Moving on Up to an Escort Relationship

[Guest longtimelurker]

>In other words, close your eyes,

>hope for the best, and

>jump.

 

Well, yes.

 

As others see fit to quote not only the poets, but Buckminster Fuller (!) I think it not amiss to quote John Patrick Shanley, to whit: the immortal soliloquy delivered by Ronnie Cammareri (Nicolas Cage) to his Loretta (Cher) in that great classic of the cinema, Moonstruck (1987):

 

"Loretta--I love you. Not like they told you love is--and I didn't know this either--but love don't make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess.

"We aren't here to make things perfect--snowflakes are perfect, stars are perfect, not us. We are here to RUIN ourselves and to break our hearts and love the WRONG people and DIE--the storybooks are bullshit--

"Now come upstairs and get in my bed!"

 

All my life I have been sensible, cautious and (somewhat) clever. And to a certain extent, from a certain point of view, this has worked for me.

 

("So how's that working for you?"

 

"What?"

 

"Being clever."

 

Mr. Brad Pitt to Mr. Ed Norton, "Fight Club")

 

From another point of view, being sensible, being cautious, being clever, has left me with a waste, a desolation.

 

Bilbo's voice is wise and generous. He knows whereof he speaks.

[Guest longtimelurker]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-30-00 AT 10:58PM (EST)[p]>Craig, my man, you shouldn't bandy

>words with that character.

>Didn't your daddy ever tell

>you not to get into

>a pissing contest with a

>skunk?

>

>I guess if I had to

>choose between spending an evening

>with Nixon and spending it

>with Wilde, I'd take Nixon.

> Wilde could talk about

>writing plays and poems to

>amumn se the British upper crust.

> Nixon could talk about

>banging heads with Brezhnev and

>Mao. I know which

>conversation I'd find more interesting.

>

 

Some reports of Wilde's death, in exile, in bed in a sad and decrepit French hotel, have him turning his his head to the wall and saying:

 

"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do."

 

I know what he meant.

[Bilbo]

"We'll always have Paris ..."

"For, after all, tomorrow is another day."

[Guest Jake]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-01-00 AT 06:39AM (EST)[p]Is that petty or pretty? You've been peeking! LOL

BTW, am I the only one who thinks setekh and craigrc are the same person???

[Guest longtimelurker]

Even if they don't necessarily inhabit the same body...

[Guest craigrc]

That's right, Jake. There couldn't possibly be as many as TWO people in the world who disagree with a genius like you, now could there?

 

Keep laughing, Jake. Leave the serious stuff to us grownups.

[Guest Jake]

Listen, non-genius, I am far from one as I have said in all my posts. But I am also not a bitter and ridiculously crude loser either. I offered my advice, the "other" you made some nonsensical post about how people were saying jump into something blindly which couldn't be farther from the truth - it's not at all what I said. This thread was for Jason, not us - and I do apologize for carrying it on longer than it deserves. Today is July 1st and before I leave for the island I want to wish Jason a happy moving day if indeed this is the day he moves in with his possible boyfriend. If you do, Jason, best of luck to you. I truly do believe it's better to love than to sit home writing bitter posts. LOL

[Will]

Yes. Those are beautiful and moving words, and far, far truer than most are willing to admit. It breaks my heart to see young and youngish men be "cautious" with their hearts and thus allow life to pass them by. The search for comfort and security is incompatible with the search for love, or, come to that, with any other kind of life-enhancing experience. When is one too old to enhance his life, by the way? Would you like to continue this discussion via private e-mail? I fully second the suggestion that one listen to Bilbo. He is a good, and wise, and kind man.

[Guest tradecraft]

I'd like to commend craigrc and setek for at least attempting to deal with some of the issues raised by the thread author's dilemma, while other posters responded with a bunch of silly psychobabble. It's refreshing to see serious issues treated in a seriously on these boards.

[Guest tradecraft]

It should read "treated seriously," sorry about the typo.

[Bilbo]

I may not take pains to sound serious, but the points I make I am serious about.

