Ditch the HOT MESS and get a HOT YES!

Hopelessly single? Dating record a sad string of hot messes?

 

Together, we can ditch the HOT MESS – and get you a HOT YES!

 

How many of the following symptoms describe you?

 

These are some severe consequences!

 

If any of this sounds like you, you’re not alone. I was there once too. But there is a way out into the love life of your dreams. It worked for me and now I’m in the best relationship I could possibly imagine.

 

In my case, and possibly in your case, the above problems can arise from an unchecked intoxicating sexual attraction or erotic connection. Because of that, I liken it to a STD (sexually transmitted disease), but since you don’t actually have to have sex to catch it, it would be more accurate to call it a ‘Sexually Arising Dis-Ease’ aka SAD. For reasons described further, I call it ‘sexophrenia.’ It’s quite common to fall into this trap in a culture that doesn’t teach sound partner selection strategies. I see it all the time.

 

But the good news is that there is a way out into a life of relational radiance – the love life, sex life, and social life of your dreams. No matter how kinky, queer, or unconventional you are. Let me share my story.

 

 

Gay sex is notoriously easy to get and enjoy because, let’s face it: most men are notoriously simple. Having sex often and easy is, for many liberated queer men, an act of rebellion against the homophobic & sex-negative culture that oppresses us. It’s an act of sexual liberation.

 

Ironically, though, some of the worst consequences can come from some of the best fucks ever. Let me explain.

 

Picture it: San Francisco. Early 2004. Since I was planning on taking off in a few months to travel for a couple years I wasn’t dating at the time. But I was certainly open to hookups. I connected with a sexy dude at a local sex club. For the sake of privacy, I’ll just call him Birdbrain. (Spoiler alert: totally apropos).  After the sex club closed, we continued copious copulations at my house. Some of the best sex of my life.

 

We met up again and again, fireworks banging bigger and bigger each time in the focused privacy of my bedroom. Out-of-this-world good sex.  Hot AF. Eyes-rolling-in-the-back-of-my-head good. Out-of-body-transcendent-experience good. We both felt it and we both wanted to keep doing it. So we kept at it – as often as we could meet. Several times a week for several weeks. Hours and hours fucking, chilling, talking, fucking some more. Stopping for snacks sometimes.

 

With each session we found our selves tuned better and deeper into each other. Rare moments like these when sex is so good it feels like souls merging. Transcendent connection. Tearful blissed out connection amidst frenetic thrusts. What bliss! What love! What beauty! And even to this day, I can’t deny it was magic. Fully was.

 

But the meaning-making on the other hand? Bless our gaylord, at least I now I know better. My hope is, by reading this blog, you’ll come to know better without enduring the disastrous decades it took me to figure it out.

 

“Love is the only socially acceptable form of psychosis.” I forgot where I read this first, but I believe it is wholly accurate.  Psychosis a mental illness that describes when someone cannot tell the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined. It involves a disconnection from reality and the world around us.

 

A serious problem is that when we feel spectacular sensations like this, our restricted vocabulary has only one descriptor. And that word is LOVE. The same word we use to describe our feelings for our grandmother, a tasty stack of pancakes, and our relationship with the one. The one in the common cultural myth. The one prince charming, our soul-mate. The person we have been taught to believe is our fated life mate to take aboard the relationship escalator from boyfriend to marriage to husband till death do us part.

 

After so much time together and such intensely wonderfully intoxicating rapturous ‘love making’ we labeled our mutual feelings “love.” And I would still argue those feelings were a varietal of. But our fault was mistaking those feelings for the kind of love that means we are suitable to be life partners. Very different – I know that now, but I didn’t back then. Mutually captivated, we donned ourselves ‘boyfriends’ and promptly headed out to the Castro together for a drink to celebrate our new love.

 

We arrived to “Uncle Berts” bar and headed to the back patio. In this familiar social landscape, now new with my new Birdbrain BF, I was surprisingly shocked and disturbed by what I experienced. My new boyfriend socializing with other people – with strangers – in a way that made me strangely uncomfortable. Insecure. Strangely jealous (an uncommon emotion for me). And I couldn’t figure out why. I found myself torn between the love we had just created for several weeks in my bedroom, and the inner turmoil I was now enduring in his public presence. I experienced a very different person than I had been experiencing all those weeks together in my bedroom. (Recommendation to reader: witness your prospects in many different environments early on to get a more rounded sense of who they are. Different environments bring out different sides of a person. You want to see what they are like day-to-day, comparing morning to evening for example).

