Emotional Involvement With Escorts

[Guest paulnyc]

I need some advice and help and I know there are many of you out there with experiences that are relevant to my situation. I find that I am becoming addicted to this escort thing. The problem is that I just can't seem to hook up with an escort, have an hour of fun, and then go on about my business. I want to establish a personal relationship with the escort and turn what intellectually I know is a business venture into something romantic and lasting. Therefore, I am constantly sending emails or snail mail messages or gifts or money to escorts I have encountered over the past 8 months that I have been hiring escorts, hoping that they will somehow turn into a real friend or even a lover. I just can't seem to be able to have the sex with the escort in an impersonal way and then move on to the next adventure. I keep hanging on. Some of the escorts put up with my fantasy, but others eventually get annoyed when I run out of money or gifts to give them. Others are patient and kind, and seem to be capable of a friendship, but still want to be paid for sex. Someone help because I am losing my mind over this, and, of course, my life savings. I'm not a rich man who should be throwing away money like this. I am in counseling but I leave my therapist's office and either start calling from my long list of escort numbers or head to the Gaiety where I fall under the spell of yet another "straight" dancer who couldn't care less about me, and the vicious cycle begins all over again. I'm in my fifties, married, but gay and desperate to get my head back on straight.

[HooBoy]

Hi Paul,

 

Your question is valid and is actually part of an ongoing thread further down called Escort Question.

 

I'd move your question to it, but I cannot move beginnings of a thread to another thread. You should consider reposting it there, however.

[Paul Revere]

This is a tough question, and one to be very careful with. You hve to remember, that regardless oh how nice an escort is, it is still a business. They will be nicer to you the more you provide them with income. It is certainly possible to become freinds with an escort over time, but the freind thing and the business thing are two different things, and they need to kept separate.

 

It sounds like you are desparately looking for someone to rescue you from your life sitution, and a charming goodlooking young man would be the perfect thing. But you said you are married. You need to stand up and deal with your situation, and resolve it on your own. No Gaiety boy prince charming is going to run away with you to a tropical paradise so you can live happily ever after. Deal with your life situation, and work on your self estime, then, and only then, will you find someone to love you.

 

(Sorry for the two bit head shrinkage, I got carried away, and I'm not qulaified to make such judgements - spend more time with your own shrink and find out what is really going on.)

[Guest REGINA]

To me, the worse thing I can hear is "I love you as a friend". GOD, talk about heart rendering! Good luck, I don't envy you a bit!

[Guest DW]

PR-I agree with what you said for the most part. For me to deal with my situation (posted below), I've omitted the sex from the relationship. Next comes the money, and we'll see what kind of frienship there really is.

Paul- you may want to discuss with your therapist why you continue to pursue men that you know are straight/obviously unavailable ...you could go with gay escorts, where at least there's a slim chance of the "Pretty Woman" thing happening. I'm exaggerating to make a point...is there something about straight men you need to resolve from your past...something to consider. Been there. And as PR said, I'm no expert.

[Guest paulnyc]

I couldn't find that thread Hooboy. I do appreciate the others who responded to my plea for help.

[Guest paulnyc]

Thanks Paul Revere for the head shrinkage. Your advice is very sound and I appreciate that you saw the deep and desperate nature of my plea for help.

[Boston Guy]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-00 AT 12:48PM (CST)[p]OK, I'm going to take a stab at this, but please understand ahead of time that my advice to you may be all wet since (a) I don't know you and, (b) all I have to go on is your relatively short description of what you are facing, and © I'm not a professional therapist.

 

First, you say that you are "desperate to get your head back on straight." Well, if that is true, then I suggest you begin there. And one way to do that might be to take stock of where you are and what you are facing.

 

You say that you are in your fifties -- this means that, one way or another, you've managed to get through a half-century of living. You have undoubtedly faced personal and business trials before and solved them. How did you do that? What techniques worked for you? Sometimes guys can be really quite good at solving business problems but lousy with personal ones. If that describes you, pretend your personal problem is a business problem for a moment and attack it in the same way. How would you solve it?

