Frantic Romantic

What’s the best relationship model for a Black Gaddy?

Part I

Love Will Tear Us Apart. Tainted Love. Love Makes No Sense. Love Stinks. (Yeah, yeah).

Joy Division, Gloria Jones, Alexander O’Neal, and J. Geils Band tried to warn us, but we paid them no mind. Time and time again, we convince ourselves that being lost in love like Ralph Tresvant is the ultimate goal when it comes to relationships. Even we fags buy into the idea that when we meet someone who sparks something deep in our heart and loins, all roads must lead to courtship, the declaration of a closed and faithful relationship, cohabitation, and possibly marriage (if you don’t live in any of those royally fucked up Middle Eastern and African countries where they throw men who attempt to marry off a 12-story building).

Back in 1964, old fogey Dean Martin knocked the Beatles out of the top spot on the Billboard charts when he crooned that “everybody loves somebody sometime” and he ain’t nevah lied. Dean might not have known this at the time, but among all sexual orientations and lifestyles, gay men by far have the most experience with loving somebody sometime because we employ the Kardashian Method when it comes to relationships. We fuck ‘em, love ‘em, and flee quicker than a Karen demands to see the manager when told that there is no quinoa milk for her gluten-free pumpkin spice latte. Contrary to widely held beliefs, men want to fall in love and establish a meaningful romantic relationship just as much as women do, but we just don’t want it to last all that long. And certainly not with the same person. Nothing cramps our style like monogamy. Managing a romantic relationship is almost always time-consuming, demanding, confusing, and painful; most men have a very low threshold for pain, and when troubles arise, we prefer to make a run for the border than stand there and fight. Who’s got time and energy for that? Especially in the knowledge that there are at least two cute, flirty guys at the gym who have been waiting in the wings for two long weeks for your current relationship to fall apart.

Even with all the trials and tribulations that accompany romantic relationships, the general consensus is that they are good for us and something we should all aspire to, even for old farts like us. How special would it be to spend our golden years cuddled up under the covers, rubbing our crusty feet all up and down the legs of another willing human being? But is a romantic relationship worth all the trouble for a Black Gaddy?

Who knows, but to help shed some light on the situation, I want to look at romantic love from a pseudo-scientific, research-based perspective. Even though most of the literature on romantic love focuses on boring ass heterosexual couples, I believe that the stages in romance development are the same for all genders and sexual orientations, though they may be undertaken with different dynamics and timeframes. I will first look at the Four-Stage Model of Romantic Relationships, putting it in a gay male’s perspective. Then I will delve a little deeper into how these stages develop in the three main orientations [(heterosexual, female homosexual (lesbian), and male homosexual (gay male)]. I even included a nifty chart for those who require visuals. Finally, I will outline the details of two case studies from my own social experiences.

Part II

The 4-Stage Model of Romantic Relationships

Stage One:  The Euphoric Stage

The Euphoric Stage is sometimes called the Passion Stage and is characterized by oodles and oodles of goo-goo eyes and kissy-poos all around. During this stage, you simply cannot get enough of your man’s funky stuff.  Even when you feel he’s doing you wrong, your instinct is to forgive and forget.  You refuse to find fault in him to the point that you actively ignore the wack things about him that your friends keep warning you about.  That illusionary thinking and ridiculous suspension of negative judgment could only mean one thing:  You’ve fallen in love and you can’t get up.  Experts say this stage can last between 6 and 24 months, but a gay couple who can squeeze a full 3 weeks out of the Euphoric Stage is ahead of the game.

Here are some things you might find yourself saying in the Euphoric Stage:

• “Damn, that’s some good ass-slash-dick.”  

• “I wanna hit that on the regular.”

• “I’ve never felt like this before.” (At least since last month.)

• “We should spend the weekend in Miami together.”  

• “He could be the one.  I think I love him.”

• “Maybe we should start an open relationship.”

