Thursday, January 30, 2014

Computer Love

If this is strange to anyone reading it, forgive me its the first time I've done it.

I've written articles, press releases, scripts, intros to books, blog posts, tweets, facebook statuses, essays, but this is the first time I've written a letter.

I wasn't going to write this tonight because I have work in the morning, but if I don't write it I'll sit up with my mind racing and wondering what time it is out of fear that the light emitted from my iphone would further drain the time from my night of sleep.

So this letter is to my computer love, who happens to be this guy that I met on facebook maybe a month ago. Funny thing is, its felt like I've known him forever. So here it goes...

CL,

Even as I begin to write this I felt my pulse quicken and my breathe become shallow. Truth is, I'm not sure what to say. I'm so used to writing about people, places and things and writing to you even I talk to you almost everyday feels so much more personal.

I guess I want to start off by saying thank you.

Thank you for...well everything. For the time in what feels like forever, I feel I am somebody. When we first "met" I didn't see this coming. I entered that group with the expectation that I would see a bunch of pretentious old guys that love talking about themselves and to my elated disappointment, I was right.

Countless educated, self indulged single guys yapping about relationship problems from the predictable first person standpoint, because who else matters to them; then there was you.

I said something off the wall in the group on a post about relationship expectations and you caught me by surprise; you responded to me in complete thoughts. I know it sounds trivial, but it spoke volumes to me that someone didn't just write a blurb inserting their opinion on something I said, but you questioned me and believe it or not I "felt" a since of sincerity.

So I clicked on your profile and saw that you were older than I was, more educated and you lived in DC, so I summed you up. Figured that you were like the rest of them, some know-it-all asshole that just happened to have a way with words.

Then you surprised me again; you encouraged me to do something I thought I wanted to do.

On a post asking "what would you do if you were not afraid to fail?", I said that I would move to Brooklyn and become a writer. A few people liked it, and by a few I mean the usual suspects that were inboxing me asking why I was single and a plethora of other personal questions that do nothing, but turn me off.

Some of them were attractive, some were nice, but the truth is I'm not looking for relationship. All this time I've wasted sleeping around and attempting to meet guys was me searching for someone that I could open up to.

After you responded to my post saying that you "knew so much about me" and I asked you if you knew that it was me that writes this blog, I realized that the person I had been searching for was you.

In the few short weeks that I've gotten to know you, you've changed something in me. You told me early on a handful of times that you felt like you had a connection to me and that you liked me, but I shrugged it off as some strange infatuation with someone that you couldn't touch, but as time as elapsed I feel the the distance between us has been virually erased.

I realized tonight that the reason I feel so close to you is that I trust you.

You told me that you felt like you were falling in love with me in one of our daily facebook chats at work and I had to laugh because I defined love as a feeling of dependence on another person. That when you love someone, you feel like you cannot live without them. I told you that you just liked our conversation and lightly scorned you since you're involved with someone else.

I don't want to complicate this relationship by saying that I like you and I don't want to devalue it by saying that I love you because what I feel for you is greater and that is you've earned my trust.

I feel safe with you. Not just because you're far away from me and I can't act on any physical thing, but I feel like I can tell you anything about me and that you listen. You provide direction. You inspire me. The best part about it all is that you don't expect anything in return.

You've breathed life into me again. For so long, I was jaded by experiences with gay men in my past and put off by people that have lusted after and tried to corner me into situations that I didn't want, but you offered me a way out of that.

Even if you were to stop talking to me one day, block me from every form of communicating with you, what you've given me is so much greater than the idea of always having you; you taught me to trust.

In many ways, I feel like trust is greater than love because it allows me to be who I am at any moment. Technically you're still a stranger to me, but I've never felt so open with someone without thinking about being vulnerable, but open to learning and growth.

You're the water to my seed that helps me grow and the sunlight that helps me flourish.

It might sound crazy to you if you read this, like I know you will, but you're setting apart of me on fire. The flames of your honesty are burning my outer shell and instead of gasping for the air that is my sanity in this thing; I'm accepting what's happening.

