Brandon's aliases that I knew about; there are likely more:

• Benny Camarillo (? - 2003): most email entries in the archive; after 2003 Brandon continued to use "Benny" only when writing to me.
• (Brandon) Benjamin Bradbury (? - 2001): 200001bb, 200104ee.
• Nathan (2001): 20010730, 20010805, 20010813, 20011008; Brandon likely copied the name of a guy who had a crush on him around the same time in college (20010304, 200104ee).
• Luke (2001 - 2002): 20010902, 20011217, 20020118.
• Erik / Alexander / Benjamin Dayspring (2000 - ?): AIM, Google Talk
• Nikolai Alexander [...]-Dayspring (2002): 20011002; [...] stands for the surname of Brandon's first boyfriend.
• Sedrick (2002): 20020211a.
• Philip (2002): email to gay organization in Russia.
• Kyle (2001): 20010523.
• Ben Camarillo (2016 - present): Facebook.

Brandon tends to use an alias when he is going through a crisis of confidence.

Brandon's parents divorced when he was a toddler; later each of them remarried. He doesn't remember the split, but his older brother does; he and his brother were raised by their mother and stepfather. He saw his father occasionally and does not have a close relationship with him. Brandon wrote that he thought his father was "low-functioning" (20140728). He has a good relationship with his mother and she was one of the first people he came out to. Initially she took it badly but soon came to terms with it (200002bb). Brandon couldn't bond to his stepfather; his childhood memories of his stepfather involve fear, distrust, and feelings of inadequacy (200001aa, 200104aa, 20050919). His relationship with his brother was distant and contentious when they were adolescents and young adults (20000701, 20000713, 20020403, 20020603), but has improved in more recent years (20140728). Brandon remembers being teased about girls as a kid by his brother and hating it. He also remembers staging an original revenge for something his brother did that pissed him off (20080729). In 2014, he was working through his feelings of resentment and aggression towards his brother with the help of a therapist (20140215).

The fact that Brandon didn't feel close to and couldn't trust his father, brother, and stepfather in childhood left him with a lifelong hunger for men's attention, approval, and validation not limited to men he is sexually attracted to. It also contributed to his difficulty forming stable attachments to people in general. The constant push and pull of needing, seeking, and being unable to sustain close and stable emotional bonds is the defining and ongoing struggle of Brandon's adulthood.

Brandon moved 15 times during his first 18 years (200001bb). He had trouble forming and maintaining friendships and suffered when he developed romantic feelings for a boy and then had to move away (199912ee). This is another reason why he has been unable to form stable emotional bonds and romantic relationships as an adult. He has talked multiple times about feeling "inadequately loved as a child" and needing to "fill a void" left by an absent father figure (20060113, 20130617, 20130716). He attributes to this his acute need to feel liked and desired by guys and his compulsion to pursue guys in order to get this feeling, however fleetingly and even at the cost of sabotaging an existing relationship (20070904, 20130809). He has compared this to an addiction (20130617).

When I met Brandon, he felt very strongly the lack of an emotional bond with his family on his side and sent me a detailed description of his ideal of a family (200001aa). He also wrote,

When I asked him what was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, his reply was, "A happy family in an amusement park" (200002cc). Contrasting with that is his memory of going with his mother and stepfather to Sea World when he was eight (200001aa). Through his friendships and romantic and sexual relationships, he tries to create a network of people that would satisfy his need for familial bonds as well.

See also Brandon's thoughts on family.

Brandon used to write mythical and fantasy stories, as well as stories about familial and romantic relationships. He shared some with me over the years, plus outlines for others (200006-Armageddon, 200010-Satan, 200103-Wanderer, 20010921-Daniel, 20031230-Valmont, 20040106-Sara, 20050814-Andrea, 20070331-Prince, 20070629-Kyran1, 20070708-Kyran2, 20081201-Erik). He enjoyed reading poetry and tried his hand at writing it on occasion (20010101, 20040209-OE, 20040216). He made outlines of the chapters of a book he wanted to write but never did. It was a mythical story where God and Satan appear along with a cast of human characters including an alter ego of himself (20040819-draft). Taken together, his stories are a chronicle of his efforts to figure out who he is and how to fit in the world.

When Brandon is unguarded, he thinks, speaks, and writes in a very metaphorical language. The fact that few people seem to do this and most find it strange, difficult to understand, and even off-putting makes him feel alone and misunderstood. One reason why our friendship achieved the depth and length that it did is that I share this inclination, this "soul-language."

After finishing law school and starting full-time work, he largely abandoned writing due to lack of time and because he became immersed in a subculture that values other things (see Brandon and Men; Influences).

Jobs

Brandon's jobs in chronological order, starting when he was in high school:

• Catering waiter.
• Library circulation desk clerk.
• Office temp, data entry.
• Building management / community residence assistant.
• Fast food restaurant worker.
• Law intern.
• Customer service representative for a company that sold (mostly porn) videos.
• Lawyer, public defender.

 

"The misogynist in me is quite hard to change"

Brandon's self-worth is based on what other guys think of him and feel for him (see Brandon and Men; Influences; and Emotions, particularly the Insecurity section). Because of this, he has been unable to treat men and women with the same consideration at work. In 2014, he wrote me in an email:

This spontaneous and unapologetic (see Brandon and Women for more detail on why) admission of misogyny, and made to a woman no less, forced me to realize that Brandon (or anyone) would not have made such an admission so openly unless he does not believe misogyny is wrong. Further down in the same email he even emphasizes that this is a "genuine response." Combined with his need for men's attention, approval, affection, and/or desire, it also forced me to reevaluate what Brandon had told me earlier about how he reacted to two interns he worked with. While there is no record of the conversations themselves since they were over the phone, here is what I wrote to Brandon about the incident concerning the male intern:

Would Brandon berate a male colleague for giving a menial task to a female intern? Would Brandon ever berate a male colleague? Would Brandon ever look out for the interests and fair treatment of a female intern? His history and motivations as a whole, as he himself has recorded them in his emails and chat messages in the Archive, and as I have observed them since 1999, strongly suggest that the truthful answer to all three questions is No. Moreover, his regard for women and his interest in getting to know them as people and to maintain friendships with them has steadily deteriorated since around 2007-2008 (more detail on this in Brandon and Women.)