Stage Two:  The Early Attachment Stage

This is when you really start to think that this could be more than a steady trick or reliable booti call.  You find yourself thinking about this boy non-stop and whenever you do, a jillion butterflies be tap dancing all up in your guts.  The sex continues to be off the chain, but some of the most special moments happen when you just lie there in the wet spot talking and laughing for hours.  During the Euphoric Stage, making that wet spot was the best thing about this guy.

Things you might find yourself saying in the Early Attachment Stage:

• "I love him.  He’s definitely the one.”

• “Why hasn’t he texted me in the last 22 minutes?”

• “Here.  I made this set of keys for you.”

• “Does he feel the same way about me?”

• “We should get married while it’s still legal.”

• “Maybe we should have an open relationship.”

Stage Three:  The Crisis Stage

Heterosexual couples refer to this as the seven-year itch.  (In some gay relationships, that itch might be an STI, so go get that checked out.)  Most relationships, gay, straight, or otherwise, do not make it out of this stage.  The difference between us and them is that for us, the Crisis Stage can settle in very quickly after the initial meeting. Also, we are more likely to resolve the crisis by ending the relationship and moving on rather than hopelessly grasping at the loose threads of a tattered relationship.  With the Crisis Stage, you get overtaken with the ominous feeling that all the time and effort you put into trying to inject some gasoline into a sputtering relationship is no longer worth it.  Scenario:  It’s a post-coital moment, and Jamal, the stranger you and your man cruised off Adam4Adam to join you in a relationship-resuscitating threesome, is in the shower.  Your partner had left the room, and after 10 minutes, he returns to inform you that “this isn’t working.  I’ve been feelin’ this way for a while now.  So, I just packed your things and put everything you own in a box to the left.”  This comes as no surprise to you.  You answer, “Sure.  I think it’s for the best.  Let me just ask Jamal if he wants to split an Uber uptown.” Chapter closed.

Things you might find yourself saying in the Crisis Stage:

• “I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere.”

• “I love him, but...” 

• “Who the fuck is this man? He is not the person I fell madly in love with several weeks ago.”

• “Yes, good morning. I would like to make a withdrawal from the joint account I share with____.” (packed suitcase sitting at your feet)

• “Lemme see. How do I change my online status from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’?”

• “I need that set of keys back.”

• “We should have had an open relationship from the giddy-up.”

Stage Four: The Deep Attachment Stage

I personally have gotten to the Deep Attachment Stage and lovingly call it the Golden Girls Phase of the relationship.  Once you get to this level, a tremendous sense of calm and tranquility washes over your home.  You and your man have gone through the fire like Chaka and weathered the storm like Gilligan and the Skipper too.  You made it happen like Mariah!  But more than anything, you finally came to the important conclusion that there ain’t nobody else out there crazy enough to put up with your shit, so you might as well stay put.  Making it to the Deep Attachment Stage means that you’ve beaten some serious odds because most gay men hit the bricks at the mere threat of a crisis on the horizon.  You deserve all the emotional serenity and peace this stage brings with it.

Things you might find yourself saying in the Deep Attachment Stage:

• “Let’s look for a three-room apartment so we all can have our own rooms; one for me, one for you, and an extra one for when Jamal stays over.”  

• “Tell Mom (your partner’s mom) I said hi.”

• “I love him.  But more importantly, I like him.” 

• “Yes!  Yes!  A million times yes!” And later “I do.”

• “I’m glad we have an open relationship.  It saved our marriage.”

How the Stages Play Out based on Sexual Orientation

So now that we’re experts in the four stages of love relationships, let’s take a gander at how they tend to function based on sexual orientation and lifestyle.  (I am not going to spend any significant amount of time talking about breeders and diz-zykes because they’re gross and are of no significant interest to me.  But I feel I need to mention them just to give our situation some context.)

