Single & Fabulous? | Why are we powerless to resist certain men, even the wrong ones?

In the second of series of regular columns about modern gay life, sex and relationships, Anthony Gilét learns that good chemistry is the drug that keeps us coming back for more. 

It was a wet Friday morning when I ended up on my knees on the grubby floor of a Southeastern train. It’s fair to say, I hadn’t got this dirty in a while. The guy was an ex. Actually he was just a player I wasn’t quite over yet. That’s how pathetic this current predicament was. We’d only ever been on a few dates. Not even “dates”. It was a Netflix and Chill situation. You know, YouTube and fellatio.

So what was it about him that had me doing this? Well, what you’ll find in life is that every now and then, there’s a guy you just can’t get out of your head. He was one them. For different people it stems from different things, for me it was the ‘connection’ – when you can sit for hours chatting every shade of bullshit, from pop stars to gay politics, yet still with that raw sexual chemistry that turns friends into friends with benefits. ‘Cause everybody knows deep conversations are better with deep penetration.

I’d begun talking to The Italian on some kind of app (duh, as if it would be anywhere in real life). It was months of foreplay via instant messaging before we actually met up at his flat in South London. You know when there’s an instant animal attraction, but the person makes you feel so at ease you’re not even slightly nervous; giggling through a haze of whatever alcohol he had in his cabinet; teasing one another; occasionally touching each other’s thighs. You know, doing whatever PG shit we could so he didn’t end up with bodily fluids on his flatmate’s sofa.

But there’s a lot to be said for banter as a form of foreplay. It’s almost as important as alcohol. This just seemed like simple relationship math though, really; Two men + an undeniable connection x sexual chemistry = perfect match. Right?

While it may sound like a recipe for success, evidentially we weren’t on the same page of the cookbook. I mean, I thought we were – just turns out I was towering a wedding cake, while he was eating another one on the side. One minute we’re talking about a holiday together to the Mediterranean, the next, he’s on South Beach, Miami with his ex. Just like that. More mixed signals than Stevie Wonder directing traffic. I mean, when he spoke about wanting to tie me up and gag me, I thought it was for sexual pleasure, not to prevent me from inviting everyone to our imaginary wedding.

Though I knew deep down it probably wasn’t supposed to be (the height of romance should never be the bottle of rosé he bought you as a prelude to oral sex), when your energy connects with someone else’s – you can deny it all you want, but you’re powerless (aka, fucked). Unfortunately, the reality is that it often doesn’t work out how you wanted.

Maybe I seem like an idiot for falling for somebody who’s feelings were unrequited. But at the end of the day, boys you just wanna bang are ten a penny. Connections don’t come along often. Not real ones, anyway. Thankfully I’d refrained from standing outside his bedroom window, whaling “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?” clinging to half a bottle of Glenn’s.

The thing is, when you’ve been dating for nearly a decade, you have a pretty good idea of what you want in a man. Or at least, so you think. But it actually has a lot less to do with how many tattoos he has, or what job he does than we so often think. Chemistry, connections, conversations and compatibility overwrite all of that shit. So when you no longer have it, you can go a little crazy craving it.

Hence why I was currently knee-deep in soggy newspapers and mucky footprints, hiding from him. I may have been willing to let the dog go back to his old chew toy – but I definitely wasn’t ready to act like I was OK with it. Not while I was so hungover, anyway. While I’d love to say that he looked as rough as me, and that alone was enough for me to pick myself up (literally) and move on. He didn’t. And I didn’t… Not just then.

But after ruining a perfectly good pair of jeans (that were a much better fit than we ever were), I knew it wouldn’t be long. Damaging my self-esteem is one thing, but my wardrobe? Unacceptable.

Anthony Gilét is a London-based writer, blogger and YouTuber – follow him on Twitter @Anthony_Gilet.

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