Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

so I have had my own idea for YEARS that I have told several ppl abt and have gotten a good response to and I think I am going to finally finally try to pull it off next year, I think I have maybe even talked abt it on here somewhere, but the song is this v inexplicable house remix of "Rubberband Girl" and the performance is a complete ripoff of UNZIPPED (1995) where it will be a fashion show and there will be all sorts of zany chaos and hijinks backstage but w like perfect immaculate runway walks the second they come out from behind the curtain, the performance has nothing to do w the music but maybe I'll get some LIVESTRONG bracelets made and throw them into the crowd idk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KII-OXV86c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBc4rXKkTU

AERIAL is honestly the best Kate Bush album

also it is a bit $$$ (20 of them to be exact) but they are selling tickets for the livestream tomorrow night at 8:30! https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Night-of1000Kates/470113?afflky=UndergroundArts

stevie i still have that KB shirt you sent me! it's a lil snug on me atm but whenever i wear it ppl always ask about it

omg mine too is a lil snug, I forget which one I sent you but the one I have has her face on it and my belly makes it fold in half so that it makes her look like that one picture of Aphex Twin

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/Aphex_Twin_-_Syro_main_press_photo.jpg

you sent me the glow in the dark one (which amazingly still works after probably dozens of laundry cycles)

I just watched unzipped recently and it was so good. also did you know there's a sister documentary called catwalk that basically follows Christy Turlington all over the world?
pretty awful what's going on with Linda Evangelista. she just released the first body pics of her condition due to coolsculpting. unimaginable.

I was sad to miss Kates. Heard my friend Anna blew it outta the park, and saw the wacky inflatable Cathy and Heathcliff blow-up piece on film. Looked like a really fun time, but we had planned a dinner months ago with our gay friends, one of whom is going through a health scare...so it seemed more important to hang out with them.

I finished "Detransition, Baby," yesterday, and while I thought it ended much too quickly, I thought it had some really lovely moments.

hope your friend is hanging in there <3

xp y0ung?? she fuckin KILLED it (as per usual). I hope they post a recording of the livestream.

I've been listening to a lot of RuTH lately 🌄🌄🌄

yes Stevie, that Ann4

o boy what a life we lead really

so I'm not sure when the next time I'll "meet" someone is, let's call it, due to extenuating circumstances

do i care?

will i ever go out to a bar and pick someone up again? i had occasional game. all of a sudden I'd love to meet someone younger than me. i usually don't gravitate to that realm. i wonder what that's about

you will absolutely go out to a bar and pick someone up again, it is so inevitable

Date tonight. At a (rooftop) bar. I shoulda asked if he's jabbed.

first date? how did you meet? brown hair, big heart, bat eyelashes?

you know Stevie it's just at first it was pandemia, and then health stuff that's going to take another 6 months to settle. just didn't realize I'd be singing the same tune for the goddamn 3-year dark ages. but whatever i'm going to get so many beauty treatments when this is all through I plan on looking like Princess Jasmine meets Bella Hadid. mark my words.

also i quit smoking forever and it's truly something else. going on 6 months.

my new issue of BUTT just arrived!!!!!!!!!

omg i already read some of the poems
how is it at large?

is it large?

C'mon Simone, let's talk about your big "but."

I haven't read it yet bcz I got it at work and then *brag alert* went straight to my fuck buddy's house for a cute date and only just got home a few hours ago!!!

butts all around

butts rule everything around me

OK SO
I'm not a butt man and i keep feeling more and more alone
like American men are just obsessed with them
i feel like there's something wrong with me

Stevo you're killin it these days

don't care about the outside, it's what's inside that counts imo

like the way it feels?

yeah! i mean not to get too tmi or too cliche i guess but i just think anuses are this incredible part of us lol and i really like experiencing them.

So! My Saturday night date sold me out. I suspected trouble when I had to text him 15 mins before meeting: he was running late thanks to a "minor emergency" at his parents', whatever that means (what's a "minor" emergency?). Luckily a friend kept me company at the bar.

An hour later, date texts: "On my way, send location address plz?" That's the last I heard of him. For a while I thought he died -- until I saw a an Instagram post Sunday morning.

He's 24, a former student who emailed me four years after class to ask about getting a beer or coffee. On determining he was queer he gushed: he praised my self-assurance, brains, looks, etc. We might've met that night had I not plans already. It's worth noting I barely remember this kid in summer 2018.