 

Second, you're married. That means that there is another person in your life, presumably a very important one, who cares for you and about you. You don't say what the state of your marriage is, but it sounds like you are being extremely unfaithful to your wife sexually, emotionally and financially. If a friend of yours was engaged in this kind of behavior, you would quite rightly advise him to stop acting like an adolescent and grow up and face his responsibilities in a responsible way. This would be good advice and it's my advice to you: if you are in a marriage, respect that marriage or exit it. No other choice is responsible and no other choice should be seen as acceptable, especially over an extended period of time. This might seem a bit harsh, but it's not; it's the right thing to do and the only way you can respect the obligations (emotional, financial, moral, ethical) you have to your wife.

 

Have you told your wife about your activities? If so, was she supportive? If you haven't told her, why not -- are you embarassed or ashamed of what you are doing? If the answer to that question is yes, then stop doing things that are embarrassing or that you are ashamed of. There are many quite reasonable reasons someone might decide to hire an escort, but if the reasons you are doing so make you embarrassed or ashamed, you should stop doing it. Life is too short to be ashamed of how we spend the little time we have.

 

So, first off, you have got to figure out what you are going to do with your marriage: do you want to exit it or not? If not, be a responsible husband and get on with your life. It's possible to be gay and still be married to a women and take the responsibilities of marriage seriously. Many gay men have taken that approach. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult choice and often leads to unhappiness. If this is where you are, then perhaps it's time to come out and tell the world -- or at least your wife -- the truth. Tell her you need to move on with your life and be who you are. In this case, it's probably unlikely she would want to continue in the marriage either and certainly she would be hurt. But what is the greater hurt -- telling her now and letting her move on with her life as well, or keeping her in a marriage where you know you are unlikely to ever be faithful again? If she's your age, she is still young enough by far to consider a new marriage or certainly to find a relationship with a straight man who can support her in ways that perhaps you cannot. It seems on the surface that you have some really serious obligations to this women and I think you ought to take them as seriously as you seem to be taking your sexual needs. It's the only way that you'll be able to look back at this time when you are much older and have any kind of pride about how you conducted yourself. It's not the easiest thing to do -- just the right thing.

 

Then, once you have the marriage issues better in hand, you have to deal with being gay. And the way to do that isn't to go out and hire an escort and then try to convince him with money and gifts to become your friend or lover. Your behavior as you describe it is a little pathetic. But I suspect that you are not a pathetic person and you seem quite interested in finding a solution to this problem. So recognize that the course you have been taking is pathetic. It's ok - we all do pathetic things because we're all human. It only becomes a problem when we keep on repeating the same mistake.

 

You can't buy friends and you can't buy lovers. It's just that simple. Sometimes an escort and a client will become friends. Probably it's happened somewhere that they ended up as lovers. But the odds are way against it and it wasn't because of the money: friends become friends and lovers become lovers because of mutual respect and admiration and shared interests and good times and all of the good things that end up making a good relationship. Paying an escort for a false relationship that you dearly hope will become a real one is just too desperate. And it sounds like you are engaging in the kind of desperate behaviour with the escorts -- lots of email and gifts and money -- that turns off anybody. For God's sake, stand up and respect yourself. You have to start there. If you don't respect yourself, no one else will either and no one will like you, much less want to be your friend or your lover.

 

You have to like yourself first. If you are in your 50's, married and in the closet, you probably have been steeped in America's vision of gayness, starting with all of the messages about faggots that were prevalent in the 40's, 50's and 60's. But this is the 21st century: get a grip on yourself and understand that the world has changed and is still changing. It's ok to be gay today and most people are coming around to accept that. But it doesn't matter who accepts that about you as long as you do. And if you don't, it won't matter again if everyone else does.

 

You simply have to accept yourself as gay -- if you are -- and know (not believe, know) that it's ok and it doesn't make you a bad person on any level and you can have a good, happy live as a gay man -- if you choose to. And there is the rub: you must choose to. Life can be something that happens to you or something that you try to guide by making choices.

