The choice was between a quick trip to a bathouse and a creation of an online account in a gay dating website.
Those were the two options left after a friendly eyeball bore nothing save for three hours of fruitless chatter with an ageist guy who is about to work abroad. I have no complaints about the meet-up. The guy was decent and friendly, and if not for showing blatant interest in using me to make contact with other gay men, I would keep our ties and consider him a friend.
But users are not worth my time.
So after meeting the guy in Buendia, I found myself in Malate searching for hook-ups in MIRC. It was a weekend evening and work between playtime didn't bother me at all. I have already spent weeks declining SEB invitations and I was not certain how long I could hold my junior back.
But the mind has its way of repressing the senses. I was just two blocks away from Epitome - a bath house I once explored. Being familiar with the place, returning there would be a breeze. All I have to do was to sign up for membership and I could prowl its unlit corridors like I did once.
The skin aches to feel, yet it desires something lasting - something it can get used to as the days march into weeks. Going to Epitome and making warm bodily contacts was easy, but quickies will never satisfy the need.
I heard of a place where men of my kind congregate. They call it Planet Romeo. You would find them there in many different mutations and longings. Some seek companionship, while others are mostly for the trip. I once turned my back from that realm but with personal troubles trying to overwhelm me, (the uneasy peace between siblings is being shaken by her continuous disrespect of my earthly possessions, secret fall-outs in the workplace and the lack of will to seek employment elsewhere, the question of why I cannot form affectionate bonds that last, and the apparent lack of direction the way my life is going) the stand-off was wearing me down.
Any kind of distraction or self-imagined affection are welcome.
Planet Romeo offers a choice to stall lustful goals until you get to know a person down to his soul. Unlike in Epitome where random orgasmic encounters are certain. You walk into the abyss. Trade glances with a stranger and off you go to the netherworld where every act of breeding brings only wanton delights. And then there is amnesia. You try to forget everything. You erase the memory of the guy who slurped your prick or shoved his tongue inside your ass. You second-guess the predicament - the "what-ifs" emerge - and for all the trouble and bliss that happened inside the bath house, the consequence leaves you back to where you started.
So it was decided that I will create an online account. The goal primarily is to explore a world where I could get to know people without crossing lines - in a sexual sense of the word. But as the rest of the blog world knows, I got hooked less than five hours after my account went online. I also got to know a guy who turns to be a professor back in college. Had I taken him for a ride, and my naked presence received, the social experiments would have been abandoned. In its place are the titillating recount of my trysts with random guys instead.
The steamy encounters never happened - except for the dry run which I could play back in my head. There were two drinking sessions. The first one ended in a walk-out after the guy refused a kiss, the other led to the discovery of Gilbey's Premium Strength. The alcohol now replaces my weekly fix consisting of beer after learning that it could hit me with just two bottles.
The social experiments revealed the analytical side of me. I have learned a lot from my interaction and saw how values have changed from the very first time I created an online gay account. I have turned into a bitch (and swung my imaginary axe over jejemons and those who don't read profiles), bruised a lot of egos, and was disarmed by a guy I thought could be the one.
The shards from his shattered glass still remains embedded under my skin.
And I am learning from it.
I am learning from it.
Two weeks into the world of Romeo and I am set to leave orbit. I have no reason to stay nor I am wanting to remain for beliefs I once held. Four casual meet-ups, dozens of sexual invitations and more than a thousand profile views produced nothing.
Upon my departure, the name HavokSSR would be remembered as an ass - not only to the pretentious and illiterate, but to the straight-acting men who believe the world revolves around them. He will also be remembered for being kind to the transgendered, effeminate men who make sense and even to a person living with HIV. He has been encouraging to them, replied with much enthusiasm during their correspondence, and left words full of acceptance
and friendship.
Hoping that whatever pain he brought and whatever bruise he suffered will be atoned in the end.
It used to be a fantasy to be pitted against two manly tops.
A skirmish I wouldn't say no for an answer if and ever an opportunity came.
But I have already outgrown my childhood's twisted dream
and I know, fate is challenging my resolve now that I'm free.
Into the few hours of SSR's last breathe
came the very tempting invitation.
Photos were exchanged;
place was already set.
And just when he is about to give his number;
just when there is a chance to receive Havok's parting gift.
A press of a button
and the Planet Romeo Account is no more.
