{"id":2332,"date":"2014-12-14T20:22:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T19:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2332"},"modified":"2022-11-01T06:14:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:14:38","slug":"guy-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2332","title":{"rendered":"Guy Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"its<\/a>It\u2019s not what you think. If you came here for lewd pictures of guys engaged in horizontal hanky panky, you\u2019re in the wrong spot. I recommend one of the 130,000,000 porn sites on the net or just go watch the trailer for the last James Franco and Seth Rogan film.<\/p>\n

Moreover, if you were hoping for the uncloseting of a forty year-old teacher, sorry to disappoint.<\/p>\n

As a single forty year-old who lives with a cat, my lifestyle has generated discussion amongst my family and friends. I get the usual questions about when I’ll get married, have kids, settle down, buy a Saturn.<\/p>\n

The people who really comment on my single status are my parents and my grandmother.<\/p>\n

Whenever I visit home, my mom gives me a speech that goes: \u201cAs long as you\u2019re happy, we don\u2019t care who you are with,\u201d which I immediately translate to: \u201cAt this point, we\u2019d settle for a daughter-in-law named Gary.\u201d Moreover, when we eat in restaurants I catch my mother scanning the left ring fingers of our female servers, hoping to drop into conversation that I am a professor (I\u2019m not) and I have a book published (six people bought it). Nevertheless, the desperation to pair me up is palpable.<\/p>\n

My father used to take a different approach in which he would cleverly slip covert statements into conversations during football games or dinner.<\/p>\n

Dad: \u201cThat\u2019s not a touchdown?!\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad: \u201cYou know\u2026there are a lot of advantages to getting married later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cWhere\u2019s the fucking bourbon?\u201d<\/p>\n

If you know my dad, you know this spur line of random conversation isn\u2019t out of the realm of normalcy, but still, the message was clear. Now my dad makes excuses for me. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to get married. It would change your lifestyle completely.\u201d This is translated to, \u201cYou lucky bastard, you can eat out of pans and eat pizza for breakfast. I wish I was forty and unmarried. Stay happy forever!\u201d<\/p>\n

My grandmother openly states that I am the only smart person in the family. This intelligence test has one question: Are you married? If you answer yes, you are stupid and if you answer no, you are smart.<\/p>\n

Though I do not have a wife, it has recently become clear to me that I do have a heterosexual life mate. A heterosexual life mate differs from a partner in that at no point do we engage in sexual intercourse. But pretty much everything else suggests that we are in a long term relationship.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s assumed between my HLM and I that we will hang out at least one night on the weekend. We know each others\u2019 families and ask after parents and brothers. We got a cat when we lived together which he cat-sits when I leave town. We have a set of matching Japanese robes. We cook and trade recipes. And like most other couples, we have long running arguments that get drudged up at inopportune times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I remember one time<\/em> you were forgetful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI apologized for that!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, so sincerely too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll talk about this later.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the only kind of \u201ccouple talk\u201d we have, either. There are work talks, money talks, and candid health chats. There are domestic messages. On my way to your place, need me to pick anything up?, What\u2019s that brand of cornflakes you like?<\/em>, or Make sure you get to the doctor for that thing, I don\u2019t want another midnight trip to the ER.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was one of these domestic messages that made me realize I had an HLM.<\/p>\n

Hey, let me know what you want to do Xmas eve. I need to get gifts.<\/em><\/p>\n

I sat down afterwards and weighed out the advantages and disadvantages. OK, was it a perfect relationship? No. I would prefer someone who doesn\u2019t have a beard, a penis, and a Y chromosome. Also he\u2019s about six inches taller than me, which means I don\u2019t even get the double wardrobe benefits those in other same-sex relationships get. But those things aside, at least my HML is a good cook and makes a good Manhattan. He’s also a good person, moral, smart, and generally looks out for his friends. As long as I\u2019m getting bourbon drinks and chili, I could deal with guy love for a little longer.<\/p>\n

If this was a romantic comedy with Seth Rogan and James Franco this is where you’d see a brief adventure into the hilarious world of actual and awkward guy love. There would be a knee-slapping hilarious depiction of an embarrassing night of near-coitus. I am afraid \u2013 and overjoyed \u2013 that this isn\u2019t the case. Our guy love is purely platonic.<\/p>\n

Until I meet Ms. Rightova, I am happy spending time with my heterosexual life mate. I’ll get a Christmas present, and a few good cocktails. I just have to stay on the lookout for disconcerting signs, such as matching pajamas or braiding each others\u2019 hair while watching a John Hughes marathon. I fear the holidays, and cringe at the thought of matching ugly sweaters and being introduced along with a catalog of couples, \u201cThis is Dita and John, Marketa and Pavel, and this is Damien and Collin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys been to Vermont?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, we have to do that Christmas picture with our cat. We didn\u2019t get that little elf outfit loomed for nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not what you think. If you came here for lewd pictures of guys engaged in horizontal hanky panky, you\u2019re in the wrong spot. I recommend one of the 130,000,000 porn sites on the net or just go watch the trailer for the last James Franco and Seth Rogan film. Moreover, if you were hoping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-BC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5684,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions\/5684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}