 

If you have children, it will be even more difficult and complicated for you. But that doesn't mean your choices should be any different. If you are gay, you will live a gay life either in the closet or out of it. That will probably translate to certainly unhappy or possibly happy. Being out of the closet doesn't guarantee happiness and there are a lot of lonely, unhappy gay men. But being in the closet almost certainly will guarantee that you will continue to be unhappy. And no one -- not your wife or your parents or your children or your colleagues or your friends -- has the right to tell you what to do here. They cannot reasonably ask you to live a life that is a lie so that they can be more comfortable. At certain levels, it's most important to live your life honestly and then, if you do, the other stuff will somehow take care of itself. But if you continue to live a lie, your problems will just continue to mount, or at least your unhappiness will.

 

So, first of all, take care of your marriage, one way or the other. Second, decide to like and respect who you are and live a life that is honest. Both of these are likely to be very difficult in the short term. But challenges are good and sometimes how we are measured and how we measure ourselves comes from how we face up to our challenges.

 

Then you have to deal with the gay relationships in your life. Quite frankly, I think you have been making a really serious mistake in confusing sex with friendship and love. If you hook up with some of the really good escorts, you might get guys who are willing to help you figure out how to get your head screwed on straight as a gay man. But that's not what the escorts are there to do and it's not what they particularly want to do. They're in business to make money -- understand that and accept that. It's not difficult and, unless you do, you probably should stop seeing escorts because it's leading you down a bad road.

 

But you absolutely need to make some good gay friends. Notice that I said friends, not lovers. I think you have a hell of a lot to learn about what it is to be gay and how to be happy as a gay man.

 

You don't say where you are but there must be gay bars someplace near you -- gosh, they're all over America now. Go out to them and meet people. Be honest -- tell them you are coming out and you want to meet people and make friends. If you are trying to pick up the hottest guys in the room, you probably will have some problems, simply because you will be 30 years older than them.

 

But what I'm strongly advising you to do is to go make friends, not to go get laid. So find older guys who look interesting. Find guys who might have been out for 20 years, guys who might be fun to go have dinner with or see a movie. If you can make a few new friends, they'll introduce you to more.

 

But for God's sake, don't smother them. If you make one new friend and then try to monopolize this person and smother him with messages and other things, you'll quickly lose that friend. Make at least a few new friends. It's not hard to do and the biggest thing it requires is the willingness to go to a bar or some other place where gay men are to be found (meetings in your area?) and walk up to someone and say "Hi."

 

Many gay men find this to be so difficult that they will never do it. This is hogwash. If you walk up to someone and say hello and they cut you off or reject you, it says a lot about them and little about you. So they are rude. So what? What did you lose? A little self-esteem? Not if you have confidence in who you are and like yourself.

 

Laugh -- a sense of humor will be invaluable to you as you go forward, especially in meeting new friends and keeping them.

 

So, third on your list is meeting new gay friends -- enough so you'll not be smothering any of them and so you can continue to meet additional new friends through them. Have fun. Relax. Forget your problems sometimes and just be fun to be with. If you've forgotten how to do that, ask for help or advice. But relax.

 

Then, if you do these things, you may well suddenly find that you've met someone who is interested in you and who you are interested in as well. But don't rush it: it will only happen when it will and I believe that there are few things you can do to move up the timescale.

 

You don't say if you are attractive or in shape. At 50, attractiveness isn't so vital if you are being realistic about finding a lover, because that "realistic" lover is going to be someone who can share your life and will have had enough life experience himself to be able to relate to and enjoy the things you like. That almost certainly means he'll be in his 40's at least. By that time, most guys are starting to realize that we don't all look like 21-year old college jocks with bodies to match. Nevertheless, we can be fun and interesting to be with and have a richness to our lives.

 

One thing you can do, however, is to join a gay gym. This will help you get in or stay in shape and also be another place where you can meet guys. One word of caution though: some gyms are so full of attitude that you cut it with a knife. Sometimes, breaking through the attitude can be very difficult: the attitude-laden muscle queens can be very, very superficial in this regard. However, most guys, when you finally get through the attitude, are reasonably nice and worth getting to know. I've personally found an easy-going sense of humor to be a big help, especially if the guy you are talking to knows you aren't trying to pick him up.