Its like every love song I've ever heard starts to make sense when I think about the feelings that you're bringing out of me and even though you're 500 miles away, I feel like you're with me.

I don't want you to feel embarrassed about the way you feel or to complicate your situation, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you.

You're an amazing guy "CL" and you're going to make a great husband. I'm glad that I "met" you and I'm proud to call you friend.

- CGN

Thursday, January 23, 2014

H.A.T.E.U.ME.

Today while browsing my secret twitter, I stumbled across an article that was published for MUSE mag about the fetishism of masculinity in the gay black community.

I saw people adding their two cents about it here and there and no one, that I came across, echoed my feelings; it pissed me off.

Not because it was poorly written, the topic was explored thoroughly or that I disagreed with the authors position. The article touched on a larger issue that prevents me from fully identifying as a "gay black man"; the value system.

The dictionary defines a community as follows:

a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.

 I bolded certain words in that definition because I will briefly expound on why I feel a sense of isolation as a member of this "community".

1) Gays can only be described as a group because of our common charasteric and not our interests. The unified characteristic is homosexual; the lust for flash carrying the same reproductive organs.

2) Our interests vary greatly for the sake of not generalizing gay men, take a look 10 gay men's social media accounts and you'll probably find some iconic image of a woman; preferabley lighter skinned, long straight hair and a singer (as much as we like to talk about how 'different' we are, we love to indulge in the societal standard of beauty).

You will also find some sort of external communication method like kik, bbm or a twitter handle so we can discreetly connect with one another. Now this isn't a new phenomenon, it dates back to when Oscar Wilde and other discreet, not discrete, gays would wear colorful carnations on their lapels to identify one another without drawing too much attention for the castigating general public. Sound like a similar practice? Thought so.

Last, but not least, we love excessive drama. Whether its the Kardashian, the Real Housewives or any other show that depicts women as catty, ignorant and combative, we enjot the mellow drama. We even employ it in our own social lives, often forming cliques and using the physical and material flaws of other to form a pedestal for our false hierarchy.

3) Perceiving itself as distinct. Gay men are divided on racial and socioeconomic levels despite the fact that we believe we are so different from the general public. Since we are ostracized as a whole, the elite, and often white, gays lead the crusade against conservative family groups while the educationally deficient and pauper suffer from higher amounts of wage discrimination and health illnesses (including HIV rates climbing in minority communities which are ignored by wealthy whites that can afford treatment).

As different as gay men like to pretend that they, they, or we, often fall into the same materialistic, social hierarchies that our straight counterparts do and isolate those of us that make us "look bad" or aren't as involved in the causes as the rest of group.

This is where I find myself conflicted. I am a member of a community that is divided racially and economically; that I often find myself disagreeing with and for that reason being isolated from.

When it comes to black gay men, I notice that even our most prominent mouth pieces for advocacy like Mused and Cypher Avenue, if there are others fill me in, often go back to the petty arguments about masculinity or "does HIV matter?"

I find myself wondering if we are incapable of identifying the other issues: like poverty, employment discrimination and disease control that the majority (white) gay population sees and attacks while leaving us out.

Or do we simply not care because we only see playing russian roulette with HIV, wondering each other's sexual positions and how masculine other men are as the only tangible issues we can discuss on any intellectual level.

I find it heartbreaking that the only time we can manage to discuss HIV is when we are demonizing other men for having it or highlighting harrowing stories, like the Michael Johnson HIV scare case, when as a "community" so many of us are impacted by it or exposed it in social and sexual settings.

I find it disappointing that the most attention we choose to give one another on a given day is the hamster wheel conversation about perceived masculinity; hell Cypher Avenue is DEDICATED to it.

Then there are the porn blogs that perpetuate the objectification of young black men that are in fact stricken by limited employment, broken families, poverty and often end up with HIV that see sex for money and their looks as their meal tickets to McDonald's.

Enough is enough, it makes me sick. Often times I think I hate the idea of being gay and the gay community, but I realize that I cannot do that and say that without hating myself.