Heteros

Look a-here.  The mere idea of men and women being the architects of the Healthy Relationship is just bonkers because theirs has been doomed since way before the whole Garden of Eden debacle.  So cursed is the male/female relationship that they created a cable channel that is fully dedicated to highlighting all the creative ways men shoot, strangle, and chop up their female partners.  Investigative Discovery notwithstanding, society continuously and erroneously pushes the narrative that the heterosexual union provides us with the blueprint for love.  That’s some ol’ bullshit because romance starts with passion, and men and women have wildly different definitions of what that is.    For women, they can somehow siphon passion out of that flabby sack o’ shit of a husband plopped in the Laz-E Boy as long as homeboy keeps the car note paid and pushes them bad ass kids on a swing at the park every once in a while.  When a man thinks of passion, he’s referring to the fact that he still gets a boner when his woman walks around nude.  She still sucks a good dick and lets him do anal on his birthday.  That’s passion to him.  But if her titties start to sag, she’d better pack her bag.  The second she pushes a small human from the same pussy he fell in love with two years ago, that passion he had for her is a wrap.  He no longer wants to fuck her, but he ain’t going anywhere because there is no socially acceptable way to escape, and he’s pretty sure that he that baby daddy.  The baby often serves to move a hetero couple deeper into the Early Attachment Stage, but all those fights caused by sleepless nights, those shitty diapers stinking up the place, and the high cost of formula push them headlong into the Crisis Stage.

A woman can power through this stage because she believes that her children need a good father and, almost as a coping strategy, she will forge ahead into the Deep Attachment Stage alone, leaving the door open in the hopes that he will eventually join her there.  But the heterosexual man will stay behind, dealing with his crisis by working longer hours, drinking more, shutting his nagging wife out, and watching copious amounts of porn.  The situation will not improve.

Does the heterosexual relationship work?  Never has, never will. Just look at your own parents.

Lesbians  

Like the Big Bang or the Taylor Swift craze, how passion is created between two women is one of the universe’s biggest unsolved mysteries.  All I know is that there are two people involved, the Pussy Licker and the Pussy Lickee and if I were to go out on a limb and take a stab in the dark, I’d guess that the Lickee is the one having the most fun.  (Just thinking about it made me throw up in my mouth a little.) At any rate, when lesbians start that a-licky-boom-boom-down thing they do, something tremendously powerful happens between them.  That powerful force might be passion or something akin, but whatever it is, it quickly morphs into an intense and hysterical crisis that will last the duration of their relationship.  Whereas men generally push the eject button when a crisis approaches, this dreadful tension serves as the glue that binds two women closer together.

They draw power and energy from the constant clashes and conflicts and cannot see themselves being apart from the person that brings them so much anguish and despair. Is their thought process “only someone who really loves me would sit and yell at me like this all day”?   (I challenge you to find a single lesbian couple that hasn’t been completely miserable since the day they met 47 years ago.)   When this mysterious connection between two women takes place, do not try to understand it or get in the middle of it.   It’s much easier to unlatch the jaws of a fighter pit bull from the neck of a chihuahua. And less dangerous.

Does the lesbian relationship work?  Not if little things like happiness and tranquility are your relationship objectives.

Part III

Homosexual Men

We gay men folk are hedonistic and can’t be bothered with the conventional rules of romantic love because love hurts, and we will only do something that feels good up until it don’t no mo’.  But at the same time, we fags are willing to stay with our men through thick and thin, but it depends on how thick.  The truth is that we’re not so much concerned about moving a relationship from the Euphoric to Early Attachment Stage as we are about having as many Euphoric Stages as possible.  We barely make it past the Euphoric Stage with our former partner before we embarked on a new one with the big booty cash register cutie who was throwing all kinds of signals at Whole Foods last week.  But even when we attempt to follow romantic conventions, we may confuse sexual satisfaction with Early Attachment when, after a few passionate dates, we ask the current focus of our romantic attention to scoop up his belongings and move in.  Not long after that, we take a glance at the moving boxes sitting there in the foyer and start to reflect.  The U-Haul man ain’t even pulled out of the driveway good before we realize that maybe we’ve moved a little too fast and made a teensy-weensy mistake asking him to move in.  How were you supposed to know that fine ass Ramón from Accounting was going to finally ask you out only days before Big Booty Rudy was to move in?  Where it may take months and years for breeders to pass through the Early Attachment and Crisis stages, we can knock them babies out in a matter of hours because we ain’t interested in waiting around for Cinderella’s crystal buggy to turn back into a pumpkin.  So, sorry Rudy, but you need to gather your things and get ghost.  But it’s all good because Rudy also felt pressured and sensed that this new arrangement wasn’t gonna work out because it felt hurried, even by gay male standards.  In fact, he was happy to move on because that U-Haul man who dropped him and his boxes off was phyne as phuck and had tapped his number into Rudy’s iPhone minutes before he pulled out of the driveway.  “Next Euphoric Stage, here I come!” Rudy exclaims.  All’s well that ends well. 