The other incident, of which no record survives, concerns a female intern who worked with Brandon in 2014 or 2015, i.e. around the time the emails quoted above were written. Not knowing that he is gay, she sent him a flirty text message. In response, Brandon turned her over to Human Resources. Her text was inappropriate. But if a male intern flirted with him, would Brandon turn him over to Human Resources? Again his history and motivations, as he himself has recorded them in his emails and chat messages, and as I have observed them since 1999, strongly suggest the truthful answer is No. He would at most have issued a gentle admonishment behind closed doors while inwardly basking in the attention.

Brandon has been working as a lawyer since 2007. These are the two interns he told me about. How many more interns and junior colleagues has he supervised? How did his tendency to favor men and disfavor women affect the references he gave them and the jobs they could or couldn't get?

In our last conversation (20151018; listen through the gaps), I pointed out to Brandon that he tends to give more credit to men in any situation. He responded, "I won't disagree with my gender logic."

 

Thoughts on Law Job and Coworkers

Brandon wanted to be a lawyer from an early age, and started his first job as a lawyer in 2007. Here are some of his thoughts on being a lawyer before and after he became one, and on his coworkers. The quotes span 15 years:

I don't know whether Brandon has ever had a drinking problem. I include this section because the influence of alcohol on his judgment played a role in how our 16-year friendship ended, which means it may similarly affect other relationships in his life. Below is what I observed and what Brandon wrote about drinking over the years.

Like many young people in the US, he ignored the law which prohibits those under 21 from drinking alcohol, starting when he was in high school. In one instance referring to that time, he mentions getting very drunk and confessing his love for a friend (20000713). Through college, law school, and "real life" afterwards, Brandon's taste changed gradually from beer to wine, but he continued to use alcohol for the same three purposes: to drown his sorrows, as a social lubricant, and as a treat. Here are some of Brandon's thoughts about, and my observations of, his drinking, they span 14 years:

Overall, Brandon's drinking habits were similar to those of other people I knew. Sometimes he drank to a point where alcohol affected how he treated those around him, becoming friendlier or testier than usual, but never physically threatening. Sometimes he expressed regret about drinking. In 2013, he was worried that his brother may be becoming an alcoholic (20130723).

In November 2014, when I stayed with Brandon for a few days, I noticed an electric kitchen gadget he had. He said it was for uncorking wine bottles and offered to open one. I declined, and we did not drink during the several days I was there. On my last day staying at his place, he went to work in the morning, and came to get me in early afternoon. We went to have lunch before he drove me to the train station. I got a sandwich; he got only a glass of wine. Compared to average American drinking habits, this was unusual: drinking wine in the middle of a workday, without food.

At the time of my Nov. 2014 visit, Brandon had just been given a stressful, year-long work assignment. In 2015 he was often stressed out and our friendship suffered. During a Hangouts conversation in 2015 he mentioned that he often relaxed after work by drinking. I asked him how often and how many drinks. He admitted it was often a few drinks, several evenings a week, and that he drank mostly at home alone.

Our last conversation was over a voice-only Hangout on 18 October 2015 (20151018). On an impulse, I recorded the conversation, because I found it extremely upsetting but I had the intuition of missing something. I hoped listening to the recording later would help me understand what I had missed due to how upset I was and the lack of visual feedback. When I listened to the recording much later, I noticed how his intonation was at times unstable, how his vocabulary was more elementary than usual. I also noticed occasional faint sipping sounds and the sliding of glass on a hard surface. He had been drinking, and perhaps was getting drunk, during our conversation. I believe alcohol was affecting his judgment at the time. I also believe his judgment was affected by something unpleasant that had happened to him earlier that day or within the previous couple of days, most likely a romantic or sexual disappointment.

I wrote to Brandon regularly by email until April 2016, keeping to the weekly cadence of our conversations. He never replied, and I have not heard from him since the October 2015 conversation that I recorded. Later in 2016, after I had stopped writing to him, he left two Facebook groups that he had been a member of for a long time. Both were gay happy hours.

When I met Brandon in 1999, he was a Jehovah's Witness, attended services at the local Kingdom Hall, and had gone proselytizing door-to-door a few times. He had a briefcase full of religious books and pamphlets for this purpose and gave me one of them at the end of our first long conversation (199911bb). He left the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2000 because they consider homosexuality a sin (200001dd, 20010103, 200104aa). After that, he briefly tried going to a gay-friendly church (20000701) before giving up organized religion. I would describe his state of faith since then as sporadically spiritual.

One of Brandon's favorite books is Paradise Lost by John Milton, which he studied in an English class in college focusing on symbolism. He identified with the character of Satan in this book and read it repeatedly. At the time (1999/2000), Satan's fall from grace in Milton's book seemed to Brandon to mirror his internal struggle between his Jehovah's Witness faith, which rejects homosexuality, and his own nature as a gay man. He wrote stories depicting himself as a writer who discovers he is a demon's son (200006-Armageddon) and as a lonely man recruited by Satan as a disciple (200010-Satan). He also wrote a detailed outline for a book where Satan appears along with an alter ego of himself; the opening scene is of them having dinner together (20040819-draft).

