Bottled Lightning

The First Man I Loved

Photo: Ty Beaver

This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter focused on the late blooming queer experience, the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.

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Harrison (he preferred Harry)¹ messaged me first. He later told me he saw my photo on Scruff’s Global dashboard, which he said he almost never looked at. But, that day in late September, he did. 

I had been on the app for only a couple weeks, chatted up a number of guys and thoroughly enjoyed those conversations. But most of them lived an hour or more away from me. Most wanted to set up a meeting soon. I was still very unsure of myself, of what this excursion outside my marriage would be like, if it was really what I needed, if I was really willing to accept the risks that came with it.

My conversation with Harry started off as the others had for me: flirty hello, acknowledgement of each other’s attractiveness and then the dance of small talk. But Harry wasn’t as hot to trot as the others had been; he genuinely was interested in my life. And I was genuinely interested in his life, partly because I wanted to better understand how a guy as hot as him found me worth his time. His head of thick dark hair, bushy beard and soft eyes were entrancing. And I could tell he had some strength under the black t-shirts he wore in every photo on his profile.

We had hours-long chat marathons. I learned he is a little older than me. He has three cats. His family accepted his queerness. He had relatively recently moved to the Pacific Northwest to escape the bigotry of the South. He learned about my self acceptance and coming out, my tense-slash-awkward relationship with my family, my career in journalism and then in communications, my dog. We learned we are both in open marriages, though his partner is a man.

Eventually our texts began whiplashing between get-to-know and let’s-get-off. There was just this hunger from both of us. But it was different from the horny chat threads I’d had with other guys before we met. There was no urgency or impatience but there was an eagerness to sense each other’s mutual pleasure. Just like we’d started out with our initial texts, it was a slow burn as we both typed and sent messages back and forth painting ourselves into bed together doing so many things which I, a baby bi who had only recently had his first sexual experience with a man, had only fantasized about.

Eventually I dropped that I would be in Portland in mid-October. He asked if I’d be willing to take a detour north after that trip to see him before heading home. I did my best to not sound too excited in my reply.

In the end, I did not drive north for our first meeting; rather, he drove to Portland, got a room at my hotel and we arranged to meet for a drink.

Journal 10/23/23

I need to get this all down before it fades.

The moment he stepped off the elevator and we saw each other for the first time and he smiled…sitting in Scandals when he asked if we could hold hands and the electricity shot up my arm…Rubbing the back of his head against my arm and shoulder as we sat on the couch in his suite…when he first spooned me and his arms enveloped me…the slight filminess of his hair, the surprising softness of his beard against my face, the springiness of his chest hair…sitting in the boulangerie, my hand on his thigh…the bear hugs we gave each other…him rushing out to say goodbye as I loaded the car and giving one more kiss.²

We set up a schedule: a Saturday through Sunday each month, trading off who-visits-who. 

We are clear about boundaries: Spouses always come first. No pushing to meet each other’s spouse/family. Discretion in who we talk to about our relationship out of professional and/or personal considerations.

We agree on what we are: boyfriends

In November I went to him. Most of our time was spent in my hotel room where I experienced so many firsts but we also ate Greek food, got bubble tea and walked around Pike Place eating Daily Dozen Donuts. I couldn’t stop touching him, looking at him, smelling him.

He visited me a few weeks before Christmas. I took him to one of my favorite restaurants and we visited a few other haunts of mine. We exchanged gifts. I gave him copies of all my photobooks, an embroidery piece with him depicted as a superhero, a bracelet of steel and black agate that I made for him, chocolate. He gave me two packs of my favorite color photographic film, a bracelet he made and then I felt a twinge of uneasiness when I unwrapped the Apple Watch. For helping keep track of my workouts and such, he said. He saw me freeze.

“If it’s too much…”

“I just can’t ever reciprocate this.”

“And that’s fine. This is how I show people I care for them.”

We agreed that we need more than one night a month together.

In mid-January I’m again in Seattle where we visited the art museum and looked at old and new art that is beyond either of our capabilities and got Indian food and cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory and, again, spent a lot of time in my hotel room. Then came our second morning.

