At least, that�s been one sign.

Others types of signs tend to revolve around my (often overactive) analytical approach to interpersonal relationships. I like to think that I can just go with the flow, regardless of who I�m with. But more often than not, I�m always integrating people into my larger �scheme of things�.

Before this current situation began to unfold, there had been four �romantic milestones� in my life. Each one I look at as a distinct turning point - due both to the way the relationships went, and due to they ways in which they ended.

The drama began with Girl A. First loves always have a place in one�s heart, and Girl A was no different. My friend L once commented that I wanted to �be� Girl A. This is true. When you feel so strongly about someone, you want to experience everything about them, and you don�t want to let them go even for a second. You want to own, possess and imprison them. Just being around them isn�t enough, especially when you�re a 15-year-old virgin. To put it bluntly, you want to consume them, because your feelings for them are what consume you every day.

Unfortunately, this gets even cheesier: it wasn�t just first love, it was first unrequited love. Girl A found my constant panhandling for her affections annoying and quickly became sick of seeing it. We had classes together, and many of the same friends, so she didn�t try to avoid me completely; but once the situation had lasted 2 years and high school was over, she made no secret of her desire to have me out of her life.

I have put forth the argument that my homosexuality is in part related to this experience. I couldn�t find another girl that met my idealized picture of Girl A. So I stopped trying by the time I was 17. By then Girl A had moved away, and I�d hooked up with Guy S.

It went deeper than merely seeking a different sexual object: I was looking for a shallow, low-maintenance relationship. Unfortunately, this is something few people reveal from the beginning, and when an emotional imbalance becomes evident, the person whose feelings are the lesser must bite the bullet, break a heart and move on. And so it went.

Not only had I passed from heterosexual to homosexual and from virgin to experienced, I had passed from heartbroken to heartbreaker. Like the first two, the third didn�t feel all that bad.

Unfortunately, it left much to be desired, and I was rather ambivalent and disillusioned with homosexuality as a whole (still am, come to think of it). I spent the whole of my undergraduate college years celibate and disinterested. Many opportunities arose for relationships or sexual encounters, with both guys and girls, but I left the book closed, knowing that my own psychological issues would have resulted in unacceptable conflicts regardless of which I chose.

Then I graduated, started working full time, started living on my own, turned 21 - all within about a 1-year period. As a consequence, my self-image began to change, resulting in a renewed desire to explore relationships again.

I began going out, hanging out with more friends, finding social circles I felt comfortable in. But none of these circles included individuals I was really interested in romantically. In addition, even though I realized that I was no longer interested in attempting heterosexuality, I didn�t like any of the scenes or people with which I associated homosexuality. Thus my strange celibacy continued for a little longer.

I had always seen relationships from a very traditional perspective. Not necessarily that I saw homosexuality as unusual or deviant, but I did see sex and love as codependent needs, and to be taken only from one source (monogamy).

It was whilst under the sway of this premise that I met Guy G. Late one night at Club Fred after an especially excessive ska show, I sat at the bar, waiting to be thrown out after my 15th Guinness. My excess was apparently obvious, as I ended up taking home some random stranger who had just happened to meet my fancy.

Excess... yes... that describes it best... Guy G was a one-night stand that my relationship premises had made me attempt to turn into a legitimate love interest. Needless to say, it didn�t work out well, regardless of how hard I tried working on it. Very applicable to the episode was the old quote that rejection is a great aphrodisiac - or that playing �hard-to-get� is a real turn-on to many people. This is exactly what happened to me.

Guy G, being far older and far more experienced, saw me as a reliable trick. I, on the other hand, fell in love with him. He eventually noticed the emotional imbalance, and understandably had little choice other than to break my heart and remove himself from the situation - just as I had done with Guy S several years prior.

My solution was to rebound. Even though I had behaved slutty, I still functioned on the premise that one could not separate the desire for sex and bonding from the desire for �marriage� and �coupling�, or as I have enjoyed hearing it termed: �the first-person-plural�. It seems that everyone wants to be a �we�. We all want to be a �my spouse and I�.

