It’s done for real

So, won’t be seeing Surest any more. We hung out Wed night and it was just too much. I told him that I can’t be around him. He seemed sad, I was very sad. We gave each other a strong hug and said goodnight. I’m very sad about it, but it’s the right thing to do.

I didn’t sleep well at all that night, I had a 1:1 with my boss at 8am Thursday. He opened the meeting saying “How’s life”. I started bawling.

Calvin is still with Will. Makes me feel like shit. I feel like EVERYONE I date, I am the last one they date. I look around at all my friends from 10 years ago and they are all celebrating 10 or 11 years of relationships. Some of them have husbands AND boyfriend. But yet, I can’t even get anyone to like me.

I cannot wait for the therapy to start. I really have to take it 110% this time.

I am going to start therapy again

I have too. My mind is just too fucking crazy. I cannot stop thinking about these things, the past the present, the future. What am I doing in my life. Tony says I catastophize, which is probably right.

So after our hike the other day, suresh sent me a message saying: “Had a good time on the hike yesterday even if I was exhausted for some of it! Let’s keep hiking… and I was serious about me wanting to rewatch the Magicians”. We talked back and forth a bit after that and agreed to keep watching the show/hiking/etc. He says he would let me know after he got his schedule. Well yesterday was monday and a holiday. No word from him. Of course I go crazy. I check his instagram, I check the views on my stories. I was in SF with Rex and all I could think about was him. What was he doing, where was he, was he out fucking other boys, was he with the “guy”. Was he just hanging out with family or friends? On the drive back from SF I saw FOUR identical versions of his car, dark tinted windows and all. That made me even more crazy. I did something incredibly stupid and drove past his house. Of course his car wasn’t there. I tried to reason with myself: “he’s out doing deliveries”; “He’s out with his HS friends that he was telling me about on saturday”. But in reality he’s probably out with that guy, or on a date or something. He finally just replied now. He said “sorry, I was off my phone all day yesterday.”. Yeah, I know.

I honestly thought after getting his letter, that would be the end of it. I would never hear from him again. Then he came back and we talked and hung out. Then after our talk on saturday, I thought to myself again. “Ok, this is it. I am not going to reach out to him, I DOUBT he will reach out to me”. But of course, he sent me that fucking message on Sunday. Rejection flat out seems so much easier then trying to convert from feelings to friends. I almost wish he would just reject me due to my status, but to be 100% honest, I’m not even sure he KNOWS my status. We talked briefly about it, but I am not sure he _got_ it.

Then, I keep thinking about my situation. I am making tons of money, love to travel, have these dreams for the future but no one to share them with. I don’t have those friends that all go to big group trips, I don’t have friends who will even go on the fucking sailing class with me. So what am I going to do in 2-5 years when I have so much more Free time? I will just be alone doing what I want to do and that’s not what I want to be doing. Why am I even bothering with doing all this hard work to accomplish what I wanted in life. What is even the point without someone that I care about to share It with? What is the point of life that I have built so far, I am alone. I am sad all the time. I feel desperate and unwilling to continue sometimes. Sometimes I just want to cry in bed all day, but I am unable to get those emotions to come out.

I feel like I just want to sell everything and just start traveling now, maybe move to the city, spend some time volunteering for a few years. BUT THEN, I spent yesterday IN the city and I remember how the gay community is there, so stuck up and all about looks and social media. not my type of people to hang out with.

AND THEN on the positive side, there’s this guy I’ve been chatting with for three years who lives in Vietnam. I’ve never mentioned my status to him before. We matched on tinder when I was there visiting with Army and never got the chance to meet him. But we just check in with each other off and on. You know, standard “oh, how was your day”. etc etc. WIth Covid we had been checking in more frequently. About a week ago (after one of the 3 or 4 rejections I got for my status), I messaged him and was like “Would you reject me cause I”m HIV+”. He then told me he was also Poz and since then we’ve been chatting a lot more. Getting to know each other better. He’s cute, smart, has a good job. Has already lived in Canada for 6 years during university. But Do I really want to even THINK about another long distance relationship? I would have to put some serious guidelines around something like that. AND on top of that, when I was back in Iowa I met this guy Ram who lives in a tiny town outside of DSM. He is super into me as well and keeps saying things like “if only you lived closer, blah blah blah”. this seems to always be the same thing. I meet these guys who are far away and want to date me. But I can’t get any fucking people here in SF to like me at all. I feel it’s just cause where they are, there’s not as much choice, so I look good. Here in SF, there’s tons of options, so I look like crap. .. Wait, this didn’t really turn out positive, right?

