Author Archives: adventurerliberated

“Friends fall for each other”

“Yeah, at surface level what’s happened between you guys seems weird or even impossible, but if you think of it, it’s actually quite a universal experience: friends fall for each other, because they like each other as persons”.  Ron’s words yesterday evening brought me some respite, some lightness, almost a sense of things being “smoothedContinue reading ““Friends fall for each other””

Crossing lines of tenderness

As hard as waiting often is, it also, usually, helps to bring clarity.  Yesterday was particularly hard for me. Fortunately, though, my buddy Ron was available to talk with me for an hour while I was hiking on one of my favorite trails around sunset. Ron has an almost unrivaled capacity to balance deep emotionalContinue reading “Crossing lines of tenderness”

The fluidity of sexual orientation

Here we are, two men reclining in each other’s arms on the couch, having a heartfelt, delicate, vulnerable, and very necessary conversation — and using all the willpower we can muster to avoid having sex with each other.  One would assume it impossible for us to want to have sex with each other: Jack isContinue reading “The fluidity of sexual orientation”

Friday night blues

Here it is, my Friday night blues. The melancholy, sometimes acute sadness, intense loneliness, that has been hitting me, like clockwork, almost every Friday evening for the past two or three months.  Last weekend it didn’t happen but that was only because I went on a camping & climbing trip with a group of friends,Continue reading “Friday night blues”

Being desired in my entirety of masculine & feminine

Jack & I met almost four years ago, through a group chat for local climbers. At first, I thought we would never really mesh as climbing partners and it was only thanks to my Italian climbing buddy that I gave the friendship between me & Jack a second chance and it wasn’t until almost aContinue reading “Being desired in my entirety of masculine & feminine”

A little lightness in this heavy darkness

As I sit at a little table in a corner of the bookstore-cafe patio listening to the sounds of this local band — rock with a hint of punk — I can finally feel something within me soften, relax. The notes hit exactly that spot, that frequency of my own emotions right now: an intenseContinue reading “A little lightness in this heavy darkness”

In between genders

A few months ago, in October 2025, I joined an adult recreational team at my climbing gym. At the time, apart from me, there were five women and six men on the team, all cis. Three of the women on the team are in romantic/sexual/nesting relationships with three of the men; however, two of thoseContinue reading “In between genders”

The lack of appreciation for my masculinity

I’m out for dinner with a new friend. We met at the queer running group a couple weeks ago: he’s a cis gay man, partnered, new in town, roughly my own age. And despite having hung out together only a couple times, our conversations have had both breadth and depth, so there seems to beContinue reading “The lack of appreciation for my masculinity”

Double impossibility

I just got home from my run — a good, satisfying workout, and yet what I feel is that I want to cry. I feel a deep, intense sadness.  I feel sad. I’ve been ruminating for days, maybe weeks, on & off, trying to figure out the causes for why people don’t like me physically/sexuallyContinue reading “Double impossibility”