I wonder if simply not showing up is a phenomenon of the young?

Anusii are a cliche?

that sucks. definitely hit next. it's been a phenomenon of the young and old as long as i've been dating tbh. xp

Yeah, I wanted to avoid generational generalization, but a few viejos noted The Vanishing has been more prevalent in the last four years.

I've ghosted more than my share, I should note.

I have never done this, to my knowledge?

me eiths it's dumb
I'm too polite though

wassup homieslice

good morning!

Mornin' sunshine!
What's on the platter?

I'm vegetarian tonight.

sexually or culinarily?

Lady Bracknell : Well, both, if necessary, I presume!

So, I’m in one of the only two gay bars in Marbella (southern coast of Spain) right now, and the thing here is that high heeled shoes are passed around, everyone tries them on, and then they take their turn swishing down what passes for a catwalk. Pleased to report that my boy got the loudest applause of the night. We make our own entertainment.

The bar is filling up because at 4am they close the doors, bring out the ashtrays, and everyone can smoke indoors.

We will be back tomorrow for drag queen bingo.

omgggggg jealous

Oh I forgot to mention the seventy something naked woman who did her catwalk turn clutching a large stuffed teddy bear.

stop

jealz to the max

Just ended a fabulous evening with j0rdan.

yesss. what did y'all do?

we went to a sports bar so i could watch basketball while we talked about madonna

...and Mariah Carey. And my terrible non-date last week.

Essentially, it's a small town that doesn't have a "small town" mentality

this sounds really nice mike. i.. don't think such a place exists in the u.s. haha. at least not in the red states.

our strong desire / need to leave slc has meant that we've considered places like reno. i think it would be a marginal improvement. good trail access! relatively liberal. nevada is kind of shockingly beautiful tbh.

I did remark in the friends chat that despite this country being a shit hole I really don't wanna give up on it

speaking of corny i do increasingly feel more cultural patriotism as i get older. i really like certain strains of american culture and my identity springs from those for better or worse. i increasingly can't see myself moving to another country, but a big part of that is i haven't even traveled to any yet lol.

my life has become pretty solitary. the things i really love are solitary activities. physical culture stuff. finding and spending time in wilderness. i could see that including country living stuff. home and land improvement projects. gardening. even little art projects. music. photography.

the thing about city life that still appeals to me i think is the chance to interact with intelligent, creative, cultured people. but... increasingly other people matter less and less to me! my happiness is about the dream worlds i cultivate, the expression of myself within them, including rituals.

however. i have a huge anvil of student loan debt hanging over my head that's just gotten worse. jobs are more available in cities.

thinking about this today, i feel like i should just move toward the nature stuff that's increasingly making me happy, and the money will work out somehow.

nevada is kind of shockingly beautiful tbh.

it's true as hell. the five years i spent going to college in reno were wonderful

I didn't know you were "from Reno" in some capacity, ivy... Nevada is one of only three states I've never visited. The other two are Alaska and Arkansas. I might actually not have ever been to South Dakota, either. I have been to Delaware, even if it was only to buy my first laptop computer, tax free, in 2005.

i’m from vegas (horrible place). northern nevada good except there’s the usual “the more rural the more fascist” town dynamic. the mountains throughout the state are staggering

ruby mountains near elko are crazy beautiful. great basin national park is a must-see. jarbidge mountains / wilderness area are on my bucket list. there are hot springs and ghost towns all over. fascist vibes though, yep. the rest of the state hates vegas afaict. not as familiar with the western half of the state. the area around walker lake looks beautiful.

_Essentially, it's a small town that doesn't have a "small town" mentality_

this sounds really nice mike. i.. don't think such a place exists in the u.s. haha. at least not in the red states.

Fwiw these places exist but mostly in coastal states, per your point. sad reality! and most of them have been overrun by transplants (see skot’s valid complaints about the Northampton area from a few years ago)

j0rd which nyc clubs/club nights do you like? planning to pop into the city briefly when i visit my family in September and am v out of the loop re: what’s going on there now. (on the non-club front, planning to make my customary Julius’ stop as well)

imo the best club in the city is basement, it’s the closest thing we have to a great european club. it’s a bit affected in that way however the space is my favorite in the city (not knockdown but basement specifically). public records, nowadays, elsewhere, good room are other usual suspects — those have crowds that more run the gamut of taste but if the DJs are good can still be fun. bossa is still good, i think. in manhattan parkside lounge can have some good stuff, night club 101 is another. for more explicitly gay parties/crowds that sorta split the difference between club and bar c’mon everybody & 3 dollar bill have stuff every weekend — bear parties, tea dances, pop parties etc

i don’t have access to the email attached to my ILX account but if you can find a way to connect w/ me off here closer to when you’re coming i can let you know what is going on during the specific dates that might be fun

