Repeating History: Another Year in the Life of Darron Mordel?

Preface

New Years Eve 2006 was one for the record books, but the year that followed was truly one for the history books. Many lessons were learned, countless stories were written, and Darron’s habit of attempting to gleam knowledge from his past experiences got the best out of him while sharing his year with me. It’s truly amazing how much you can learn about someone just by looking back over journals, blog entries and anything else they’ve penned or collected in the past twelve months. All I can hope is that the chapters don’t seem strangely familiar when he reads my account.

Chapter One

The new year tricked Darron into being as cliché as possible, looking to make a fresh start at the beginning of 2006. He found himself wanting to take the cliché to the ultimate extreme by completely starting over socially and forgetting all his friends. That, of course, was a horrible idea and wore off by MLK Weekend. Darron’s hair was getting longer and he was acquiring a love for wine, as well as a crush on the kid who played Troy in Transamerica. Darron was observing Mitch’s car crash of a relationship with Jeremiah, while awaiting the next relational catastrophe in his own life. In the meantime, Darron defied gravity by seeing Wicked on Broadway for the first time and fell in love with Love Monkey, a quirky new television series that was canceled even more quickly than most of the men in Darron’s life.

Come February, Darron was feeling in the biggest rut of his life, both personally and financially. Ever since his arrival in NYC, Darron had been perfecting the art of rubbing pennies together, and had been poor for so long that he was actually getting good at it. But he had always thought that rich people were boring anyway, so he chose to embrace his financial dilemma in hopes that this vow of poverty that the city had forced him to take would make him at least slightly interesting. Darron was also forced to ask himself the question: why should the universe throw more money in his direction when he couldn’t even effectively manage the meager (yet interesting) amount of money that he was currently raking in? Darron also found himself contemplating “The Heath Ledger Method”, which requires hibernation followed by recreation. However, this method of destroying and recreating yourself takes time, patience and money; all of which Darron had very little.

At this point in time, Darron was not only lacking financial security; he was also lacking Mojo. He had lost it somewhere along the way, and found something resembling it during a weekend visit from three of his Beantown peeps. The weekend after yet another single Valentine’s Day, Darron took part in his first orgy. What came out of the orgy for Darron, besides some images requiring intense repression, was a fuck buddy of sorts. However, before long Darron broke the number one rule of a fuck buddy relationship. DON’T START LIKING YOUR FUCK BUDDY. Long story short: Darron starting expecting more, Jared obviously sensed that, and Darron got hurt by his own stupid feelings. The spontaneous disappearance of Jared baffled Darron for some time. Darron lost his favorite game to a 31-year-old stud, who left him with nothing more than two Duane Reade coffee mugs and a brief knowledge of Depeche Mode. So much for managing expectations and combating lethal emotions.

Chapter Two

The beginning of March meant a visit from Darron’s first gay-best-friend and the boyfriend. That hosting stint served as a great lead-in to my vacation with the fam. And it’s true what they say: FAMILY VACATIONS ARE NOT REAL VACATIONS! This particular family vacay took Darron to Orlando over the Mardi Gras holidays. Thanks to Darron’s parents’ Disney Visa Card, he nearly OD’d on Mickey and friends for next to nothing. But he came home with a enviable tan and a ridiculous hunger for spring weather. So he decided to call it even.

However, Darron returned from O’Town still deeply troubled. Where Jared was concerned, Darron had fallen and tripped over his own exploited emotions and expectations. Darron was never promised anything more than what he got: nothing. It was meant to be a fling; nothing more, nothing less. And only after reading his first account of this experience did Darron realize how bad it was, how bad a shape he was in after discovering the disappearance.

Mid-March was the perfect time for the theme of the year to first show its face: THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE IS INDIFFERENCE. Jared’s indifference hardened Darron’s heart beyond recognition and set his year up for quite an interesting string of events. With the son-of-a-bitch noted, Darron wanted to set out to perfect the art of the rebound fuck. However, his longer hairstyle had Darron in a very mellow mood and he wasn’t at all digging his unambiguously slutty behavior. He took up faux-stalking Jake Gyllenhal and acquired crushes on Cam Gigandet, Chris Daughtry and every other attractive or mysterious guy who he could or would never be with.

