them, I'd be a useful asset to manipulate if the need ever arose, but at least having some semblance of a relationship would be a relief to me...at least I didn't have to deal with losing them. Hence my problem ever saying 'no' - how could I say 'no' when there's a chance I'd put everything in jeopardy if people started looking into why I stood up to them?
I still feel this way about my relationships today, and feeling complete frustration with what looks to be self-sabotage in many of the things I've been doing recently. Being the eternal people-pleaser over time leads to more and more frustration and dissatisfaction as I get older. I feel more and more being taken advantage of by people in general over the years....all the meanwhile not dealing with trying to figure out what would make me feel happy and satisfied and why I need to focus on everyone else's happiness so much. I've been trying to be more true to my feelings and my desire for true connection with all the vulnerability required to make those connections, however I feel that once again I am being rejected, just like all the times before.
I tried to reach out for help several times in my life to people I felt I had a real connection with, only to be shunned, declined, or ignored due to the discomfort of the topic at hand, the lack of understanding and empathy by everyone involved. Each time I tried to reach out for some support, it ended up being a disappointing rejection. This happened again and again; eventually I just gave up, a hopeless case, something I'd only ever be able to deal with myself. I couldn't even get any reassurance that I was okay and everything was going to be okay, the only one I could depend on was myself (good lord, now that is a recipe for disaster!).
More specific to the current lay of the land, I cite some relationship examples in the next section. Please don't look at the individuals in the scenarios below as monsters, they are in fact loving and caring people who have probably been more hurt by me than me by them (maybe).
1. I have been still feeling a lot of frustration and vulnerability of the new dynamics with Mook and all the guys I've met through him; I have been anxious about trying to mesh with him and them, with this subliminal fear that I will lose whatever connection I have left with Mook if I can't make it all work and that I'm not worthy of these guys' attention and effort; they're putting up with me due to him still wanting me around. I gave so much of myself to Mook and I still hurt from the sudden and shocking change in our relationship. For years, we talked about the possibility of him finding someone else to fulfill unfulfilled aspects of his life (though he didn't know exactly what that void was, he blamed himself not being 'good boyfriend material'), and also agreed that we spent far too much time together and needed to wean off of each other to protect ourselves (we knew this good thing was temporary and never going to last forever), but for the time being he was more than happy expending his time, effort and intimacy with me - at least that's what he kept telling me; of course despite knowing it wasn't going to last, I wanted him to be there all the time with me, I was so madly in love with him. I would have been in it for the long haul had he and Mr. P been committed to making it work. In Mook, for the first time possibly ever, I felt I had found someone I could be vulnerable and honest with, someone that actually loved me for me, and not what I represented or did, and I felt that that has been run over; all that energy required to deal with my anxieties to force myself to be vulnerable to another human being thrown out. More rejection, holy fuck, it never ends and it never stops hurting.
What was I not providing him that drove him away so quickly and easily? I'm just a silly old manipulative daddy. Look how easy he is to manipulate! Hilarious! hahaha!
For example, I sometimes felt that I was putting more effort into it, or at least paying and planning for Mook in order to have him by my side when doing what I wanted to do just to 'have him there' - I just wanted to be physically and emotionally close to him all the time, I was getting more of this out of my relationship with Mook than my relationship with Mr. P, at least on an emotional level. Small things I've noticed, like now I see how he effortlessly spends money on what he does with Codeness and spends 99.9% of his time in his new relationship - like why couldn't he even have been minimally reciprocal when we were together? I never seemed to dawn on him - or it did, and he just let me take care of it anyways. I even explained how important reciprocity was to me (and given my insecurities, reciprocity with a very short turnaround time) - I can't help but feel a little discarded or taken advantage of, or as Mook's boy Pup Satyr describes it, "shelved". Did all that not really matter to him? Obviously it didn't matter as much to him as it did to me.
I feel that he still does this, doesn't offer to pay for things that I used to give him for free though I've told him it's not a free ride anymore, things that as part of the social contract he knows he should be responsible as a productive adult to manage and represent on; he doesn't chip in when there is a group thing that needs to be paid for, or something that is expected from the social contract, and he doesn't have (or chooses to ignore?) the social sensitivity required, which leads to more discomfort for me as
What was I not providing him that drove him away so quickly and easily? I'm just a silly old manipulative daddy. Look how easy he is to manipulate! Hilarious! hahaha!
