I have had a handful of what I would call "serious" relationships in my life, and the pattern always consisted of an immediate sexual connection and infatuation, followed by a fast intense bonding, gradually seguing into a comfortable and pleasant companionship. On average these lasted 3 years, and ended amicably. This is probably a typical pattern for gay men; however, it does not seem to be working for me any longer.
In the past too-many-years-to-name, I have had plenty of infatuations and plenty of exciting sexual liaisons, but none of them seem to develop into anything lasting. I'm not sure what (if anything) is different now, but it is clear I need to shift gears. I believe I need to slow down the process: by that I mean I need to take the time to build a foundation of loving friendship and trust (which may or may not involve a sexual component) before trying to jump headlong into sex and intimacy.
I don't have any guilty or negative associations around sex, but when you start out on that basis it can cloud and complicate things. For example, recently I met a man with whom I had an amazing sexual connection (best sex in 20 years, I would venture to say), and after a few dates I felt he would make a great boyfriend. Once the sexual intoxication had worn off a bit, though, I realized that we didn't really have much basis at all for a long term relationship. Thankfully he showed more wisdom than I by keeping me at arm's length when I started prematurely to try to get involved with him.
To take another recent example, I met a guy who appeared to be more than tailor-made for me: a master's degree student in English literature; close to my age; attractive and muscular; extremely intelligent and witty; romantic; wise; loving; spiritual. But again, the sex happened immediately, fueling an intoxicating feeling of intimacy and mutual understanding which turned out to be quite tenuous. In a matter of a month, as a result of misunderstandings and false assumptions we had made about each other, each wound up inadvertently hurting the other's feelings, which quickly escalated into a defensive conflagration in which we did and said very hurtful things to each other, pretty much destroying any chance even of friendship.
This last affair was quite upsetting, but one lesson I hope I learned is: GO SLOWER. Get to know the several aspects of a person you are interested in before making a move toward intimacy and commitment. This probably sounds like a "duh" to many people (even to myself), but I have simply never operated that way, and it seems very few men I've been meeting are interested in taking the time to build up to that point. And I admit my feelings of loneliness combined with horniness at times compel me to use the pursuit of fast-food online sex as a substitute for pursuing real friendship, which takes time and may or may not yield fruit.
