I recently got suggested the idea of listening to audiobooks and I have pretty much found it an amazing revelation. Usually I just listen to music on the way to work which is all fine and good, but the idea of actually listening to something useful on my daily commute is an intriguing and productive idea.

My first audiobook so far is Bossypants by Tina Fey. She is an amazing comedian and I have been looking very forward to going to work every morning just to hear another chapter of the book.

Anyway, she brings up a few serious thought-provoking points throughout her book. One of the earlier ones was the idea of when she 'first felt like a woman'. There was some survey done with a group of women and apparently most women responded they first felt like a woman when some dude yelled something nasty at them from a car.

Interpret that how you like, but that got me thinking about when I first "felt like a man". And scanning my memories, I felt like I couldn't really pinpoint any particular moment. I went through all the usual life milestones, but it's like none of them really made me feel like a MAN.

There are all the sexual and pubertal ones and those I went through and I remember thinking at the time 'this is happening' or 'this is it?', but afterwards, though expecting some profound life-changing feeling, it didn't happen.

And then there are all the ones related to life and academic achievement and of course as Tina Fey points out, none of those are worthy of validating my existence as a man. Obtaining an education? Overrated.

Even now, as a chronologically grown man with an actual professional career, I'm not sure I can say I feel like a man. Sure, in my line of work I have done countless things to patients that have violated pretty much any semblance of their personal privacy, but none of that makes me feel like a man. (and thank goodness for that. "I first felt like a man, when I gave my first rectal exam to an 80-year old man!" No thanks.) I have broken the worst kind of news and had serious discussions about things I never thought I'd be capable of, but while there are days I do feel validated that I am a legit doctor, my career for the most part has not influenced how I personally view myself.

I guess this is to say I am still waiting for that breakthrough moment when something in my brain kicks and I truly feel like my balls have dropped and my voice has broken two octaves. Maybe this all has to do with being in the closet and I feel so child-like because there is a whole side of me I have tried to repress from the world for my whole life, and the moment I am really open to the world as a gay man, then will I feel like a complete and total bonafide bad-ass.

Or maybe not. People keep talking about how men (well let's call them males) of my generation go through their 20s without this sense of purpose and live in this perpetual state of childhood 'cuz of the way society is nowadays and all that. I mean, I definitely get that. I have a good group of friends back home, that though I love them to death, could probably fit that categorization. I could probably fit that categorization.

About the only time I really could say I started to feel like a man was back in 8th grade. One of my friends was having a pool party and all my usual group of friends was there. We were just horsing around in the pool and then one kid, who was ostensibly the coolest kid in our group and probably our entire school, noticed I had started growing armpit hair. He started teasing me about it and wrestling me around so he could show it off to everyone in the pool. I'm sure the other guys were equally or farther along on the puberty train as me so I was pretty embarrassed that he was making a big deal about it---BUT at the same time this was the coolest kid in the class paying attention to me.

Now having related this story, I see that I am no different from the scores of women of Tina Fey's book who needed another man to validate their entrance into maturity. Great.

In my defense this just happened to be the earliest vague recollection I have of really entering puberty. But to show you how scientific I have always been, even before the pool incident, when I first noticed I was going through puberty at like age 12, I wanted to see how fast my dick was growing so I would measure my erect penis every month or so to mark my progress. While I do remember what my first measurement was and am pleased to reflect that I have gained several inches since then, I unfortunately lost interest in the experiment a few months in and don't remember my actual penis-growing progress. Kind of a shame cuz I think it would be kinda funny now to look back and see the time velocity it took for me to get to "full-size". Man I'm a dweeb.

Anyway, bottom line is, after all this time, I still feel like I'm missing an essential part of myself that feels like it is a real man in this cold harsh world. I'm not sure if it will ever really click with me, but I sure hope it does. Faithful readers, when was the first time you all felt like a man for the first time? Would love to hear your stories....or know there are others out there who feel like they've missed the boat too!

saw this on ESPN and thought..the question is...how do we get these guys to film a threesome together. haha.

a guy can dream right?

another month, another post..

so it's a beautiful sunday but i'm feeling a bit of the loneliness blues. as another update for you guys i haven't seen my cuddle guy for 2 weeks now. long story short i had his keys to check on his house and a few nights later i texted him to see where he was at. he said he was out so later i thought i would be cute and swing by his place to surprise him when he got back. well as you could imagine from that set up, i found him cuddled up on the couch with another guy. apparently this was a good friend of his from out-of-town, but i dunno how many of you cuddle up naked on the couch with your best friends.

anyway i haven't seen him since. he texted me a few times after that and i actually agreed to meet up with him at least one more time. our schedules haven't worked out so that we could meet up, but yes i'm a softie what can i say. it's not like i've been mr. pure and faithful to him myself. hence the weird part about our relationship. open but not so open. regardless, i think it would be best for us both to move on, so walking in on him was probably the best thing to happen. now i have an excuse to cut him loose and we can both find new guys to have fucked up relationships with. besides the lack of sexual chemistry i've written about, there are just other factors that i won't talk about here that don't make this an ideal relationship. while it's nice to have someone to cuddle with and all that, this pseudo-relationship is just no good really.

since then i've just been living the same ol' routine. work, home, sleep, repeat. out on the weekends to partake in the meat market and realizing how sick i am of it. (not that i don't like admiring the hot guys out there, but i'm usually going out to the straight bars anyway.) i'm seriously not this crumudgeony in real life, but i really wonder if all these 20,30 somethings truly enjoy doing this whole mating thing out in the bar scene every weekend. i personally find it a little tiresome to hear the same stupid journey song every night and pay 10 bucks for a crappy drink, but that's just me. maybe i wouldn't be so bitter if i was taking someone home to fuck at the end of the night.

then there's the whole online thing which i think everyone has their opinion on. i float somewhere in between. not trying to judge people's goals online as myself i don't mind an occasional hot hookup but attempts to find worthwhile dating have also been fruitless. is there some sort of strategy i haven't picked up on to meet either nice normal guys or nice slutty guys online? i'm striking out on all counts.

thus here i am in bed on a sunday blogging about my loneliness blues. i think most of us would agree our only real goal is to find someone to be happy with. unfortunately all those factors to find the right person to be happy with are just so darn nebulous and elusive...but if anyone has any tips on how to meet normal genuine guys please share. the holidays are otherwise a perfect time to wallow in misery.

(speaking of which despite yall's advice i caved and put up my xmas stuff a weekend early. but only cuz i had to work post-tday weekend so i had to do it when i had the chance! luckily no one came by my place pre-T-day to judge me...)