Anyway, the point is. I’m going to start therapy again. It’s time to do it. Nick (from two years ago) recommended this lady in SF. So I called her today and left a VM. Hopefully she will call back and actually be helpful.

10 years and Too adventurous

So, today marks 10 years since I found out I was HIV+. It’s a sad day and I’ve been super depressed over many things recently. I don’t know what to do today to try and make it better. I wish I had friends around here who could hang out more frequently.

Suresh and I went to the movies Friday night, it was a good time (once it happened, I won’t go into the annoying details about that) and then we did a hike Saturday.

Both were amazing, I really care about this boy and he’s so sweet and great. IE at the movie theater, I was getting our tickets and he went to get drinks. He got me a Moscow mule without having to ask. Cause he remembers what I like to drink. Not many guys are like that at all.

On the drive back from the hike we had a long talk about things. He said he has feelings for this other guy, that this guy makes him feel safe and comfortable. The other guy has mental health issues so they haven’t seen each other in a while. I asked why he has feelings for that guy and not for me. He said, “you’re too adventurous for me.” That we had talked about our future plans and they don’t mesh with what he wants. I told him, I don’t care what I do. I just want someone to share my life and time with. I cried a little bit during the talk and when we got back we gave each other a nice big, tight hug and he left. I don’t know if I will ever see him again. But at least for now I have a bit of closure, even though I am still upset by it all. Of course my crazy brain keeps going back and thinking, what if I had replied to him the FIRST time he messaged me. 3 or for months before I finally replied, maybe then _I_ would be the one who he had feelings for because this other guy wouldn’t have been in the picture. Or maybe if I had expressed my feelings for him soon instead of trying to hide them and take things slowly to not scare him away. Or what if… you know who knows what I could have done, if anything to make it a different outcome. I just wish he and I could be enjoying this holiday weekend together. We could have gone camping or just hung out and cuddled and kissed all day.

I invited my friend mark over after Suresh left. He’s a pastor and someone I haven’t seen since start of Covid. He’s always very comforting and nice to talk to him. We had a good chat and I cried a bit more. But I am getting so tired of guys saying things like “you’re such a great catch, you’re a great guy blah blah blah” and yet NO ONE seems to actually want to date me. I wish that someone would be honest and say: “Chris, you need to do X or Y” differently.

Maybe I need to be less adventurous, maybe I just need to be more OK with sitting at home? But being single and lonely. I CANNOT just sit at home. It makes me even more depressed. If I had a husband/bf, I’d totally be fine staying home with him and just enjoying our time together.

I sure hope that at my 20 year anniversary that by then I have a husband, I have someone to share my life with. Etc etc.

An amazing weekend. And a hard fall

This past weekend was just super amazing. My life used to be like this every weekend when I lived in LA. Always out doing things, having a good time with friends. I miss it so much and when it was over. The fall was hard to the bottom. I was super depressed after it was done.

Mike came up from LA on Friday and we went for a quick hike with the puppies, then drinks in Benicia, dinner and back home to just chill and go to bed. It’s funny how similar we are in our habits.

Saturday we got up and headed up to Napa. We did this amazing 45 mile bike ride through Wine country. We met up with Suresh and one of his friends in Calistoga (more on that in a minute) for lunch. After lunch we headed off to some wineries and had a great time. Got back to Yountville around 5pm and wanted to go to R&D Kitchen for dinner but the woman there was a TOTAL BITCH and wouldn’t let us in because we were in biking gear. Ended up going home, showering and then headed to Martinez for a quick bite and beer.

Ok, RE Suresh. He and I went hiking on Wed and he mentioned his friend was in town and they wanted to go wine tasting on Saturday and he had been looking around but couldn’t find any reservations. So I invited him to come along with us. Well we are sitting there at lunch and it sort of came up that they had instead decided to just go to the city. So He DROVE all the way from Vallejo to Calistoga just to have lunch with us then was going to drive to the city. That seems so weird. I told him they were welcome to come join us at the wineries and they came to the first one but headed out to go to the cit after. Then sunday, apparently they went wine tasting somewhere else and I messaged him on Instagram saying something like “wish I was there today” and he replied “you should have come”, I said: “I wasn’t invited” and he said: “You could have invited yourself”. Which I find very strange. I would never invite myself somewhere, even if I was DATING HIM. And after the letter he sent, I’m still not 100% clear on what our relationship actually is. I really feel we need to sit down and have a chit-chat about what is what. I really do like him way more then I realized.

