Gay Ole Times: The Chocolate Aspie's Adventures Of Romance And His Regrets, Part One

DISCLAIMER: For those individuals who are offended by same gender love or sexual situations, please discontinue reading now.

When I came out as gay to my mother on Sunday, July 21, 2010, I had no real idea of what being a same gender loving man really meant. I didn't have a role model to look up to, nor did I have an example of how to successfully navigate in "the gay life." Mom, although bisexual for nearly thirteen years of my life, was in the fourth year of marriage to her second husband at the time of me coming out to her. For the first time in my life, I was truly on my own. My narrow, barely 18-year-old mind could only think about the sense of relief I felt admitting my secret truth. The many lessons I would learn as a gay man would come strictly through experience, not common sense. Some of those lessons would be extremely tough ones to learn.

Even though I was in college, I never experienced romance or even puppy love. I never knew what it was to be someone's boyfriend. No one in high school really wanted me, and so I stayed in my own isolated shell. I was bound and determined to have a relationship in my college life, but I just didn't know how to make that happen. Months after I came out, I was introduced to a gay dating site called Adam4Adam (A4A). The person that told me about it said it was a great site to meet other same gender loving men like myself. I almost immediately created a profile and put myself out there. In March of 2011, while Mom was recuperating at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after a kidney transplant, I would begin internet chatting with the man who would take my virginity. He was 24 years my senior and we really had no business being involved with each other. He should have respectfully rejected me, but little did I know, he was a "chicken hawk" (According to the Urban Dictionary, a "chicken hawk" is a gay term for an older man that constantly chases after younger men). A couple of weeks after we started communicating online, I was in his bedroom, becoming his conquest. For the next three months, we hooked up on and off at his apartment, WITHOUT protection. In my mind, I felt like we were building something special... I was totally wrong. He discontinued talking to me by the tail end of summer. I was crushed because I realized that he used me just for sex. It wouldn't be the first time I was used in that manner...

By November of that same year (after hooking up with a random guy a month prior - I just wanted to recapture the feeling I had with my first time), I was on Adam4Adam, chatting with a man about 21 years my senior from Metter, Georgia, a smaller city near Savannah. We instantly created a connection and we were smitten by one another. The following month, he came to Atlanta and the moment we saw each other, we decided to be in a relationship. There were so many problems with this. For starters, how do two people intelligently decide to be in a monogamous relationship after talking online for barely a month and meeting up just ONCE? Then, what would a man in his forties want with a 19-year-old besides sexual thrills? Next, who brings his/her two friends to tag along with him/her while meeting up with a person whom you fell in love with for the first time? When I went down to Metter to visit my "boyfriend," I went with no accompaniment. There were so many red flags in that situation, but I couldn't see them at the time. In March of the following year, he dropped a bombshell on me. He claimed that he was unsure about his sexuality. I had no choice but to end the "relationship." Once again, I was extremely disappointed and discouraged about love and romance...