Chat Rooms

This post was originally going to be about my problems with casual sex, but I started writing and realized that what I really have problems with are chat rooms.

I just feel like a loser when I’m hanging out in them. I could be doing other things with my time, such as going out and meeting people. And inevitably, when I’m sitting at my computer, logged into a room, someone will open a private window with me and ask, “What are you looking for?” If I’m not there with the express intention of finding a hookup, then the intention is usually at least latent, and it’s easily awakened by the arrival of someone who seems within walking distance and has attractive “stats” and a decent-looking picture. (Therein lies the most well-known problem with chat rooms, of course: what you see isn’t always what you get.)

It’s exciting, the exploration of an unexplored body. And at least half the time, my expectations are met and it winds up being enjoyable. But post-ejaculation, everything changes. Immediately after pleasure is achieved, and I mean as soon as I collapse in sexual fulfillment, I want the experience to end. It’s not just the usual post-sexual androbiological desire to curl up into a ball and sleep; I actually feel embarrassed and ashamed, and I just want to get out of there (or, if I’m hosting, I want the guy to leave). And once I’m alone once more, I sometimes shake my head and tell myself, “Jeez… I did it again.”

And despite those negative feelings, it still winds up happening again.

Why? Why do I do it? Mainly because I have an almost manic desire to make up for lost time. I’m a guy who — except for a couple of quick, furtive experiences — didn’t have sex with anyone until I was 24. On top of that, I was always a good, angelic kid who set all these restrictions and boundaries on myself and my behavior. I never rebelled, except passive-aggressively. The first time I got drunk was at the beginning of my second year of college. I smoked half a cigarette once, when I was 22, and I don’t think I fully inhaled. I’ve never smoked pot or any other drug, and I have no desire to. Yet I enjoy sex, and I’m often conscious of the passage of time, and so I feel like I have a lot of ground to recover and a lot of territory to explore.

But why chat rooms? Well, if you read me regularly, you know that I can be shy around strangers. Also, there’s only one gay bar in Jersey City, and I hear it’s kind of a dump. The next-closest bars are in Manhattan, which means I’d have to hop onto the PATH train, walk over, and spend five bucks on a drink. Which would be okay, except that lately I’m always on the edge of being broke, and the whole experience is a lot to go through on a weeknight if my ultimate goal is just sex that might or might not happen. So when I get the urge, it’s just cheaper, more convenient, and a lot quicker to sit down at the computer and see who’s there.

On the other hand, I feel so lame when I do it. I’m just sitting there at home when I could be doing something else. Is it better to sit on the couch and watch TV, interacting with nobody? Not really, but at least when I’m watching TV, I feel like my dignity is intact. I don’t feel that way when I’m in a chat room; I feel like a coward.

I need places to go and things to do. I need activities. In college I was always busy — classes, three singing groups, a part-time job, an occasional newspaper column, and I lived in a dorm with a bunch of friends. Boredom wasn’t really a problem. Today it is. If I’m sitting in my apartment on a weeknight, and “The West Wing” isn’t on, I get cabin fever, and there’s nothing to do in Jersey City on a weeknight. Nothing.

In posting this entry, I feel like I’m going to lose lots of respect. I feel like there are people who are going to look down on me and cluck their tongues at this behavior and think to themselves how pathetic I am. And you know what? I do feel pathetic. I wish I could please those people; I wish I could be a responsible, respectful person so that all those innocent closeted 18-year-olds would respect me. Sometimes I really and truly wish I were as innocent and clean as, say, Closet Boy.

I do want to say something, though. Anonymous sex does not mean unsafe sex. I’m not stupid. For the record, I’m as clean as a bar of Ivory Soap. It’s not the number of sexual partners that determines what happens to you; it’s what you do with your sexual partners. Which is riskier — to have safe, protected sex with lots of people, or to have one unsafe encounter with a single person?

And I miss the emotional connection that comes from sex that is based in love. But if I wait to fall in love, I’ll be waiting a long time. I don’t know if I’ve been truly in love with someone yet; it doesn’t seem to come easily for me, and I’m picky. In the meantime, I spent too much of my childhood and adolescence repressing everything inside myself to go back to such self-imposed puritannicism.

Tell me: is there something wrong with me? Because part of me thinks there is.