Does the gay male relationship work?  It does if you value quantity over quality.  Let’s put it this way:  Which scenario do you prefer, to feel the euphoria of unbridled passion 15 times in 1 year or 1 moment of passion in 15 years?

Look at the table below for visuals based on what I’ve been talking about.

Table 1.  The Stages of Romantic Relationships (Heterosexuals, Lesbians, Gay Males)

Part IV

The Gay Male Relationship, A Case Study

I personally know two gay married couples and, though I am more interested in behavioral trends than individual ones, I believe that these cases serve as model case studies because they sit on the extremes of the relationship continuum.

(1) Nuts and Nuptials:  Bristol & Damon

When I returned to Arizona to work ever so briefly in 2021, I met a very attractive Black man named Bristol on Instagram.  After exchanging messages for a couple of months, we decided that it was time for me to meet him and his husband Damon in person.  (This whole time, I was still a bit incredulous about the fact that a gay Black man this attractive actually lived in Arizona.  He never added or modified his IG page, and nowhere did I see pics of him and his alleged husband.  It took me so long to finally go to his house because I fully expected to be catfished by a fat, beer-bellied cowboy who’d opened a fake profile to attract some fool like me to help him fulfill his Mandingo fantasies.) I finally drove over to Bristol’s house, a very comfortable and spacious place with a two-car garage, pool, and jacuzzi in the backyard.  I rang the doorbell, and a tall, very good-looking Black man answered the door.

"You must be Jeremiah," was all he said as he led me into the house.  Out by the pool in a micro-Speedo was Bristol.  He was an absolutely beautiful southern shawty with a dazzling smile and the taut body of a gymnast wrapped nicely in dark cocoa skin.  He gave me a hug, and we instantly began talking and splashing about in the pool while the tall Black man busied himself in the kitchen.  Man, Bristol is amazing! He’s even got a cute butler, I thought to myself. 

"So, where’s Damon?" I finally got around to asking at some point.

"You’ve already met him."  The tall Black man in the kitchen had overheard us and came out laughing.  In my mind, Damon had to be white; so sure was I of this that I never bothered to ask his race the whole time we chatted on IG.

Bristol began telling me about how they met while both were living in Atlanta, their courtship, and nuptials.  Bristol considered himself a free spirit and had gotten married as a symbolic gesture of his cosmic commitment to Damon and not any contract of his sexual monogamy.  This was solidified when he gave me a tour of their house, and in the bedroom was a large black apparatus made of metal that looked like the skeleton of an exercise chamber.  I asked about the exercise equipment, and he responded that the only thing that gets worked out on that thing was his ass during the black men orgies they sometimes held.  He pulled the leather cradle connected to four silver chains out of the closet and demonstrated how his sling was assembled. Oh my.

I spent quite a bit of time with Bristol over the next few months, and during that time, he elaborated extensively on the philosophical and intimate aspects of his sexual and affective beliefs and the role they played in solidifying his relationship and subsequent marriage to Damon.  “I don’t ascribe to the idea that sexual freedom and marriage cannot coexist,” Bristol explained. “In fact, I consider it to be deeply spiritual to be able to share these experiences with the man to whom I have an extraordinary connection.”  He went on to express that where there is honesty and openness, there is no room for distrust and jealousies because everything is laid down and spread out on the table.  (Or in the sling, if you wish.)  Damon threw an expressionless look at me and nodded.

