Throw on Your Best Cardigan and Celebrate Fall 2011 with the Gays of ILX

Yes, mainly 10-20 years ago. I have no real understanding of it either.

i think this just happened to me

like, fun date with cool dude, capped off with great sex. haven't really spoken to him since. if we hadn't gone there, would it have been different?

Probably.

Today I was talking to the guy I stayed with in northern WA a few months ago, with whom I kept in loose touch (we've texted/had a good IM conversation maybe 5 or 6 times since) and he pretty bluntly said "We probably wouldn't be talking if we'd hooked up" and I was just like "Yeah, I know". Also I met up and hung out with this one dude from Scruff in NC and it was strictly friendly, we got pho and frozen yogurt and laughed about stupid music videos and then he dropped me off and that was that, and we've kept in touch but our conversations have gotten progressively more flirtatious and today it got pretty heavy and we basically acknowledged our desire to fuck, and he was all "Man, I knew I should have asked you to come back to my place" but I feel like if he had, things would've just been *different*

Maybe it has to do with building up anticipation? Do you spoil it by just fucking on the first date?

i have some thoughts on this

maybe this is super cynical or maybe i'm projecting but once you have sex w/ someone you cease to do all these things that we all do in order to get ourselves to have sex -- namely, work to present ourselves as interesting. once you've fucked someone you can pretty much initiate sex by going "hey, let's fuck again", and if you both want to fuck again then you'll fuck again, maybe a few more times, and from there something resembling a relationship will evolve bcuz you both like each other and like fucking, or you'll both realize that the sex is cool and the other person is pretty cool but ultimately this isn't what you want and you both move on and the communication kind of breaks off

idk i haven't had tons of sex in my life so i might be wrong

Hey it's table's b-day!

i'm inclined to agree, j0rdan

which in part explains why i generally never sweat first dates but am terrified of subsequent ones

i think it's a pretty common developmental episode to hook up with somebody and either (a) catch serious feelings for them or (b) realize they have caught serious feelings for you -- either way, one person attaches more significance to the act than the other person, and dealing with the imbalance can be incredibly awkward and sometimes painful.

without having formed the bond of a relationship, whether it's a friendship or something more explicitly romantic, i think it's really easy to just bail and not have to negotiate that imbalance.

idk, just a thought.

J0rdan otm.

I would argue that the desire for another, whether for friendship or sex, is always an exercise in erotics; if it's a friend the erotics get sublimated or whatever. We underestimate the degree to which our energy dissipates in that spurt of cum. I'm guilty as charged.

oh, "spurt of cum" is definitely going to haunt me for a while

either way, one person attaches more significance to the act than the other person, and dealing with the imbalance can be incredibly awkward and sometimes painful.

kind of long for the title of my autobiography but i'll submit it to my editor and see what he thinks

it's like a Calvino or Jeannette Winterson novel.

Why does sex so often lead to a discontinuation of communication?

totally my experience, sometimes i'm happy about it and sometimes not but it's quite frustrating generally - i assumed there was something about being lol british & emotionally repressed in my experiences but there's def also a bit of the opposite of what j0rdan says, ie by initiating contact after you've fucked, it's like you're saying it ~meant~ something to you. weirdly i think if it ever did ~mean~ something to me it'd be easier to deal with. as much as i enjoy the fact that it's ok and expected for gays to fuck on the first date without going through bullshit courtship rituals, the negative flipside is definitely how that can nip potential friendships (maybe even r*l*t**nsh*ps!!! who knows. who am i kidding lol) in the bud.

also by the time you've mulled it over and then got on with life suddenly, like, three weeks have passed and it'd be a bit weird to suddenly be all "hi!!!" again.

also are any of you in LA? i'm going to be there mon thru wed next week interviewing yelawolf

i am!

It's no easy trick to master insouciance.

it is easy to feel kind of small when the other person has, tho

i tell you what helps with insouciance, being exhausted

what's yr email donna?

i'll be staying at the grafton on sunset boulevard

g4lluccij at gmail (the 4 is an A)

good good

i'll email you in the next few days (so busy and half-dead right now)

awesome!

Happy birthday, tabes!

HBDD

hahaha is "HBDD" like a meme now?

Jordan, whoa, way OTM and makes me reconsider everything. Like, is it all a performance of sorts just to get into someone's bed, and would it be/would we act radically different if sex was an absolute impossibility from the get-go? So once it's happened we are, on some level, satisfied or feel like we've achieved our goal and dispense of this charade of... what, friendliness? Flirtation? I mean, yeah, I guess I'd approach someone I'm sexually attracted to a little differently than someone to whom I wasn't (I mean, well, duh).

The awkward imbalance of attachment/investment is definitely a factor in some instances but not so much in my case; I'm talking about some sort of mutual lack of desire to continue interacting, not just being bummed out when someone doesn't text me back (which happens sometimes but I'm OK with and also it makes sense).

Happy Birthday Tabes

Like, is it all a performance of sorts just to get into someone's bed, and would it be/would we act radically different if sex was an absolute impossibility from the get-go?

I regard all interaction as performance tbh.

happy birthday tTiaT xxx

I regard all interaction as performance tbh

No wonder you don't like actors who have more gravitas than Cary Grant. Too much reality.

^^^ great performance!

plz hold your applause til my death

http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/18/quentin_crisp.jpg

the music must be stopped, NOW

thanks for all your birthday wishes. i had an awesome day: hung out with my housemates, soaked in a hot tub for an hour, ate oysters and burgers with theo, had a bonfire with some good friends... overall an excellent excellent day. and of course the night was pretty good too, though it has certainly come to my attention that the boy is an insomniac. talking until 6 in the morning is awesome but my day has been subsequently a little abbreviated since i slept so late. *problems of the happily unemployed*.

in terms of stevie's question, i'm not too sure about anyone's responses, as the way that relationships develop or dissolve is so subjective that to make some sort of blanket statement about such situations seems to almost preclude any other possibilities. also jordan, your response's cynicism really bummed me out. :(

Happy Birthday, motherfucker. :D

omg i'm wearing my best cardigan!

:D

i am wearing a puffy vest fyi

Elmo of the Ski Lift

I am fagging it up in a rich purple hoodie

i love puffy vests, i have 1

82 degrees in NYC this Sunday? folx at Occupy Wall St be strippin'

are u fucking kidding me

http://www.weather.com/weather/5-day/10013

i'm sorry but somebody needs to teach this weather a lesson

80 degrees in october is a bloody travesty

Tell that to SoCal :/

I am also wearing a purple hoodie (OMG twinsiez) bcz I spilled whiskey all over my other one last night

I'm wearing a bright red hoodie

we supplement each other