His fascination and identification with the Satan character showed up in his interactions with people. He wrote to Darcy about his deliberate abandonment of their friendship,

When he pursued Michael, he wrote about an awkward conversation,

The literal side of this fascination faded with time and he stopped mentioning Satan, but a more abstract, internalized side of it remains because it fits with Brandon's need to feel special. There's only one Satan after all, and in Milton's book he is portrayed as a more human and sympathetic figure than his Biblical counterpart, a figure that suffers for being misunderstood. When Brandon sees that he hurts people in real life, this internalized image of himself as Milton's Satan serves to shift responsibility from him to them - if only they could understand his special complexity, they would not be hurt and would even make extra efforts to cater to his needs. This rationalization is much easier for him than admitting that the reasons why he hurt someone are entirely mundane (immaturity, selfishness, pride, unresolved childhood issues) and that the right thing to do, both for himself and those around him, is to make amends and to work on his patterns of thought and behavior.

Brandon has talked and written a number of times about a quality of "innocence" or "purity" he looks for in others:

What Brandon means by "innocence" is not naivete or inexperience but self-aware, unjaded authenticity that is unaffected by fads or peer pressure. Crucially, his idea of "innocence" includes the ability to love without reservation even while risking great emotional harm. He seeks out people who can provide validation that he is worth this risk and sometimes tests their willingness to do so (20070904). However, his feeling of satisfaction and validation only lasts until the novelty of meeting such a person wears off and insecurity takes over again.

The number of people who have the kind of innocence Brandon looks for drastically decreases with age due to emotional damage, jadedness, and conformity. Once in a while he settles for a guy who is simply younger and less experienced than himself, only to dump him soon after because the guy lacked the intellectual sophistication to match his own.

Brandon is ambivalent about his own innocence. At and shortly after our 2013 college reunion he said,

Several sections below (Brandon and Men; Brandon and Women; Influences) discuss the markers of social status in the gay subculture Brandon identifies with. On one hand, if he hadn't conformed to them, he would not have been accepted by the subculture. On the other hand, after doing his best to conform for years and in large part succeeding, he is conscious of having lost something essential of himself and the ability to fall in love.

To understand Brandon's relationships with men, one needs to start with their backdrop. I relay here what I have learned about it from him and other gay men.

 

The Gay Scene

The gay scene is a subset of gay culture and is usually understood as gay bars, clubs, parties, dating apps, etc. Above all, the gay scene is a mindset and it reaches much farther than these venues. Conversely, one may enjoy the venues without buying into the mindset. Because physical appearance and sex play a central role in this mindset, men who buy into it classify themselves and others based on body type, sexual role preference, and degree of conventionally masculine ("masc") vs. feminine ("femme") presentation. Before Brandon felt comfortable in the gay scene, he wrote:

Here are inside views by gay men on how the gay scene mindset affects their lives and for some, their deaths.

The gay subculture Brandon identifies with is perhaps the most widespread; it values conventionally masculine good looks, athletic bodies, conventionally masculine style of dress and manner. Guys often have sex first and then may become friends or boyfriends later. One's own appearance and the appearance of the guys one associates with are social status indicators. Because friendships often begin with sex, if a guy can't conform to the subculture's standards of physical beauty and is judged to be sexually undesirable, he may be shut out of friendships as well. This dynamic is self-sustaining because it simultaneously feeds on and reinforces guys' insecurities, and punishes non-conformists by ostracizing them. According to the psychology studies and first-hand accounts linked above, universal acceptance in the gay scene is a myth at odds with reality.

Over the years, Brandon's perception of the gay scene and the corresponding descriptions he shared with me spanned the range between a callous meat market and a sexually liberated brotherhood, depending on his mood, the people he encountered, and whether he had been rejected recently. Wherever the average falls on this spectrum, Brandon's adaptation to it led him to replace one "passing" behavior with another, one type of self-loathing with another. He no longer tried to pass as straight, instead he started trying to pass for more "masc" than he knows himself to be. He no longer loathed himself as a closeted gay man trying to conform to a conservative religion; instead he loathed himself because the gay scene too often made him think he isn't good-looking enough, "masc" enough, confident enough, sexually experienced enough, and that if he doesn't look and behave in a very specific way, no guy would ever love him. It bears repeating that many other gay men feel this way for the same reasons, and the consequences can be devastating.

 

Brandon's Relationships

Brandon's first notable crush was RJ. Roberto in one of Brandon's stories (20081201-Erik) is based on RJ, and the story is loosely based on how he and Brandon met in high school. In real life, RJ is still alive; he is heterosexual, married with children, and Brandon has had no contact with him as an adult although he found him on Facebook.

Brandon went on his first blind date the summer after his freshman year in college (20000715, 20000722). In college he had numerous crushes that he didn't pursue directly (20010304a). Sometimes he went to great lengths to be near a guy he liked while simultaneously hiding his feelings. He signed up for fencing and went to practice diligently for more than a year, even though he didn't really like the sport. He did that because he had a crush on a fencer, but in the end never asked him out.

For a while after he came out to a few close friends, getting any attention from another gay man seemed extremely difficult to him and asking someone out seemed unthinkable. On campus gay students had more freedom to be themselves and have relationships without fear than older gay men and women had in society at large at the time. Being lonely and sexually frustrated in the midst of this was unbearable for Brandon and led him to think of himself as a failure:

This was compounded by the fact that when he finally gathered the courage to ask out Michael, a guy he was infatuated with and slowly made inroads towards for months, he was rejected (20010223, 20010224, 20010313, 20010304, 20010328, 20010408). Brandon wrote at the time:

While he did solicit a prostitute by email (20010523), his first sexual experience was a one-night stand with the first guy who responded to his ad on a gay dating website (20010730, 200107aa, 20010805, 20010813, 20011008). He arranged this for the day before he left for a year of study abroad for both practical and symbolic reasons. On the practical side, this way he had a good excuse not to see the guy again and to avoid facing his own shame at settling for a near-anonymous encounter instead of having sex in a loving relationship, which was what he really wanted. On the symbolic side, leaving the country for a year could stand for leaving behind his feelings of failure and frustration, and the one-night stand was like a threshold between the old and the new.

