Young Love, Older Love

My partner Mark and I introduced "Bob" and "Jim" at a dinner party at our place. Bob, 31, is recently out of the closet, and Jim, 27, just returned to the U.S. after living overseas for four years. We weren't trying to play matchmaker when we invited them, though the idea occurred to me as the party approached, and we rearranged the seating right before dinner to maximize their interaction.

That was two weeks ago. They've been inseparable since.

Young love is delightful, amusing, and-let's admit it-occasionally annoying. Delightful, because it reminds us of the simple joys in life. Amusing, because it makes grown people act like kids. Annoying for the same reason.

"Giddy as a schoolgirl," Mark reported after he had lunch with Jim later that week. "Ditto," I confirmed after checking in with Bob. To be candid, I was a tad envious. Having been out of the closet for two decades and in a wonderful relationship for six years, I am grateful for many gifts. Giddiness, however, seems like a bygone luxury.

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't trade what I have. It even has its giddy moments from time to time. And I'm certainly thrilled for my young friends. Yet I know I'm not alone in feeling a tinge of jealously in the face of young romance.

I discussed this feeling with some friends who just celebrated their 10th anniversary. "Oh yeah, I know what you mean," one answered. "The most romantic thing we ever do anymore is share a flush." He was joking, of course, but the joke pointed to a deeper truth. Married life carries with it mundane rituals, the familiarity of which provides comfort. But this comfort comes at the cost of suspense, and thus a measure of excitement.

Part of the reason Bob and Jim are so giddy right now is that they mutually wonder "Does he really like me?" and then thrill at every affirmative indication. How joyous to expose oneself to another and have the risk rewarded with tenderness.

I don't wonder anymore whether Mark really likes me. I know he loves me, and vice-versa. A cynic would say that we're "taking each other for granted," and in one sense, that's true: part of the value of marriage is the knowledge that someone is there for you, always. With mutual commitment comes mutual security.

The danger of security, however, is complacency. It starts in small ways, many of them innocuous. If a person loves you "warts and all," then you don't feel the need to hide your warts, whatever form they take. Your unsightly back hair. Your stinky morning-breath. Your flatulence. Then there are the personality flaws you took pains to suppress during the courtship: your short temper, your constant tardiness, your fondness for Celine Dion. Soon, you don't even bother to conceal your vices, much less suppress them. You get lazy.

And thus you lose one of the great virtues of relationships: they encourage us to be better people. Initially, because we want to impress the other. Eventually, because we know they deserve it.

So as much as I envy Bob and Jim's honeymoon phase, I also take a lesson from it. Mark deserves my effort at least as much as Jim and Bob deserve each other's, as easy as it is to forget that in practice.

The good news is that ordinary things-done consistently over time-can make a big impact. Clearing the dishes even though it's his turn. Bringing home some of his favorite chocolates. Calling just to say hello. These events form the warp and weft of our relationships, our lives. I'm reminded of them every time our enemies try to reduce homosexuality to a "lifestyle." Loving someone is not a "lifestyle."

Similarly dismissive is our opponents' tendency to refer to "what homosexuals do in bed."

"My partner and I have been together over 25 years," an older gay friend recently remarked. "We do what most older couples do in bed. We sleep." He meant it as a punch-line, but it's no joke: sleeping with someone-not just next to someone, but with someone, for a quarter century-is an intimate and beautiful thing, morning-breath notwithstanding.

In this sense, it's good to "take someone for granted." That doesn't mean you stop valuing them. On the contrary, you learn that valuing goes beyond passive appreciation: it's an active commitment. You learn that love is not (or not merely) what you feel; it's what you do. You do it even when it feels mundane, which-if you're lucky-it eventually sometimes will.

John Corvino's "What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?" is now available on DVD.

9 Comments for “Young Love, Older Love”

  1. posted by Amicus on

    But I know I’m not alone in the tinge of jealously I feel in the face of young romance.

    Sorry not to commiserate, but I have absolutely no such jealousy to report.

    Why would one get jealous over Beaujolais nouveau?

  2. posted by The Gay Species on

    After 25 years together, my Beloved and I are as giddy as the day we met. Sure, we’ve matured, learned new responsibilities, weathered new challenges, made appropriate investments, served the political functions, but each day we never lose sight that Fate is less mysterious than homoerotic romantic love.