We need a new vanguard, a new path and better ways to identify issues impacting our community or truly face extinction through self-hatred, division and sheer ignorance.

I just hope we wake up in time to make a change.

- CGN

Monday, January 20, 2014

Blame Game

A lot happened this weekend and by a lot I mean a whole lot of nothing. Which was fine of course because last week was extremely draining at work and I was worried about losing a bet about the Superbowl contenders (which turned out in my favor).

One thing that did happen other than my usual lounging about and hitting the gym was another chapter in the book of hopefuls closed. Just as history repeats itself, this chapter was closed not by me, but the hopeful himself.

I'll call him "JC", because he's good like that (no pun intended...seriously).

Anyway we met in September of last year and things kicked off with an awkward start. First we met in church and then subsequently went to brunch where I told him a fraction of my whoring background and it bleeeeeww him away.

So after that I figured, "hey...another one bites the dust. Guess I kept it too real (Plies voice)."

But I was wrong.

He hit me back and we started hanging out and having pretty deep conversations about ourselves to get to know one another.

The entire time I was interested in getting to know him better, but we kept circling back to that place I'm just not comfortable going; a relationship.

Now before you jump to conclusions: NO, I'm not afraid of commitment. NO, he's not unattractive. and NO, I wasn't more interested in fucking everything walking.

However, I got the feeling that he may have thought all of those things despite me telling him otherwise.

Maybe it was me telling him I got blowjob immediately before the second time we hung out, but hey...I was just being honest.

He also NEVER let me live that down.

Even after explaining that because of me turning sex into a habit I had NO CONNECTION to people that I fucked, he somehow refused to accept it.

When my words, and even my actions of not having sex and being open, failed me, I tried one final thing to make it clear.

The last time we met up, we talked for hours at a sushi bar about where I moving in my life, and I made a diagram on the table using a chopstick paper and a chewed a straw to show him where I was.

I used the two to make a "T" and on the 180 degree side of it was "relationships" and the opposite side that formed two 90 degree angles and the intersection of the "T" were sex and friends.  I was just trying to show that sex and friends mingled on one side of the line and the relationship area remained uncharted.

However, if I had it my way, I'd move from friends first to a relationship. I even used the term "organically" for how I wanted a relationship to form, but even that was met with opposition.

It all crashed and burned on Saturday when I asked to reschedule us going to Sunday. I had been over my dad's house and was helping out around the house when I fell asleep. After we didn't choose an activity and it was cold, I just suggested the next day.

Then...all hell broke loose. He told me he was done being "treated like a second rate friend" and that I didn't care about his emotions. I tried to brush that off, because in my eyes it was dramatic, but he was dead. ass.

Told me that he was "moving forward" with someone serious and before saying he was "signing off and best in life" he said "I bet if I was one of your encounters you would've made time".

Well folks...that pissed. me. off.

After opening up to you about my past, my blog and my tribulations you throw that in my face?

I was a little tipsy off the wine by the fireplace, but I had to let that go up in flames.  I was trying to hold onto a friendship that had a foundation of potential relationship and that wasn't smart. It was like the bundle of burning wood in my fireplace, just a placeholder for warmth before it was charred and all that remained was a pile of dust.


I then wondered why gay men have such a difficult time forming genuine friendships without the immediate expectation of more.

Is it because we watch others around us get into relationships and have kids? Is it the family pressure? Or do we feel led on by that initial spark between two people that isn't quite explained.

I thought I had ignited something of an eternal flame like the one on MLK's memorial down in Atlanta and like moths drawn to the flame we both got our asses burnt.

Who's to blame in this failed venture: me or him? I'm not sure, but it sucks to lose something potentially awesome over some mixed signals, battered emotions and gas drenched arguments.

Luckily the conflagration was extinguished with a bottle of riesling and Drake's SNL skit.

- CGN

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Darling Nicki

I'm not sure if it was because I had a great time out with a guy on Sunday, work has been crazy this week or I've found joy in my new fleshlight, but 4 days later I deleted jack'd its out of sight, out of mind.