A few weeks later, Brandon jumped into a relationship with the first guy who asked him out, Daniel, a fellow student in Spain. For a couple of months he mistook relief for love (20010921, 20011001, 20011002, 20011003, 20011008a, 20011010, 20020130). After he realized his mistake, he started to lie to his boyfriend - that he still loved him, and after he went to Russia for his second semester abroad, that he couldn't keep in touch regularly because he had no internet access (20020207, 20020211, 20020228, 20020314). At the same time, he talked to me online because he had trouble adjusting to Russia and needed my support (20020306, 20020307). When he dumped Daniel, Brandon did not tell the whole truth about his reasons either, namely, that he was interested in another guy in Russia (20020307, 20020410, 20020415).

Brandon's next relationship was a year later, back in college in the US. At first he didn't notice Stephen K. and got interested in him only after he heard that Stephen was considered attractive by other guys (20031129). Brandon was ecstatic when Stephen went out with him and that was perhaps the only time he has been in love, although the relationship didn't last long enough for any differences between love and infatuation to manifest. Despite Brandon's declarations of love and expectation of exclusivity, after graduation he didn't stay where he could spend time with Stephen but went alone to Spain for two months for fun. During this time, Stephen kissed another guy at a party and told Brandon, who was very jealous (20031129), and that's how their short relationship ended. Stephen wanted to remain friends, but Brandon refused because he wanted "all or nothing" (20040327). A few years later, Brandon made a surprise visit to Stephen K. during an unsuccessful attempt to revive their relationship (20080203, 20080207, 20080219).

In law school, for a few months Brandon dated Ryan, who is still a close friend (20050214, 20050319, 20050404, 20050601, 20050622, 20060820) and [OE], the last guy about whom he seemed genuinely excited and hopeful as opposed to mainly trying to fend off loneliness (20040124, 20040202, 20040209, 20040215, 20040222, 20040223, 20040301, 20040303, 20040327, 20040331, 20040502). After that, he dated and lived with [SNC] for two years (20080321, 20091220, 20100104, 20100307), and dated [ST] for a year and a half (20140216, 20140801, 20141121, 20150216).

During his relationship with [SNC] Brandon decided to follow his feelings for [CG], a friend from law school days. On Brandon's suggestion, [SNC] agreed to a threesome, but Brandon got an unpleasant surprise when [CG] and [SNC] got carried away and ignored him in bed. The next day Brandon was rude to [CG] and broke up with [SNC], but they soon got back together. An enduring point of conflict between them was Brandon's belief that [SNC]'s behavior during the unfortunate threesome was cheating and betrayal and his insistence that [SNC] admit to it and show remorse; [SNC] disagreed. Eventually, [SNC] agreed to try an open relationship at Brandon's suggestion but broke up with Brandon when it became clear that wasn't working for him and probably because he intuited that Brandon had already checked out of the relationship. Around this time, Brandon wrote:

By way of rebound, Brandon apologized to [CG] for his rudeness from 2 years earlier because he was still hoping to sleep with him.

Apart from these relationships, Brandon has had his share of hook-ups and friends with benefits and would tell me about them. There are usually several guys that he alternately calls on for hanging out and sex; he refers to them as his "regulars" (20130610). This way he gets some sexual variety and avoids seeming too needy to any one of them. He wrote about this, "I don't want to collapse on one person. That can be a huge burden for just one person" (20130716).

Of the people mentioned in this section, I met Ryan, [MS], and [ST]. When I visited Brandon in 2014, he showed me a text message: after a date, [MS] had texted him, "Are we boyfriends now?" Brandon found this naive (20140221). Brandon, [MS], me, and another friend went hiking. When I looked at the photos from that day, it struck me that even though Brandon was dating [MS] and invited him to the hike, he wasn't smiling and didn't look excited or happy in the photos with [MS], unlike in those with me (201402bb). I pointed out to Brandon that he was using as loneliness filler (not for the first time) a young and inexperienced guy who was a poor match to him, and that he knew he would dump within a couple of months for someone else. And he did - for [ST], who was closer to his own age and level of education and experience. He and [ST] were together for about a year until starting an open relationship, which was a prelude to becoming just friends with benefits as they drifted apart. The problem, as Brandon himself related it to me, was that Brandon didn't like (or couldn't handle) not having a guy near and available to him even for a few days in a row and wanted [ST] to move to his place. Brandon didn't want to give up the convenience of having no commute, even though it would be fairer for them to live halfway between their jobs. Also, [ST] wanted to move to another city eventually, which made Brandon think he was wasting his time "investing" in the relationship.

With a couple of exceptions, Brandon's relationships with men have been superficial, centered on casual sex and things like going to bars and movies. While he enjoys these things, he hasn't found a partner who would share not only in them but also be an equal match to him intellectually and emotionally. Apart from his internal difficulty or inability to form stable and lasting emotional bonds with other people, this is another reason why he hasn't been able to sustain longer relationships. About every guy he has dated he said at some point, "I can't talk to him like this" or "I wish I could talk to him like I talk to you," which made me feel flattered but also sad for him. It also made me wonder what he would do if this comparison keeps presenting itself over and over.

 

Polyamory

Brandon identifies as polyamorous. On one hand, he idealizes and looks for his One True Love, a guy who will be completely emotionally committed and devoted to him while not minding him having sex with and feelings for others. On the other hand, he idealizes and looks for a poly relationship with 2-3 other guys who would fulfill his physical and emotional needs (20120306, 20130610, 20150216). As a kid Brandon was fascinated by Greek mythology and this latter ideal borrows from the ancient Greeks, who exalted love and fellowship between men above all other relationships. In reality he gets jealous when he feels strongly about someone and tends to get bored and dissatisfied with guys he dates within a few months. Both of these ideals remain a dream.