    My Beloved is just as mysterious, and just as predictable as the day I met him.

    As philosopher Robert Solomon properly observed, of all our emotions in life, romantic love is the only one in which “excess” is never a cause for reason to step in a mitigage — and he explicitly includes homophiles.

  3. posted by Amicus on

    Well written, TGS. I think I over-reacted to the word “jealousy” and let it color my read of what John was saying.

    To consider his statement more fully, one might consider whether relationships make a person “better” versus just better off.

    That’s a broad-ranging discussion with a lot of angles. (Even economists and fundies weigh in on the “benefits” of the creation of kin, kinship). Although it’s hard to imagine creating people more connected to the world, more altruistic, on that cause. hummm…

  4. posted by Javier on

    There is one thing that I never see discussed in reference to gay male relationships – those who have come out, worked on themselves, got out there and tried to meet someone, and found nothing. I am one of those people.

    Throughout much of my life I am reminded of men who’ve been with their partner for decades, and I don’t doubt that is the case, but I also wonder about the opposite – gay men who haven’t met anyone – at all – after 10-15+ years. What I am finding is that, whether you are in a large city or a small city, the gay social system remains unchanged: while there are more openly gay men around, that does not guarantee that those openly gay men will be interested in each other, nor does it mean that those men have the prior relationship experience to, frankly, know what the hell they’re doing.

    One of the problems I’ve found in my own life is this: you must learn to crawl before you walk, and many gay men never get to experience a crawling relationship. Without that, it’s really hard to know what to do when you meet the right person, because the life skills needed to keep it going just aren’t there. When conflict arises, both guys get mad, things start to look like the party’s ‘over’ and the relationship falls apart. That’s if you meet someone. The hardest part is when you’ve come out, done the work, and still can’t even meet someone for coffee. In the past decade all the barriers that prevented gay men from finding each other are down – via the internet – yet still, it seems like very few quality relationships have formed (or lasted) in those ten years. What other forces are out there that prevent a lot of gay men from finding each other? Is the sad truth that most of us just aren’t attracted to other gay men? Do we have too much in common? Are we chasing an image of heterosexual fantasy that has blurred fantasy and reality; something that will never happen in real life?

    I ask these questions because these are things I was never told when I came out (at 15). I had a very positive family and social support system, and never expected my future to be one that has been completely absent of male relationships and companionship. I am not overly picky, but I do require someone who is healthy, is serious about a potential relationship, has some common interests and goals, and mutual attraction. After ten years of looking for someone like this, I am finding it’s just not happening. My biggest hope was in 1997 after discovering the internet sites and chats that would bring me into contact with other gay men who I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise; unfortunately, what I found instead were mostly closeted men who were still married to women, or guys who I had known for many years in ‘real life’ and had nothing in common with. No matter how many social venues we develop online, it seems difficult because in most cities, a lot of us know each other rather quickly, and to be realistic, the chances of someone moving to be with you in your city (or vice versa) are unlikely.

    I wish I had better news to report, but I had to vent about this. Thanks guys.

  5. posted by Herb Spencer on

    “… sleeping with someone?not just next to someone, but with someone, for a quarter century?is an intimate and beautiful thing, morning-breath notwithstanding….”

    Thanks for acknowledging one of the simplest, yet nicest, forms of intimacy between two men, or human beings for that matter. It’s not just all about sex!

  6. posted by Dale on

    My partner Arthur and I have been together for 31 years now. Friends both coupled and single, gay and straight, seem to look upon us as role models for loving relationships, and they occasionally ask us for our “secret” of longevity. We always respond that it’s because we’re so shallow. We’re joking of course, and yet there’s an element of truth in the joke, viz., if we don’t take ourselves and our separate opinions and expectations too seriously, then we never get stirred up about anything to fight. That’s not to suggest that we never discuss, debate, or argue, but we don’t fight. Each of us relinquishes some points for the benefit of the other. Por ejemplo, I love opera. He is bored to a fare-thee-well by opera. For the most part, I stopped buying opera tickets 30 years ago. If I really want to see an opera, he comes with me and patiently endures it without protest or demonstration. There are myriad such examples in our relationship, like those of many other happily enduring couples. Some call it compromise. some call it co-dependency. We call it holding the welfare and happiness of our partner as important as our own.