 

Over the next several weeks with my new boyfriend Birdbrain, I found us conflicting in public, and fucking fantastically in private. Annoyance in a public space, and bliss in a private space. After many rocky months together I discovered a major deception and breach of trust. At that point, it became obvious to me that my strange discomfort at Uncle Bert’s was because I was subconsciously detecting his dishonest, deceptive, untrustworthy behavior.

 

I ended our relationship and despaired with a broken heart that took far too long to heal.

 

 

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the only time that erotic intoxication led me astray. It would take a few more disastrous relationships over the next decade where I had only a few more short-lived and tumultuous relationships with guys I found super attractive. They all similarly started with a stellar sexual connection, but ended within a year or so in devastatingly painful ways.  I was trying to make boyfriends out of people that would have better been strangers, friends, or fuckbuddies. I wasn’t making wise, well informed & evaluated, emotional investments.

 

It finally became clear to me that if I had not been intoxicated by great sex, I would have seen, FAR sooner, the blatant incompatibility that instead dragged on for many months and broke my heart. Only after my heart was healed could I clearly see what my friends had seen all along – we were not a good match.

 

After several disastrous attempts at relationships, I started to distrust my own ability to select a boyfriend so I stayed away from dating. Why should I make a emotional investment again just to see, with embarrassment, such an obvious mismatch?

 

When I talked this over with my therapist, he agreed. What I got out of our conversation is that great sex is a powerful intoxicant you need to be aware of. He said, “I don’t have sex with someone I’m dating for at least 3 dates or a month – so I have a clear and sober head to see if they can meet me where it matters before I invest my heart and emotions. Can they meet me emotionally? intellectually? spiritually? Do we share the same values?”

 

 

 

A younger me would have chucked that in the bin of prudishness, puritanism, and sex-negativity. But it makes sense to me now. I don’t want to be dicknotized into a disastrous relationship ever again!

 

For the first time in my life, I saw the downside of great sex: The risk of erotic intoxication and the bad judgment that can follow. We often hear “Don’t operate heavy machinery while intoxicated.” But don’t forget that your heart is heavy machinery and great sexual attraction or connection can be intoxicating.

 

When we look at the data regarding what people look in prospective partners for on the dating apps, it’s clear that physical and sexual attraction is the primary factor.  We live in a culture that reinforces the prioritization of sexual attraction. I want clients to beware that fantastic sexual attraction can have a dark and dangerous side. If we aren’t careful to stave the intoxication of great sexual attraction, we can make bad emotional investments we later regret.

 

Sex is powerful. It can create life. It can end life. Used wisely, sex can improve your life & relationships for the better. Used unwisely, sex could take your life on an irreversible turn for the worse.

 

While this seems obvious, what can be far less obvious is that an intense sexual attraction &/or great sex can be so intoxicating it can lead seriously consequential delusional thinking. A symptom of what I am calling “sexophrenia.”

 

When I was considering what I might label this ailment, terms like pussy-whipped or dicknotized came to mind. But these terms convey, to me, a lighter, even ‘tipsy’ version of this kind of erotic intoxication. We might tease a friend that they are pussy-whipped or dick-whipped for their tenacious pursuit of sex with someone in particular.

 

But with what I’m calling ‘sexophrenia’, just like it sounds, I’m talking about something far more intoxicating and pernicious. I’m talking about being intoxicated by sexual attraction to the point of experiencing delusions that fuel the pursuit of such a person not just for sex, but for a romantic life partnership. The delusion that this person is destined to be our life partner, without sober evaluation of other important criteria that I describe in another important blog A more perfect partnership.

 

Even though the two ailments are very different sexophrenia, like schizophrenia, includes delusions, psychosis, and negative symptoms. (NOTE: contrary to popular misconception, schizophrenia is NOT the same as multiple personalities). Delusions are false beliefs about ourselves or the world around us. Psychosis is when we are unable to distinguish between real and imagined. One could argue that love IS the only acceptable form of psychosis. While the specifics of the ‘negative symptoms’ for each affliction are different, they both share a negative impact on a persons ability to connect, relate, and experience pleasure. They are both very serious and consequential conditions.

 

But the good news is that, unlike schizophrenia, “sexophrenia” is preventable and curable. Victims can overcome this condition for a life of relational radiance.