One crucial difference between Brandon and other self-identified polyamorous people I have met is that while they maintain strong emotional bonds with more than one partner, he is driven to constantly seek new partners by his general difficulty or inability to form such bonds and the perpetual relationship dissatisfaction this causes him. The relationships and friendships he has tend to be situational (sharing only in a particular activity) or notional (exchanging a couple of emails per year). He never shares all aspects of his life with any one person, and especially not his inner life.

 

Children

Brandon has said on a number of occasions that he wants children (20011219, 20031107, 20040327, 20041223, 20060820, 20130610). He oscillates between searching for a partner with whom to raise them and giving up on that in favor of settling for fleeting and emotionally unsatisfying relationships that are easier to find.

When I met Brandon in 1999 and for years after we graduated from college, he had close friendships with women that he valued highly (20000908, 20010101, 200101bb, 20010902, 20010921). As he became more immersed in the gay scene, he gradually abandoned his existing friendships with women and did not form similar ones again. The last time he had a close female friend apart from me was around 2007.

The masc-centric gay subculture Brandon identifies with considers effeminacy unattractive. Parallel to abandoning his friendships with women, he adjusted the way he presents himself to more closely conform to what he saw the subculture value and approve of. While everyone has traits that society stereotypes as "masculine" or "feminine", Brandon learned to loathe the latter in himself only after he saw how guys he wanted to impress or imitate would find them unattractive.

In college, Brandon loved the musical movie Moulin Rouge and watched it over and over, especially when he was feeling down. He liked comic books, superhero and fantasy movies, and thoughtful, complex movies about relationships, emotions, and empathy. After his first semester, he put up on the walls of his room poems and photos of friends and actors (200002dd, 200002ee). While in law school, in his apartment he had van Gogh posters, two table-top "zen"-style fountains, plants, a large red bean bag, satin bedsheets (20040822-MP4 (apartment), 20040822-WEBM (apartment); 20040822-MP4 (room), 20040822-WEBM (room)). He liked knitting and gave me a scarf he made (20031210, 20041223). When I visited him in 2014, he had recently moved in and there were just a few framed posters of comic book characters on the floor. In 2015, he bought the two staples of generic "bro" style: a dark leather couch and a big TV.

In two photos taken at our college reunions in 2008 and 2013 at the same place, there is a notable difference in the way Brandon sits. In 2008, his posture may be seen as effeminate (legs parallel, hand in lap; 200806aa). In 2013, after a few more years of observing and copying guys he thinks are more masculine and attractive than himself, his posture is more conventionally 'male' (legs spread apart, hand on knee; 20130607).

When we were in college, Brandon occasionally comforted me by affectionately rubbing my back or hand. He also held my hand as a comforting gesture when I visited him in 2004 (20041226). Because we rarely saw each other in person after 2003, every change in his body language and habits between visits was very noticeable. We hugged when saying hello and goodbye, but otherwise he started making efforts to avoid even the most minor accidental physical contact with me (I have never been touchy-feely; there was no change on my part that could account for the change in his behavior). I observed similar body language from him with respect to other women as well. When handing me a small object like a pen, he would hold it at one tip so that his fingers wouldn't touch mine by accident; this was noticeable because normally no one hands pens this way. When we had our photo taken during my visit in 2014, he put his arm around my shoulder and lifted the fingers that accidentally touched the skin of my arm (201402bb). He wasn't doing that in 2013 (20130607) or 2010 (201009a). Here is how Brandon feels about hugging a woman 10 years apart, and his own explanation of the change in his behavior:

While many gay men have strong friendships with women, misogyny is not unusual in a (small?) subset of the gay male community. The email quoted above (20141215) made me wonder what influence this therapist may have had over Brandon's opinion of our friendship and whether his influence and explicit validation had to do with Brandon's avoidance of even very minor, friendly or accidental physical contact with a woman in 2014 as opposed to 2013, as shown in the photos above. Like with his change in posture and choice of home decorations and entertainment, he undoubtedly has received implicit validation as well, by noticing how gay men with various tastes and habits are perceived and treated by the gay scene.

While most of the examples of gay misogyny described in this article are not true for Brandon, two describe well his change of attitude towards women since he adopted the gay scene mindset in order to fit in: “Every gay guy has female friends when he first comes out — a few years later? They’re gone” and (from the comments), "The time and resources that I'd waste on women can be directed towards something more productive such as men because I'm actually interested in being involved with them romantically and I value their friendship too."

The latter is the main reason why Brandon abandoned his friendships with women. There is also the worry of being perceived as effeminate simply by association with women. Also, friendships with women don't contribute to what is most important to the gay scene mindset and takes time and effort to get and maintain: conventionally attractive physical appearance, sex, and the derivative self-esteem and social status.

During the past 10 years I witnessed the disintegration of the empathy Brandon had for me and women in general. Empathy is not an abstraction but a distinct brain state that can be imaged in an MRI scan (Zaki et al. 2009, press; Gu et al. 2012, press; Beckes et al. 2013, press) and depends on specialized brain cells, mirror neurons. In this state we perceive someone else to be as fully human as ourselves - no small feat considering that we have direct experience only of our own mind and body. Empathy is malleable, and empathy for a group of people who are different from us is facilitated by having personal and meaningful contact with some of them. This senator's change of position on gay marriage is an example of empathy in action. Wartime propaganda dehumanizes the enemy because if people perceive the enemy as human they will not want to destroy him (Harris and Fiske 2011, press). Brandon abandoned our friendship despite his dramatic promise to the contrary (20070330) and knowing how badly that would hurt me not necessarily because he would hurt a human being in this way but because, from a geographic distance and in the absence of meaningful personal contact with women in his everyday life, his empathy and conscience could no longer react to me as to a real person.

