OLD GREEN-EYES IS BACK

Boyfriends make peace with the jealousy beast

by Thomas Blanton

I am not a jealous person. Swear on a Bible and Barbra's shoes. I am open-minded in all regards, and there is not a single thing that can rattle my stoic, shining personality. It's almost saint-like, really.

(Insert an image of my boyfriend, Jack, wiping away tears of helpless laughter while holding his aching sides and gasping for air.)

Okay, so maybe I get a little jealous now and then. Over, say, everything and everyone from Jack's past, any co-worker who attempts to flirt with him, any random stranger in a bar who looks at him for longer than 2.9 seconds. You know, the rational stuff.

I don't overreact, though. In fact, I withdraw completely, subjecting Jack to a nominal span of silence where I express my emotions solely through eyebrow formations. I once managed to convey the sentiment, "I don't care how long ago it was: You did something mildly enjoyable and quasi-kinky with someone who wasn't me. Despite the fact that it occurred years before we ever met, my trust in you is completely obliterated, and you can find me curled up on the sofa in the fetal position, singing softly to myself, whenever you're ready to apologize," through eye-rolling and a subtle facial tic.

Now, you'd think Jack would react negatively to these outbursts, that he'd point out how irrational I was being, or at the very least leave me for a mute with a penchant for Xanex. But no: He thinks it's cute. The Green-Eyed Monster is, from his point of view, proof of my undying devotion. He doesn't encourage it, mind you ("Look, honey! I'm having sex with a well-built circuit boi! How does that make you feel?"), but whenever I go into shut-down mode, he gets this little grin on his face and chuckles while taking my hand in his, sometimes kissing me on the cheek.

His downplay of my emotional earthquakes would be easier to deal with if he felt the same way about my past, if the Internet quickies and back patio escapades that blotch my history bothered him in the least. They don't. I can tell him the most horrifying tales, tearfully recalling the trauma that wracked my frail, bruised body when I saw what was about to happen with the drag queen and the electric mixer, and he'll say, "Yeah, I did that three times back in '97."

However, there is one issue that manages to work its way, mite-like, under his usual thick, well-exfoliated skin: my ex-boyfriends, i.e., anyone I actually cared about. Specifically, the few ex-boyfriends with whom I parted on amicable terms, leaving us close buddies and confidantes. The very mention of their names causes Jack to clench his jaw in a way that just can't be good for his molars.

Case in point: We go to dinner with a good friend and her parents. We're at a quaint little vegetarian restaurant, where an ex of mine happens to work. He sees me, runs over and throws his arms around me, slips me his phone number and tells me to call anytime, gives Jack a perfunctory handshake, and dashes back to his tables. I make a weak joke about the quality of the restaurant's service. Objects within Jack's line of sight burst into flame.

Another case in point: We go on a weekend trip to a gay campground. Weeks in advance, I let Jack know that an ex of mine will be there. Jack takes this reasonably well, up until we actually get to the campground, when it is revealed that Fate, drunken bitch that she is, plopped my ex at the campsite right next to ours. The rest of the trip plays out like a homosexual Three's Company episode, complete with misinterpreted overheard conversations, acerbic one-liners, and a couple of pratfalls.

I know what I'm supposed to do in these situations: I'm supposed to calm Jack down, reason with him, perhaps throw in comments like, "Wow, he sure has put on weight, making him even still less attractive than you," but I don't. Like the wily sea turtle, I find the perfect spot in the beach of Jack's ego, dig a little hole, squat, and fill it with hatchling neuroses that feed and grow, eventually crawling into the ocean where they'll be eaten by larger, predatory issues.

Jack once confided in me that he used to think I was cheating on him. "Whenever I'd call you at work, you'd say you were too busy to take a break," he said, eyes downcast at his inane and unsubstantiated fears. "I got this idea in my head that maybe you were picking up guys online and sleeping with them during your lunch hour." The correct response would have been me drawing back in horror, mouth agape and burbling, "Oh, my GOD! That's INSANE! I could NEVER do something like that to you."

Instead, I nodded sagely and said, "Yeah, I can totally see why you'd think that."

Off the top of my head, I don't remember which one of us slept on the couch that night.

Overall, we have an amazing rapport. Our lines of communication are so open that our cats will actually fall in and remain there, trapped and pissy, for days. His parents love me, and mine-while still getting used to the whole "our daughter-in-law is a son-in-law" thing-have made many affirmative comments about his cooking skills. Emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually, there is absolutely nothing wrong with our relationship.

And I'm starting to think that's the problem.

As gay men, we're stranded with few models on which to base relationships. As such, a lot of partnerships between men just aren't that healthy. Oh, sure, we think they're healthy at first, but that's because we're having lots and lots of sex. Once that dies down a bit, we flail when it comes to what happens next. On top of that, most of us went through some pretty hefty struggles during the coming-out process, knowing that openly admitting our sexuality could very well alienate us from friends, family, and Republicans. This gave many of us the fear that deep down, we're not good or likable people, which left us extremely vulnerable to emotional hurts. Factor in all the psychos we dated during that impressionable period of our lives, and we wind up toting around more baggage than a skycap.

Logically, Jack and I know that we have nothing to fear, but past experiences have conditioned us to take the transgressions, mind games, and multiple personalities that our exes subjected us to and apply them to each other. We're both fully aware that we're doing it, and we both accept the fact that we're going to continue doing it until all our ex-boyfriends are dead or kept sedated and under 24-hour observation at any one of this city's top mental-health facilities. It's become the glue that holds us together.

I'm sure we'd both feel a lot better if we just let all that excess baggage go. I mean, I watch Dr. Phil and Crossing Over with John Edwards, so I'm all up on stable relationship guidelines and how to get closure. But for now, I rest assured knowing that Jack and I are going to stand by one another, no matter how crazed we get over truly irrelevant things. As Mimi Marquez belts in the Act I finale of Rent, "I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine." Me? I found a beautiful matched set.

Thomas Blanton is completing a second book of poems. His first collection, Letters from My Analyst, is available at Lobo Bookshop & Café. He and poet Sarah L. Crowder plan to premiere a two-person show, Dating Monsters, in April.