 

You might even take the money you've been spending on escorts and hire a gay trainer. You'll spend a lot less money, probably get in better shape and definitely do something healthy for yourself and maybe make a new friend.

 

But be careful about confusing the trainer being with you because you are paying him and because of friendship. The chances are that the two of you will hit it off at some level or you'll choose another trainer. But you probably won't get to the point of being friends and that's ok: you have to have a variety of people in your life at a variety of different levels. If he is simply your trainer who helps to make sure you get in shape and stay in shape and never becomes a personal friend, that's perfectly ok. Don't try to force him into friendship and, for God's sake again, don't try to test your friends. Friends don't need to pass tests. Either they are friends or they are not. Stop giving them tests.

 

But your trainer may also have other clients your age who he thinks might be interesting for you to meet. He'll also probably know a lot of people in the gym and might be willing to make a few casual introductions for you. Just don't take advantage of him.

 

OK, so this where are we at the end of this very long post? I'd say you have to (1) take care of your marriage, one way or the other; (2) learn to like yourself and probably come out of the closet; (3) make some gay friends and learn how to be happy as a gay man and also learn about the various kinds of resources available to gay men; and (4) start living your life honestly and putting yourself in places and positions where you can meet other gay guys. If you do these things, keep a sense of humor about you, face up to your responsibilities honestly, be a good friend (and not one of the smothering type) to your new friends, you may well wake up in your lover's arms one of these days.

 

But time is short. None of us know how long we have. So get going - start today.

 

And, oh yes -- let us know how you are doing.

[NY Observer]

Boston Guy,

 

Perhaps you missed your calling in life

[Guest WetDream]

This is a tough one, one that I have faced (or am in the process of facing myself). But my experiences don't seem to be as extreme as yours. I think that Boston Guy's comments are right on the money. Tough, but necessary. Also, I have to wonder about the quality of your therapy. Do you discuss these issues with your therapist? If not, why not? If you are honest and upfront with your therapist and he/she is not helping, you need to get another person to help you. This may be another case of not recognizing that someone is being paid to perform a service for you, i.e., help you to face the problems that are making your life unhappy.

[Boston Guy]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-00 AT 06:33PM (CST)[p]Paul -

 

I've been thinking about your situation for the last couple of hours and decided to take a step that represents a first for me: I cross-posted your question on another board.

 

That board is the Atkol forums. The guys there are terrific and at least a few of the names here on this board are familiar to me from Atkol. (I actually use a different name there -- seekescrt.)

 

Both boards are good and I think you will find them complementary and not in the least competitive. Atkol used to have an escort forum and there was a great deal of strife when they suddenly shut it down almost a year ago. HooBoy has come to the rescue by creating this resource and I like it very much.

 

But there are also a lot of very good, caring and sharing guys over on Atkol and I think you might get some good advice there. So I created a thread with your original post in it and copied my reply so they see that much of the context. I didn't copy anyone else's reply -- hopefully they'll all come here to read what's in between and discover how much fun this place can be. :-)

 

I hope I haven't taken a step that distresses you; I have found Atkol very helpful over the long term and I hope you will too.

 

To find the thread, goto http://www.atkol.com and then go to the Forums. Then go to General Discussion. You'll find your thread there, unless Atkol decides to move it to Getting Personal, which they may well do. If so, they'll leave a note in the General Discussion area.

 

Good luck!

[Guest paulnyc]

Boston Guy. I certainly do appreciate the fact that you took so much time to offer your perceptions of my situation and laid out a possible action plan. It's uncanny how on target you are in so many areas. Are you show you don't know me? I will be pondering all that you wrote and trying seriously to apply it where applicable to my issues. Again, I can't think you enough for taking me and my situation seriuously. I'm so glad that I decided to post my request for help on the message board. There's a wonderful gay community out there and I regret that it has taken me an entire life to take my place in it. I will try and keep you posted on my progress; although I don't want to frighten people off by bearing too much of my soul on this message board, which is not designed for problems but rather to celebrate the joy of escort sex. One immediate positive result of my posting here was that I found the will power to avoid today a contact with an escort that I know would have been a financial disaster, with very little pleasure for me, and that would have left me feeling like a complete fool and friendless again.

