What's Love Got To Do with It?

Sometime last week, I was at the computer, and I got an IM from my buddy George, saying that neither of his boyfriends (he currently has only two, but I reckon everyone's allowed a slow year) could make it to the Tina Turner concert and wondering whether I could go with him. Hell, yes. He regretted that there was no ticket for b&c, but he figured (oh so correctly) that b&c would likely not appreciate Ms. Turner in concert nearly as much as I would.


The show was at 7:30, and we wanted dinner first. After some searching, I located indebleu, and the best reservation time I could get was fo 6:15, so we arranged to meet on the Bethesda Metro platform at 5:45, and we headed down there. The restaurant was great, and it was even better because the waitress informed us that all of their wines under $100 a bottle were half off that night. We were having fairly diverse items, so I split the difference and decided to get a bottle of a light red. There was a Spanish Mencia on the wine list, and I'd never had one, so I decided to try it. It was great, and it went well with everything. All the food was great, too. I started with a crepe filled with lentils and wild mushrooms, and then for the main course I had a crispy rare duck breast accompanied by caramelized pearl onions and a chile rellenos made with duck leg meat.


It's always fun to go to dinner with George. He's the only person who I hang out with who reads my blog, so our conversations are very different depending on whether b&c's along. Of course, that also means that he already knows all about my sex life, so I get to ask more about his, which is very entertaining, seeing how he has the two boyfriends whose combined ages just about equal his. Sometimes the conversation goes something like:
TED: So are you and your second boyfriend up to an hour yet?
George: No. He's like a machine, and he could go for an hour, but he's so sexy that I can only last about thirty minutes.
TED: Sucks to be you. How's boyfriend one?
George: Oh, he's fine. He's still jealous about boyfriend two. It's hard because I don't want to lie to him, so I tell him what goes on, but then he gets jealous.
TED: Doesn't he also have a second boyfriend, though?
George: Yeah, but he says that doesn't count.
TED: Why?
George: Because the sex isn't any good.
TED: He may have a point there. The sex with you and boyfriend two does sound pretty good.
George: It's amazing. But I'm the only guy boyfriend two has sex with. I sort of feel like I'm providing a service.
TED: You mean because you're the only one this uber hot guy has sex with? Your selflessness knows no bounds. You might not want to read the blog this week.
George: Why?
TED: Because I'm going to recount this conversation and make fun of you.


And then he told me that the dean at boyfriend two's business school has a big crush on boyfriend two, who has had to stop taking the dean's nightly phone calls. Now whenever the dean travels, he brings back expensive chocolates for boyfriend two, who, not much liking chocolate, passes them along to George. I'm immensely amused at this: older man buys gifts for younger student, who passes them along to his older boyfriend.


These days, George worries about his romantic situation. He's been with boyfriend one for nearly ten years, and he's been seeing boyfriend two for almost three years. He loves them both, and can't imagine giving either of them up. Since neither of them lives in Maryland, and since boyfriend two has visa issues, I think one of them will likely have to give him up before he'd ever have to choose between them, so I think he should just enjoy the situation for as long as it lasts. But I also recognize that it's difficult to love two people when those two people don't also love each other. Clearly, the answer here is for boyfriends one and two to spend some time together and to get to like each other. I haven't met boyfriend two, but he sounds like a splendid fellow, and I think boyfriend one would come to like him. I have met boyfriend one, and it's hard to imagine anyone not liking him.

Plus: threeways!


But I imagine that boyfriends one and two would both be resistant to the idea. And that's really too bad. I always figure that the more people you can love, the better. That's true for any sort of love, whether it's agape, amor, or eros. I can't imagine being in a three-way relationship myself, in part because I'm capable of friendly and/or erotic love with a lot of people, but it's very hard for me to find someone to fall in love with romantically. But mostly because I think it would be hard to explain to YFU, who's only twelve. George's kids are fully grown, though, so he could probably make it work.


Or he could just continue to enjoy the status quo of two hot boyfriends with occasional other guys on the side.

George used to have a third boyfriend, but his third boyfriend is now just his friend and tenant. Former boyfriend three has always seemed like a nice guy to me, but George tells me that he lacks character. He fell in love with a married man who also lacked character, but he finally ended it after a couple of years. The married guy was never going to stop being married, and he wasn't going to stop seeing other guys, either. In a perverse turn of events, former boyfriend three can now only function with men who are old and ugly. Neither George nor I can figure out how that came to be: before he broke up with his married friend, he was able to function with anybody, and his married friend didn't look old and was very attractive. Former boyfriend three, of course, is young and attractive, really the only kind of guy George goes for.


Maybe only going for old and ugly works out okay if you're without character. Former boyfriend three is quite materialistic, and God knows there are plenty of rich older guys who are ugly, so former boyfriend three could kill many birds with one stone. Both George and I still feel sorry for him, but I figure it's something that will pass. Indelible sexual preferences tend to get imprinted on people at a very early age. The proclivity for older and unattractive men is more likely a situational sexual preference, and when he's fully over his married man, he'll likely return to a more balanced range of attraction.


The Tina Turner concert was great, by the way. There's no getting around the fact that when someone's almost 69, you grade them on a curve, but Ms. Turner would be doing pretty well even if you graded her against 40-year-olds. As you might expect, the show was very high energy, with lots of pyrotechnics and a dance team. I thought, however, that the very best part of the show was right after the intermission when, instead of cavorting on and above the stage, she sat on a stool and sang a non-traditional arrangement of "Help" followed by a thoroughly traditional arrangement of "Let's Stay Together." Awesome. And, of course, "Proud Mary" deservedly brought the house down. I'm really glad that I got to see it.