Multitasking is Not Always Good

Penn called me last night after we found each other in the chat rooms. This seems to be our regular ritual — we find each other there, he calls me, we talk. Well, when he called, I left the chat room, after politely telling some chatters that I had to go. Then Penn and I talked for a while.

After we’d been talking for about 20 minutes, I thought I could hear the sound of him typing. “Working again?” I said, because the night before, he’d been working on a spreadsheet while talking with me. But no, he wasn’t working; in fact, he hadn’t left the chat room, and this closeted bisexual Temple University med student with a girlfriend, a guy with whom he’d chatted before, had just opened up a window with him. (I’d seen this guy’s photo before; gorgeous body.) Penn said, “Hold on, I’ll tell him I’ve got to go.” We continued talking, and about ten minutes later, I could still hear him typing, and I didn’t seem to have his full attention. So I asked, and it turned out he was still chatting with the guy. In fact, Penn hadn’t told him he had to go, but in fact had asked him if he’d finally gotten some action as the guy had apparently earlier mentioned he’d planned to. So the med student was telling him a story about his latest sexual escapade.

Penn was being a good guy with me about it — he was reading the story to me out loud, so I could be in on it too, and he asked me what he should type, and so forth. He wasn’t taking their chat too seriously — I guess it was just fun for him to chat with a hot guy and hear a good sex story. But he knew that it was bothering me, because try as I might, I couldn’t completely conceal my irritation in my responses, and he’d say things to me like, “I’m sorry… this is really bothering you, isn’t it,” as the online chat continued.

And yeah, it did bother me. One, I didn’t like being on the phone with someone whose attention was divided between a phone call with me and a computer chat with someone else. Two, I’ve really come to like this guy, and I want to see where it goes, and if I’m not mistaken, he does, too. Three, the med student has a great body, and that made me insecure (like you folks needed to be reminded of that latter point). On the other hand, Penn is someone who’s not comfortable with the idea of anonymous sex or sleeping around, and I get the impression he’s not a big buff guy anyway, so if it happened that we wound up dating, this might no longer be an issue. (And yes, I’m probably thinking too far ahead here.)

This touches on one of those complicated issues:

Monogamy.

When should you become monogamous? I tend to become monogamous too soon; for example, right now I don’t want to sleep with anyone else; I want to wait for Penn, because what if I sleep with someone else and that hurts him? I know that if he slept with someone else right now, that would bother me. But we’re not even dating, for goodness’ sake. Yet, recall what happened with The Guy: we were fuckbuddies, but inside, I was hurt that he was sleeping with other people.

My current idea is that monogamy should not be assumed, even if you’ve gone on a few dates with someone; it should be something that two people discuss and agree to have. Where does the desire for monogamy come from, though? During my first year out of the closet — a couple of years ago — I had three short relationships, about two months each, and each time, after a couple of months, monogamy was not easy. I didn’t really have strong feelings for any of those guys. Do you develop a strong desire to be monogamous once you develop stronger feelings for someone? Does monogamy become something that you just naturally want? I imagine that the strong romantic feelings fade, and that after a time it becomes more difficult to be with just one person.

Are people monogamous because they’re so in love with someone emotionally that they lose all desire to sleep with anyone else, or are people monogamous because they think that the other person will feel hurt if they sleep with someone else?

Obviously, right now my desire to wait for Penn is based on the second reason, not the first. Yet he and I are so incredibly far from the point of explicit monogamy, right? I’m just insecure about this crap.