A View Of The Life I Want

A few years ago I wrote about a guy that used to leave near me.  His name is "Steve".  Steve is GGAAYY.  I met him nearly 10 years ago and I knew in 5 seconds he is gay.  Honestly, his behaviors are a gay stereotype.   When I met him he was married... to a woman.  He had three children.  One from his first wife (who died from a complication of childbirth) and 2 from his current wife  (current at the time anyway).  

K and I used to have Steve and his wife over to our house quite a bit.  Our kids played with their kids and we all liked hanging out together.  I always believed Steve to be gay, but despite his mannerisms, he talked like a semi-homophobic religious type.

Eventually his wife caught him with a man and their marriage fell apart into a HUGE mess.  When he eventually came out to me, I could not even act surprised.  I told him not only did I know, but I gave me an opportunity to come out to him too.  I had not met T at this point.  Steve and I never did anything physical but it was really nice to have someone to talk to who understood where I was coming from.

For a while, Steve engaged in a lot of risky behavior.  He had a lot of anonymous hook ups facilitated by Craigslist.   While he was in that mode I mostly lost touch with him.  I had enough contact to know his version of the gay lifestyle was not for me.   I also knew his relationship with his ex-wife was poisonous for for both them and their kids.

Fast forward a couple of years.  Over the past 6 months I have meet up with Steve and his new partner named "Alex" a few times.  Steve is 38 and Alex is 26 but in a lot of ways I think Alex has this shit together a lot more than Steve.  He is more sensible and I think that the relationship has been really good for Steve.

A couple of weeks ago, they invited me to a party to celebrate Alex's college graduation.  After saying I would go, I had to back out at the last minute.  I offered to take them out to dinner to make up for it.  I had that dinner last week.

I met them at their new place.  Until about a month ago, they had officially been living separately, but I think Alex had quite a few sleepovers.  Now they share a home.  Steve moved into Alex's single wide trailer and in the past month they have done a lot of renovations themselves.  They added windows, moved walls, installed a fireplace and built a back porch.  It really was impressive what they did together.

After they showed me around we went out to dinner.  While the food was good, the service was very slow.  I was OK with me since the the conversation was nice.  I was impressed to see how this relationship with Alex had brought structure to Steve's life.  I think Alex added actual meaning to Steve's life.  A reason not to self destruct in the face of his crazy ex-wife.  

It was clear they were in love.  It was clear they were 2 people living as one.  They were partners in everything.

This is the life I want for T and me.  This is the live I dream about.