For example, I sometimes felt that I was putting more effort into it, or at least paying and planning for Mook in order to have him by my side when doing what I wanted to do just to 'have him there' - I just wanted to be physically and emotionally close to him all the time, I was getting more of this out of my relationship with Mook than my relationship with Mr. P, at least on an emotional level. Small things I've noticed, like now I see how he effortlessly spends money on what he does with Codeness and spends 99.9% of his time in his new relationship - like why couldn't he even have been minimally reciprocal when we were together? I never seemed to dawn on him - or it did, and he just let me take care of it anyways. I even explained how important reciprocity was to me (and given my insecurities, reciprocity with a very short turnaround time) - I can't help but feel a little discarded or taken advantage of, or as Mook's boy Pup Satyr describes it, "shelved". Did all that not really matter to him? Obviously it didn't matter as much to him as it did to me.
I feel that he still does this, doesn't offer to pay for things that I used to give him for free though I've told him it's not a free ride anymore, things that as part of the social contract he knows he should be responsible as a productive adult to manage and represent on; he doesn't chip in when there is a group thing that needs to be paid for, or something that is expected from the social contract, and he doesn't have (or chooses to ignore?) the social sensitivity required, which leads to more discomfort for me as
I sense social obligation around me 24/7. Even if he has free time, he spends it all with Codeness and it feels sometimes that he doesn't even consider that he has other relationships he needs to nurture or that there are other people out there he needs to spend time with. How expendable am I? Very, it seems.
I get a few hours with him on Thursday evenings every week which is more than most people in his life, but it's very minimal (though admittedly, whenever I see him and tell him how I feel I do feel better for it, even briefly). I feel I'm being played for a fool, taken advantage of - again, and for what? I feel all that Mook values now is the sex; there is no longer any desire for intimacy from me because he's getting his needs fulfilled from his sudden 100% full-time new awesome amazing relationship, and the rest of us are simply played as expendibles....pawns...and if we can't get on board with this sudden superficiality/lack of intimacy/what-have-you, we're going to get shelved permanently. Even if sex is how he expresses his caring and intimacy, why does he stick around? If he finds the the extraneous stuff taking too much time, energy or emotion, why would he even care to maintain these other intimate relationships if he's getting so much fulfillment from his primary one? He isn't really engaged in the things going on in our lives like he used to. The rest of us are left lacking, and he is the one getting everything he wants.
Sometimes I feel like I should just discard it all - it isn't helping my mental health at all feeling like I'm just continuing to feed my vicious cycle of being played over and over again throughout my life. Still not able to say 'no' when I should. He constantly tries to reassure me that that isn't the case, that he really cares, that he really loves me, that he wants to keep me in his life. I want to believe it so badly, I try to paint over any hesitancy I have with what he says to me, but it's hard not to feel at least a little bit manipulated.
2. I haven't been feeling genuinely paid attention to, or that my input or opinion counts to anyone I hang out with, or just feeling generally old and ugly, out-of-touch and irrelevant to the point that I get it in my head that guys are hanging out with me, for example, just to placate some requirement by Mook that everyone has to remain friends and hang out together. Or great young men like SemFolego or N33dfulthings that are just hanging out with me for convenience and the fun gear and toys I provide, and not because I'm a good man to hang out with with a sparkling personality as an older man that is captivating enough to maintain their young, easily distracted, constantly-horny attention and interest. I'm an old figurehead that needs to be handled delicately until the torch is passed and then I'm expendable there too.
3. It's been hard giving up control of things in the rubber community I've been fully in control of for so long. It may have been one of the only true passionate things I've ever had in my life. Rubber and spandex, cycling and running....my trinity.....
I keep getting reassured that it's a team effort, that we're all working together for a common goal, yet the young guys tell me when I suggest approaches to things that 'this is the way things are done because the younger guys no longer search for what they are looking for' or 'no one communicates by email anymore', and that everything needs to be broadcast out there because the young guys cherry pick the things they want from the flood of information they shift through every day. For one consideration, what about all the older members of the community, do they not matter anymore? See? I'm nit-picking on non-issues again, though I find it all pretty ridiculous, like, holy fuck no wonder you're all stressed and anxiety-ridden to the max having to wade through all the bullshit to find a few jewels that might look remotely interesting.
