...in which O-Mo announces he's going hetero.

That's it. I've been meeting a few gay dudes, mostly online through a compatibility dating site or what I call "the gay Facebook". Admittedly, it's only been half a dozen or so. But suddenly, I meet a friend of a friend (my preferred way to meet someone), and the bar for quick and natural connection, complete with attraction, has been raised above anything in recent memory, let alone among the gay dudes I've been meeting, and who was it? It was a conflicted moho, the punk. My idea of who's right for me may shift with time and experience, but forget it: it's too late. I give up. It's over. Bring on the women now that gay, non-LDS men all pale in comparison to yet another attractive, conflicted moho. Gosh.

Yep, I'm going hetero. If I met and married a woman, my family and friends can be more fully happy when I get married without that "oh, we're so happy you've found happiness even though we wish it had been with a woman and didn't eternally damn you from the highest kingdom of glory". And I wouldn't have to struggle with all that "rights" hooey and wondering how we'll have kids, and who would be legally able to adopt them, and whether they'd stay with their daddy if their other daddy died, etc. It's just so much to take on when you're not content with the carefree Gaga-worship life. With a woman, I don't have to be a pioneer of social change or live in a way that brings inherent stress and complication to my life and that of my theoretical future family. I could have my own biological children with a wife whose biological children they are, too. It'd be the "natural" way, filling the measure of our creation, taking joy in our posterity, yadda yadda yadda. None of this heteronormativity within a homosexual context blah blah blah.

Heck, maybe I'll just start going back to church while I'm at it and go back to being the good LDS boy who "just hasn't found the right one yet". It'd certainly be easier on my social life and help me meet people who share my values, even if many do primarily because they'll be ostracized or disciplined if they don't. Some of them are sincere and would live similarly without the watchful eye of accountability to an institutional patriarchy and nosy neighbors. And I could have ready-made community waiting for me wherever I go again, people to help move, etc. That'd be nice, right? Cute little invitations to ward events taped to my freshly painted door, people who come to my home to share a message I've already read and act interested in whether they can do anything for me once a month, casseroles brought to me when I'm injured...it's quite lovely in some ways. I could get used to the whole "God" thing again, and LDS theology. I did it for a few decades, I could go back. It'd be nice to tell myself some of the more hopeful ideas are true. Oh, and I could stop mentally replacing the words "God" and "Christ" with "Truth" and "love", and replacing "commandments" and "church standards" with "true principles" and "wise decisions" when listening to talks to make them applicable. I'd have doctrinal and cultural clutter to deal with, so I'd probably have to be a closet cafeteria mormon, one of those who believes the "core" doctrines but isn't so sure about the peripheral stuff, even the stuff the current administration doesn't consider at all peripheral, but I could swing it. It might be worth having a community of that sort again.

Yep, I give up. This whole "gay" thing is too much work, too much stress, too few predetermined, neat and tidy formulas. It's like living post-dictatorship: nobody likes the discomfort of self-determination and lack of governing rules to make life's decisions simpler, nor the difficulty of changing one's ways of thinking to fit an entirely new system or way of doing things. It's too much for what it's worth to find a hypothetical Mr. Right who probably doesn't exist except as an LDS guy who similarly can't stay away from the church and therefore won't commit to a relationship with another man. I suppose this means I'll be filling my Sundays with meetings, my days with scripture-reading, and praying hard to get a testimony again. I'm sure I can muster more convincing and poetically intense feelings I can call "the Spirit". I've done that before, too: I know what a "burning testimony" feels like. Maybe I was right to think it was divine, after all. I could try to re-convince myself of that. Maybe I'd be right. After all, better to play it safe and avoid the whole damnation thing in case it's real. Fire insurance. And I wouldn't have to be as judgmental as I used to be. I could be one of those "cool" mormons, maybe.

And now that I've experienced compatibility and attraction with both guys and girls, I know what to look for in a possible relationship with a woman, so I have that going for me. Maybe I'll go to JIM for extra measure and let them bring out supposedly repressed memories of daddy issues and masculinity-diminishing trauma. "Whatever works" to make me feel more ready to tackle a woman with my newfound, raw masculinity. I'm a warrior, hear me roar.

Plus, this way, I can flirt with other mohos, and they won't be as wary of me because I'll be one of them again. And even if I'm fooling around with other good LDS guys, I can call it "slipping up", repent, and be seen as a hero for "trying so hard to do the right thing" because my heart will be in the right place if I'm repenting sincerely. With more church leaders moving away from Pharisaical rules-based ministry, focusing instead on the intent of the heart, it's maybe easier to have your cake and eat it to. ...Has anyone else wondered if that expression even makes sense?

Gosh, it's a tempting prospect. Seductive. Little voices whispering, "Come on, you know it would be socially easier, everybody's doing it, it'll make life so much simpler, it's what you always wanted growing up, it keeps your relationships more harmonious, you never know when the right woman may come along..." What a relief, going hetero and/or moho again. I'll let you know how it goes. *mischievous wink*




Note: This is all meant to be light-hearted, so hold your horses with your righteous indignation and untwist your knickers. No, I don't think every gay guy who returns to church or hopes to marry a woman does it for these reasons. I do think some or many do bend to these reasons, whether they realize it or not, mingled with other reasons and often convictions, and they must find better, more lasting reasons if their resolve can be maintained and a happy marriage made. But that's for them to decide, not me. And no, I'm not "going hetero", even though I am open to a relationship with a woman if all the essential elements are there between us (a longer story than I care to explain here and now). I'm merely voicing some thoughts about a struggle/tension between what feels and seems right and what seems familiar and comfortable...from a different angle than I might have a couple of years ago.

And seriously, I need to stop meeting mohos who unexpectedly blindside me with their attractiveness but are still too recently coming to terms with things...which is probably part of why they're so attractive--they haven't done the whole Catholic-schoolgirl-gone-wild thing yet and bought into the lies so many gay circles shove down newbies' throats about what "being gay" means or requires... *le sigh*