Maybe I’ve been acting a bit too much the victim in the situation with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I hooked up.
After all, if I led most of the thing and/or took the initiative most of the time, it’s because I wanted to, because I chose to. I started it, I kept it going for a while, and I ended it. With some encouragement and/or “collaboration” on his part, of course, but I led the game and he played along. What I did was what I wanted to do, what I chose to do; and what I got was, mostly, what I wanted and/or needed.
I went into it as a fling, as a fun and affirming experiment for myself with someone who felt safe and gave clear signs of reciprocating at least the physical/sexual interest. I didn’t go into it expecting anything more than a fling, anything more than a hookup (and, for me specifically, an aro-ace hookup). I was curious, I was horny, and I was seeking affirmations. And I got my curiosity, my horniness, and my affirmations satisfied.
As we sing in one of the pieces for our upcoming show, “they can’t take that away from me”: that’s mine to keep, mine to remember, mine to cherish, if I want to.
Yes, as our hanging out & hookups progressed, it turned out that we had more in common than initially expected and that we might be able to be friends. Yes, for a short while it seemed that we were on the same page about trying to be friends with benefits. And yes, he changed his mind and didn’t tell me openly until I prodded, which remains something painful and/or frustrating for me. And yes, things “not working out” with him reactivated some sorrow & grief from old losses. And yes, things might feel awkward for me (& maybe for him, too?) in the chorus for a while. And yes, I do still feel like an outsider and/or uncomfortable within the chorus but that is mostly unrelated from him and something I need to solve for myself independently from what happened with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up.
But when it comes to what happened with him, it was my choice from the beginning to the end and many parts I really liked; so it would probably do me good to rephrase the story as my choice, to reframe the relationship as a fun, affirming, interesting fling, and to reclaim the experience as my own.
The Little Prince and the Fox 