So back to the weekend. We woke up around 6am Sunday, took the dogs for a quick walk and then mike packed up and left for home. Honestly, after he left I was in a super depressed state for the rest of the day. I think that the biking just really got my juices flowing, It was super a fun and super amazing day with him and suresh and then just being home alone again just totally crushed me. There are three other contributing factors to my total crash yesterday.
1) I met up with this guy last week for drinks. I thought we had a fun time, we made out, did the whole “Let’s hang out again” thing. Then just completely ghosted me since then.
2) I’ve been chatting with this guy for weeks who lives in Sacramento. He’s cute, my age, seems to have similar interests as me, so I was looking forward to our first date. Yesterday we were talking and he asked “Why are you single still, you seem so great”. Too which I replied with my standard, “well, mostly because I’m HIV+ and there’s still tons of stigma around that” And since then he has COMPLETELY changed. We were supposed to have our first date tomorrow (tuesday) and I guarantee you he will ghost me now.
3) Mike himself. In the weeks leading up to his arrival for this past weekend he’s been VERY flirty via text. Sending me scandalous pics, talking about his dick, etc. He arrived here and like one of the FIRST DISCUSSIONS we had once he arrived was how his bf/husband/whatever would be so angry if he ever did anything and how they are monogamous and blah blah blah. I wasn’t really EXPECTING anything to happen. I’ve known mike for 10+ years at this point and we’ve never been sexual or anything but you know, if something DID happen I wouldn’t have stopped it.

He and I also spent a lot of time talking about the old days in LA and the climbing group, etc. It makes me wonder too like what if he and I had dated instead of him and his BF and me and Calvin. Maybe we’d be celebrating 10 years now. Who knows.

I dunno. I just feel like I’m never going to have what I want in life. I feel like even if I do retire in the next 5 years, what will I do with my days and my life at that point. No one seems to care about me the way I want, I don’t have a big group of friends who will do things with me or invite me to do things. I feel that if I do buy a boat or whatever, I’ll never have people who will go out with me to do things.

A week in Iowa

I just got back from a week in Iowa and it’s been a really interesting week back there. I went back to look at apartments buildings to buy. This Agent I was working with had put together a group of 5 properties and they seemed great on paper and in the pictures he sent me. This one place in Adel was a converted lumber yard and we did the inspection for that place first…. My god was it a MESS. I am 100% sure that I was high after we left that place. You could SMELL the meth in a few of the apartments. Honestly, it’s really depressing how some of these people live and super INTERESTING how other people live. Like you walk into some of these places and it’s just a camping chair and a blow up mattress in the living room but yet there would be two completely empty bed rooms. In other places, it would be a studio with three or four beds in one room and junk (clothes, toys, etc) EVERYWHERE. Just so strange. The other properties I saw were pretty good, we are moving along with it.

Yesterday I got a marketing email from the SAME AGENT with a GREAT building in Des Moines. I’m pretty pissed at him that he didn’t fucking even MENTION that to me when we were talking. I honestly feel like he’s trying to push me into these places. If I hadn’t already spent $13,000 on a fucking inspection I would dump them and make an offer on this place. But I feel like I am sort of stuck now that I’ve already spent so much fucking money.

The bigger thing is that while I was back I got to see both grandma’s and honestly it’s kind of sad how they are doing. Granted they are both nearly 90 so of course they are aging and going down hill. But Grandma S has lost SO MUCH weight and she’s having trouble remembering even the basic stuff. Like for instance we went over to her apartment and she has dog toys and dog bowls out. Her dog died like 15 years ago. Grandma B is doing great but she is selling her house and moving into assisted living or something. The bigger thing is just seeing how the family is helping both of them out and it makes me super scared for when _I_ get to be that age. Who the fuck is going to take care of me. Who is going to drive me 600 miles round trip to doctor appointments. Who is going to help me pack and sell my shit so that I can move into assisted living. Who is going to make sure I get to my doctor appointments and what not on time? Am I going to be having Astra’s toys and bowls out 30 years after she dies?

On the flight back to SF I got a message from Suresh. He asked when we could go hiking again together. I told him, “whenever, just let me know.” He said “How about Tuesday evening”. So I guess now he and I are going to go hiking tonight. We shall see how that goes. I am very nervous to be honest.