[Guest craigrc]

Tradecraft, thanks for your kind words. You should be warned, however, that you and anyone else who has the temerity to disagree with Jake will be accused of being an alternate identity for me, or setek, or both of us, I'm not sure which, as well as of being a "crude loser." If you think you can endure the ignominy of being disliked by Jake, feel free to speak your mind.

 

Bilbo, I have no doubt you were serious in suggesting that Jason deal with his dilemma by buying a pet. I can't regard that as a serious response to the issues he raised, though. I believe that is the distinction tradecraft is making.

[Guest hottie]

I certainly wish you the best. I couldn't do it. I did meet a beautiful younger man (not an escort) 10 years ago on the beach in Santa Monica. We liked each other and he moved to my farm on the East Coast and we have been extremely happy together. Last year, we went back to California for a few weeks, and our relationship there did not seem as close as it is at home with just us. Too many opportunities to meet other people, drink and fuck. I am not advocating you two move to the country and live as hermits, but it sure helps one to get to know each other and yourself. The career of a prostitute is short lived, then rejection. With that in mind, it could be difficult for both of you later on when aging wrinkles, sagging muscles and self doubts set in.

[Bilbo]

Dear hottie, one of the main reasons that an escort's career is often very short is that he falls in love and leaves the business voluntarily. I have had 5 husbands. With two of them, I kept on in the business. (Actually, they both decided to go into the business themselves, too.) With three of them, I slowly worked my way out of the business. I found that although I required an open relationship, after about a year I needed it in name only and my business, if I didn't leave it abruptly, wandered away when it sensed my disinterest and that it was getting harder and harder to find me with any time in my schedule. However, after each husband, I eventually went back into the business since I have always enjoyed it so much and also felt it was a legitimate calling to minister to the closets. So, over the years since 1973, I have worked off and on for a total number of on years of around 16. It did require certain adjustments and might not be as easy today, with escorting being held in higher esteem and attracting more people willing to openly aspire to it, as it used to be.

 

Craig, I chose to use a somewhat self derogatory sense of humor as I believe that life is inherently either tragic or silly, depending on how you are looking at it at the moment. "I choose to laugh that I might not cry." - Abraham Lincoln.

And I do tend to say only those things which I feel will call into the listener's mind the rest of my points without boring him by stating too much of what seems to me to be obvious. Which for other reader's will probably seem to vast oversimplify what I am saying.

Please contrast:

"Life is a great adventure or it is nothing." "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving themselves to death." And Dolly's speach to Ephraim just before she sings "Before the Parade Passes By"

With

Those Monty Python fellows running down the road shouting "Run away! Run away!"

[Guest craigrc]

Bilbo, if you think that self-derogation is an effective means of expression, go right ahead. Personally, I believe that the most effective means of expression is the one that is easiest for others to understand. The point of expressing one's opinions is to share them with others. If one expresses oneself in a way that makes it difficult for others to understand, one is only talking to oneself.

 

I don't share your respect for "open" relationships or for those who participate in them. It seems to me that they are only for people who lack the emotional maturity necessary to make a commitment.

[Guest craigrc]

With respect to your "please contrast" question, I don't think I care to discuss what appear to be quotes from the librettos of musical comedies in any detail. Comedy writers and poets are not the people I would want to ask for advice about relationships.

 

To my way of thinking relationships are not about excitement and adventure. Excitement and thrills are ephemeral, and relationships entered into for that purpose tend to be ephemeral also. Unless you're 80 or 90 years old, most if not all of the 5 relationships you've had must have been quite brief by my standards. If excitement is what you look for in a relationship, perhaps that is a reason why yours haven't lasted.