"One of the reasons that straight men hate us gay men so much is because they’re jealous of us.  We have a tremendous amount of freedom that they can only dream of.  We are free to come together and free to break apart without having to worry about the snot-nosed children or the house or our family’s reputation.  A straight man would love to have the comfort of his wife and at the same time take a lover without blowing up the marriage.  Only gay men can do that."

Bristol was very convinced in his assessment.  He expressed that monogamy is a relatively new concept invented by some king or priest sitting on a throne, a concept that only makes sense for seahorses and macaroni penguins.  Even monogamous animals may only reproduce with their main partner, but will also have sex with others of the same species.  Humans, just like all wild animals, should have the right to seek the best sperm possible, and this could take a lot of time and work.  The orgies help reduce the workload.  Damon nodded in what I understood to be agreement but did not say anything.

To be continued... 

Part V

(2) The RomCom Queens: Matthew & Joaquim

The RomCom Queen subscribes to the hetero woman’s role in the relationship because they have convinced themselves that those relationships in Jennifer Lopez movies aren’t a load of bull honkey.  They set their aspirational sights on constructing a marriage scenario seen on “Modern Family”.  The ideal partner of a RomCom Queen is another RomCom Queen, but there are too few of those “When Harry Met Sally” types out there, so they always end up disillusioned and hurt when their heart gets broken.  And like women, they are often attracted to guys they believe they can change; they are convinced that, through unrelenting care and patience, they can switch a standard sluthole of a man into an apron-wearing, stay-at-home husband.

It’s a serious needle-in-a-haystack situation, but a relationship like this can happen.  My friend Matt met Joaquim when both must have been around 21 years old.  They bumped into each other at some sleazeball sauna in Miami in the 1980s. Like all romantic types, Matt felt that his best option to score a husband was to skip down to the baths and slip his lips on as many dicks as he could until he found the man who was willing to slip a ring on his finger.  He hit paydirt when he met Joaquim, a gorgeous copper-skinned man from Brazil who was in Miami for a photoshoot.  It was love at first sight, so much so that Joaquim lost his subsequent modeling jobs just so that he could spend every minute of his stay with Matt, almost overstaying the time on his tourist visa.  They kept in constant contact until Joaquim was able to save up enough money to return to the States.  During their time apart, Matt stayed faithful to Joaquim:  he’d hung up his ass-out chaps and cock-sucking boots for good.

“I had a huge health scare not long after Joaquim and I met.  This was during the time when AIDS was destroying the gay community in Miami, so when I had to go to the hospital, I was literally treated like dirt.  My own family would not come near me.  I couldn’t even get my sister to go to my apartment to water the plants because she didn’t want to touch anything I had touched.”  Matt was alone and had to spend several days in ICU and a few weeks more in recovery.  About a week into his stay, the door opened and in walked Joaquim, who had somehow gotten the money to make the very expensive trip back to Miami because he needed to be at Matt’s side.  This time, Joaquim did overstay his visa by a full year, so by the time he went back to Brazil, he was banned from returning to the U.S. for 12 years.  “He sacrificed everything for me, and I will never forget that.  I am probably alive today because of Joaquim.”

Once Matt was out of the hospital, he put in his notice at his high-paying finance job, sold his Miami Beach condo, packed his bags, and moved to Rio de Janeiro to be with Joaquim, where they built a life together for the next forty years.  It’s a beautiful story, but it was not always easy.  Matt did not speak a word of Portuguese and had to deal with serious cultural shock.  When Joaquim’s family found out that their son had moved in with another man, he was unceremoniously disowned by them.  Joaquim was the most loving and faithful man on God’s green earth, but he was also a hothead who’d fly off the handle at co-workers and walk off jobs, leaving Matt to pay all the bills until he could find another, which could sometimes take several months.  Matt’s renal condition worsened, so he had to return to Miami for treatment. While there, he was offered his old job back; the hospital stays and taking care of Joaquim (and most of the family that had disowned him) had drained Matt’s savings, so he went back to work in the States. But since Joaquim was banned from traveling there, a year or two would sometimes pass without them seeing each other. But they stayed faithful.