[Guest paulnyc]

Thanks for the referral to the other site. I found it and appreciate the responses I am getting there.

[Boston Guy]

Hi Paul -

 

No, I don't know you. :-) But I'm glad if what I wrote was helpful to you.

 

Congratulations on your first step! I suspect that's how success will come - one step at a time, just like most other things we value.

 

There's an email address for me that you can reach through the Atkol thread -- click on the icon by any one of my posts. If you need to chat at any time, feel free to write; I generally check that address at least once per day.

 

Again, good luck -- this is something that you can do!

[Will]

Boston Guy, you blow me away every time you let your fingers do the walking over the keyboard. Your deeply wise and deeply caring replies to both Pauls moved me to tears. I am going to print them out and keep them somewhere that I won't miss noticing them every day. I hope you have a partner in your life who deserves you. If so, he is among the luckiest guys on earth. You -- and not the plucked muscle-twinks -- are the kind of gay man that ought to be cloned.

[Guest paulnyc]

Will, I'll say a tremendous Amen to that! And I, too, have printed Boston Guy's advice and will read every chance I get. I know it will help me with my issues.

[Boston Guy]

Hey, guys, thanks for the positive feedback -- it was very nice of you! :-)

 

We all speak of the gay community. Well I figure that phrase should mean something and that, as members of that community, we should all try to offer each other a helping hand from time to time.

 

I'm happy to hear that what I wrote might be of use to you and I wish you both much luck.

[Will]

Paul, I've been thinking about you and your

situation off and on every day since you posted

your cry for help. This morning (it's Feb 15

where I am, in Europe) I re-read it, and decided

that I'd put in my two cents' worth, following the

lead of Boston Guy's reminding us that it's up

to us to create a genuine community out of what

is so often, and wrongly, called the "Gay Community." I hope this is helpful; the only reason I'm writing this is in an effort to be helpful, in fact, and if it isn't, please ignore it.

 

A few years ago I found myself locked in the grips of a sexual/emotional situation from which I could not find the power to escape. It was the direct inversion of everything I think love and sex are supposed to be: fun, liberating, exciting, creative, sustaining. This was sheer hell, and it was costing me not only my physical health to depression but tons of money as well.

 

I had a gay friend who I knew was a very faithful member of Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous. So I finally summoned the courage to ask him if he thought I might be a candidate for that fellowship. He said, as was absolutely correct, that the only person who could answer that question was I, and that I was certainly welcome to go to meetings with him until I figured out whether SLAA was really the place for me.

 

For about three or four months I went once a week to those meetings. At that time, I had already been in another Twelve-Step Program for about ten years. So I was accustomed to the fundamental difference between a therapist's approach to addictive/compulsive behavior and the Twelve Step approach. What I was not prepared for was the wisdom and humility of the men and women I encountered in those meetings. They spoke of the most intimate sexual matters with a frankness and lack of self-consciousness that was, in itself, utterly liberating. They listened to each other; they did not judge or even give advice; they sought only to identify with each other and then to share whatever strength, or experience, or hope they had garnered in their own lives around that particular issue.

 

Then I discovered that the basic publication of SLAA is a work of spiritual genius. It was written by the man who founded SLAA maybe fifteen or twenty years ago in a desperate (and successful) attempt to save himself from compulsive sexual behavior that all the therapists and all the moral determination he could gather seemed utterly impotent against.

 

In the end, I learned that I am not sexually compulsive. In my case, it was a specific person and a specific juncture in my life that sort of catalyzed my inability to control myself. That isn't to say that I don't know what you mean about the escort stuff. I don't live in a place where escorts are, which is probably good for me. And I also have to be very careful with how and why I spend my time on escort web sites. (That's why I stay close to this one, by the way, because of the depth of humanity and care for our dignity as gay men that many regular contributors routinely bring to their comments on this site -- escorts as well as clients.)

 

During my involvement with SLAA, it happened that a gay friend of mine in NYC decided that he couldn't take his compulsive sexual behavior any longer and he, too, joined SLAA. For him it became a major lifeline, the central and sustaining point of contact with reality. He made many, many friends in SLAA, got his life together, and -- eventually -- even found a partner there. That isn't to say that it happens that way for everybody. But it is to say a few things that I want to leave with you:

 

1. There is hope.

2. You probably can't do this alone, even with

the help of your shrink.

