I Quoteth:

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
Oscar Wilde

Feeling

tranquil (for a change)

Playing

Various Artists, "Grateful: The Songs of John Bucchino"

Wednesday, 6 June:

In Which I Grip It Before We Kick It.

"Well, why don't you come into the city around six and we'll meet somewhere for dinner?" Joey suggested this past Sunday night between episodes of Sex and the City.

The plan, as it originally stood, was that I would spend the night in New Brunswick with Joey and his boyfriend of two months now, EJ, after catching the season four premier of HBO's hottest primetime show.  By the time the semester had come to a close last month, Joey and EJ were seeing stars ... as well as a whole hell of a lot of each other.  The boy was spending almost more nights in my apartment than I was.  But as I was able to recall the giddy excitement of a brand-new relationship, I tried not to let it bother me.  I also tried not to let it bother me when EJ started using the shower, my cable internet connection and blue work-out bandana.  I couldn't help but begin see an all too familiar pattern emerging in they boys' blossoming relationship.  When Doni and I were about a month into dating as a serious couple, we longed for the ability to spend every waking moment together without the Long Island to New Jersey barrier keeping us at a healthy distance apart for weeks at a time.  The same "I want to be with you twenty-four hours a day" syndrome had started brewing between my roommate and his boyfriend - the only difference is that, in this case, they actually could.  The two are practically living together in the apartment over the summer.  When I arrived in New Brunswick Sunday night, it hardly felt like the home away from home I'd spent the previous school year living in.  It felt more like The Personal Lair of Joey and EJ: Couple Extraordinaire.  Welcome to our Tunnel of Love.

When Joey asked me if I'd be taking the train into the city with him the following morning as we had planned (Joey had landed a summer internship at a very hot talent and modeling agency and was starting Monday morning), I realized that since I hadn't made any calls to my New York City resident friends, I'd have to schlep my oversized duffel bag around town with me until meeting Steve and Melissa at 8:30p.  Thinking that it must have been proven somewhere that carrying a bag full of a gay boy's overnight grooming products and selection of following-day outfits to be chosen upon based on his "mood" is equally taxing on one's body as the Iron Man competition or Chinese water torture, I nixed the idea of taking the 10a train right away.  Dinner at six would do just fine.

"Sure, where should we ...?" I began to ask before Joey started calling EJ's name down the hall.

"Baby!" (they constantly refer to each other as "baby" now) " ... is it OK if I meet up with Mikey for dinner tomorrow after work?  It'll only be an extra hour or so."

"Sure," EJ said.  After a pause.

"You're sure you'll be OK?  I feel bad leaving you alone for so long.  Maybe you can drive in with Mikey when you get back from work!" Joey continued.  I simply dropped my jaw.  After a few more minutes of negotiating with each other, EJ finally told Joey that it was okay with him if Joey came home a bit later than expected.  But I was still stunned.  Did my roommate actually just ask his boyfriend for permission to have dinner with me?  What if EJ had refused Joey's pitiful request and demanded him home on time?  Would Joey have broken his plans with me, his good friend and roommate, right then and there in order to come running home to his boyfriend of two-months?  Why hadn't Joey simply informed EJ that he'd be home later than normal?  In a world where we're all dying to make a connection, to get spiritually inside another person, I couldn't help but wonder: how close is too close?

We've all seen it happen.  Some of us may have even experienced it first hand.  Only few return safely.  One day, you're talking with a close friend as usual, everything seems normal, they tell you about their latest romance like they're describing the Capulet's ball when suddenly, three weeks go by and you realize that you haven't heard from your friend since.  You wonder if they've moved,  been kidnapped, murdered, become a plate spinner in the Big Apple Circus ... until you realize the awful truth: they've been sucked into the Relationship Black Hole.