“Not sleeping with other men was not hard for me,” Matt said.  “I had made a commitment to Joaquim, mind, soul, and body, so no other man entered into it.  Not even for a second.  And I know it was the same for him. I mean, what kind of person would I be if I betrayed him after everything he sacrificed for me? Our relationship would be a farce if I allowed it to be contaminated by outside forces.”

After 12 years of living apart, Joaquim was finally able to apply for a tourist visa, and once he arrived in the U.S., both men marched right down to City Hall and made their relationship official.

Part VI

Which System Works Best for Us?

No system is perfect.  Just ask the founding fathers of American democracy.  Both cases outlined above are not representative; I believe that most gay male relationships fall somewhere along a continuum with Bristol & Damon on one extreme and Matthew and Joaquim on the other.

Bristol is unique in his physical beauty and, coupled with his intelligence and intriguing personality, he could be a very successful snow cone salesman in The Yukon.  The more I got to know him, the clearer it became that he’s an insatiable slut who could not be satisfied by the penis of one mere mortal.  He was unrelenting in his search for sexual pleasure, and I was not convinced that Damon was completely on board with all the bed-hopping.  He seemed to have been swept up in Bristol’s arresting charisma and was going along for the ride, perhaps realizing that if he didn’t succumb to Bristol’s insistence on walking down the aisle with him, someone else would quickly snap him up.  There is no question that Bristol opened up a world to him that he would be too shy or frightened to explore on his own, but Bristol seemed to be at his best hopscotching from sexual lily pad to lily pad.  Damon had to either keep up or drown in the pond.

I would be remiss not to mention the potentially dangerous sexually transmitted infections and diseases that Bristol and Damon’s sexcapades must expose them to, but in this age of PrEP, DoxyPEP, and the undetectable positives, the DIY at-home sling has surely made a triumphant comeback, condoms optional.  But the danger never goes away and your exposure to it is a matter of simple mathematics:  the more people you fuck, the more danger you’re going to be in.  This was of little concern to Bristol.  One afternoon while splashing around in the pool, he spoke to me of how he saw the little puddles of semen that gathered under the leather cradle as a badge of honor, expressing that he “could feel a shared power and energy being injected into my very being when a Black man deposits his seed inside of me.” But wasn’t the gold band on his finger supposed to be his real badge of honor?

Matt also ran into several philosophical hiccups when he realized that Joaquim, while still committed to the tenets of fidelity, simply ran out of steam when it came to keeping the relationship fresh and new. Like those “Modern Family” fags, as Matt got older, his body got thinner through yoga and long walks, and he kept his brain spongy by taking online classes and joining a book club. Joaquim, however, got so fat that his back said, “Fuck this!” and gave out. As his weight ballooned, he found that he could not climb into a recliner, let alone a sling, even if he wanted to. He didn’t want to travel outside of Brazil any longer, repeatedly quit his jobs, and experienced long stretches of unemployment, only adding to his general sense of financial irresponsibility. Matt needed therapy and Buddha to maintain the marriage...and his sanity.

Has Matt’s undying belief in real love kept him too long in a doomed relationship in which he and his husband are clearly moving in opposite directions? Both are of retirement age, and Matt looks great since taking up Pilates. He also sees all that extra time as an opportunity to zip to and fro like a busy bee, while Joaquim’s decades of immobility mean that he’s looking to outdo those locusts that lay dormant under the soil for 17 years.

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but does that mean that gay men who take that step must also adopt all the dogmatic tenets of straight marriage? Maybe Joaquim would have a reason to stay in shape and take classes if there were the fear that Matt might get on Grindr or go back to haunting the saunas like he did back when they met more than four decades ago. In some ways, when a straight man starts boning his secretary, in his mind, he feels he’s saving his marriage because that woman is giving him something his wife no longer can: a sense of unpredictability and excitement. He starts to feel happier and better about himself, meaning that he may become more tolerable at home. Most gay couples like Bristol and Damon already know and practice this, but not Matt and Joaquim. They believe that the discipline required to maintain sexual monogamy is what holds a marriage together.

So, after exploring both extremes of love and romance, the question remains: Which system works best for us, the Black Gaddies of the world?