3. There are SLAA meetings all over NYC, and

they are very, very gay-friendly.

4. There are other twelve-step oriented

programs for people with your kind of worry;

but too many are either straightforwardly

homophobic or they are utterly heterosexist.

You need to be AFFIRMED as a homosexual

person. Not being a sad and compulsive gay

man isn't the same as being a closeted man

trying to act like a straight one. I urge you to

find SLAA and stick with it because it will

not disaffirm you or seek to diminish you..

5. The name of the game is love of self, love of

others, and love of whatever it is you think is

the power that makes all of this possible.

 

Please do yourself the favor of calling SLAA today and go to a meeting. You have absolutely nothing to lose, and perhaps your very life to gain.

 

I wish you well and hold you in my heart.

[Guest paulnyc]

Will,

Thank you very much. How beautiful and caring of you to take the time to write. Without sounding like a cliche, I am touched beyond words, with all the sensitivity you and other posters have shown me. I feel less alone now and think that there may be some hope. I get a sense that maybe some of what I have been looking for in one escort after another is the kind of unselfish love that many of you demonstrate in your reaching out to help me. I will certainly give the 12 step group careful consideration. I know that there are meetings at the Gay and Lesbian Center in New York City.

[Guest RO]

Paul-

 

You've been given some priceless good advice from Boston Guy, Will & others. They're great! Though I'm not nearly as articulate as those guys, I'd encourage you to take their advice seriously. It's not easy. Those of us with esteem problems often are driven to choose a self-destructive path instead of one more productive and / or functional. We "enjoy" negative behavior because it feeds our addiction(s). Unfortunately, others sometime also enjoy and encourage us to continue in the vicious cycle of hurting ourselves because they're gaining financial and other rewards.

 

One of the first & most difficult healing steps, which you've bravely taken, is to identify the problem.

 

Also, it's not all bad. Thankfully, you've caught yourself relatively early in the problem and reached out for help, which will make several things easier. It's taken some of us literally decades to do something positive for ourselves. Can you imagine what a deeper hole that is to dig out of? Personally, I've made 2 or 3 fortunes (I'm also a workaholic) and spent them on escorts & other self-destructive addictions. By the way, it's also not healthy to substitute one addiction for another, so don't go there!

 

I don't know what my point to all this is ... I guess that you're not alone. Don't let all this overwhelm you. NEVER think it's hopeless. Take one day at a time. Allow yourself some fun.

 

Most of all, take care of YOURSELF.

[Guest Davos3]

Paul:

 

Your question is a real one, but it does not seem that you are seeking a real answer.

 

You already know that your behaviour is counterproductive to your life and is based on a lie.

 

What you are unwilling to admit to yourself is how lazy you are about establishing a real "free" relationshiop with someine who chooses to spend time with you gratis.

 

Why should some young man give himself to you on an equal basis? What are you offereing in exchange? Is it just money? You have already revealed your duplicitous nature in that you are hiding a very important part of your life from your own wife and you have lived over a half of a century without coming to grips with your own self image and obligations to others.

 

Any real relationship must be based on truth and not just cash. The men you elect to select are chosen only because you can control them and get what you want without anything other than cash.

 

If you genuinely want some sort of relationship, then try meeting people as an equal (not as an exployer). Try offering something other than money as an inducement to a relationship. Most importantly, TRY and don't just take the easy way out. Don't be astonsihed that these purchased favors are somehow the basis of a genuine relationship. How can they be?

 

You have a computer, you are literate, you can place an ad on line with your inteests, needs, wishes, hopes plans, ideas, images , etc. and see if you indeed have soulmates who want to have more from you than a meal ticket.

 

In any event, don't lie to yourself one second more and then cry to yourself, either! Make a genuine effort to look in the mirror and see what you really are!

[Guest DW]

Dare I say it, but there are also medications (Prozac/Paxel) that, along WITH THERAPY, can help curb obsessive/compulsive behavior. Just a thought.