The end of March brought Darron’s two-year NYC anniversary, and along with it came enlightenment. Two years earlier, Darron wasn’t ready for the account planning world. Plain and simple. It’s hard to admit you’re not good or smart enough. But we can’t be great at everything, and it’s difficult to deal with that fact; especially until you find the thing or things you are good at. Darron hadn’t gotten around to discovering those things yet. He was too busy acquiring a new man, one older than any of his previous suitors. Jerry was 42.

Chapter Three

Jerry helped bring on an emotional hangover in Darron’s life. He thought he was well on his way to taming Darron, but little did Jerry know that baking Darron chocolate chip cookies is only a small portion of the combination to Darron’s heart. Truly blissful, amazing, life-altering sex requires emotional intimacy, and unfortunately Jerry wanted to build that intimacy before consummating the relationship. WRONG! Not only that, but he hit a pet peeve nerve of Darron’s at the onset of their relationship that (Darron believed) sent it spiraling into nothingness. Jerry made Darron wait for sex, then for dinner, and that made Darron livid. Add the ventriloquist dummy on the chair and it could be said that “it” needed to be put to sleep before it became any more attached (or alive). And trying to hold onto Darron by proposing a fuck buddy arrangement was highly pathetic of Jerry. They must not cover break-up etiquette in the 40-and-older class.

By April, 2006 was quickly becoming another year for serial monogamy. The ventriloquist dummy detox time didn’t last long before Darron met his next victim. Parker was unsuspecting of Darron’s charm and way too sweet to hurt. But alas, Darron threw Parker away despite their mutual love of witty banter and mutual comedic appreciation for Chelsea Handler. Perhaps Parker’s only mistake was thinking that anything old-fashioned was something Darron was remotely interested in. And isn’t it just like a straight-gay guy to not have condoms and lube in his apartment!

Darron celebrated the anniversary of his familial coming-out by spending Easter in the District with two of the couples in his life, and a late April visit from Dante led into his visit to the MOB for Vern’s graduation.

Chapter Four

The first weekend of May found Darron in his hometown celebrating the college graduation of a close friend, the 27th birthday of his only sister, and the annoyingly reoccurring holiday known as Mother’s Day. He returned home to NYC with a great deal of negative energy that he found impossible to shake. Darron’s calibration was completely thrown off and he found himself at a new low, standing in front of a new realization that prompted him to begin punishing himself for stupidity in his past. Darron decided that there should be no new commitments until he got his shit together. That didn’t last long!

Darron took a nose-dive into Project Management, making for a classic case of the non-committal quickly becoming overly-committed. Darron’s logic was that if he was currently hitting a wall romantically, maybe the professional wall would be less difficult to scale. It seemed logical at the time, but Darron was still feeling royally fucked up and feeling the need to fall off the face of the earth. He found himself questioning everything, being sure of nothing, not feeling himself and not even knowing what that was at the time.

At the end of May, Darron was contemplating (for the second time since his arrival two years earlier) leaving NYC. He was forced to ask himself if he was falling out of love with the city. The answer of course was NO, but his mind was wrecking his romantic life and his lack of clarity was doing nothing for his professional life except making it more complicated. All Darron wanted to be was on his feet, but he was feeling like he was on his ass trying to come to terms with his own reality.

Chapter Five

Randy Sandler, Darron’s first city love, made a brief cameo that marked the beginning of summer. That encounter at Roxy, along with the circumstances of his current reality, prompted a string of one-night conquests for Darron. While his bestie was moving his entire life to Washington, D.C. to be with the man of his deluded dreams, Darron was focusing on meeting a number of total strangers whose names he had no intentions of remembering. The only thing Darron would remember would be their insecurities, which would serve to lessen the severity of his own.

June was not only the month of the one-night-stand, but also the month Darron officially took the reigns as project manager of the Martha Stewart account at his agency; once again, trying to be something he wasn’t.

Pride Weekend in New York, spent with some of Darron’s craziest peeps, was a perfect lead-in to his first P-Town experience. The 4th of July in Provincetown was incredible, and only slightly memorable due to the intensity of intoxification that Darron subjected himself to. The daily T-Dance at the Boatslip was beyond fun, and Darron left the tip of Cape Cod anxious to return.