Journal, 1/4/24

We were sitting at the Starbucks Reserve on Pike and Melrose having breakfast and coffee. Somehow I started talking about how certain things in my relationship with [my wife] frustrated me. . .And [Harry] is nodding and smiling at times saying things such as “I completely understand where you’re coming from.” And there’s a lull when we’re both just sitting there, him staring into space, me staring at him.

Then he leans forward, takes my hand into both of his and says, “I love you.” I hold my breath but then I speak honestly; “I’ve been wanting to say the same thing to you. I love you.”

I wasn’t prepared for this. 

Yes, I was obsessed with Harry and wanted to be naked with him all the time. 

I also wanted to not be naked with him, to experience other things with him, like take a trip, go to a show, go to a baseball game, meet his friends…be a part of his full life. And I wanted him to be a part of my full life.

I want to note that I did not come into our relationships looking for “I love you” love. It was more about exploring a physical intimacy I’d never felt I had the permission to explore. It was more about finding a guy (or two!) who could be a good friend and provide some occasional sexual release. Friends with benefits. A fuck buddy, if you want to be a bit more blunt. Our relationship became more than that. The emotional bond we developed, our comfort with bearing our innermost selves—our anxieties, our dreams—became comparable to the physical hunger we felt for each other. 

Blah blah blah best laid plans blah blah blah.

I already had “I love you” love and I was terrified of losing it as I explored my queerness. I knew that, intellectually, I could love him and my wife. Polyamory is a real thing, different people can provide for different needs in ourselves. And our capacity for love isn’t finite; to borrow a cliched expression, love isn’t pie. Giving love to another doesn’t make another person’s love you’ve given them—and continue to give them—smaller.

You’ve probably been taught to reserve the language of love for when you’re feeling overwhelmingly tender and passionate and only for those who have made huge commitments to you. Maybe you’ve been taught that using the “L-word” implies that you are making some large commitments. Wouldn’t it be better to ask ourselves how we love any particular person than worrying about whether we do or not?

- Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton, The Ethical Slut

It didn’t help that I was feeling these things for Harry at the same time that my wife and I were struggling in the bedroom. We—I—had struggled with finishing for a while, months before I even got onto the apps and met Harry. My coming out and self acceptance likely had a role but there were plenty of things that were impacting me in addition—my toxic workplace, my fruitless job search with no end in sight, my lack of sleep as I got up in the middle of each night to either help my youngest go back to bed or care for my elderly dog as he edged closer to the end of his life. 

But Harry asked to spoon me when we were in bed. He sought out my hand when we were out getting coffee or a meal. He leaned in to me when he wanted a kiss. He initiated contact. 

At the time, I couldn’t remember the last time my wife did the same out of second nature. And now that I was again getting it from someone, I realized how much I missed it. Missed feeling desired. Missed being pursued.

Pursue may not be the right word. My wife had and still has me, after all. At no time did I desire to go off and create a whole new life with anyone else. I was and am regularly reminded of how fortunate I am to have her in my life. We share silly memes via our phones with each other as we sit in the living room, we discuss our days and our thoughts on current events daily, I still want to rest my hand on her thigh whenever we are driving together. And she still gives me a knowing look whenever the kids are in bed. But things had cooled in recent years, in part because my struggles with depression/anxiety and suicidal ideation left me cold and distant for weeks at a time and, well, she adapted to that.

Still, I was tired of being the initiator. Tired of giving cuddles on the couch with no reciprocation. Tired of pleasuring but not getting pleasured. Tired of not sensing a hunger from her. It’s only recently that I’ve learned that a lot of men married to women want the same thing I did; a study published in 2021 in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy indicated that 95 percent of 300 straight men surveyed by researchers said feeling desired by their partners was either “very important,” “extremely important,” or “paramount.”

Nearly half of the men (49%) suggested that they wished their partners would be more assertive/dominant during sex. Additionally, 17% wished their partners would initiate sex more often, 15% wanted their partners to clearly communicate their sexual needs and desires, and 14% simply craved more sexual interest from their partners.

Interestingly, when describing things their partners could do to show their sexual desire, many men described actions that were romantic rather than sexual. For example, 18% of the men wanted more romance from their partners, 16% wanted more non-sexual touch, and 19% insinuated they wanted more flirting/teasing from their partners.

“While we tend to believe that men are the ones who ‘do the wanting’ and are the ones to pursue sexual activity and demonstrate desire for their partners, men also want to be desired in return. Men in my study described that they didn’t just want their partner to initiate more sexual activity, they wanted to be romanced,” Murray told PsyPost.