Call it the workings of the universe or my enduring charm, but ever since I dropped it like a hot potato, some guys that I haven't even talked to in a while have been hitting me up like crazy. Hell, I even got a "How are you?" from "J" (imagine that? I'm that good, huh?).

There was one blast from the past that stuck out in my texts like a sore thumb and he was left an indelible mark on my mind and sex life ever since we met four years ago.

I'll call him "Darling Nicki".

I met "Darling Nicki" in almost the exact way Prince met the vixen in his classic:

"I knew a girl named nikki
I guess u could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said howd u like 2 waste some time
And I could not resist when I saw little nikki grind"


I met him on adam4adam and was immediately drawn to the profile picture of his ass. Now a lot of guys have nice asses, but this was like an ass I've never seen. I was convinced he was a catfish when he responded to my "hey what's up" message (I never had enough hood swagger or poor grammar to write "wussup" or "sup").

A few minutes after chatting, I was in my ho-mobile on my way to Hotel Helix in Dupont circle to meet up with him.  You're probably wondering how I remember this particular encounter with such great detail, well I'll tell you. 

In your sex life, I believe there are three people that you hookup with that you should never forget: your first (mine was a "C" at best), your most recent (I have that one on video in my iphone) and your best.

I'm here to tell you, out of all of the encounters I've had, "Darling Nicki" was the best.

When I got to his room, he was watching some cartoon fully dressed on the bed. At that stage in my whoring, I used to get nervous about hookups despite my track record. I guess I just never wanted to be disappointing and you never know how someone will perceive you when you walk in the room.

He was very chill like "Little Red Corvette" (at that point I knew he was a pro), and we sat there with my heart pounding doing the typical DC chat: Where are you from? What do you do? etc.

After a few moments of me laying there like a mannequin, he reached over and whipped out my dick as I placed him in a 69 position over me to see that ass, and man...was it a sight to see.

After eating his ass for a few minutes, I grabbed my condoms and lube and got to work. We fucked in that hotel room for 2 hours in every position imaginable: the front, back, side, him riding me both directions until he came on my stomach without touching himself.

I was in shock, I must've put it down, right?

I got up covered in sweat, saved his number in my phone and on the way out did that annoying thing I used to do all the time after a hookup; sent a thank you and "rating" text.

Blame it on being groomed to be a young professional, but I would always send a text that went along the lines of "thanks for letting me come over, I hope you had a good time".

He responded with an "lol, hit me up".

Not sure how to take that, I followed his instruction a week later and he was in my apartment while my roommate was at work bent over our futon with the blinds wide open. Anyone from the street could see, hell my roommate could've come in, but he had me in a trance (my dumbass even left the magnum wrapper under the pillow on the living room couch and acted confused when a friend found it).

I felt like a pro after that. The best bottom I'd ever had was responding to my texts and falling through whenever I wanted him to.

I found out later from "Gilette" that "Darling Nicki" was just like that chick in the Prince song, a regular sex fiend. One day after sex Gilette mentioned that he was hanging with a guy with the same name as my favorite bottom and after chatting I discovered it was "Darling Nicki". Of COURSE, I asked how he him and he said he and his friends had run a train on him. Not only did they do it, he did this often and with several people.

Imagine my horror and disappointment.

Still it wasn't enough to get me off the hook. I was texting him homemade videos in my phone to get his attention and he would respond with his own. Each guy similar to me: a mean stroke game, nice sized dick and being freaky with him.

I slowly started to distance myself from him and of course he did the same. It wasn't until months later that I met up with him again for a freak session, in between that I was fucking "Gilette" and every other person that I found hot on adam4adam and jack'd.

When we slept together again, I did something that I probably shouldn't have done; I fucked him raw and flooded him out before spending the night at his place. Now you're probably wondering why I did this and well...I guess I wanted that validation from him still. For him to know that I could be just as freaky as those other guys he had in him.

Well, it worked. Two years later and 500 miles apart we still talk to this day.