In response to my criticism of how he regarded me and our friendship, Brandon would say something like, "I'm not an awful person", including during our last conversation (20151018). And it is true he is not an awful person. It is also true that apart from basic notions of physical non-aggression and small-talk civility, how he regards women has become increasingly irrelevant to his idea of how a "good person" behaves, in parallel to it becoming irrelevant to his emotional and social life as he abandoned his friendships with women. Without any meaningful personal interaction with women in his everyday life, Brandon used as reference for the quality of our friendship not his friendships with men but the relationships of his clients who physically abused their partners (20150322).

Brandon may rationalize giving up friendships with women in general because of conflicts or misunderstandings he has had with some women. However, he didn't abandon his friendships with women after two women, not knowing he is gay, fell for him in his freshman year in college; nor after a friend from high school who had asked him to be the godfather of her child stopped talking to him when he came out to her; nor after a confrontation with two female friends (20001125); nor when a woman hacked his email in 2001; nor when a close female friend stopped talking to him for months in 2006-2007. He abandoned his friendships with women only after he became fully immersed in the gay scene and adopted its mindset.

When I first met Brandon, he gave the impression of someone who was not a follower. Unlike most people I met in college, he wasn't fond of small talk, didn't cover the walls of his room with posters of pop culture icons, and didn't care for fandom of any sort. There was nothing about him that could be traced to a fad, fashion, or popular influence. His mode of conversation was thoughtful, philosophical, sometimes including intelligent humor, but devoid of empty banter. His individuality at the time we met was a holding pattern until he figured out how to go about fitting in and what influences to follow in order to get what he wanted: to be loved by other guys.

Brandon has always been acutely aware of his own insecurity and searching for ways to remedy it. When Vickie, a mutual friend, slept with a guy for the first time and told us about it, Brandon decided to do the same, by any means possible, at least in part because he observed that her self-esteem seemed to improve afterwards (20010526). To Vickie, the man she slept with was a crush: she liked him, spent time with him while on vacation, and wanted to do so again. To Brandon, the man he slept with was a tool, used for the same purpose as a prostitute (his backup plan, 20010523): he arranged the encounter under a fake name in a city where he didn't live and almost never visited, and never intended to see the man again (20010730, 20010805)

Brandon wanted someone to guide him through life, to show him what to be so that he would be loved by other guys:

Brandon gravitated to imitating gay men who seemed to him more attractive and experienced than himself. His attitude of a follower was at times directed at any guy who happened to be nearby (200003bb). Years later, he commented on his acute desire to be liked by other guys:

As time passed, Brandon gradually adjusted the way he dressed, spoke, walked, sat, and generally behaved, to more closely resemble guys he had observed and thought were more attractive, desirable, and masculine than himself (see Brandon and Men; Brandon and Women). Sometimes that led him to make choices that were so at odds with his usual style as to make his efforts at mimicry obvious: a pink-and-white preppy t-shirt in 2005; exaggerated hipster sideburns in 2016. (My comment on 20050305: "It's yet another way of saying, 'I saw this on someone else and I want to look like him.'")

More generally, he purged from his life everything that he saw was not explicitly and widely valued in the mainstream masc-centric gay scene he wants to fit in: friendships with women; solitary intellectual activities like writing poetry and short stories; reading philosophy books (Plato, Hannah Arendt); knitting; etc. Empathy and sensitivity are still stereotyped as "feminine" qualities by society, making their expression less desirable in a subculture that places the highest value on conventionally masculine appearance and demeanor. Brandon writes about sensitivity 10 years apart,

In college (1999-2003), Brandon's friends included gay and heterosexual men and women, some of whom had disabilities. In law school (2003-2006), his friends included gay and heterosexual men and women (20031102b, 20050430), and I met some of them when I visited him in 2004. In 2014, I also met and went to dinner with a group of his friends: all were gay men of a similar age and physical shape as him, dressed in the same style. Some (but not Brandon) used an offensive word to refer to transgender people. It made me wonder what words they would use to refer to women if there weren't a woman present.

In 2000 (20000714) Brandon dreamed of opening a school for "outcasts and lost souls" because he saw himself that way at the time.

Gay writer Brian Moylan nails it: "Many gay men spend their adolescence as outcasts or misfits, and when they finally get to a place where they can join the gay culture at large, they react to their years of social solitude by conforming with the sort of fervor usually reserved for packs of teenage girls."

Brandon's attachment style combines features of the anxious-preoccupied and dismissive-avoidant styles. A key to almost all strife and problems in his life is the realization that he desperately needs close, stable, and lasting emotional bonds with other people but is unable to sustain them. As the years passed, Brandon began to realize this is a problem, his problem, and it wasn't going away. In his mid-30s he went to therapy specifically to address it, but he went inconsistently, his choice of therapist was questionable, and the outcome was not successful. Correspondingly, I began to realize that it was this problem that caused the drastic ups and downs in our friendship. While Brandon always maintained they were my fault, that I was too needy, clingy, controlling, etc (including in our last conversation: 20151018), what is telling is that I never had such problems in any other relationship in my life. Because unlike him, I am able to form and sustain stable and lasting emotional bonds with other people.

Brandon has the same attachment style in his romantic relationships with men as well as his close friendships with women, but the cause of his anxiety and avoidance is somewhat different. He worries whether a man is a good match for him, whether the relationship will last, whether and how much he is loved, how the man perceives him and how stable that perception is. When Brandon had close friendships with women he worried whether the friend may get too attached to him, what she may expect in the friendship, whether he can meet that expectation, and how he can prevent it from forming altogether while still benefiting from her support.

