I will not deny that I am a crazy guy.
Normally, I would not admit to it.
But if you call me crazy because I’m in love, so be it.
These days, I’d rather be in love than be sane.
*
I’m not getting any younger.
And I think the world needs a healthy model of how to love in our old age.
Okay, okay, I’m just turning fifty next year.
But for most people, fifty is old.
*
They tell me that perhaps I’m too old to fall in love like a school boy.
Oh, but to love like a school boy!
To feel infatuated.
To be hopelessly, and dreamily, romantic.
*
What’s so wrong with feeling like a teenager in love?
What’s so wrong with suffering the torture and pangs of longing for an unattainable love?
I’m forty-nine.
I’m ready.
I’m prepared.
I’ve been through this before.
*
This time though, I’m not going to make this easier.
I want to suffer like teenage lovers do.
I want to be in that love journey with them.
Maybe that’s why I chose to fall in love with a seventeen-year-old.
*
Somebody said age is just a number.
A new cougar movie even proclaims: Fifty is the new twenty.
And why not?
Isn’t what is most important, in these times when we are so mechanized and gadget-controlled, is the way we feel?
Do I really want to think about morals and mores at this golden time in my life?
*
All my life, I’ve been a good boy.
(That’s not really true. But let me go on with this, okay?)
I mean, I’ve been living with a strict code of conduct.
(Maybe not as conservative as you want it, but I’ve never been indecent… officially!)
And look where it got me.
*
I always take pride in being the first openly Ilonggo gay guy who got married (all pretty well documented in Ilonggo print and broadcast journalism), and came out respectable for it.
I mean, sure, people may laugh and gossip behind my back.
But they’re afraid to laugh about these things in front of me.
Why? Because they know I probably have a better marriage than many of them.
*
“Better marriage” is, of course, relative.
But on every, and all points they may raise, I’ll fight them, and show them proofs that I have a better marriage.
I’m not saying this lightly.
This is no false claim.
So yeah, I make for a good case of respectable same-sex marriage.
*
Where am I going with this?
Oh, yeah, right — morals, and decency.
I have been a responsible gay guy.
I have been a most respectable married gay guy.
And then, I got widowed.
*
And now, I feel I’m entitled to love in any way I want.
I even think I’m entitled to be crazily in love.
With a teenager!
And still, I am a decent gay guy because I do not corrupt minors.
I am a lover, not a sexual predator.
*
I mean, sure, I discuss the idea of same sex unions, of homosexual love, to this kid.
But kids these days are not innocent.
It’s not like I’m the one introducing these ideas to him.
It’s not like they don’t see filth from the movies, television, and the internet.
Hey, they discuss families with two daddies in Grade One!
*
The boy I am infatuated with is seventeen.
He knows the commerce that happens between boys his age and gay beauticians in my town.
In fact, his classmates have tried to pimp him to their gay patrons, who also happen to be my friends.
I fell for him because my gay friends certified that he has never been touched by anyone from the community.
I really liked that.
*
Because it sounded crazy and impossible, I fell in love with the boy.
I’m not sure that mine is all pure and innocent love.
The boy is gorgeous and sexy in my eyes.
The sour-graping gay friends, of course, write him off as not so sexy, not so gorgeous.
*
My love wants to protect this boy from my gay friends, and all other money-flaunting gay guys in the world.
Including me!
I am willing not to be loved by him.
Willing even to not have sex with him, if it means I could save him from having gay sex at all.
I mean, I put it out there: If he wants gay sex, I want him to have it only with me.
Where his future is likely to be more secure. Haha!
*
If he does not want to have any gay sex in his life, at all, I will be most happy.
I mean, I’ll probably cry, and call him “the one who got away”.
But in my heart of hearts, I’ll be so happy and proud of him.
I would be so happy and proud of myself.
And he would be my — what we Catholics call — indulgentia, my plenary indulgence./PN
