The time I was sexiled by my crush.

As human beings, we all want to be loved. While we search for loving connections, dating can be a roller coaster with the destination being the sense of belonging. We go on a while love roller coaster ride, hitting many ups an lows, thrills and fear, knowing there is an end to the ride. Though the seatbelt keeps us safe, often we experience heart aches. Some can’t wait to get on another roller coaster while someone are forever traumatized and will never get on any roller coasters again.

I experienced many disappointments along the way. When I start to develop feelings for someone and they don’t have the mutual feeling, I immediately perceive that as a rejection. But I am also an equal offender and have been the heart breaker. Read Sexual Chemistry 2 about Paul.

About 5 years ago, I matched with a guy named Eddy on Tinder. He same age as me with otter physique and beautiful eyes behind geeky glasses, all of which I am most attracted to.

Over the years, we hung out in large social settings, either hanging out his friends or vice versa. Few years ago, two circles of our friends joined when a small group of us from each circle went on a trip together.I decided to share a hotel room (and a bed) with Eddy. 

As we consume a large amount of alcohol consumption at the local gay club, as any gays would, I danced with Eddy in a fashion that will make everyone assume we will hook up. Of course we made out too. At one point between a pee break and getting more drinks at the bar, I couldn’t find Eddy. My first instinct was to look for him but I also wanted to just have fun with my friends too. Few hours went by, I gave up on search of Eddy and went back to the hotel. The last thing I expected was Eddy in “our” bed of the hotel room, having sex with someone. I am not sure if he realized I walked in the room but he didn’t stop. Maybe I had the option to join for a ménage à trois, but I was really bothered by this. I stormed out of the room, feeling rejected. I was sexiled by my crush and I was crushed. After being sexiled out of my own hotel room, I found a haven in my friend’s room to sleep for the night.

Playing Tinder Crush Saga

On Halloween night of last year, to prevent overeating Halloween candy, I got on Tinder and madly swiped for hours. I saw a profile photo of a cute guy with blue eyes and a warm smile. Immediately, I swiped right then I heard that “broop-bing” match the sound. You all know that sound that makes your endorphins going like a Pavlov’s dog.

Compared to 400 other matches, Doug and I actually chatted, which lead to the next level of swapping phone numbers, and even went far as meeting up for coffee.

Tidyng up AF

I have been on a dating app called Chappy for a few years. It’s another dating app that is similar to Tinder, swiping right when the photo sparks joy. 

What I like most about Chappy is it’s only for gays and mostly into looking for a relationship rather than just “fun” like Grindr.

There have been many matches on Chappy for me and some that are actually responding to my messages. But, for most, it’s radio silence when I message them.

I wanna dance with somebody

Am I the only one who struggles with teasing out difference between friendship and romantic relationship? I am frequently faced with (literally) kissing friends and it creates confusion about our relationships. My ideal relationship would be someone who I consider a good friend infused with romance. But when the two don’t mix well, then it can lead to no relationships at all. It happened several years ago when I kissed Conner at a party. Read about that story here: Kissing a friend. 

About 2 years ago, I went to my friend’s birthday party and met Dennis, who is 40-something white guy who is not afraid to show some feminine qualities.

What does a fox say? “I don’t do hook ups.”

Few weeks ago, I wrote about Carson, whom I ran into while I was gaycationing in Provincetown. Overall, it was a great trip with close friends and met new friends from all over. One of them is Owen, a 40 year old white guy from Tennessee. He is much taller than me with an athletic physique – he loves sports. Owen spoke in a sexy southern accent that made my heart melt a little and he really seems like a southern gentleman.

Taking a chance for romance

Play this song as you read. Believe me, it helps.

While I was in NOLA with Dylan (read about him here: Jazz it up), I was thinking about one of my favorite books, Density of Souls, by Christopher Rice, who is Anne Rice’s son and gay. It’s love story about a gay teenager in high school in New Orleans and friendships with twist and turns, involving a romance with a friend. While I was in NOLA, I tried to picture some of the scenes from the book.

Interesting twist and turn happened to me that same week, I went to Florida after hanging out with Dylan in NOLA. It was mainly to chill by the beach but also to spend some time with Russell, whom I connected with on Tinder in January.

Russell is in his 30s who recently became single after a 7 year relationship. He is an elementary school teacher, into fitness, books, and animals (he has a cat and a bearded dragon). After a mutual swipe right match on Tinder, we kept in touch for two months via FaceTime. I find his sense of humor charming, not to mention his cute smile.

So, I arrived at the airport in Florida, about 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. Russell was going to pick me up from the airport, but he was not there. I called him but he didn’t answer the phone. For a moment, I was worried about being catfished, which I thought about it before the trip so I had planned to stay in a hotel in case that happened. Luckily he did call back after about 10 minutes.

Immediately, we went out to dinner, which turned into bar hopping. Maybe it was all the beers from New Orleans still in my blood stream or the Florida heat, but I got drunk very quickly. At the end of the night, Russell and I were making out in the middle of the street. Public display of affection is not my thing but I really enjoyed it.

Next day, we walked around the beach and had dinner by the water. After dinner, we got a bottle of wine and sat in the courtyard of the hotel I stayed in. It was a beautiful breezy evening and I had my Spotify playlist of my favorite songs on.