I feel so many of them have this framework of reality shaped by the superficiality of their childhoods - video game characters, animated children's TV programs, all the information of the world immediately accessible, the blockbuster animation of movies in their formative years in the 90s. I find they talk in pretty fantastical terms sometimes, and get resentful when I give them some experiential reality check on human behaviour....maybe how I present it comes across as too abrasive, maybe it's something about the ugly reality of human behaviour that they haven't had to experience yet in their 'superficial worldview' experiences on social media, maybe it doesn't even matter anymore, the younger generations are playing on a completely different game board. Their world views, no matter how fantasy-based they are, are now all of our reality. Our pre-internet understanding of what reality is is obsolete. Holy fuck! This is very hard to process. Have I become obsolete? Is the significance of what true visceral human contact and communication means a lost cause?
4. With the new minds and ideas suggesting ways to do things, I realize how ineffective and uncommitted I've been as a leader and mentor for so many years, when it was just me, it was easy to get tired and/or discouraged by having to drum solo for so long. Perspectives admittedly got corrupted. As the solo rubber guy banging the drum in this region of the world for so long, I didn't entertain the notions of trying things differently or more effectively to try and get the tribe together, increase numbers, ensure that everyone was having fun; it really didn't matter much to me anymore and that realization makes me feel bad too. Lots of wasted years and potential. It was so very exhausting and disappointing to be the only one for so long......oh god, now that sounds like my childhood all over again. At least I have the inspiration of the young guys like Sem Folego, that seem to have shown up just as I was about to give up hope and give up doing everything I have been doing. Man, I wish he'd appeared here seven years ago, things could've ended up so differently. The first man to show up with a passion for rubber matching mine since I moved to Vancouver almost eleven years ago. Goddamn, we're few and far between....
I'm realizing that I've always been a NICE GUY, but not a very GOOD MAN.
5. Mr P and I are in a pretty messed up point in our relationship; I feel sometimes it's only the openness of our relationship that allows me to keep tolerating it. It's more of a long-term convenience contract these days now that we're closing in on ten years together. There is very little intimacy and sometimes I feel that he doesn't respect or care about my well-being, that his casual attitude towards everything in his life means that I'm not getting my needs from him fulfilled. His personality traits that I once thought were an advantage are now feeling not-so-much like advantages. Admittedly, I'm becoming of the same opinion about him and his well-being. It is all manifesting as anger in me. He's been basically unemployed since the cancer and leg loss thing almost six years ago, and I've been covering everything for the both of us since then. Of course I've been harbouring resentment about all this, and feeling bad for feeling resentful too. This isn't how relationships are supposed to work, but then again, our relationship has always been anything but conventional.
When we fuck it seems it's only when someone else is around, like there's some immediate expectation for him to be seen fucking me to indicate everything's okay, or that I'm conveniently the only hole in the room and he's finally horned up in the mood enough to do something about it, or I just happen to be in the sling at the right time so he begrudgingly does it though he'd rather fuck Mook or one of the younger guys but I'm the hole available at that moment. There have been so many warning signs over the years, I won't get into any of these here. I just don't know why I've just played along for so long, thinking settling for less than I wanted was good enough. Or watching him go to that greedy boy Mook while I just sit on the sidelines. Fuck that pisses me off.
I feel he wouldn't have much to do with me at all other than there just being the familiarity of what we currently have and his dependence on my money and charity. I couldn't give two fucks about it sometimes and then sometimes it drives me crazy. I know we're supposed to be in this together for the long run but holy fucking shit, how much do I tolerate!? Am I unattractive? Why doesn't he want to fuck me anymore? Why has he had this weird thing about never wanting to suck my dick (because I get more pleasure out of my hole?) or even entertain the notion of pleasuring me without selfishly having it always have some immediate benefit for him? I find him to be more selfish of a lover as time goes on, I find myself feeling less and less obligated to do anything about it. I do lots of things for him though they're not my favorite things to do, but he won't play nice coming from the other direction. Maybe I am unattractive, maybe my ugliness on the inside is exposed and now everyone can see it, including my husband.
