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

We did glance at each other appreciatively

we sure did

i haven’t met many of you, tbh— and many whom I have met are no longer on ILX. I think it’s just Swen, Stevie D, and plax, of the OG ILX gays.

oh and duh, donna rouge

(we have interacted enough outside of ILX that I sometimes forget that DR and I met via ILX)

but back in the day I spent some nice times with Morbz, elmo argonaut, and l0u. still have yet to meet J0rdan or map!

tbh this is making me want to do a roll call

I've met fgti and Stevie D once, l0u twice, and became friends with Kevin, Morbz, and sarge.

My ILX IRL meet-ups are all ancient: Tom Ewing, Lex, Matt DC, mark s, William Swygart, Marcello. Although recently I met Camaraderie At Arms Length on Zoom, when he guested on our podcast.

ran into Sarge a the door of a club once!

also Rob Irwin is single 😓

oh wait -- I met lex twice

tabes i have a fuzzy memory of meeting you briefly at 77 boardrum in l.a. is that totally off?

oh wow, maybe very very briefly— i met Ned that day too, very briefly. was it in the press area?

somewhere around there i think. basically just a 30 second 'hi' so understandably easy to forget. we'll probably be making it out to philly this summer - we should meet up!

I do remember this now! Yes! That weekend is a little hazy in my memory, tbh.

Would love to hang this summer!

I am also pondering a trip for my 40th in October, and part of me really wants to go bouldering in Joe’s Valley for a few days— so if that happens, maybe we can hang twice in a year!

oh awesome! yay to hanging out. i had no idea joe's valley was a bouldering hot spot, that's cool. there's an incredible rock art panel not too far from there called the rochester panel, we stopped by there last fall. if you fly into slc, definitely let us know.

listen to this it's practically sleepless in Seattle in here

lol

aw i hope you guys make it happen! Love the thought of 2 of my favorite ilxors hangin out

As far as i know i have only met a couple of ancients like D0ugla5 W0lk but NYC is a small world

I keep to myself a lot these days but feel free to say hi if you're in town, queers.

For sure. I've been lax about keeping up with the ILX queers. I hit NYC at least twice a year.

the rocks are wonderful though, i look at them every day.

Penguins give each other fancy rocks as a courtship ritual, so that's a good instinct.

xp Alfred I'd love to meet ya

my ex had his engagement party last night! it was a surprise. isn't that cute? I was invited but circumstantially couldn't go. so so happy for him though. I have a date on Monday and I guess I'm looking forward to it but the sexual attraction could be greater. does that ever increase in the early days

no

i'm so not the kind of person who would or could ever go to an ex's engagement party. hope you're treating yourself well this weekend.

ugh so you're saying the date will be a bust

my hot take is that if there isn't something special grabbing you up front it's better to cut and run, but maybe give it a few more dates / hangouts, like 3 or less.

just my style ymmv

i just don't understand why the hot guys always have to be such putzes

my chill has literally left the building with the dumbasses, like i used to be able to tolerate it

we def had a special conversation spark, this guy, and this would be the first date so i guess i'll give it a go for practice and then figure it out.

my chill has literally left the building with the dumbasses, like i used to be able to tolerate it

oh for sure. did he putz out over messages or something?

there's this guy we were texting a lot last summer. he's hot but kind of a putz. he desperately wants love but needs to give a lot more to himself. not to get all oprah about it but it's true.

omg i love that you're getting all Oprah about it. i so know those guys. no no just to be clear - the "hot guy" thing wasn't referring to this guy. more just wishing there were a blend lol.

these people with the calling card faces. like did they ever have to work for anything. i know it's so reductive but like, some things are. i dunno ugh i'm being a b****.

haha yeah i feel you. "calling card faces" is good. i ignore em. i've got a uhhm body now so i get looks from those types sometimes. it feels kinda great to pretend like they aren't there lmao.

grrrrrl SMOKE it!

hahahaha

i have met quite a few ilxors over the years, which is kinda funny because i don’t really think of myself as a big “presence” on this board even though I’ve been lurking/posting since 2002 (!). a few of us LA ilxors meet up every once in awhile.

but of all the queerz thru the yearz i have met tabes, map, stevie, morbs, lou, swen, lex, KJB, and elmo. two of the aforesaid have slept on my couch. i hooked up with/kinda-dated a former ilxor (not sayin who but they’re not listed among the aforesaid). and i would happily share a cocktail or latte with the rest of you! xo

ime a little foreplay can sometimes do the trick if i'm not instantly attracted to a boy but also not repulsed

if that doesn't work cut and run or be pals

hot guys are a dime a dozen who cares
nobody ever regrets bailing on a hot putz

i have regretted not trying a bit harder with kind intelligent boys but timing is everything and it is probably for everyone's best, no good beating myself up about it