My rebound was with Guy B, someone whose premises matched mine at the time - to the core of his being. I credit him with helping me get over it. Like I with Guy G, Guy B fell for me whilst I was just sort of using him.

After spending 6 months with guy B, all the while trying to maintain that sex, romance, love, coupling and marriage were synonymous, I finally realized how such a premise had left me emotionally bastardized. I had turned Guy B into a passive-aggressive manipulator who could neither leave me, nor make me love him, nor understand why I continued to stay with him.

Eventually, I had to end it. Guy B had become a charity case, since I was providing a relationship without really receiving one in return. A song by Everything but the Girl comes to mind: �The love that you bore/that thing that I once adored/was no gift that you gave me each time/thinking again what a fool I was then/it was a trophy of yours/a burden of mine�.

I ended up relieving myself of two burdens at once: the charity case which I had made of Guy B, and the "coupling"/"first-person-plural" premise I had possessed. I realized that I had never actually maintained my romantic life on that premise after all, and that I preferred others who didn�t. I finally understood why I felt so stifled and tied down with every relationship - because I was trying to find a husband when what I wanted was a mere accessory.

Thereafter began the period which has been the least stressful and most satisfying for me in terms of sex, love and romance: no committments and no more serial monogamy. I have learned to be happy by discarding the idea that every sexual or romantic encounter must be entered into on the "first person plural" premise.

I have never gone for that which was stable or convenient, anyway. Pretty much describes why I�ve made every single relationship as difficult as possible. When consistency and stability appeared imminent, I had to sabotage the situation.

You'd think I had it all figured out. But along comes this new guy... I really like him...

I like the fact that he doesn�t seem to need me, but does seem to like me. I like the fact that he doesn�t call me all the time and that at any time he could decide that he doesn't feel like seeing me anymore. I like the fact that he doesn�t live in Fresno, so I don�t have easy access to him. It�s perfect, because the situation doesn�t allow me to repeat past mistakes.

This scares me a bit: would I be likely to fall into the same trap of 50s sexual politics combined with yuppie queer groupthink, as has happened before, if I was able to call him up every night or see him several days per week? Am I getting attached or sappy? Why has my pickiness in regards to messing around with other guys become more intense since I met him?

I must say that, ultimately, these fears are not as warranted as I make them out to be. After all, the only times I�ve made the mistakes I describe are when I am not giving the situation the analytical stone washing I�m doing now.

It�s easy to conclude with something like �go with the flow� or �give it time� or �just see what happens�, But that would mean evading my paranoid analytical nature. I must be in touch with every shred of information on where my life, emotions and psychology are going at all times. Call it OCD, if you like; I call it intelligent self-awareness.

Ultimately, I do always approach sex and romance as something which I genuinely enjoy and derive an immense amount of pleasure from. My complaint is in the fact that I have so little control over outcomes and consequences. I have built my life around that which I can control and my entire philosophical system is based upon the concept that I have free will and possess the ability to control my life in every way.

In a case like this, I�m at a loss. I�ve directed a good amount of effort at getting my foot in the door with this person, so to speak, and I�ve found him to be a very valuable thing for me to include in my life. Unfortunately, my desire to "accessorize" rather than "couple" is problematic, because I have no real power in cases where my accessories are other individuals, since they have free will as well, and wouldn�t hold the intrigue they do if they were mere static possessions subject to my manipulation.

Thus continues the drama, and I realize in a case like this, I still don�t seek stability or consistency or marriage. Relationships, in truth, never provide this type of thing unless the individuals involved are completely codependent. In any relationship between two (or more) independent entities, there can be no real "stability", and thus I approve of my current infatuation. Indubidubly.

...A wonderful person that I cannot control in any way. Not wanting to control this person in any way, as that would destroy the very features which make him significant. Scared that I�ll contradict my philosophical discipline by valuing that over which I�ve no control. Realizing that, in a case like this, it�s not a contradiction...