Cruising

I like to look at men.
They are endlessly fascinating to me, at least visually.
Here in New York, a different demographic from
SF makes for some novelty for the eye,
a thing males especially like.

Now that I am officially not single, do I still look? Yup.
Active testosterone levels and all.

But it has a new kind of pleasure to it:
it's only looking.

When I was still in search mode, looking was the beginning of decisions.
Do I want to do more than look? Would he? What if? Etc. Etc.
It's exciting for a while, to be sure. But then it gets exhausting.
Especially if you are looking for Mr. Right.

But I think I've found him.
(I say "think" not because I am unsure, but out
of humility and a desire not to provoke the gods
or scare the poor fella any more than I already have.)

So now looking is not freighted, or should that be "fraught"?
with anything other than the pleasure
of the eye in the moment.
That's it.
No questions, no decisions, no etc., no what-ifs.

And I like that. It makes the little interactions of pre-flirting--
which is mostly what this consists of---simple and relaxed.

I was not born yesterday and my new relationship is not my first,
so I know that eros, including my own eros, is unpredictable.
My pleasure in mere looking is not an ethical achievement of mine,
just a happy fact.
Some day I may have the urge to do more than look.
(My ex opined recently that, given how I am with The Boyo,
--I believe "pathetic" was his term--
I'd probably start to run out of steam for him in about...ten years.)
But for now, sprung as I am over Himself, these momentary looks or turns
with other guys just make me want to get up close and personal with him.

Are there handsomer men than my guy? Better built?
More "soulful"? More fill-in-the-blanks.
Sure.
And if I stupidly thought I could do better
by looking for "more"
--a syndrome that afflicts too many gay men--
I could mess up something really, and I mean really,
wonderful.

Cause even if I found a man who was, on the surface,
"better"...there'd always be another one even better than him.
That wheel never stops turning. Ask Buddha.

But the truth is,
(thanks to Gus Kahn and Isham Jones)

Some others I've seen
would never be mean,
would never be cross,
or try to be boss,
but they wouldn't do,
cause nobody else
gave me that thrill;
with all your faults,
I love you still.
It had to be you,
wonderful you,
it had to be you.

This was not a rational, cost-benefit decision, anyway.
It was better than that. And God had a hand in it, too,
I suspect.

So I do look. Yes. Up and down.
With appreciation. But it's not much more than that.
It's a relief, a huge relief.
And I like it.

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