I haven't been wearing my anger and frustration very well. And so this resentment, confusion and frustration grows and manifests in anger that I display in many facets of my day-to-day. He is SUPPOSED to be in the best income-generating years of his life, yet he isn't bringing much of anything to the table, and as a result, my retirement plans are being negatively impacted (the entire plan is getting fucked, in my opinion), and in the meantime, our lifestyle in the present time is diminished because we don't have any disposable income to enjoy our lives as I feel we should be at this point in our lives. I haven't busted my ass for the past 30 years just to not have less money now than I did ten years ago. It's fucking STUPID. Sure we have property - he focused on that single asset while I focused on building equity over the past few decades, so for the future, we both bring something to the table, but none of that really helps us in the present, does it?
It's so frustrating. I get so angry. I am not going to be able to retire when I want to or enjoy the fruits of all my hard work and dedication to the cause I began contributing to in my 20s because of him and because of my LACK OF CONFIDENCE to pursue the things that make me happy and just saying NO sometimes. This is exactly the same situation I was in over a decade ago with my last LTR, and now I find myself here again. FUCK!!!!!!!!
Sometimes I feel I'd like to just drop him and start over again on my own, at least get some control of my personal life back again instead of having to do so much for him because I was too stupid or proud or 'nice guy' to walk away when things went south six years ago. The signs were there, I didn't do anything about it.
6. Why do I feel like I am always out there busting my ass to please everyone else, and never suere how to please myself, not really knowing who I am or what I need to make me feel fulfilled and content and figure out what makes me me? For decades, I have avoided facing the hard truths of trying to figure out who I am, what I stand for, and what I need to fulfill myself for all the reasons analyzed above. I'm not sure why other than the fears of making myself vulnerable and exposing my weaknesses, of losing control of my sober reality - why I escape from reality so hard, whether it be through partying or my fetishes and sexual fantasies - that I'm so scared to face myself in the mirror.
Perhaps it's a fear that I'll be as disappointed and bored with myself as I perceive everyone else sees me to be.
7. Looking at some of the other extraneous stuff - my friend groups? Meh, lots of drinking buddies. Most of the relationships are superficial. Gay men are frustratingly impossible to get intimacy from and generally this makes me sad and longing. I need more connection, none of them can give it (or they give it and then take it away). These people couldn't care less when the chips are down. Everyone's too wrapped up in their own issues to give a fuck about mine. As time has been moving on, I've noticed they listen less to what I have to say, respect less the input I bring to the conversation, speak over me more and more in group conversations when I try to say something. I feel that due to my deteriorating attitude towards everything, they are seeing less and less value of having me around or valuing what I bring to the table any more. It's just been a non-stop downhill slide.
8. Fuck buddies? Meh, they look at me as the old Ron Jeremy Hedgehog of the group, they'd edit me out of the content we've been creating on JustForFans and Xtube if they could. I'm a temporal convenience that happens to have a lot of neato gear and toys to use as props. I don't feel like I contribute much more than a fist and a cock occasionally - the disembodied arm in the corner of the screen going into the hole of the hot young stud, never mind there being any true emotional attachments there. I don't think I'm a hedgehog, I'd like to get control of the content featuring me and see if I can't make a go of generating some revenue out of it....someone out there somewhere must appreciate me! I may not be hanging out with the right guys to make me feel valued and sexy. These people also tell me that I do matter to them, but I find it hard to believe given what I perceive.
9. The rubber guys? Suddenly, I'm too old and out-of-touch along with most of the cohort I've been working with for the past 15 years on this stuff. Sure, it's just part of carrying the generational torch, but deep down, this part of my being has just been decades of loneliness and not being able to figure out how to embrace the brotherhood and camaraderie to help build myself up. Sure, everyone 'appreciates' what I bring to the table, but it hasn't produced a single example of passionate rubbermen to support the cause or to support me. I feel in this area I've been doing everything wrong for so long that it's just better to quit while I'm ahead, to hand it completely over to someone else to do with it what they want, step into the retirement shadows, lurk there for eternity, while at the same time, the spectre of giving all the control up has just been causing me additional stress and unhappiness and leading to unfounded confrontations (more self-sabotage at work).
10. I've let so many of my old friends that I considered the life-long friends and support group fall by the wayside. For the longest time I've just stopped giving a shit about pretty much everything. I don't know how much of that is recoverable - do I even want to maintain all these old long-term relationships from the past? Some of them have been disengaged for so long I'm not sure if it really matters anymore. I feel the same way about my parents and my family most of the time. I don't care about my roots, I don't care about trying to 'find myself' anymore. I don't like where I came from, I don't like where I've been, I don't like my current situation, I don't like where I'm going, I'm sick of my job, I'm tired of my communities. Sigh.
