2/28/2011 - officially settled down. . .

As I've said before, I lived by myself for much of my adult life.  As a result, I am not used to playing host by inviting people over to my house.  My natural instinct is to be at home by myself and go out to see friends.

With Sam at our old apartment, we were often by ourselves, and it was fine.  We both are rather socially reserved, and though we were open to the idea of inviting others over, we just didn't know how.  We conveniently had a barrage of excuses: the apartment was too small; there was nothing for people to do; the place was a mess; we didn't cook; we lived atop Nob Hill, which was far from public transportation and not exactly an easy jaunt to get to.  And so on and on.  Armed to the teeth with these reasons and others, we rarely invited people over.  People rarely visited.

When we finally worked up the courage and arranged a brunch (you'd think that as a couple of gay guys, we would have started with something less ambitious than the holiest of all gay meals), we rehearsed the menu twice.  By the time we had the actual guests over, I was already quite sick of Quiche Lorraine.

We also obsessively cleaned the apartment.  We'd bumble in the kitchen.  We'd fight.  Each of us operated under a thick cloud of stress, and we both thought that we knew better how to make the best quiche, even though neither of us had ever made one before.  Ultimately, in spite of the bickering, the quiche was fine each time, the bacon crispy, but the journey was riddled with emotional bullet holes that left us exhausted and battered.

As we were planning on purchasing a home together, we said that we would have friends over all the time at our new place, wherever that may be.  The place would be bigger, the landscape flatter, and somehow, this new place would change us.  We would host housewarming parties and dinner parties, birthdays and holidays.  We believed that it was the old apartment that held us back, not ourselves.

I've come to realize that it was actually both.  Since we've been in our new place and officially settled down, we've had people over for dinner all of twice.  It's not something that comes naturally for us as we still haven't fully developed our hosting genes.  On the other hand, we have had various friends just pop by, whether because they were in the neighborhood (a flat patch of land with at least four leather bars in a three block radius) or to see our new bathroom or, like Kevin and Gordon yesterday, to meet Grr.

And that was so easy.  They arrived without any fanfare, without any anxiety on our parts.  Kevin sat on the ground as Grr slept in his lap; Gordon shared a drink with Sam.  And then they left.  We didn't clean beforehand (though I did see Sam fluff up the decorative pillows on the couch), and we didn't have any cleaning up to do afterwards.  Their presence was invigorating, and we didn't feel exhausted afterwards.

It was the most "lived in" I have felt in this new place yet.