His "honeymoon periods" are of similar duration (a few months) and have the same outcome, whether in romantic relationships with men or platonic friendships with women. During this period he engages in behavior that promotes emotional intimacy: one-on-one time and personal conversation. However, when the honeymoon period wears off for him, he feels no lasting emotional bond with the other person and starts looking for another to satisfy his need for reassurance, understanding, and (for men) sexual novelty and excitement.

Brandon is not a "player" although he enjoys some game-like aspects of dating. He is not interested in accumulating conquests and does not consciously try to avoid a lasting emotional bond with another man. On the contrary - he very much wants such a bond but keeps replacing one person with another because he repeatedly finds himself unable to form one even when he has a compatible, attractive, and emotionally engaged partner. Brandon typically ends the relationship or makes it untenable for the other person so that they will end it because it is easier for him to replace his boyfriend or friend than work on the unresolved self-esteem issues that cause his inability to form lasting emotional bonds.

When Brandon had close female friends, they served as substitute fodder for this dynamic in the absence of boyfriends. As soon as he managed to get a boyfriend, the female friend was discarded, usually quietly, but sometimes explicitly. Our friendship had several honeymoon periods, each corresponding to a period of loneliness and a lack of romantic prospects on his part. Below is what Brandon writes to Darcy about why he has decided to put their friendship on hold. He doesn't tell her the full reason, namely, that he has recently started dating Daniel and doesn't need her for emotional comfort any more. Feeling happy himself, he has no concern about whether his talking to her is important and supportive in her life. Although he did the same with me multiple times, he never offered such an explanation. Darcy's submissive attitude towards him made it impossible for him to rationalize discarding her in the same way as he did in my case. These quotes illustrate the heart of what this archive is about, who Brandon is as a person, and how he conducts his relationships:

The current state of knowledge in psychology is that temperament is largely innate, but how it is expressed is influenced by experiences. Brandon's temperament is introspective and tends towards melancholy. He is a thinker, a brooder, a loner, and an introvert, but tries to hide it because American culture places higher value on more bubbly and outgoing personalities. Brandon and I have a very similar temperament. (The general population is about evenly split between introverts and extroverts.)

Introverts find unplanned or prolonged periods of social interaction draining and need regular periods of solitude to recharge. This may be difficult for a partner (especially if he is an extrovert) to get used to and understand in combination with Brandon's need for frequent reassurance and affectionate touch. Here is how Brandon feels towards the end of his relationship with [SNC], after they have lived together for a while:

Brandon's emotional intelligence is high, perhaps exceptionally so. What he describes intuitively below is the basis of an emotional intelligence test devised by psychologist Paul Ekman:

Self-awareness is another sign of Brandon's emotional intelligence. This is what he writes about why he tends to lose interest in people; this is also one of the key entries in the archive for understanding the driving forces and problems in Brandon's life and how they affect others:

However, self-awareness is only half the battle. The other half would be applying it in practice to improve his relationships, and Brandon avoids doing that because it would require effort and change. "The only thing that all your relationships for sure have in common is you," I told him in one of our many conversations about why his relationships tend not to last.

 

Loneliness

Loneliness is what Brandon has the most trouble coping with. He has a very acute need for physical touch (from men), which overshadows and is not synonymous with his sexual desire. He describes himself as "9/10 on the cuddle scale". His tendency to get depressed when he is single and his need for affectionate touch have sometimes led him to take home even guys that he felt little attraction for. Afterwards, he felt weak and stupid for doing that, but still went on to do it again and again. Affectionate touch is a powerful stress reliever, and Brandon feels a strong need for it because he harbors a lot of hidden anxiety which causes him stress. Most of his anxiety has to do with low self-esteem. Here are some of Brandon's thoughts on loneliness; they span 13 years:

 

Insecurity

A lot of our insecurities are left over from childhood or adolescence, and in some people they remain imprinted even in adulthood. For example, someone who was overweight and made fun of as a child may remain insecure about their body for a long time after losing weight in adulthood.

What remains imprinted in Brandon's mind is the loneliness of his closeted adolescence - he didn't have romantic relationships or a male role model in that period of his life. His overwhelming need to search for both in adulthood, to get, discard, and replace guys, is partly overcompensation. In the eyes of the gay scene, a man who can't get hook-ups, boyfriends, and friends with benefits is a loser. Brandon has a need to prove to himself and others over and over that he is not a loser - because when he was younger he wanted a boyfriend very badly and felt it was hopeless to get one.

Brandon has ranked "physically attractive" at the top of his list of desired traits in a partner (20031224) and he knows other men judge him as (un)attractive based mainly on his appearance. He worries about his appearance and makes efforts to keep in shape (running, volleyball, hiking, weights). He has noticed that as he ages, it takes more effort to maintain his desired shape. He knows that after a certain point no amount of good personal care will be able to compensate for aging, and that the gay scene mindset does not consider old men attractive.

Here are some of Brandon's thoughts on himself; they span 12 years (a more extensive list is here):

A major cause of Brandon's insecurity is feeling that he lags behind his peers in terms of romantic relationships. In college, he compared himself unfavorably to gay guys on campus who had boyfriends, and felt depressed as a result (20001009). Above, he laments getting flustered in his 20s in a way he imagines most people get over in middle school. In his 30s, he sees his friends and exes in long-term relationships, some getting married and having children, while his romantic life is an endless cycle of unsatisfying short relationships and flings. While he has a greater facility with the latter than he did in his 20s, the goal posts seem to have shifted with time, which leads to renewed feelings of inadequacy on his part. Psychology research has shown that our happiness and satisfaction with what we have is determined mainly by how we believe it compares to what others around us have.

