well two embarrassing things to talk about today but i'll be an open canvas and share with yall.

1. re: phone guy, he ended up calling me the day after i posted so i felt stupid for writing a post freaking out about it. he had dropped his phone in the toilet and had trouble getting back his data including my number. so i was relieved to know he wasn't dead or critically ill. i should have made it more clear but i did try to contact him in that week so i presumed something was up from his lack of a response. thanks for your comments though..i did like the one comment from an anonymous poster who said, "Welcome to gay dating, where people will be all about you one moment and completely over you the next."

anyway that was a relief to hear from him to know that he was not completely over me and had tossed me aside. we got back to our routine but then had a discussion about where this was going and if we were ever going to meet each other for real. a little bit difficult to rehash exactly how the conversation went, but basically he is still adamant about not wanting to get truly involved while i'm in residency. in fact, he doesn't even want to meet. he says he doesn't want to be a distraction to me while i finish but obviously i think there is a lot more behind that. i know it's difficult to convey to you readers, but we have a definite connection, and i think he is scared to meet me for real and fall in love and be stuck in this long-distance relationship. i know he's a hypersexual guy and that would be hard for him and all the baggage that comes with a long-distance thing. but as i tried to tell him (and some of you have pointed out), how can we know any of this is real without seeing what the chemistry is like in person? but he doesn't even want to give it a shot.

so that left us with what are we doing with each other now? why are we even bothering wasting our time talking if it really won't go anywhere for the foreseeable future? as you can imagine, now we are trying to emotionally separate ourselves. yes i've been setting myself up for this over the past few months. but i was happy to. this (sadly?) was the deepest relationship i've had and if anything at least i know the possibility of the intense emotional connection i want from a man is out there. i don't believe in soul mates but at least i know there is probably another man out there who is right for me. it may still end up being phone guy. i don't believe the story is closed with him, but for the time being it's being laid aside.

2. i very likely contracted an STD. i started having symptoms at the end of last week (painful urination, penile discharge..gross i know) and against every bone in my body i went and got seen at an urgent care over the weekend. i swear if the treatment for gonorrhea was a pill and not a shot in the butt (which i got, and FYI it hurt like a mother for a few hours) i would have just prescribed the damn medication to myself. but i went the more ethical route and got treated officially even though any monkey could diagnose an STD.  the official test results will come back in a few days so i'm at least interested to see what it is. i think it was probably a non-gonococcal urethritis as the discharge wasn't as copious and purulent as is typical for gonorrhea but who knows. and while my symptoms weren't that bad, in general, having discharge from your cock is a horrifying thing.

so comes the point of how i got it. i've actually been dating a guy for the past month and i had last seen him about two days before i started having symptoms. i've talked to him about it, and i have been the only guy he's been with, for several months actually. and i believe him. he told me he actually had had a little dysuria a few weeks ago after one of our dates, got tested, was negative, and didn't tell me about it 'cuz it was negative, which i also believe. that just leaves me wondering how exactly this cycle worked. i certainly believe i'm the more promiscuous one and if anything i gave something to him, which he gave back to me, although ironically i wasn't sleeping around while dating him so i guess my infection predates me ever going out with him.

this was all based off oral btw. if you have ever thought that oral is safer than straight up raw bareback anal sex, you are very wrong. both gonorrhea and chlaymdia can infect the throat, and they may not necessarily cause symptoms, so one can end up being colonized by these bugs and pass it on unknowingly. so every time you suck a dick or have someone take yours, you take that risk of getting an STD. but obviously no one likes getting sucked oral with a condom on -- i can think of maybe one situation in the past where a guy has wanted to use a condom for oral to be safe - it just doesn't happen in the gay (or straight even) culture.

so if you thought oral sex was safe, i hope i've enlightened you. if you already knew that there was risk, but did it anyways, at least let me be a cautionary tale that infections are out there. i obviously have been aware of the risk of STDs even with oral sex, but i have always chosen to ignore that risk, and here i am today. it is also important to note that resistance to gonorrhea is increasing, especially in the 'men who have sex with men' population, meaning it is very plausible down the line that we will not have an effective treatment for gonorrhea. very scary thought. i'm actually a little concerned because i'm going into almost 48 hours post-treatment and i'm still having some symptoms..oh geez i hope i didn't hit the jackpot and get the resistant bug.

will this experience change the way i practice sex in the future? i don't know. i sure like getting and giving oral without a condom. but i also don't like crazy disgusting discharge coming from my dick and shots in my ass.

i do know that i will be celibate for awhile as i think about this infection and about phone guy. kind of a sucky one-two punch this week.

interestingly this all happened when i've tried to be a good boy and date and take things in the right steps. i've hooked up with dozens of guys and done some very, very questionable things in the past, and escaped for the most part without any problems. i certainly have more than deserved something to happen to me, and i guess here it is. i will do the right thing and try to contact any sexual partners in the last 60 days to tell them to get checked and i will be getting checked again for syphilis and HIV in a few months. (i was recently checked but gotta check again after a diagnosis of an STD)

i guess my point of all this is, no one is immune to STDs, not even the doctors who treat them. i'm not thrilled to be sharing this news with the internet and if you want to judge me for having an STD that's fine with me. i think it's funny that society is like "ewww STD!" but is like "sex? great!" you can't really have it both ways. the risk is always there and i think it's important that we all get a reality check that infections happen. but you make your decisions and live with the consequences. just don't be surprised if it happens to you. be educated, be as safe as you can be, and be honest with your partner(s). and don't believe what anyone else tells you about being "clean"!