 

As a coach, I help my clients think, feel, and approach dating strategically to balance all of the important aspects to consider when deciding how close they may want to make an emotional investment. I help clients balance the needs of their mind, heart, gut, and genitals so that, as Logan Ury aptly puts it, we can learn to select a great life partner instead of a prom date.

 

I’ve been following this wisdom ever since with great results. I have successfully averted disastrous dicknosis several times. I began dating guys for 3 dates or a month before connecting erotically to see if we were a match on other levels before risking erotic intoxication. This kept me sober and single but better than getting disastrously dick-whipped again.

 

But not all relationships start like that. Sometimes I’d have a great hook up and put myself out there with ‘hey do you want to go on a date sometime?’ Alot of times they aren’t available for more than a hook up, and if that’s the case I make sure to monitor my emotions and have enough time between our trysts so that I can sober up between them. I found that a minimum of a month before reconnecting was good for me. This would help me prevent falling for someone who is unavailable.

 

Sometimes I’d be delighted when they’d respond, ‘sure, I’m open to a date.’ Upon which I’d respond “Well we know we connect sexually, that’s hot. I hope it’s ok if we go on a few dates before we have sex again, just because I like to keep a clear mind to see how we might match on other levels, is that cool?” In every case, they found that approach refreshing. And in most cases, after a couple of dates, we found we weren’t a match. Not surprising as we are all very unique individuals with specific needs for partner compatibility. This is not a bad thing – better to find out the truth rather than being misled by erotic intoxication as I had before.

 

Plus, I’ve used this wisdom to sustain great casual sexual connection with great lovers who are not a match for romance. When I’ve found myself having a deep dick down of dicknotic potential with a lover ill suited for romantic connection, now I can enjoy the fleeting ephemeral love of the moment and recognize it for what it is – temporary and not indicative of a boyfriend connection.

 

As an example, I started connecting erotically with a younger man and it was super hot. We began connecting irregularly, and each time the hormonal fireworks intensified and love was on the brain and in my heart. But I knew because of our age and stage of life differences we were not boyfriend material. I adored him and would love to keep connecting sexually on the regular if we both were clear what it meant and did not mean.

 

To prevent either of us from getting googly-eyed sexophrenia, I wrapped up a steamy session like this: “Wow, our sex is out of this world! So good! So powerful! But I need us both to be clear about what it is and isn’t, and take care of our hearts. You’re an amazing human, and if I was closer to your age I’d want to date you in a heart-beat. But that’s not our fate. While I’d like to play again if you do, we need to be careful not to play too often. If we did we’d be asking for trouble, conjuring intoxicating emotions. It’s important to take time to cool down between sessions to keep reality in check. While I’d love us to hit it as often as possible, that’s dangerous. I feel like once a month or less will let us have fun while keeping our hearts safe. Would that work for you?”

 

He was initially disappointed, feeling dejected, and left with his head facing down, muttering “Not sure if I ever want to do this again.” I held space for his disappointment and assured him it was nothing personal. “You’re a great guy, it’s just we’re at such different places in life.”

 

Low and behold a month later he calls up wanting to ride.

 

In these ways I am now able to avert sexophrenia. I’ve stayed single for a while, but better than repeating the ill-fated relationship patterns of the past. This kept me single and available for when the right opportunity arose. Eventually I used my coaching wisdom to identify a great partner who meets me intellectually, emotionally, and sexually. More importantly: one who brings out the best in me and works well with me in building and sustaining a thriving, authentic relationship where the whole of me – warts and all – is welcome. I met that partner in 2022 and we’ve been building such a relationship ever since.

 

Upon reflection I learned several things:

 

You can avert sexophrenia. If you want a soulful romantic relationship, then lead with your soul in balance with your sexuality. Or you might fall in love with the wrong person or worse, resign yourself to a life of loneliness.

 

Consider what flavors of “love” that you’re open to and learn how to not confuse them.  If you want to have casual lovers, that’s fine, but be aware to protect your heart (and theirs).

 

When looking for a life partner – make sure that someone meets you on all the important levels before investing your heart and emotions. Not just erotically but emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and more. Read more about what really matters in love in my blog: A more perfect partnership.

 

Work with a sex, relationship, dating, & charisma coach like me to discover and overcome the patterns, biases, and misguided myths you’ve learned that don’t serve you and keep you lonely. I’m you guide to creating a connected and happy life of relational radiance – no matter how kinky, queer, or unconventional you are. Begin a new life chapter – the lovelife, sexlife, and social life of your dreams with a free discovery call you can book right now at diggerkeith.com.