I Should Have Married That One…

I Should Have Married That One…

 

A few months ago, at the start of the pandemic, I was chatting on Scruff with a fuck bud of mine. He lives over in St. Paul and we see each other about once a year. I’d just purchased my first dildo and he was intrigued. During the course of the conversation, he mentioned that he’d once had a semi-regular fuck bud who could take a huge dildo plus three of his fingers. And then he said something that stuck in my brain… “I should have married that one.”
 
It got me thinking.
 
Were there men who had passed through my life that I should have hung on to? Was there ‘The Man Who Got Away’?
 
Two sprung to mind. Both, coincidentally, happen to be farmers.
 
I met ‘Jim’ in 1997. He was part of this support group I belonged to. We were all at some stage of recovering from a life threatening illness. Each week we would discuss the progress we had made, trying to put our lives back together.
 

He was cute. About my age, 5’8”, buzzed head, with a compact, muscular body. Something about him reminded me of my Dad (which was a little off-putting, but… he was cute). He was rather quiet-spoken and extremely polite. When he smiled, the corners of his eyes would crinkle up lending his face a mischievous elfish look which I found adorable.
 
Jim lived on a farm in a small community about two hours from Minneapolis. His elderly parents lived with him and, during group, he frequently mentioned the challenges he faced managing the farm and taking care of his parents while also attempting to rebuild his life.
 
At this point, I was doing well. I’d started a part-time position with a non-profit, rented an apartment and adopted a dog. Of all the members in the group, I was the most ambitious; biting at the bit to return to ‘normal’. Having recently discovered the internet, I was focused on adding a boyfriend to the mix.  
 

One day, at group, I mentioned that there was a movie coming out I wanted to go see (yes, just going out to a movie was a big step at the time) and Jim chimed in that he, too, wanted to see it. We made plans to go. We’d always been rather flirtatious with one another, so I was unsure if this qualified as a ‘date’ (something that also would have been considered progress at the time).
 
We went to a theatre at the Mall of America and had a good time. He drove. At the end of the evening, he dropped me off at my apartment and we had this awkward ‘goodnight’. His shyness prevented him from making a move and I was not confident enough either. At the time, I was still clinging to my old ideals of what relationships were about and casual sex was not on the table (I was reinventing myself). That would, of course, change quickly and dramatically the more I explored the internet. But, where Jim was concerned, I was maintaining a veneer of virtuousness; still living in a world where things were black and white, right and wrong.
 

I did let him know that I would be more than willing to go out again.
 
The next week at group, there was no awkwardness between us and we went for coffee with some of the others after.
 
Shortly after that, I met my now soon-to-be-ex (S2BX). I was excited and shared it with the group. Which, no doubt, was the reason I never got asked out on that second date.
 
My loss.
 
Today, I imagine that I would have ended up moving to the farm and helping out. I might have gotten some crappy job nearby to help with bills, but otherwise, my life would be Jim, his folks and the farm. When my Dad would start to deteriorate, lost in the throes of Alzheimer’s, I would move my folks to the farm and the six of us would live out our lives in some sort of idyllic agrarian bliss.
 
Which is absolute bullshit.
 

I know that. But the romantic in me wants to believe that I would be satisfied with such a life. That we would all get along, feeding the chickens and collecting eggs while having picnics and caring for one another.
 
Jim was invited to the commitment ceremony my now S2BX and I threw at this funny hotel near the Mall of America. He and a few of the other guys from the support group came. They had their own table. It was a big affair. I’d moved on from the non-profit, landing a very sweet position at the corporate offices of a major retailer and my then-partner was a big deal corporate trainer for a national restaurateur. The evening was a blur of faces, but I remember stopping by Jim’s table and having a brief conversation. He was happy for me.
 
I ran into him many years later, at Gay Pride in Minneapolis. He hadn’t changed; still quick to blush and mince his words. I gave him a big hug. His life had not evolved much beyond where I had left him. His parents were failing, and I shared with him an update on my folks and life.
 
There was still an unspoken spark between us. An ache.
 
But that would be the last time I would see him.
 

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The other man I rather see myself with has been written about on this blog before, as part of Black Leather BDSM Camp, Part V: Hi, Diddle, Diddle, Piggy in the Middles (September 25, 2013).
 
We’d met at an all-adult, all-gay camping event in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
 
He was super tall… 6’ 10”, or something like that, with the stooped posture that comes from a lifetime of ducking your head to get through doorways. Good-looking, with legs for days, a solid chin, and soft, creamy, sun-drenched skin stretched over working-man muscles, his kind eyes and generous mouth competed with one of the largest dicks I have ever had the pleasure of fucking.
 
We played throughout an event held the second night of the camp. At the end of the evening he mentioned that his tent had collapsed earlier in the day and he had no place to sleep. That was a big, fat hint that he wanted to bunk with me, and, while I kick myself in retrospect (how could I have been so insensitive), I didn’t invite him back to my tent because I got the sense that he was looking for more than just a fuck buddy.
 

He lived alone, on a large farm.
 
And I sensed his loneliness.
 
All these years later, I imagine myself leaving my S2BX, giving it all up and moving to the country. There, we would spend most of our time tending to the farm, where I would while away my days and nights dancing on the end of his gigantic dong, getting royally fucked all over the place - the hay loft, the silo, the cow barn, the front yard. I’d grow healthy and strong, earning the kind of muscles one develops doing arduous outdoor tasks. Once a year, we would return to the campground at Black River Falls to relive our first tryst and, eventually, I would convince him that we should host our own event at the farm.
 
Well, a boy can dream…
 
Again, reality would, no doubt, prove that I’d get restless and move on, after spraying his world with my misplaced bitterness and unmet desires.
 

Yet, I can’t deny that both these men held some facet of life that part of me finds appealing: rural isolation. I imagine communing with nature while working the land, writing and playing music in order to entertain myself.
 
 But I have been there and done that. I lived in Iowa for a year and all I longed for that entire year was anything but.
 
Fuck nature. Where’s there a gay bar?
 
And that is the nature of longing… we are always convinced that thing, that person which will make us whole and truly satisfied is right there for the taking. Or was, at some point. When the truth is…
 
…you can create that.
 
Right where you are.   
 
All by yourself.

 

Judy Garland - The Man Who Got Away