“Examples included having their woman partner rub their feet, give them a kiss in passing, cuddle up to them on the couch, or tell them they looked cute or sexy. The implications for this are, in my opinion, quite large. It not only paints a gentler, more responsive side of men’s sexuality than we typically talk about, it also suggests that we may be getting a lot of things wrong about men’s sexual desire and that we should be thinking more critically about men’s sexuality rather than relying on potentially outdated, harmful assumptions.”

It was after yet another underwhelming night in bed that everything broke down, that I admitted my frustrations and worries and she acknowledged her anxiety about my identity and journey.

“It just seems to be working less and less,” she said through tears.

“I know. I still love you.”

I began researching couples therapists the next morning.

Harry and I took another trip to Portland that was as magical as when we first met there. When he next visited me I took him to a minor league hockey game which he enjoys. We still spent a lot of time in bed.

Then the cracks began appearing. 

Harry became frustrated by the demands of my family preventing me from being away more often and clashing with scheduled trips and commitments with his husband. 

His relationship with his husband was worsening and I teared up as I read his texts and his apologies for unloading on me and I told him he has nothing to apologize for. At the same time, things at home were improving for me; the joint therapy sessions forced my wife and I to acknowledge what we both need and what we were avoiding. I had the dose of one of my antidepressant medications lowered.

My job hunt, now passing the one-year mark, became something I talked with Harry about constantly while becoming increasingly depressed and anxious about it, which I sense wore on him. By mid-April, I was so despondent that I suggested he maybe not come visit. I’ll just be miserable and insufferable, I told him. He wanted to see me, he said. OK, I said. He was similarly confronted with a worsening workplace environment and faced a choice between relocation or separation. 

Journal 4/23/34

I feel hungover.

Was fine over the weekend while [Harry] was here but he was struggling instead. Work stuff, house stuff and then terrible heartburn after we ate [dinner] on Saturday night. Minimal action though…

That was our last weekend together. 

Days afterward we planned for a slightly longer visit at the end of May to go camping with his new pop up camper. 

But our text conversations became shorter, more terse. I sensed him pulling away. And I began to reflect on how dependent I had become on him to express my queerness. I still had relatively few queer friends, and only one or two that I had the opportunity to see in-person with any regularity. I wasn’t looking for ways to get out and grow my circle because, well, I had Harry. He met that need, no need to branch out. I was sequestering myself, hiding like I always had. It wasn’t fair to me and it wasn’t fair to him.

Harry asked to postpone our camping trip and I agreed. I began reaching out to guys on Scruff again, just for drinks. 

Journal 6/3/24

[Harry] and I are done.

He asked to call this afternoon and I knew. Went home and worked out before. Told him I was free. He struggled to get it out and I wanted to say it for him. But I understood. I got it. It just isn’t working either of us really, but especially for him. It’s the actual distance. But everything else in our lives, too. He was so glad I was taking it so well but I acknowledged I’d been preparing myself for weeks. But I told him I still loved him, still was so glad he came into my life and that I hope he’ll stay in my life (though I need some time to get my head right about what we are now). “Part of loving you though, is being able to let go of you when you need me to let go.” And I meant it.

…but we had lightning in a bottle; how likely am I to find another man willing to be so vulnerable with me?

I’ve made more queer friends, had my share of fun since Harry and I broke up. No new boyfriend but that is intentional on my part.

My wife and I are pretty much back to where we were before I started struggling in the bedroom. I again get lost in how her body feels and smells and tastes. And she’s doing more to meet my needs as well. It’s not like we’re newlyweds again but I sense her hunger and mine growing.

The job hunt continues. There is light at the end of the tunnel though the brightness of that light is constantly flickering.

Harry and I still text occasionally, share memes and updates about our lives. He has a new job that kept him in Seattle. I was a little pained when he shared that he found a new boyfriend, this one much closer to his neck of the woods. But he is happy and I want him to be happy. We both have intimated that we’re open to being more than friends, though whether the opportunity to be so is yet to be seen. 

I still love him. And I miss him. 

Love isn’t pie but you can still miss the taste of it when it’s gone.

1. Pseudonym

2. Truncated entry because of modesty/prudishness