Originally published March 10, 2005:

I am a 21-year-old bisexual male who recently moved back home to Canada. For the last two months I was overseas I was involved with my first male partner. He was a virgin, I was not. He knew about my bisexuality and one night propositioned me. I refused because I was not really all that attracted to him. A couple of weeks later I asked him if he was still interested because I wanted to experiment. We wound up having sex pretty much every day for two months. He kept telling me he loved me but I made it very clear to him that this was not anything serious. Eventually I conceded that I did love him, albeit in a different way than he loved me.
Throughout our short relationship, he was extremely possessive and obsessed. I was frankly relieved to leave the country. Now that I am back home, he constantly sends me e-mails and expects immediate answers. He professes his undying love to me and signs his e-mails with "Love ya, sweetie" and shit like that.

Now he wants to fly over here to see me. I have already decided NEVER to have sex with him again. I don't want to hurt him, but I can't stand his letters anymore. I don't love him like he loves me. I'm not interested in being with him ever again. He's a really nice guy and I'd like to stay in touch, but he acts as though we were serious boyfriends. Though we were fucking all the time, it wasn't ever a true relationship to me. But since I was the first person he told about his homosexuality, he credits me with being the single most important person he has ever met.

I don't want to seriously maim the guy's feelings but I also don't want to read his heartfelt letters anymore. I don't feel that way toward him. HELP!

Confused In Canada

My response after the jump...

Open your mouth, CIC, and solve your problem.

It's nice that you don't want to hurt this man's feelings, but your desire to spare him is what got you into this mess in the first—no, wait. I take that back. It was your willingness to take advantage of a guy you weren't "all that into," a guy who was not only closeted but a virgin too, so you could "experiment" on his ass "every day for two months" that got you into this mess in the first place. You could have spared yourself the emotional torment of having to read "Love ya, sweetie" in his letters if you had simply refrained from fucking him once you realized that his feelings for you were so much more intense than yours were for him.

But that was then. Now you're back in Canada and this poor, deluded sap is sending you love letters and planning to come and visit. So what do you do? You stop telling him what he wants to hear. You've been telling him what he wants to hear since that night you got drunk and decided to experiment on him, a mistake you compounded by telling him you loved him. You may think you covered your ass by tacking an "albeit in a different way" on to the end of "I love you" but he didn't hear your lame qualifier. All he heard were those three magic words—love's like that, whether you're talking requited, unrequited, delusional, man-on-dog, whatever.

So it's time to face the music, CIC. You brought him out, you took his virginity, and now you're going to break his heart. Write the boy a letter, tell him you don't love him, tell him you don't want him to come and see you, and tell him you're not going to read any more of his letters or e-mails. Will it hurt? Yes. But we all get our hearts broken sooner or later, CIC, and I assure you that this boy will recover. Most gay men at some point in their lives found themselves on the receiving end of some selfish bisexual guy's "experiment" and the vast majority of us get over it.