They've all hurt me and/or disappointed me over and over, I've just stopped giving a shit, any desire to feel something, anything remotely fulfilling about all the things I've done in my life. I am humiliated about my lack of self-confidence and self-identity. So here we are.
People try to reassure me that everything's okay; I don't feel it. I don't like my life, I don't like myself. Perhaps it's time to seriously consider paying for some therapy. I need some better coping mechanisms and I need to feel better about myself, I need some substance, I need some passion; I need to stop framing my well-being based on how I interpret everyone else around me is interpreting me. It's hasn't been very constructive and obviously hasn't made my any more happy or satisfied.
Writing all of this down has helped me connect some more dots in the puzzle. I haven't solved anything but at least it's a start.
I get a few hours with him on Thursday evenings every week which is more than most people in his life, but it's very minimal (though admittedly, whenever I see him and tell him how I feel I do feel better for it, even briefly). I feel I'm being played for a fool, taken advantage of - again, and for what? I feel all that Mook values now is the sex; there is no longer any desire for intimacy from me because he's getting his needs fulfilled from his sudden 100% full-time new awesome amazing relationship, and the rest of us are simply played as expendibles....pawns...and if we can't get on board with this sudden superficiality/lack of intimacy/what-have-you, we're going to get shelved permanently. Even if sex is how he expresses his caring and intimacy, why does he stick around? If he finds the the extraneous stuff taking too much time, energy or emotion, why would he even care to maintain these other intimate relationships if he's getting so much fulfillment from his primary one? He isn't really engaged in the things going on in our lives like he used to. The rest of us are left lacking, and he is the one getting everything he wants.
Sometimes I feel like I should just discard it all - it isn't helping my mental health at all feeling like I'm just continuing to feed my vicious cycle of being played over and over again throughout my life. Still not able to say 'no' when I should. He constantly tries to reassure me that that isn't the case, that he really cares, that he really loves me, that he wants to keep me in his life. I want to believe it so badly, I try to paint over any hesitancy I have with what he says to me, but it's hard not to feel at least a little bit manipulated.
2. I haven't been feeling genuinely paid attention to, or that my input or opinion counts to anyone I hang out with, or just feeling generally old and ugly, out-of-touch and irrelevant to the point that I get it in my head that guys are hanging out with me, for example, just to placate some requirement by Mook that everyone has to remain friends and hang out together. Or great young men like SemFolego or N33dfulthings that are just hanging out with me for convenience and the fun gear and toys I provide, and not because I'm a good man to hang out with with a sparkling personality as an older man that is captivating enough to maintain their young, easily distracted, constantly-horny attention and interest. I'm an old figurehead that needs to be handled delicately until the torch is passed and then I'm expendable there too.
3. It's been hard giving up control of things in the rubber community I've been fully in control of for so long. It may have been one of the only true passionate things I've ever had in my life. Rubber and spandex, cycling and running....my trinity.....
I keep getting reassured that it's a team effort, that we're all working together for a common goal, yet the young guys tell me when I suggest approaches to things that 'this is the way things are done because the younger guys no longer search for what they are looking for' or 'no one communicates by email anymore', and that everything needs to be broadcast out there because the young guys cherry pick the things they want from the flood of information they shift through every day. For one consideration, what about all the older members of the community, do they not matter anymore? See? I'm nit-picking on non-issues again, though I find it all pretty ridiculous, like, holy fuck no wonder you're all stressed and anxiety-ridden to the max having to wade through all the bullshit to find a few jewels that might look remotely interesting.
I feel so many of them have this framework of reality shaped by the superficiality of their childhoods - video game characters, animated children's TV programs, all the information of the world immediately accessible, the blockbuster animation of movies in their formative years in the 90s. I find they talk in pretty fantastical terms sometimes, and get resentful when I give them some experiential reality check on human behaviour....maybe how I present it comes across as too abrasive, maybe it's something about the ugly reality of human behaviour that they haven't had to experience yet in their 'superficial worldview' experiences on social media, maybe it doesn't even matter anymore, the younger generations are playing on a completely different game board. Their world views, no matter how fantasy-based they are, are now all of our reality. Our pre-internet understanding of what reality is is obsolete. Holy fuck! This is very hard to process. Have I become obsolete? Is the significance of what true visceral human contact and communication means a lost cause?