[Bilbo]

So, Craig, you want a boring relationship? You don't want to thrill inside when you look into your lover's eyes? You say that I have had short relationships by your way of thinking. How many and how long have you had? My first husband died in a car wreck when we had only been together for 9 months. My second was a bit of a bounce relationship and lasted for 2 years, when it really should never have been anything but an affair between lovers. Messy divorce. My third husband shared the adventure of moving cross country with me. We broke up as lovers after two years, but stayed together as roommates for another two and would have stayed friends for longer but his new lover forbade him to talk to me. He used to sneak in a phone call once or twice a year anyway until they moved to another city. My fourth husband and I shared the adventure of taking a sleepy cliquish organization and turning it for a time into one of the main fundraising arms of the Houston community. It's still doing well, I'm glad to say, without my direct help. I guess he's still helping it from Heaven to whence he left when we had only been together for six years. Not dry relationships, passionate ones. My current husband and I have been together for two years and both of us are a bit into nesting now. We've quited down, but we still do things for the community. (Bet I've made more money for gay charities over the years than you have, but that's a whole 'nother subject, isn't it?)

Personally, I would rather josh myself than tear into anyone else to make my point. My Daddy always told me to try to make your point quietly and politely twice and then on the third round you can come out swinging. Some people, interesting though they may be, around here seem to think otherwise and come out a bashing on there first sortie on a new thread. Was it Fess Parker who said something about flies and honey?

[Bilbo]

And, oh, yeah, but I have no respect for people who allow themselves to feel jealousy or having felt it allow it to dominate their lives. Nor for people who lie to their lovers for any reason, nor for anyone who makes his lover lie to him because if he's truthful with him his life won't be worth living for at least a few weeks. (We Irish tend to throw the breakable, but hopefully not the expensive, china, so to speak, and then ten minutes later be ready to kiss and make up and then kiss and make out.) Please spare yourself, and I certainly will spare myself, any lover who has neither the self confidence nor the confidence in you to share an open relationship. And what is with this modern crap that something funny and positive is never as serious or practical as something that hurts when you say it? Pain is often nature's way of saying, "Don't do that."

[Guest craigrc]

B,

 

Thanks for sharing so many personal details of your life and relationships. I never agreed to do likewise and don't care to do so, though I will say that I have had one relationship that has (so far) lasted longer than all of yours put together (if my math is correct). Does that make me a better person? Not at all. It simply means that I decided what I wanted, didn't settle for anything else despite temptations to do so, and eventually got it. I recommend that strategy. It has certainly worked for me.

 

Do I want a boring relationship? Not at all. Is there nothing in your emotional playbook between thrilling and boring? There is in mine. Thrills don't last. Love (if it's real) does.

 

I don't claim to know anything about your relationships, other than what you've said. Concerning the open relationships of people I do know, it is invariably true, as I believe Norman Mailer wrote, that "open" means "You don't feel anything." I passed up a number of opportunities to get together with people who didn't have what it takes to commit to see one person exclusively. And I sure am glad I did.

[Bilbo]

Chacun a son gout, as they say. I am glad that you have had what you wanted, Craig. I think though, that if you wanted to document it, it would be better to list an actual number than merely archly saying that the sum is longer than the sum of mine. But then, you are not the one who is Self deprecating, you do it more readily to others.

One might ask that if this relationship is closed and ongoing, what is your interest in escorts? Is it merely platonic interest in what I will admit is an interesting phenomenon, or do you "cheat" on your lover, or do y'all merely feel that doing it with a professional doesn't violate the "closedness" of your relationship? While it doesn't threaten the emotional foundation of your relationship, I agree, I still think that you must admit, if you have any respect for your escorts, that it is having sex with them and that therefore what you have is some species of open relationship. Nothing wrong there, I think of it as sortof a "constitutional monarchy" kind of thing. But it is hardly a basis for saying that even for those of us who want this kind of thing it simply either doesn't really exist or doesn't work if it does.

[Guest craigrc]

B, while you may feel that self-deprecating remarks are the cynosure of good taste, I don't, and I reserve the right to express myself in any fashion I choose. If there's anything you don't like about my posts, well, no one is compelling you to read them or respond to them. That's your choice.

 

My interest in escorts derives from the fact that I hired them frequently before my relationship began. Since it began, I don't see them unless my partner wishes to participate, which he occasionally does.