Can I ask for advice here? this is probably a very common story but letting it out would feel nice. I've got this guy I really fancy. First person I've met whith which i can talk about music and film and such. This past valentines he invited me out for lunch and gifted me a ds — which i've certaintly put to good use. and he hand made the gift wrap! with a stamp built out of clay. The thing is he disappears on me for months on end, indeed i haven't had contact with him since early last month. When in this situation i've often enterntained the thought of paying him a visit to see if he's okay, but i just could not, it'd be too crass. Actually I'm not sure he's even got any interest in men, he regularly calls himself queer and other such words but he has mentioned an ex girlfriend.

Do you text often or does he vanish, period?

If you did text at all, it wouldn't hurt to say, "I really like hanging out with you, would love to do it more often" just to get a response. It would make your feelings known without embarrassment.

he completely vanishes, and when he comes back it's often with a different phone number. neither he nor i have got any socials so really don't know anything of his whereabouts

i'm often worried about him because he's mentioned he has attemped suicide in the past. Probably not a healthy dynamic but i just can't let him go

when he comes back it's often with a different phone number.

oh!

a personality trait i find fascinating in people is being scared of emotional intimacy -- that's not to invalidate or question it, it's just something that is very foreign to me. meeting someone and being into them and wanting to dive headlong into a deep pool of emotional intimacy is such an intoxicating feeling, i never have felt my mind body or heart slam the breaks at a certain point along the path in a way that it does w/ some people when they experience such feelings? i'm projecting somewhat onto this man, but, aside from whatever is going on w/ his identity sexuality etc that might explain his proclivity towards disappearing for months at a time, he strikes me as a classic case of a person who gets close to someone and rather than wholeheartedly pursuing future emotional intimacy instead feels some level of fear, anxiety, fight or flight activation and chooses flight. in hearing various single friends talk about this dynamic as it applies to themselves or people they are pursuing (sometimes w/o even identifying it as such), i'm not really sure how you fix it

ceral, first of all i'm sorry, that sounds like a heart-ache of a situation. i think j0rdan is right that on some level there's a fear of intimacy going on. the changing phone number makes me worried that some more fundamental instability is going on too. i feel like if you see him again you should maybe try and talk a little bit about you and him - what you would like, whatever that is, even if it's just "i like you and i'd love to see you more regularly". if he's evasive or you don't make any headway there, i think that's a strong sign to put distance between him and yourself.

it sounds to me like this man might have MH issues or addiction issues— if you’re willing to Be His Guy through that potential future, you might trying asking him to be blunt about what he’s experiencing

i'm not saying that's a bad idea or anything, but i would make sure to test him about "can we be sweet and romantic together on a regular basis like on valentine's day" as like a primary point of importance. if you get any evasion or weirdness at all, if you don't get some semblance of a simple happy feeling from that conversation at all, even if it just comes from something as meager and non-committal as "yeah let's hang out again - i'm not sure when but i'll let you know" then i think that's really your litmus test. like i think what you may want to avoid - at least what i would want to avoid - is becoming someone's mental health or physical resource help because you're into them romantically. offering sympathy for the bad stuff as a way to get closer. that is a recipe for frustration in my experience. it's hard to really know the dynamic here and i may be misreading some things you shared, so all of these are just my personal feelings. i hope you'll give us an update at some point.

does anyone here remember daniel ortberg's dear prudence column on slate and then his own independent advice column podcast? i listened to that regularly for years so now i'm like relishing the chance to give advice lol.

i'm kinda inclined towards fgti's read on this situation - there's a person in my life who routinely changes his phone number and goes AWOL for weeks/months at a time, he's an addict in recovery, has difficulty keeping down jobs, etc

(also j0rd, thx for the recs! i have heard great things about basement. i'll try and get in touch closer to the date)

Having been a couple times the Reluctant Guy whom ceral's pining for, let me add to what I said earlier: be fucking careful. You can blame drugs and MH but he also might be (a) not into you beyond casual friendship (b) a cold fish. Changing his phone number, though, makes me pause.

haha what do you mean by cold fish? like, dry bussy or something else

I've had moments when I turn into an iceberg at someone's expressions of affection and interest

gotcha

thankf for all the replies! it really helps one out. I hadn't consired addiction but the difficulty keeping jobs does sound awfully familiar. I hope he's alright
https://imgur.com/a/b5HGgge
I kept the wrapping paper he made, i find it impossibly cute

that is very cute :)

(i copy and pasted the image link in a new window and it came through.)