Our ability to form stable and satisfying relationships with others depends on having a stable and secure sense of self. Likewise, a lasting relationship's ups and downs are superimposed on a relatively stable emotional baseline. One of the central themes in the archive is that in Brandon's relationships this emotional baseline is weak or missing on his side. As a result, his conduct towards others is almost entirely determined by his mood and needs of the moment - hence his many oscillations between affection, understanding, appreciation and anger, hostility, rejection recorded in the archive. This behavior may seem exploitative but it is impulsive, not calculated, and as often to his disadvantage as not. In Brandon's own words:

 

Fear

Brandon is afraid of flying and heights; of being perceived as ugly, weak, or effeminate by other guys. He is also afraid of dying alone. I believe one reason why he ended our friendship was that in our last conversation (20151018) I voiced one of his worst fears, namely, that when he gets older he may have as much difficulty finding guys who are attracted to him as he had in college, will be as lonely and depressed as he was back then, and that would make him want to revive our friendship. Pride compelled him to start proving me wrong immediately, but since he was single and couldn't produce a boyfriend on the spot, he did the only thing he could do immediately - he ended our friendship. Brandon's self-worth is based on how other guys feel about him. He is afraid that in the end of his life it may turn out that the only people who really loved him were women.

He is afraid of people who understand human nature as well as or better than he does. At the same time, he finds unsatisfying his relationships with guys whose emotional intelligence is inferior to his own. This contradiction is another reason why his relationships tend not to last.

 

Passion

Brandon values highly "passion" and the type of personality that is "capable of great emotion on either extreme" (20040101). In Brandon's case, "passion" stands for what he feels initially for some of the guys he dates and sleeps with: a mix of infatuation, sexual attraction and excitement, and hope for a deeper emotional connection. For most people, this state lasts from a few months to a year - the human body and brain work a bit differently in this state, which is why we feel differently and intensely. The fact that it doesn't last is a function of our physiology and not a personal failing. In a stable relationship this initial period of "passion" gives way to companionate love which can last indefinitely. If "passion" is the process of bonding with another person, companionate love is the bond itself. Although Brandon very much needs, values, and enjoys other gay men's companionship, he does not value companionate love and arguably has never experienced it.

Here are some of Brandon's thoughts on passion. Note the difference in his tone when talking about his own vs. someone else's feelings:

See also Brandon's thoughts on love, sex, and relationships over the years.

 

Anger

Brandon does not like himself when he is angry; he thinks raising one's voice is a repulsive thing to do and does it very rarely. Here is how he describes his experience of anger:

On one hand, always suppressing any expression of anger is unhealthy; on the other hand, expressing anger with little regard to what caused it vs. who is on the receiving end is also unhealthy. Because Brandon has been suppressing his anger for most of his life, he has little experience with compartmentalizing and moderating its expression. In 2015, when he had a very stressful year-long work assignment, I heard more yelling from him about the state of our friendship than during the entire 16 years prior. Some of it remains in my voicemail (20150501).

Like with guilt, Brandon's preferred method of dealing with anger is to avoid feeling it by avoiding the person he believes to have caused it. This is much easier for him than resolving the situation that caused his anger, because the latter requires honest self-examination. He avoids self-examination since his main reasons for it throughout his life have been insecurity, low self-esteem, and trying to figure out how to remedy that (see Insecurity above). In his Jehovah's Witness days, another unpleasant reason for self-examination was the conflict between his religion and his sexuality.

 

Guilt

When Brandon hurts people, it is almost never out of spite, sometimes out of pride, and most often because he does what is easiest or most advantageous for himself - fairness or someone else's well-being are smaller considerations. When he lies, the purpose of the lie is almost always to save face. He is well aware when he has hurt someone and does feel guilty in the moment but that doesn't necessarily lead him to change his approach to similar situations in the future. Here are some of Brandon's thoughts on his own behavior towards men he has dated; they span 9 years:

Brandon's initial approach to guilt can be summed up as "well, I felt bad for it, so I don't need to do anything." He also knows that if he manages to avoid the other person for a while, the guilt will gradually dissipate on its own. Along with pride, this is why he finds the avoidance approach to guilt much easier than apologizing or making amends.

If the other person can't be easily avoided, Brandon may apologize, admit his wrongdoing, and end the friendship in the same breath (or email), and may even convince himself that he is doing it for their own good. Below is one of the most instructive exchanges in the archive about how Brandon conducts himself in relationships:

Brandon used to feel guilt for his sexual orientation when he was a Jehovah's Witness, because that conservative denomination condemns homosexuality as a sin. After he came out, he gradually conflated the vestiges of the harmful guilt he felt for being gay with the healthy guilt he feels when he has treated someone badly. His go-to reply to any sort of protest, criticism, or suggestion for self-examination became "You are trying to make me feel guilty for who I am." He has replied this way when I questioned the way he repeatedly benefited from and then trashed our friendship, when I called him out for lying, and most recently when I said, "The true measure of your character is in how you treat those from whom you have nothing to want" (20151004). A variation of this tune is also in the audio recording of our last conversation (20151018).

 

Pride

Brandon conflates two types of pride. On one hand, he has healthy pride that after some struggling he has achieved a level of comfort with himself and his sexuality, got the job he always wanted, and apart from his difficulty sustaining a lasting romantic relationship his life is going well. On the other hand, he also has petty pride that makes him feel admitting he has said or done something wrong and apologizing would diminish him in his own eyes, to react with self-righteous anger when he has been caught in a lie, logical fallacy, or ethically indefensible position, and to try to conceal his interest in what his perceived "adversary" thinks.

The latter is demonstrated on 200012aa, when he petulantly writes, "I didn't read a word of what you just wrote" and then refers to something from the email he claims not to have read (Joan of Arc). He describes in detail the same dynamic in an in-person encounter with Michael, a guy he has a crush on in college (20010408). More recently, I messaged Brandon on Facebook several times since he abandoned our friendship in Oct. 2015 - because FB lets you see when the recipient has read the message. When eventually I pointed out that he was writing me on MySpace for the same reason in 2005 (20051017), he stopped reading my FB messages and blocked me from sending them.