4. With the new minds and ideas suggesting ways to do things, I realize how ineffective and uncommitted I've been as a leader and mentor for so many years, when it was just me, it was easy to get tired and/or discouraged by having to drum solo for so long. Perspectives admittedly got corrupted. As the solo rubber guy banging the drum in this region of the world for so long, I didn't entertain the notions of trying things differently or more effectively to try and get the tribe together, increase numbers, ensure that everyone was having fun; it really didn't matter much to me anymore and that realization makes me feel bad too. Lots of wasted years and potential. It was so very exhausting and disappointing to be the only one for so long......oh god, now that sounds like my childhood all over again. At least I have the inspiration of the young guys like Sem Folego, that seem to have shown up just as I was about to give up hope and give up doing everything I have been doing. Man, I wish he'd appeared here seven years ago, things could've ended up so differently. The first man to show up with a passion for rubber matching mine since I moved to Vancouver almost eleven years ago. Goddamn, we're few and far between....
I'm realizing that I've always been a NICE GUY, but not a very GOOD MAN.
5. Mr P and I are in a pretty messed up point in our relationship; I feel sometimes it's only the openness of our relationship that allows me to keep tolerating it. It's more of a long-term convenience contract these days now that we're closing in on ten years together. There is very little intimacy and sometimes I feel that he doesn't respect or care about my well-being, that his casual attitude towards everything in his life means that I'm not getting my needs from him fulfilled. His personality traits that I once thought were an advantage are now feeling not-so-much like advantages. Admittedly, I'm becoming of the same opinion about him and his well-being. It is all manifesting as anger in me. He's been basically unemployed since the cancer and leg loss thing almost six years ago, and I've been covering everything for the both of us since then. Of course I've been harbouring resentment about all this, and feeling bad for feeling resentful too. This isn't how relationships are supposed to work, but then again, our relationship has always been anything but conventional.
When we fuck it seems it's only when someone else is around, like there's some immediate expectation for him to be seen fucking me to indicate everything's okay, or that I'm conveniently the only hole in the room and he's finally horned up in the mood enough to do something about it, or I just happen to be in the sling at the right time so he begrudgingly does it though he'd rather fuck Mook or one of the younger guys but I'm the hole available at that moment. There have been so many warning signs over the years, I won't get into any of these here. I just don't know why I've just played along for so long, thinking settling for less than I wanted was good enough. Or watching him go to that greedy boy Mook while I just sit on the sidelines. Fuck that pisses me off.
I feel he wouldn't have much to do with me at all other than there just being the familiarity of what we currently have and his dependence on my money and charity. I couldn't give two fucks about it sometimes and then sometimes it drives me crazy. I know we're supposed to be in this together for the long run but holy fucking shit, how much do I tolerate!? Am I unattractive? Why doesn't he want to fuck me anymore? Why has he had this weird thing about never wanting to suck my dick (because I get more pleasure out of my hole?) or even entertain the notion of pleasuring me without selfishly having it always have some immediate benefit for him? I find him to be more selfish of a lover as time goes on, I find myself feeling less and less obligated to do anything about it. I do lots of things for him though they're not my favorite things to do, but he won't play nice coming from the other direction. Maybe I am unattractive, maybe my ugliness on the inside is exposed and now everyone can see it, including my husband.
I haven't been wearing my anger and frustration very well. And so this resentment, confusion and frustration grows and manifests in anger that I display in many facets of my day-to-day. He is SUPPOSED to be in the best income-generating years of his life, yet he isn't bringing much of anything to the table, and as a result, my retirement plans are being negatively impacted (the entire plan is getting fucked, in my opinion), and in the meantime, our lifestyle in the present time is diminished because we don't have any disposable income to enjoy our lives as I feel we should be at this point in our lives. I haven't busted my ass for the past 30 years just to not have less money now than I did ten years ago. It's fucking STUPID. Sure we have property - he focused on that single asset while I focused on building equity over the past few decades, so for the future, we both bring something to the table, but none of that really helps us in the present, does it?
It's so frustrating. I get so angry. I am not going to be able to retire when I want to or enjoy the fruits of all my hard work and dedication to the cause I began contributing to in my 20s because of him and because of my LACK OF CONFIDENCE to pursue the things that make me happy and just saying NO sometimes. This is exactly the same situation I was in over a decade ago with my last LTR, and now I find myself here again. FUCK!!!!!!!!
