Memoirs of a Manwhore

You might not believe it but in my young years, I had a bit of a reputation. 

In the beginning of this post I am going to warn you. You may find this terribly cringe-worthy as the kids say. I took a very amoral view to sex from a young age. It was something fun to do. I just wanted to have as much sex as I could get my hands on. Hence, why I’m writing this post. If reading about the bedroom exploits of others is not your thing I implore you to stop reading now. I will not speak of any explicit acts (I have my secrets) but I will generally talk about some of the fun I’ve been up to.

Boys Just Want to Have Fun

I was young and I wanted to have fun, a lot of fun. I grew up pretty sheltered. I grew up in the church where sex was a thing only to be done in marriage and gay sex was an abomination. I found myself on the campus of a public college, freshly expelled for talking about being gay and ready to experiment. And experiment I did. I asked girls out and I told people I was gay. I had the feminine gay affectation which many people thought was fake to start with. Sometimes they still do think that and I find it very insulting. I’ve always spoken the way I speak. My voice has gotten deeper as I get older. Either way, I was single and ready to mingle and I didn’t waste time. I didn’t find too many male companions at my small campus so I started going out with any woman who said yes. I was indiscriminate. I would ask girls out and if they said yes, I’d go out with them and generally speaking I’d close the death. I could tell if they wanted to and they usually did so it was an easy in.

I was a little awkward and sometimes missed social cues. I still can miss social cues. For instance, when a girl invites you over to fix her computer, there is often nothing wrong with it. There is an ulterior motive. Same thing with hotel rooms. If a girl tells where she is staying and says to come by later, that means one should probably knock on the door. I never thought about if I should be sleeping with these women, I just did it. I dated some women long-term. I was not always faithful. I can’t even say I did my best. Being a relationship for me meant not having to ask girls out or anything like that. It meant that I had fairly easy and regular access. I was lucky. I managed to escape without a handful of pregnancy scares. There was a girl who left college under very odd circumstances and that did give me pause at the time. I sometimes think about her. If I have a child out there, no one has contacted me so far. I might get a phone call years from now. Who knows? By the end of college I had a reputation that made me pretty much undateable for most people. Even by the end of freshmen year people were talking about my habit of sleeping with anyone who said yes. Some friends wondered who of them I’d try to get with next. I never realized that you could develop a reputation and that it would put you in a negative light. I was just having fun.

Either way, I had a lot of fun. After college, things slowed down quite a bit. Most people coupled up and since my one good relationship had fallen apart (my doing) I was left in my mid-20s, single, and out in the cold. Fortunately, leaving college I didn’t have a reputation anymore and I was free to date as I pleased. I worked in nightlife for a few years and while there were many rumors about who I may or may not be sleeping with I didn’t actually get that much out of the club scene. Too many other guys that were better looking with visible abs running around. However, I did manage to see more guys than girls during this period and I stretched that streak into a long period of being essentially gay. When I moved to Seattle a few years later I kept up that trend. I had threesomes and had several hookups with different guys. It was all fun and games but no actual relationships came from it. That really began to frustrate me and it some degree it still does. I think the fact that I imploded the one good relationship I had and have not been able to apply my new knowledge about life to another relationship has been a disappointment. I often think that perhaps I will never have the chance to fall in love with someone who is both available and attractive to me and I to them. Perhaps it is a curse. This leads me into the downsides.

There are Downsides

Some of the downsides are obvious. Walking a guy out to his car after the act and going back inside to an empty apartment is not as fun as a post-coital cuddle and talk. Having someone actually in your life, instead of just in your bed is a luxury. The pattern is always the same. Find a guy, invite him over, get ready, hookup, walk him out, and then emptiness. The pattern with women is emotionally easier. Bedding a girl on the first date is nice, but then you repeat the same pattern with more steps and more texts. There’s still the emptiness after the act. You’re alone, in your room, with your feelings of both satisfaction and loneliness.

Having a reputation in college didn’t necessarily impact me at the time but certainly hearing the rumors over the years since then has had an effect. I don’t know if I feel bad about it. I don’t really know how I feel about it. Some part of me feels dirty like I’m just a piece of meat. Another part of me feels elated. For a chubby kid from Denver, I did very well for myself and that is an accomplishment, isn’t it? I don’t know the answer to that question. It bugs me sometimes, late at night, when my bed remains empty.

Quality Over Quantity

To someone who has not enjoyed a variety of sex partners, this might seem trite. Of course, the guy who has experienced a lot thinks that having one good partner trumps having a variety of partners. However, this lifestyle does leave much to be desired on the emotional front. The times you get to spend together non-sexually or simply being able to share your life with someone is far more valuable than simply rubbing genitals together. It’s all fun and games until the wedding invitations start pouring in and you’re watching couples go off to have a life together and you’re still single and still without love. If I had it to do all over again would I do the same thing? I don’t know. I’m grateful for all my experiences and I cherish them. I stopped counting around 150 or so. I didn’t bother keeping track after that. I had a book where I recorded them all but I burned it. Maybe I was just being human. Maybe I was just letting my inner slut out. Perhaps I was just being natural and doing what came naturally to me as a man but now, at 31, I wish I had someone looking over my shoulder right now and inviting me to bed as I finish this at a late hour. And perhaps that is where a tinge of regret creeps up.

If you have a chance to enjoy real love, enjoy it and hang onto it for as long as you can, your life will be far better than the notches in my bed post. Trust me on that.