It draws you like a poisoned apple.  You meet someone, they're cute, fun, intelligent, they make you feel tingly when you're together, you miss them when you're apart.  And so you start to arrange your schedule to lessen the gap between those times when you're apart.  You begin to turn down offers and invitations that don't relate to your significant other.  Suddenly, everything you do begins to take on the purpose of spending more time with this person.  You get to a point where you're simply running on auto-pilot, rearranging your schedule, your life, for this one person out of pure reflex.  Of course, I'm not suggesting that all relationships turn down this avenue, but you've got to admit it's an all too common scenario.  Take my relationship with Doni for instance.  We started seeing each other in December of 1999.  By February, I was already skipping second period Voice class on Monday mornings so that I could spend an extra night with him on the weekends.  And it didn't stop there.  I actually got to the point where I was seriously considering not attending Broadway Theatre Project in Tampa last July based on a fear of being away from him for an entire month.  Thankfully, I had gotten myself out just in time to have a good four days to pack my bags for the flight.  Unfortunately, I had missed my opportunity to bask in the excitement and joy of being accepted to the program when I received my letter a month earlier.  Doni had simply frowned and expressed his discomfort over the idea of having so many strange gay musical theatre boys living in a dorm with me.  The ultimate kick in the stomach, however, has to be the fact that I had actually agreed to attempt living in his apartment for the summer in order to "solve the distance problem."   Not surprisingly, living together in a closely confined space only succeeded in distancing us further.  After three weeks in Long Island, I was on a train back to New Jersey.  I couldn't believe the amount of myself I had let my boyfriend claim.  I couldn't believe how drastically I had changed myself.  And for what?  Some guy?  Some guy who didn't care if I passed or failed my Theatre Tech class as long as I was able to come to Long Island every weekend to sit on his fucking futon and watch Comedy Central?  As sick as it made me feel, I couldn't put the blame entirely on him.  True, he was a dickhead but I gave him all the permission to be one.  We couldn't even carry out a decent argument.  I had given up so much of myself that I hardly had a self to stick up for.  We were both immature sexually, romantically, any other kind of -ly you can think of.  And I still am to a certain degree.  But it didn't have to end the way it did.  A high percentage of what went wrong between Doni and I was a direct result of simply getting too damn close.

After Doni and I broke up, I spent three amazing weeks in Tampa at the Broadway Theatre Project.  And during those three weeks, I met the fabulous Ann Reinking, the wonderful Patti LuPone ... and a really cute boy named Ryan.  After the project came to a close, Perfect Ryan and I were back in the Northeast (he, in Astoria, NY, myself in south Jersey) and spending nearly every weekend together.  Knowing full well that Ryan had an opportunity to take a six-month job dancing with Tokyo Disney, I continued seeing him and allowing things to get "serious."  One particularly breezy night in August as Ryan and I were walking off our dinner at Republic, I told him, without even realizing what was coming out of my mouth, that I'd be willing to maintain a long distance relationship with him while he was away in Japan.

Um, hello, Michael?  This is Earth.  You've got to come back down, boy.  The lack of oxygen is beginning to literally turn your brain to horse shit.

What was I thinking?  Nineteen years old and I was going to put myself through maintaining a monogamous relationship with a boy I've known for two months while he's six zillion miles, two oceans and 180 degrees away from me?  I had mad relationship disease.

When Ryan turned down the Tokyo job for the national tour of the Radio City show, I did the only thing I felt capable of: I disappeared into thin air.  Stopped calling, stopped e-mailing, stopped breathing as far as he was concerned.  Sure, I felt shitty, but I needed to stop cold turkey.  I was done.  No more relationships.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Somebody hand me a cocktail.

In response, I turned my full attention towards school, my friends, my music, my books, my journal, my obsession with Harry Potter.  Me, me, me.  And it didn't feel selfish.  It felt goddamn liberating.  I had trapped myself into thinking I needed to change myself for the sake of others and now it was time to say, "to hell with the others and make room for me."  I started getting cast more and more in the productions at school.  My love for my art began to come through again (save for a few months while I was trapped in Camino Real, also known as hell on Earth) and the directors responded by using me consistently.  I also had the chance to realize that I didn't actually hate the gay community.  Without the pressure of a boyfriend attached to my hip. I realized that I could actually have fun at a night club.  I realized that I enjoy being myself around other people.