Yeah, I cosign all of what has been said, ceral.

Hell, my husband broke up with me for a month and a half in the first year of our relationship because he got cold feet!

a personality trait i find fascinating in people is being scared of emotional intimacy -- that's not to invalidate or question it, it's just something that is very foreign to me. meeting someone and being into them and wanting to dive headlong into a deep pool of emotional intimacy is such an intoxicating feeling, i never have felt my mind body or heart slam the breaks at a certain point along the path in a way that it does w/ some people when they experience such feelings?

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, April 28, 2026 9:54 AM (eight hours ago)

so speaking for myself, i am definitely afraid of emotional intimacy, _because_ it's such an intoxicating feeling. i feel deeply and strongly and sometimes i do things that aren't really good ideas for me to do simply because i'm so overwhelmed by my emotions. i was really afraid i might hurt other people, i was afraid i might hurt myself. it's taken years, but mostly now i'm just afraid of getting hurt. i don't actually have any control over whether or not i get hurt, but avoiding intimacy gives me the _illusion_ of control, and that's, just, like what i need sometimes. particularly if this guy deals with chronic SI... i had a lot of guilt and shame about having SI because i know how much it hurts people who care about me. i'd get overwhelmed and be afraid that if things went wrong i might hurt myself and pull back because of that. it's that old REM line, "oh no i've said too much, i haven't said enough", that's kinda how i'd feel when i would get worried and start pulling back, i'd worry that i'd fucked things up and i needed to run away.

the thing i'd say is that with someone who acts like that, you can worry about him and you can try to support him as best you can but ultimately what he does, how he behaves, is his responsibility, whether or not it's something he has a lot of control over. so that's what i'd say. if he does ghost you... you can do what you can to try and help him feel safe around you, but when he ghosts like that, it's not a reflection on you, it's a reflection on him.

i had a habit of ghosting people in the past for reasons related to my mental illness, and i don't blame myself or think i'm a bad person for that, but i've worked pretty hard to stop doing that, because it's a shitty way to treat other people, and i got tired of, like, people not trusting me. so that's what i'll say, this guy ghosting you, for whatever reason, it's a shitty way to treat you, and i don't think it helps to assign _blame_ for that, and i do think it's important to recognize that it's not super cool to make a pattern of it, whether or not one does it on purpose.

i have an interesting situation going on right now with emotional intimacy. i still have some deep and sad caves within me left over from my first 3 decades on this earth that were hollowed out by horrible treatment, that i wanted the people who i ended up in relationships with to fill. that wasn't love of course it was codependency. i've been legitimately able to fill those caves over the last two years but occasionally this young man that we're still close to and in a wonderful relationship with (it's going well) ... it's like the love i feel sometimes touches a nerve and releases a reservoir of sadness. idk it's hard to describe. it isn't a problem or anything it's just interesting.

on the subject of ghosting... i got caught up in a little situationship for a month or two earlier this year. one of those people who you, as the cliche goes, just aren't that into. eventually i told the guy that i was just too busy to keep in contact. well i run into him at the sex party on saturday night. i say hi it's nice to see you, sorry for ghosting you. he looked shocked and said oh you didn't ghost me you're just busy right? i'm like umm oh yeah i'm busy for the foreseeable future. and there we were in the dark room and i moved on.

based on my experience with emotions and often being swamped by emotions that debilitated me, i crave someone who both feels things as wildly and deeply as i do but who has also developed or is developing a fluency with emotional naming and regulation and bridging. this guy, our third, has both of these things! it's wonderfully exciting.

he's also been acing a real-life crash course in navigating a somewhat open relationship over the last year, showing calm and enthusiasm for our encounters outside of the three of us on a level of "i'm happy that you're doing what's bringing you fulfillment and realizing that it isn't affecting the quality of our relationship in a negative way." i think he's noticing that his acceptance is actually bringing us closer.

i have an interesting situation going on right now with emotional intimacy. i still have some deep and sad caves within me left over from my first 3 decades on this earth that were hollowed out by horrible treatment, that i wanted the people who i ended up in relationships with to fill. that wasn't love of course it was codependency. i've been legitimately able to fill those caves over the last two years but occasionally this young man that we're still close to and in a wonderful relationship with (it's going well) ... it's like the love i feel sometimes touches a nerve and releases a reservoir of sadness. idk it's hard to describe. it isn't a problem or anything it's just interesting.

