A Single Man in a Dating World
This past spring, I received horrible news: Fox had cancelled Ally McBeal.  Okay, it wasn't exactly a death in the family, but that scrawny little woman with huge dating men problems got to me.  I actually felt sometimes like I was the male gay version of Ally because I completely sympathized with her.  Here is a woman who never seems to run out of possible dates, but somehow never finds the right guy, a situation I have all too well been learning lately.
	When I was released from my last relationship (I know it sounds like I was let go from Headingly Penitentiary), I made a vow: I would stay single until September 30th.  Now to some people that doesn't seem like such a stretch, so I best explain myself.  You see, since I moved to Toronto, I have been following the bumper car version of dating, that is I have been with one person for about three months then exiting into another relationship for three months and so on and so on.  This may not seem like a problem, but for me, it was draining.  When I lived back in Regina, I only dated five people total and suddenly I move to Toronto, I do the same total in a year.
The fact is that when I was living in the small city of Regina, I had little selection or choice so any moment when a date might occur, after sitting on the decision for about a day, I went a dated the person.  Now, however, in Toronto, I could have a new selection by picking up a person every ten steps on Church Street and that's on a slow day.  Now I imagine this doesn't seem too serious, but it sure gave me a new view on being choosy, something I have been lacking lately.  Don't get me wrong, the people I have dated have been nice people, but I really didn't take the time in deciding whether I should date that person or the person ten steps away in the other direction.  Thus I made my vow after the last collapse and here I stand upon that fateful decision.
To tell you the truth, this has been a hard venture staying single.  Thank god not many women read these things or I might be bitch slapped with a two by four by a horde of very single women trying to find that one in a million straight man who doesn't have his head stuck in her tits.  The fact is though that being single in the gay community is a cause for help sometimes.  People A) don't understand why you're not at least having sex with people and B) why would you turn down people who might buy you things just to date you.  It makes one appreciate the inner world we sometimes live in because it's a lot more sane than the one on the outside.
You see, the reason I wanted to make this attempt at non-dating is because I wanted to experience myself for a change.  I often find I get into a relationship and I have to somehow join the other guy's world and forsake my own and when I don't do this, the downhill skiing event begins and my body usually ends up ravaged by the horrendous sight of being trapped in the fence that keeps the slope confined.  The relationship ends and I start all over again hoping the next guy won't engulf me into his netherworld.  Okay maybe that sounds cynical and I won't defend it for being a little pessimistic, but anyone who is stuck in an endless rut of a relationship going nowhere will understand the navigational path being forced on two pieces of wood being sent down a hill at 100 miles an hour without the ability to stop for fear of mutilating your body.
Okay enough on that rant, but honestly I wanted to actually have fun, not sex fun as most gay men would presume, but the fun of life when the world is only yours.  I still have my friends, but a relationship is different.  I don't have to live with my friends and for that I am thankful.  So I remain single with a cause, that of course not being tempted to give up single.  This is not an easy thing to do.  Besides the endless confusion over the lack of sex which does not matter much to begin with and the fear of being alone that so many men seem consumed by, the major problem is that no one can look at this single gay man and not try to make him unsingle.
By placing myself on the single board, it is not hunting season of some sorts for other single men to drag you kicking and screaming back into a relationship.  They are a persistent bunch of guys who dread the world that you're trying to keep and make every attempt to bring you back over to the dark side.  I sometimes feel like the rebel Stormtrooper from Star Wars who is trying to tell Darth Vader better ways of beating the good people.  You wouldn't really get a word in edge ways and he would probably stick something in your throat to stop you from speaking.
On top of all these obstacles attacking you from the outside, there are always the outside attacks, namely the ability to be single when all of your friends are in happy relationships.  Never failing for an instant, it can be guaranteed that if your are single, you are forced to bask in the content glow of everyone you know as if every Disney movie were playing on sixteen screens trapping you in a theatre complex and the theme of love was being injected into like insulin.  I love it when my friends are in love, don't gett me wrong, but all at the same time???!!!!!  It's like the Neverending Love Boat Story.
So here we are, still single and enjoying myself, every once in a while going for coffee with a potential who doesn't stay that way at the end of the evening, not because they don't seem nice, but because there isn't that spark that separates the "one" from being just a regular someone.  Oh I question leaving the evening whether I gave the person a chance, but usually I know full well that this person wasn't going to be that special person I'm supposed to meet.  I still check on gay.com to see if anyone new looks interesting, but somehow, I'm not looking so intently right now and that's just fine.
So here I sit, alone at night on my porch under the cool glow of a summer sky with stars above me (yes I see some stars in Toronto, but mostly I have to imagine).  I have begun to sit out here more and contemplate the passing day as well as the day that is coming my way.  I know I just don't think about relationships and dating, but I am a man of romance and the thought always comes to me each night.  Why do I feel compelled to think about it so often, you ask?  I think the lyrics of a song I recently discovered say it all, "For as long as I shall live I will testify to love".  I believe in love so much that I don't want it to become a passing person that I know deep in my heart won't mean anything the next day.  I don't want love to be something to be taken for granted.
Love to me is something much greater than finding the right person.  Love is finding the right everything.  I know two people will never connect on everything in life and I try not to be too naive on that thought, but there is a magic in finding someone who shares the world with you, even if you haven't found that person yet.  I may be single till the end of September, but I still look into the eyes of the men I meet and wonder in my silent world if this may be the right everything.  The magic of love is that it arrives at the oddest moments when you least expect it in the places where you never thought you would find it.  Until that moment and I think they come by more than we think, I am a single gay man not really searching, but in my heart still hoping.  This is one show that can't be cancelled just yet.