    Arthur just fell into my life when we both were 40 years old. I had had a disastrously dysfunctional relationship with another man before Arthur came along, and I couldn’t see or understand what was wrong with that relationship until long after it had ended and Arthur demonstrated me how love can really succeed, despite the fact that he had never had a prior relationship himself. Mind you that I didn’t say he explained it to me…he demonstrated it to me. It is my personal humble opinion that gay people often have a sort of delayed adolescence. That is to say that inasmuch as most young gay people (even in the exceptional cases with supportive parents) don’t have reliable role models or social institutions geared to fostering the interpersonal skills early in life that contribute to lasting loving relationships. Thus it has not been unusual for me to see gay men in their 20s, 30s or even 40s still struggling like straight adolescents to discover what love is and how to make it work. Perhaps I still don’t understand what love is or how it works, but I have been fortunate enough to experience it for the past 31 years, and I would recommend to anyone seeking the same that you lighten up, let go of preconceived expectations, and get “shallow.”

  7. posted by Brian Miller on

    What other forces are out there that prevent a lot of gay men from finding each other? Is the sad truth that most of us just aren’t attracted to other gay men? Do we have too much in common? Are we chasing an image of heterosexual fantasy that has blurred fantasy and reality; something that will never happen in real life?

    It’s big-city culture on one hand, and the culture of the rural closet in more regressive areas on the other.

    Big-city culture (which infects heterosexual people with equal gusto) teaches people that there’s another one right around the corner — and a whole city full of possibilities — so why settle! Live a little! Go out, party, have fun, and if he does something annoying or that you don’t like, or he isn’t your dream man, kick him to the curb and find someone better.

    (Incidentally, lots of heterosexual people in the big city suffer from the same problem. Just look at all the unmarried straight women who wheedle constantly about being single — yet who treat their male dates dreadfully and apply judgmentalism to them that’s worse than anything they’ve ever been at the receiving end of).

    Then there’s the problem at the other end of the spectrum — the gay guy who is a closeted guy, or not completely out, who lives in small town America and is afraid to be who he is. He falls for someone and freaks out about it, and slams the door closed in terror before this thing he’s been containing for years springs forth from him.

    Both categories of guys are “damaged goods.” And considering that a large portion of the single gay male community lives in these two states, it can make dating and relationships difficult. There’s not much you can do about it other than adapting to the reality and doing the best you can to make the cycles end with you.

    It is my personal humble opinion that gay people often have a sort of delayed adolescence.

    Definitely. The prom-night experiences, date-and-dump drama, and other stuff that’s the stuff of high school is part of most heterosexual folks’ experiential repertoire. Whereas many gay men don’t even self-acknowledge as gay until they’re in their 20s or 30s — at which point they’re often developmentally and experientially behind straight 14-year-olds in exploring relationships with others.

    I expect this problem will fade with time — look at how many kids these days are coming out at age 12 or 13! They’ll have their drama in school, just like the straight kids will. And that’s a Good Thing ™.

  8. posted by The Gay Species on

    First, to the individual who has not met the man of his life, several factors may be involved, including the possibility that your demands in another are too high, that you are not quite what another guy has found, or your venues have not been good ones. As far as the latter, get off the internet and kick some tires. That’s where the chemistry starts — when eyes meet eyes.

    Of course gays have a delayed adolescence. Unless on is among the unusual to come-out at puberty and start dating other guys, it usually awaits our leaving home for the first time. Where straights start their interplay around age 12, most of us have a delayed onset of experiences. Thus, just slide the adolescent period up to around late 20s. Play to maximize the options, to experience the diversity, and when the right guy chances along, then set to establishing something more permanent.

    Since SSM is not likely to occur in the U.S. anytime soon (too many states have banned it), this is a good opportunity to assess the fact that homoerotic romantic love and bonds have distinct challenges from the “norm.” Those curious to such issues may visit my blog and put “homoerotic romantic love” in the search for some thoughts on the subject. We find ourselves in another by bonding in a dialectic of togetherness. I believe too many gay men (and straights) have a misconception of what that Bond is about.

  9. posted by Ken Ireland on

    I remain single despite my best efforts. I have been in and out of love, in and out of relationships, ltr’s and whatever other letters we want to use as tags, in and out of therapy, in and out of the usual and unusual places gay men meet. I find this conversation useful and interesting. I think that I tend to have the most sympathy for the thoughtful words of Javier.

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