― dream mummy (map), Tuesday, April 28, 2026 6:37 PM (yesterday)

yepp i have a kind of extreme version of the same problem. i've been through some shit, i'm _going_ through some shit, and i carry around a _lot_ of grief. i know it doesn't help me to carry it around with me, i know the toll it takes on me, but i just don't have the opportunity to put it down right now. i'm inspired a lot by looking at queer history and knowing that i'm, you know, not alone in being alone lol. radcliffe hall's "well of loneliness", "the boys in the band", it's something queer people have always had to navigate, the way we get treated. and we still get treated that way today, all of us.

ok i'm gonna expand on that and i'm gonna do it behind a cut, just for length.

i'm really lonely and i crave healing and i just don't have that opportunity. because it's not just me that's gone through bad shit, that's going through bad shit, it's everyone in my community. another historical thing that inspires me looking at the aids crisis, how it affected cis gay men. it's not that we're literally sick or diseased. it's the fact that we're _suffering_, we're _dying_, and nobody seems to care or notice and when they do notice, a lot of people, they blame us, they say we deserve to suffer and die. and of course that's an evil, wicked thing to say and damn it's so hard to care for people in a community where the people you love most could one day just be... gone.

yeah i'm surrounded by people and i'm still very lonely. i really desperately want the kind of love and healing it sounds like you have with your partners, and i'm so happy for you that you're getting some of that healing. you deserve to be loved like that. we all do. i don't have that right now but i know what i deserve, and in the meantime i'm... learning how to grieve. because grieving is a skill. it's not about how _much_ i grieve, because god, to really grieve for all i've been through and seen... i doubt i have enough time enough left on earth for that. it's about _how_ i grieve. for so long i buried my emotions. i started e literally because i wanted so badly to be able to cry, i was so sad, and i just couldn't cry. and god knows i can cry _now_. the challenge is that sometimes i can cry in a way that isn't healing, where i just cry for hours and at the end of it i don't feel better, i feel exhausted. so sometimes i'm afraid to cry, but i have to cry, sometimes, not to _heal_ exactly but just to, well, survive. it's a survival skill.

the thing i've learned about my emotions is that they're something of a matroshkya. beneath the numbness is anger. beneath the anger is grief. beneath the grief, well, that's where the joy is. so to really feel that joy, i have to be in a place where i feel safe to express the anger, express the grief. and because my anger and my grief are so intense, because i've seen how it can affect other people when i express those things _even when i do it in an emotionally healthy manner_, i have a hard time trusting people to be able to sit with those feelings. it's not a matter of "if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best". i've spent so long learning how to express grief and anger that.. i'm not perfect, of course, but when i feel those things that _is_ me at my best. not everybody can deal with that, and that's not a judgement on _them_, there's nothing _wrong_ with someone for not being able to sit with my feelings. but if i express my feelings to someone who can't handle it, well, a lot of the time i wind up getting hurt. so i have a hard time trusting people, trusting them enough to express my feelings. i mean you see my posts. i'm the same way in real life. i'm a lot, and as much as i try not to suck up all the air in the room i have a lot to say and i don't know _how_ to be more succinct in saying it.

Well, I got all my work stuff finished and delivered, now it’s Time To Break Up. I have a four day move scheduled. Absolutely zero plans for anything gay in my future, why I want more than anything is a full night of sleep in my own bed and a full day of being able to do naught but look after myself and my needs.

There’s definitely a couple men sniffing my butt these days, both of them super hot (and both of them like “established artists” which would be a nice change) but I’ve been feeling like Tarzan swinging from relationship to relationship these past ten years and I think it’s time for some cloistering

There’s definitely a couple men sniffing my butt these days

are we talking literally or...

good look fgti. i remember donna rouge giving me advice on this thread a while back after my last breakup to take it easy. it was good advice so passing that forward.

err luck but look too why not.