of being used

i was supposed to write this last night, after the one about bestfriends, but well, writing takes emotional energy from me. i dunno. anyways, well, here it goes...

as you well know by now, i read sex stories from some website, and some if not most of them featured straight men who did sexual favors for, what else, money.

and so we are introduced to another facet of being gay(and in some twisted association, trans) in the philippines. there is a culture of filipino gay men acting as financiers, sugar daddies, pseudo-lovers, and whatnot to straight, attractive and yes, desperate or otherwise men. i might be generalizing it but these straight men almost all the time take advantage of the gay man's affection and generosity, and in exchange either offers sexual favors or the promise of love. love. and the gay man offers and gives everything to the straight guy up to the point of being pathetic. usually, it starts with the gay man offering the money to the straight guy, whether the straight guy initiates the conversation or not, then eventually, they form a sort of understanding that in exchange for sex, companionship, pseudo-relationships or whatnot, wherein the gay man gives the straight guy an allowance, or just gives money everytime the straight guy either mentions he needs the money but doesn't want to impose or ask so that he won't get tagged as just using the gay man for money, or in some rare instances, just asks or even demands the money. this is an exhausting cycle.

as i have discussed in my previous entries, being trans in the filipino setting is almost if not totally the same as being gay. and yes, i am actually writing from experience. i have unfortunately become part of these pseudo-relationships time and again. why? simply because i like, no love the feeling it gives me, to be needed. and yes, i know the guy i'm in a pseudo-relationship with does not really like me, nor love me for that matter, i believe he also does not think of me as a girl. and yet, i still give in to his demands.

my rationale is like this: i have entered these pseudo-relationships for the purposes of

1.) companionship
2.) the feeling of being needed
3.) the thrill and excitement of courtship
4.) to feel what it would be like to be in a relationship, even if it's all make believe.

the reason why i consciously want and agree to be used is because i want to be needed. it felt great that someone i thought i loved but was actually infatuated with needed me. most of the time, that feeling was just all i need. it felt like a drug to me.

and i guess most people would never understand that. like, i have this friend, a former friend actually, who is gay and claims he has undergone what he thinks i am just experiencing at the time, acting as though he knows me better than i know myself, ugh, who i think thinks less of me for consciously agreeing to be used. he told me that he wishes that i meet someone that i won't have to pay to like me, because even if he truly cannot understand, comprehend and grasp the idea of being transgendered, he thought that if i were really a girl, guys won't use me for money and take advantage of my vulnerability. what gets me the most about this ex-friend of mine is that, well aside from the fact he is pretending and believing he is straight-acting, he thinks he knows me enough and he pities me. at least i know i'm not kidding myself, and i am aware of what i'm doing. he even boasts about a trans friend of his that has a boyfriend that treats 'her' like a real girl, but mind you, his trans friend does not identify as a woman, 'she' actually calls 'herself' as gay, not in the sexual orientation sense but the supposed gender role. notice how i refer to this person as 'her' and 'she', i consider her as female despite herself calling bakla.

i believe i have actually reached a stage in my maturity that whenever i am in a pseudo-relationship, i can distance myself so i won't get hurt but i usually do in the long run, and that i am constantly aware that this is not real. i actually think of it as some sort of business transaction. or, in my own perverted way of thinking, helping out the person by giving him money. but even though i see myself as mature, i still delude myself into believing that if i help him enough, if i give everything, in the end, he'll love me. i believe no one is prone to that. i have read somewhere that gay men do this because most of the time, the straight guy ends up loving them because of their genuine kindness and generosity.

you'd think, after a few pseudo-relationships, i'd learn my lesson. and it doesn't help that my friends think less of me for being in one. it's sad that the general conclusion people make when a straight guy is in some form of understanding with a gay man or in my case a trans is that he is just using the person. i now ask this, why can't a straight guy fall for a gay man or a trans just for the sake of falling in love and not for money?

and so, we all have our reasons why we sometimes act foolish. so before you judge a person, think first why a person does that.