 

I don't know that an "open" relationship can't work, I just don't know anyone who has ever made one work. I also have trouble believing that such a relationship can satisfy the desire for stability that most people are expressing when they say that they are looking for a "long-term relationship." I know it wouldn't satisfy me. If all one is looking for is a series of sexual thrills, why have a relationship at all? Why not just sleep around to one's heart's content? That's not what I want. I've always had the same feeling about relationships that I do about cars. I want one that I don't have to worry about.

[Bilbo]

Craig, What makes you think I don't like reading your posts? I do, indeed. But do not think that you can criticize my relationships without receiving criticism about yours in eventual return.

It doesn't surprise me that you haven't known anyone for whom an open relationship has worked. They are not for everyone, any more than closed relationships are. Obviously, one would not work for you and I would never try to preassure you into one with anyone. And, as they used to say, "Birds of a feather flock together." So it should hardly come as a surprise to you that I have known people for whom these relationships have worked.

 

I also know several couples whose relationships have been one way at times, the other way at other times. In fact, my husband and I are currently monogamous.

 

I also have several couples who are friends of mine who have been together for between two and five decades. I have no idea whether their relationships are now or have ever been open. It's just not a subject which has come up with them. I cannot see you asking your friends whether their relationships are open or closed. I just feel that you wouldn't think that such a question was in good taste. I would agree, though perhaps in not as many situations as you would think so. Therefore, isn't there the possibility that you have friends who are now or have been in open relationships which have lasted many, many years? There are many closets and this might be, on purpose or not, one of them. Please be supportive of your friends if they come out to you on this matter.

PS. Does your husband insist that you wait for Fall before you give him flowers? Mine does, unfortunately. He feels cut flowers just don't last long enough in the heat of Summer.

[Guest Jake]

Hey Bilbo, I go away for three or four days and come back to find out the history of your love life. It was wonderfully compelling. I admire you very much. Houston is lucky to have you.

[Guest craigrc]

B, I don't have a "husband," since I'm not a woman. If you're referring to my partner, neither of us likes flowers. Neither of us likes most things that are ephemeral.

 

In fact, I've never asked anyone I know anything about his relationships. For some reason, many people I encounter, including you, seem to have the urge to tell me about their relationships even though I haven't asked.

 

I will remain skeptical about "open" relationships until I've seen a great deal more evidence than you or anyone else has so far presented to me. The evidence I've seen to this point confirms my view that they aren't long-lasting. For this reason, to get back to the subject of this thread, I wouldn't urge such a relationship on Jason. His original post suggests that he does want something long-lasting. One doesn't usually give up one's own home and move in with someone else unless one is hoping that the relationship will last. My advice to him would be to wait until a situation comes along that is more likely to satisfy that requirement.

[Bilbo]

Craig, I am certainly glad to hear that you have found a mate who shares so many of your same feelings and thoughts.

You do realize, I hope, how unique both of you seem to me? Just as, I hope, I do to you.

However, much as we are both interested in each other's good, I would not have detailed so much of my love life as I did had I not felt that you had asked me for it. You kept being very abrasive about my relationships and I felt that you would understand them better if I gave you a brief overview of them. Please pardon what must seem to you like my lapse into TMI.

Of course, I do remember one time when a preoperative transexual had bored me just enough so that I asked her not to talk to me about her psychologists and her surgical plans any more. She said that I had to understand her and I replied that No, I did not have to understand her. I had to accept her and love her (as myself for the love of God - but I don't remember if I added that part) but that I did not have to understand her. Are you prepared to any of the three - try to understand, accept or love - about my relationships?

Many people feel that epemeral things, by their very fragility, are more precious and therefore more beautiful. I know one couple who give each other flowers once a week, for example.

 

Would that Houston did have me! I am on probation for escorting at the moment, so I can't do that. And, of course, the more I try to avoid anything like escorting in my massages, the fewer I sell. AS well as fraustrating both myself and my new clients. But things may look up now as I just got a new, better AC in my massage room. Oops, TMI again!