How To Be A Heartbreaker

I started talking to J.N. in December, on Scruff. He was, if I'm honest, one of the reasons that I considered Scruff a success. He might have coloured my view of how it stacked up as an experiment in meeting guys, because it went so well.

But it's not without problems. When we met for the first and only time, I was a bit quieter than when we had been talking through text. He could be evasive. I like clear answers, but he would give vague and non-committal replies if I asked him what he was looking for with this relationship. And he is always working. And it's been a concern that I might get my hopes up over someone who would never have the time for me. I don't expect to be seeing you all the time and every day, but I want a bit of time. So I hadn't managed to see him again, though we still talked through text messages.

Yet on Monday, he tells me about his weekend. How he went up to another city in the county. How he met some guy and slept with him. How great it was. How many times they had sex, how long it lasted.

This was the man who kept telling me he was too busy to see me. That he didn't have the money. Didn't have the time to see me. Yet here he is, going to some other city further away than mine and fucking some guy. And now he's off to London for a few days (which he once talked about, mentioning how much he liked the city and hooking up with guys there). And is going back to meet and have sex with that guy over the weekend.

But I don't blame him. I'm annoyed about it, but I can see why. I blame myself. Like always. The horrible way I conduct my life, how many constraints I have, financially and mentally and in terms of living arrangements. Just who I am overall. They fucked at this guy's home. I can't offer that. I can't really offer anything of much value or merit. I just add it to the list of other failures that go to prove the things I tell myself.

***

One night I brought up the topic of how I wondered if I had slept with enough people. This seemed to get on the wrong side of him. "I thought gay men were fickle, but this is ridiculous." He told me I was free to sleep around, but not to expect him to wait for me.

At that moment, the thought that I might have ruined things upset me. It made me realise how much I actually did care about this. It wasn't the same kind of feeling as when a guy just stop making contact or something. I was a lot more open with him, told him things I might not tell others. I thought we were closer than I had been to anyone I'd met in a long time. That maybe it was a bit different that what I had with other guys.

***

Over the weekend, I did make out with someone on a night out. But I wouldn't have done anything else. I wouldn't have slept with him, because I kept J.N. in mind. Saving myself for him, in a sense. I didn't want to spoil things or lose my chance. I stopped using Scruff or websites because of him.

Yet when I told him about what I'd done on the weekend, he asked if I got the guy's number. Said he can 'make time for friends.'

And I took that as telling me what I am to him now. I'm a friend, somebody who it wouldn't matter if I got some other man's phone number.

I told him before that even if a proper 'relationship' didn't work out, I'd still like to be friends because I enjoyed talking with him and spending time with him. But I still need a little time to feel hurt if this is the case.

For someone who complained about gay men being fickle, he seems to going some way to making himself an example of that.