Darron’s return to Fantasy Island had him horny for more action, so his Independence Day climaxed with an innocent game of naked Twister with a 33-year-old guy that would later grow to regret his initial proposition. They were both considered loners, and Tad appreciated Darron’s sexual blaséness. Tad’s only mistake was not taking advantage of that blasé nature soon enough. He missed his window of sexual opportunity, but he didn’t realize the door was shut until much later. Once again, Darron’s countdown to the disappointment was, in fact, appropriate. Darron maintained his status as the guy who likes to keep people guessing, and his mystery was pretty much the only thing he had going for him at that time.

Chapter Six

A visit from Darron’s mother and sister at the end of July was bearable at best, incinerating Darron’s social life for the worse part of two weeks. His sister’s visit ended in his realization that he must have been adopted. There was no other explanation. Summer continued to fly by, but not without a weekend getaway to the Hampton’s with Kamille. That was just what Darron needed to maintain sanity for a little while longer.

Before taking off to the Big Easy to celebrate Labor Day and his big Two-Four, Darron gathered all the troops at Verlaine for a one-stop-shop get-together of all his favorite people. Darron was the first to leave, but not before numerous first-time connections were made and Darron was inebriated to a sufficient degree. That night unofficially marked the end of Twister Tad. The window and door were both sealed shut.

Darron’s return to Southern Decadence after a three-year absence was all he could have hoped for and so much more. Darron lost his dogtags in a random hotel room, but he gained memories that will last for a lifetime. From their first drunken meeting, Randy and Darron hit it off incredibly well. The fact that Randy was from NYC made it a bit surreal. But in true Darron fashion, it was short-lived and way too good to be true. The first weekend following their return to Fantasy Island called for a brunch debrief between the two new companions. Randy’s announcement of his HIV-positive status blew Darron out of the water, but Randy’s later disappearance surprised Darron even more. Darron knew there was no sensible way for he and Randy to be together, but that didn’t mean that Darron didn’t want to be part of Randy’s life for a little while longer.

That over-exaggerated travesty marked the end of summer!

Chapter Seven

Late September brought a new fall television line-up, a guy that would later become Darron’s first official boyfriend, and the end of an overall great birthday month. October was a month for laptop repairs, attempts at boyfriend navigation, a visit from an old college roommate and the beginning of a beautiful stalkership directed toward the beautiful singer/songwriter Jay Brannan.

From its onset, Darron’s relationship with Russell was nothing like what Darron had previously imagined a boy-on-boy monogamous relationship would be, except monogamous. Never before had Darron started to become good friends with a guy he was dating and it completely freaked him out, but not at first. At first, Darron found it comforting and exciting, a new adventure worth occupying his seemingly precious time. It took a month from their first meeting at Verlaine via MySpace to make it official, and just one more month for Darron to make the decision to disengage.

A month without my laptop kept me out of a lot of online cruising trouble, but trouble was waiting to be found elsewhere. In that short time, Darron found monogamy to be a huge mind-fuck and the main cause for his lack of healthy libido. The sexual restriction that most relationship-oriented people find normal and reasonable led to a string of psychosexual issues that Darron could not overcome.

Mid-November, the newly-coupled decided to end their romantic relationship and remain friends to the best of their ability. It took Darron only one month of being a boyfriend to decide it wasn’t for him. Some people are just better friends, and not meant to be anything more to anybody.

Eigth & Final Chapter

The fast-approaching Holiday season began with a visit from Darron’s mom, dad and sister. Darron had a full house and a lost mind. The last month of 2006 left Darron feeling quite overwhelmed by his mounting responsibilities at work. But the signing of a new lease on Darron’s apartment of two years told him that at least one part of his life was holding steady, despite the seven percent hike in rent.

After a long year of unrequited love, Darron was left asking himself, what was wrong with them. What happened? His only answer was that he happened. He loved the idea of loving another man and being true to that man, but the reality of that was currently too much for Darron to handle. So for now, and maybe for some time, the short stories will have to suffice.