IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Today I had one of my end-of-the-jog epiphanies, and this one, this truth, was a whopper indeed. I've tried to avoid it, delay it, deny it, but now I'm just gonna shout it: "I THINK I'M HAVING A MID-LIFE CRISIS!

And it's not just because as I've become more obsessed than ever with achieving the perfect daily workout; or because as I get older, the guys I date get younger (but, don't worry, perfectly legal); or because I secretly don't really know what the hell I want -- although those are all huge parts of it.

It's also got a lot to do with the constant shuddering in my head. I've always been someone who analyzed everything to within an inch of its life. But now it's gotten so bad that I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time analyzing my constant analysis. Where I used to accept my good judgement of character, trust my instincts and act accordingly, I now find myself fearing my hunches, questioning them, wondering why I even have them in the first place. The result: a borderline-creepy mistrust of everyone, myself included.

There I've said it. I'm kind of creepy. I spend a lot of time on this blog dissecting my life in Buenos Aires and critiquing the guys I encounter. And believe me, every word I write is true. But when you get right down to it, I'm not exactly beyond reproach. No, I've never been the flaky type and hopefully never will be, but sometimes I find myself playing the same games that I complain about, testing people, pushing people, trying to find out just what they are made of.

A wise man (or was it a woman?) once said, "You reap what you sow," and I think he (or she) had a point. Yes, I'm embracing cliches now, which is either a sign of the impending apocalypse or irrefutable proof that I'm going middle-aged crazy.

Seriously, though, perhaps my over-analysis and un-great expectations are bringing about the very things that I'm dying to avoid, all the young dudes included. I've always hypothesized that gay men in their 30s are the looniest of creatures. Wounded by the experiences of their twenties, they are bitter and jaded, a condition they generally don't recover from until their 40s, when their options decrease considerably, forcing them to ease up a bit. Whenever a thirtysomething enters my romantic orbit, I arch my back and prepare for the worst. Meanwhile, my encounters with twentysomethings come with fewer expectations, for better or worse, and thus, fewer defenses. The result: I'm left vulnerable to their various misdeeds, all well documented in this blog.

Ah, my revolving door of twentysomething hotties (see the photo three posts below for visual proof). It keeps slamming in my face, leaving me annoyed, confused and sometimes a little bit hurt. But it could be worse. If I were a married heterosexual male, I no doubt would have already left my wife and kids for some Generation Z bimbo with fake boobs and an IQ even lower than my target body-fat percentage. Thank God for small miracles!