We surveyed about each other intensely. Turns out we had many common interests. We both like same musicals and we both like cheesy rom-com movies. He is a total book worm and I asked him what his favorite book was. His response was Christopher Rice’s Density of Souls. Out of all the books he has read, this was his favorite and I was just thinking about that book few days before. “Fade in you” By Mazzy Star was playing.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the music, but I felt the butterflies in my stomach as I thought to myself ‘Is Russell is my soul mate?’

I returned home next day. Russell and I never agreed to anything, we both knew that we were not in a place (physically) and time to be in a relationship. 

For the first few days after I got home, I still had the butterflies in my stomach. But he became more distant than usual. We were already far apart physically, but his response to my text messages were less and less and he didn’t answer to my FaceTime calls.

Even though it turned out less than what I had hoped and I didn’t have any expectations going to Florida. Overall, I feel good about taking a chance.

Another missed connections

About two years ago, I connected with a guy on Grindr. His name is Lucas, who was visiting from NYC. A handsome tall white silver fox kind of a guy with a physique that resembles an athlete who never works out at the gym.

We exchanged phone numbers and following text messages took place.

That was it. For some reason, I lost interest, but I just Facebook stalked him. Turns out he’s pretty successful artist. Would it  be crazy if I friend requested him now?

Jazz it up

Two weeks ago, I witnessed a confusing and uncomfortable announcement of best picture winner of the Oscars. Due to someone’s fuck up, La La Land was mistakenly announced to be the winner, then quickly it got taken away when they actual winner, Moonlight, was called.

Both movies tell an emotional journal about love accompanied by pain and hurt. I liked both movies, but I enjoyed La La Land more, only because it was infused with music and dance. Particularly, jazz music makes me feel something special. Seb (Ryan Gosling character) descries jazz music as “It’s conflict, it’s compromise, and it’s very, very exciting.”

It feels like the quote also refers to love. Personally, I think love is an illusion usually floating in clouds (which was one of the scenes in La La Land). But having butterflies in the stomach never really happens in real life. Love, though exciting, always comes with conflict and need for compromise.

To feel jazzed up, I recently went to New Orleans for the firs time. I went with Dylan, a Tinder date from 2 years ago whom I met in Florida while I was visiting family. We met for drinks and talked about our career (we both work in similar industry), our family (we both have family drama), and our passion (we both like music and beer). He is a white guy, exactly my age, tall, who is the “boy scouts” type – he would make a great partner to go camping in the wilderness with.

Dylan and I kept in touch for 2 years and we have been toying the idea of taking a trip together for a while. So we chose New Orleans as our rendevouz. We stayed right middle of French Quarter. Though, it was the weekend after Mardi Gras, yet the city was full of partiers spilling out of bars on the sewer-smelling Bourbon Street.

Exchange saliva, not phone numbers

Though going out to a club to dance all night is not my top preference, I enjoy it once in a while. Usually, I am dancing on my own.

But I met many boys, some of which I dated for a bit. Read about them here: Scott, Liam, Stan, Gary, and Will 

One night at a club, while I was dancing on my own, I met  Seth, a cute white hipster’s boy with dorky glasses and ginger beard. Totally my type!! It happened really fast, but as soon as I started to dance with him, we were sucking faces.

No fats, No fems, No Asians.. please.

I just binge-watched Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Does documentary series on Netflix. I am a huge fan of hers!  I really enjoyed all the episodes and one episode (featuring Margaret Cho) was about racism. This is a topic that is most talked about these days. It touches on historical context and how all of us, still to this day, have prejudice thoughts, stereotyping ideas, and generalizing beliefs to make sense of the group of people who are different from us or the world we are not familiar with. It briefly highlighted America’s view on Asians and particularly in media, Asians usually play nerdy, scientist, math or computer genius roles, but never the sexualized BAMF. Though there is a cultural shift in this.

Not only the all races have been influenced by these Asian stereotypes, Asians ourselves are stuck in them. It’s as if we have to fit the mold American want us to be in and don’t know what other characteristics that are good qualities to portray.

For me, I don’t view myself as a someone who is good in math or computers, or no more than an average person. At work, I have been mistaken to be an IT guy (all from white people) or at least coworkers assume that I know how to fix their computer problems. And I certainly don’t view myself as someone with submissive or passive personality and I tend to stand-up for myself if my integrity is compromised. I do think this impacts my dating life. Especially when it comes to dating white guys who are looking for that stereotype Asian boys and they quickly learn that I don’t fit the stereotype they had in their head. Perhaps, it helps me to tease out and those who continue to show interest in me is looking for the person deeper than a skin color.

Few years ago, I was at a gay bar with my friends, who were all white, having drinks at a table. This guy, Michael, came up to our table and starts writing Chinese on a drink coaster that was front of me. He handed to me and I was all confused. I don’t know how to read Chinese so I sent the picture of it to my few Chinese friends. They said it doesn’t really make sense and they are just random words. 

Michael did introduced himself later. Michael ,who is in his 40’s and is a physician. We exchanged phone numbers then I texted him few days later. He said “I was just looking at a picture of you” and sent me a photo of some  Asian guy (who is cute BTW). Clearly, he had me confused with another Asian and that perpetuates the ‘all Asians look-a-like’ concept.

This ‘beauty is skin deep’ is still a difficult concept for people, particularly for gay men. We’re constantly exposed to media that only shows, muscular, masculine, white guys and to associated with sexiness. I just looked up People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive and other than some black guys, they are all white. No Asians.

I ghosted Michael after that.