This past weekend however, we didn't share a sex tape and I didn't hit him up, it was the other way around. He just asked how I was doing. Since I'm great, that's what I said and we caught up with one another.

He asked did I have any new videos with an 'lol' and I lied saying I didn't. When I asked him the same question he said "I'm not really into that anymore".

What?

One of the biggest freaks I know has thrown in the towel? Could he be lying? Maybe he's going through something I am on a level emotional traumatizing level?

Either way, I just believed him and I didn't send anything. He even told me he deleted adam for good and that he didn't need it (well shit after hoing like that who would?) Still I was impressed by his decision to shed some of his outlets to "explore" himself.

This conversation was pivotal to me because out of the people I've shared my blog with (him NOT included) I never felt like any of the guys could relate to what I was saying, because they haven't been down the nasty road I walked, fucked, talked and lived for the past 7 years.

I will definitely keep in touch with him and at this point, since I am single, plan on seeing him when he visits the midwest. Until then I'll stay off the networks and relive our those moments on his on xtube page which hasn't been updated in 13 months.

Speaking of which, where is my fleshlight?

- CGN



Sunday, January 5, 2014

Scared of Lonely

Yesterday was kind of a blah day.

I haven't written anything in a while, not because I haven't had sex, I had a 3some with two guys I already slept with (keeping my number down) on Sunday. I guess I was riding high from the holidays and recently got the "back to work blues".

Two days back and I just feel blah. I don't hate my job at all, but the combination of the shitty weather and the fact that I deleted jack'd might be it.

Saturday morning I woke up with one of those hangover hard-ons that just wouldn't go away. I got in late after a night out with this new guy that had tested my patience on a "date" (won't be seeing his ass again), but I was up like a spring chicken ready to tackle the frigid temperatures.

I went on jack'd, my favorite app of course, to hunt down some sex and since I knew very well what I was doing, I didn't feel bad about it. After a few minutes of scrolling through the same faces I see day in and day out, I realized I was done.

I deleted my pics, went into my phone browser and deleted it altogether. I had a feeling of accomplishment, but within in seconds it was eroded by a pit in my stomach.

What was I thinking?

I had gotten rid of something that was sucking up my attention, providing me with aimless brain damaging entertainment, but I also cut off my last link to the outside world of guys.

Sure I had fucked half of them and despite "reupholstering" and refining my profile the newbies I didn't meet did what they always did; ignored me or wanted to fuck. Still I felt like I lost something.

Today begins day two without it and I really feel like the walls are closing in on me. Waking up to no messages, my phone grabbing ritual came to a halt and my avenue to meeting guys is closed.

Will I never be able to have sex again?

I got an offer from the couple I banged out a few weeks ago yesterday, but I declined because I just wasn't feeling it (who knows who they'd bring to the group). Plus there was an impending blizzard.

So now I'm here going through withdrawal and its bad.

The only thing that made me feel better was facetiming with an old friend that lives in New York last night, but after talking for over an hour and our conversation started to come to a close....I got sad.

Then I wondered was it jack'd I was missing or the attention from guys? Some people are introverts so they could care less about interacting with another person, but I feed off of it. It makes me happy.

Now without it...I feel alone and to be honest, that's what scares me.

On the phone last night I got to take a trip down memory lane to when I paid $1,600 a month to live alone in DC, but after doing so I found myself filling the space with temporary visitors just for companionship. Turns out being "Mr. Independent", "don't need nobody" doesn't work for me AT ALL.

Some of the guys I fucked I thought were hot, others...I could've gone without, but I was all alone and that's all I knew that would draw people over.

Now away from that and with an even worse pool of guys to potential interact with..I'm lost.

*le sigh* what to do.

Any suggestions from guys out there that have gone through withdrawal?

I know your device is blocked for a month when you delete jack'd and it takes 3 weeks to break a habit, so...by February I'll be over it...maybe?

Until then...what to do? Barnes and Noble? Jack off? Homeland is off the air....I need help y'all.

- CGN