<3 <3 <3 good thoughts great advice. thank you.

donna i feel you are a big presence on this board fwiw - and a stabilizing one at that

oh plax and jed too! plax when he came to LA, jed i met in glasgow

iirc swen and i once made spontaneous hangout plans in one of these threads because we were both bored that night and used to live in the same neighborhood :)

yessss such a fun night too! we chilled on the roof in my first ever apt <3

so glad we're reconnecting

agreed

I am struggling this morning. Actually, these last two, three weeks. I cleared my schedule to get some new songs finished and I’ve just been depressed, spending more time working on perfumes in the basement, playing Magic Arena, not actually doing the stuff that needs get done

My ex, the bad one, he one said something that was intentionally hurtful. His delivery was rehearsed, like he’d been saving this one up for a while, which made it worse. He said, “the only reason people ever liked your music was because you were capitalizing on your white twinkiness.” I was shocked. I think of, like, Troye Sivan as somebody who capitalizes on white twinkiness, but as for me I practice the violin a lot.

It did have this lasting effect on my own self-esteem— “self” being my artistic self. It feels very strange to consider that the things I write and make, their appeal and value is bound intractably from how fuckable people think I am. It has stultified me, creatively. I basically am getting most of my work done between 9 and 1pm and then I crash and get depressed once the coffee wears off

Huh, what?!?! FWIW fgti, I've bought your music and I have no idea what you look like.
(I'm just about to take a peek.)

Oh!

I am sorry you had that experience, fgti— fwiw, I also have mucho respect for your music and had kind of forgotten what you look like until just now.

I also struggle with this— how much of my art is tied to my sexuality, and my appeal as a sexual being? My book that comes out in May ends with a prose piece that is explicitly about getting fucked, cancer, pornography, the sexual exploits of my youth, etc. Because I was a finalist for a Lambda a few years ago, I started playing up the queerness of my writing a bit more— but that’s also meant that my own sense of my queerness is tied to my writing, which creates some really difficult moments for me, particularly when I am not writing much.

I told my partner last night that I have burnt out on poetry, and in a way, it’s true! I find myself wanting to write and think in prose, and so I am going with that for now. But it’s a little strange for me!!

I'm feeling the last few posts. We ponder -- live -- our identities in ways that most straight white men don't. In my work I seesaw between het and queer scenarios and even at this age I get caught up in those same webs of self-consciousness. I was the prat who proclaimed in 1999 "If I see myself in the Gay/Latino section of Borders I'll throw myself out the window." I've come to regard my queerness as a drop of red dye in a glas of water: it diffuses everywhere without being the still point. Does this make sense?

Happy Sunday.

@ mike that was a kind comment and it cheered me up :) For me it's more like "sexual viability" was never even a consideration when I was writing practicing performing, if anything I sought to downplay any such stuff. Please enjoy this abstract product! divorced from any bodily considerations. Or something.

tabes it's occurred to me that we've both been posting on this forum for 15+ years and I've never read a word of your poetry and I would like to

I was speaking with my (good) ex a couple days ago, we were talking about our friends who work in art, one of whom is Jeremy Shaw, and the transition to "mid-life work". Like, when we were all in our glow-up, Jeremy was doing DMT and giving DMT to his friends and filming them and calling it art and it was really moving, but kinda intractable from "being queer and in your 20s"; or maybe not, repeating the same project with people in their 40s would be v interesting. But Jeremy is making Great Work still, it's really amazing, his maturation. Others of our friends are still doing LiveJournal kinda stuff, still using a voice that made sense twenty years ago and not-so-much at this juncture.

fgti not to cause a compliment pile-on but i was always attracted to your work bc it’s beautiful music that told me things about myself that i didn’t know yet, and i thought that before i knew what you looked like :) repeating what is probably an obvious bit of wisdom but bad exes are uniquely capable of exploiting our most unkind suspicions about ourselves

can’t even tell you how fondly i recall a show of yours i saw in 2013/14 where the everyone in the audience was gay and making out the entire time, including me!!!! idk if you get that effect if everyone’s there just bc you’re a hot white twink

Ya I remember that show, that rules. That was the first time I met you, ivy!

bad exes are uniquely capable of exploiting our most unkind suspicions about ourselves

Yes otm. Supervillains!