I realized that I didn't want to be involved in another relationship for a long, long, long time.

Hell, I'm having too much fun playing the single best friend.  The fact is, I'm twenty years old.  I've observed that most nineteen to twenty-year-olds, myself included, go through a moment when you hit the big 2-0 and think, "holy shit, I'm twenty years old and halfway through college.  A few more years and I'll be admitted into a nursing home.  It's time now for everything in my life to become serious."  When the truth is, no, it's not.  We fall under this misconception that because we're beginning to come into our own, we're all grown up.  While it is true that things have changed; we no longer live primarily at home with mommy and daddy, we're beginning to make our own decisions and don't have to be in by 12:30, we take that as our cue to immediately find a boyfriend or girlfriend and buy them a diamond ring.  You turn on the radio and what do you hear?  Twenty-one year old pop groups screeching that they want it "all or nothing at all" and that they'll never, ever leave you, baby.  What about taking the time to see what the world has to offer?  What about enjoying our youth?  What about living in the present, one day at a time, and not worrying so much about the future?  Yes, it is time to get serious about certain things like school and work, but we're still young.  We have so much life ahead of us.  So many experiences yet to ... well, experience.  There are so many things that I don't know.  Things about the world, life, myself, and yes, relationships.  Fuck, I don't even have a checking account yet.  How can I expect myself to function in an excruciatingly serious relationship when I still think a Visa card translates to free money?

Of course, I'm not here trying to say what's the right answer for everyone.  This is my journal and I'm simply expressing my opinion as it relates to my life.  And for the time being, and into the foreseeable future, it's the single life for me.

My reasoning goes beyond the fact that I'm young and want to have fun and drink Pepsi.  Given my track record of past relationships, I think it's a safe gamble to say that I, Michael, am not ready for a relationship.  There, I've said it.  I am not ready to be in a relationship.  When the day comes that the moon is in the seventh house and I do meet Mr. Marvelous in a handsome book store over skim lattes, and I do hope it eventually does (the key word being eventually), I imagine the perfect relationship being at a total equilibrium.  A relationship that is equally warm, loving and supportive from both sides, has wonderful moments of us together complimented by equally wonderful moments apart.  It would be a relationship of sharing.  Two doesn't necessarily need to become one.  If I fall in love with a guy, I'm going to fall in love with the guy, the complete picture, not how well the guy can blend into mine.  But before than can happen, the two that don't necessarily have to become one need to have a pretty decent grip on their own lives in order to share it.  How do you share yourself before you even know who you are?  How do you love some one else before you love yourself?  At twenty years old and hardly out of the house I grew up in, without so much as a checking account in my name, how can I be expected to have the luxury of truly knowing myself?  But you know something?  I'm eager as hell to meet me.  I'm looking forward to embarking on that journey just as fast as my feet will go - while still taking it easy enough to have a good time along the way.

And so, no, I don't want to ask permission to have dinner with my roommate.  I don't want to be under the pressure to skip my Monday morning classes in order to sleep late in my boyfriend's futon.  I don't want calls to Tokyo on my long distance bill.  Everything I want or need is right here.  Wherever I am.

"Get this," EJ said as he burst through the front door Monday afternoon.  I was slumming around the apartment and Joey had been out working for about two hours.  "You know that song, 'Take My Breath Away' from Top Gun?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, it came on the radio while I was driving home and I just started bawling!  I mean, I just busted out crying!  I almost had to pull over."

"Jesus, why?" I asked, a bit concerned.

"Because it made me think of Joey and how much I miss him right now."

"You're kidding," I said.

"No way.  Dead serious."

I patted his shoulder.  "Honey, you need to get a grip."