Sometimes I feel I'd like to just drop him and start over again on my own, at least get some control of my personal life back again instead of having to do so much for him because I was too stupid or proud or 'nice guy' to walk away when things went south six years ago. The signs were there, I didn't do anything about it.
6. Why do I feel like I am always out there busting my ass to please everyone else, and never suere how to please myself, not really knowing who I am or what I need to make me feel fulfilled and content and figure out what makes me me? For decades, I have avoided facing the hard truths of trying to figure out who I am, what I stand for, and what I need to fulfill myself for all the reasons analyzed above. I'm not sure why other than the fears of making myself vulnerable and exposing my weaknesses, of losing control of my sober reality - why I escape from reality so hard, whether it be through partying or my fetishes and sexual fantasies - that I'm so scared to face myself in the mirror.
Perhaps it's a fear that I'll be as disappointed and bored with myself as I perceive everyone else sees me to be.
7. Looking at some of the other extraneous stuff - my friend groups? Meh, lots of drinking buddies. Most of the relationships are superficial. Gay men are frustratingly impossible to get intimacy from and generally this makes me sad and longing. I need more connection, none of them can give it (or they give it and then take it away). These people couldn't care less when the chips are down. Everyone's too wrapped up in their own issues to give a fuck about mine. As time has been moving on, I've noticed they listen less to what I have to say, respect less the input I bring to the conversation, speak over me more and more in group conversations when I try to say something. I feel that due to my deteriorating attitude towards everything, they are seeing less and less value of having me around or valuing what I bring to the table any more. It's just been a non-stop downhill slide.
8. Fuck buddies? Meh, they look at me as the old Ron Jeremy Hedgehog of the group, they'd edit me out of the content we've been creating on JustForFans and Xtube if they could. I'm a temporal convenience that happens to have a lot of neato gear and toys to use as props. I don't feel like I contribute much more than a fist and a cock occasionally - the disembodied arm in the corner of the screen going into the hole of the hot young stud, never mind there being any true emotional attachments there. I don't think I'm a hedgehog, I'd like to get control of the content featuring me and see if I can't make a go of generating some revenue out of it....someone out there somewhere must appreciate me! I may not be hanging out with the right guys to make me feel valued and sexy. These people also tell me that I do matter to them, but I find it hard to believe given what I perceive.
9. The rubber guys? Suddenly, I'm too old and out-of-touch along with most of the cohort I've been working with for the past 15 years on this stuff. Sure, it's just part of carrying the generational torch, but deep down, this part of my being has just been decades of loneliness and not being able to figure out how to embrace the brotherhood and camaraderie to help build myself up. Sure, everyone 'appreciates' what I bring to the table, but it hasn't produced a single example of passionate rubbermen to support the cause or to support me. I feel in this area I've been doing everything wrong for so long that it's just better to quit while I'm ahead, to hand it completely over to someone else to do with it what they want, step into the retirement shadows, lurk there for eternity, while at the same time, the spectre of giving all the control up has just been causing me additional stress and unhappiness and leading to unfounded confrontations (more self-sabotage at work).
10. I've let so many of my old friends that I considered the life-long friends and support group fall by the wayside. For the longest time I've just stopped giving a shit about pretty much everything. I don't know how much of that is recoverable - do I even want to maintain all these old long-term relationships from the past? Some of them have been disengaged for so long I'm not sure if it really matters anymore. I feel the same way about my parents and my family most of the time. I don't care about my roots, I don't care about trying to 'find myself' anymore. I don't like where I came from, I don't like where I've been, I don't like my current situation, I don't like where I'm going, I'm sick of my job, I'm tired of my communities. Sigh.
They've all hurt me and/or disappointed me over and over, I've just stopped giving a shit, any desire to feel something, anything remotely fulfilling about all the things I've done in my life. I am humiliated about my lack of self-confidence and self-identity. So here we are.
People try to reassure me that everything's okay; I don't feel it. I don't like my life, I don't like myself. Perhaps it's time to seriously consider paying for some therapy. I need some better coping mechanisms and I need to feel better about myself, I need some substance, I need some passion; I need to stop framing my well-being based on how I interpret everyone else around me is interpreting me. It's hasn't been very constructive and obviously hasn't made my any more happy or satisfied.
Writing all of this down has helped me connect some more dots in the puzzle. I haven't solved anything but at least it's a start.
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