What am I looking for when I’m cruising?

Is it a parlour game? An extreme sport? A search for love? A ritual of self-abnegation and squalor, or a pleasurable way of passing the time with another sexual being? A search to fill the void? Is it killing time, a flight from boredom and isolation, or is it just orgasmic sociability? A search for softness or a search for hardness? Someone to nuzzle and soothe or someone to bounce off and put you through your paces? A sign of desperation? A mark of confidence? A loss of control? An attempt to gain control? Is it soothing or disturbing? Am I re-enacting some psychic drama from my early years, over and over again, in an effort to work something out? Or am I taking part in an age-old earthy mating ritual? Am I cheapening myself, or enriching my life with adventure and pleasure? Is it a celebration of physicality, of spontaneity, of imagination, or is it a compulsive panicked flight from the ordinary, the mundane? Is it fun? Is it grim? Is it an addiction, a sign of a soul in distress, acting out trauma, or is it Natural, bonobo-stylee? Is it a statement of individuality, of rebellion, the sexual outlaw, or am I just following the queer herd’s tracks through the mud? Is it a socially charged act of indulgence and hedonism? Or is it a genetically hardwired primitive urge to spill seed in response to the stimulus of novelty? Is it breaking God’s law, defying traditional notions of the Family? Or is it honouring the pagan gods, a tribute to Priapus, Dionysius, and Bacchus of old, archetypally potent still?
Is it just what every man would do if he had the opportunity, to have free, no-strings sex? Or is it the activity only of those who dread being locked into the tight embrace of monogamy, of domesticity? Is it the male queer’s “choice” to eschew the apron strings of hearth and home and womanly/motherly monogamous commitment, in favour of extra-mural sport with the boys? In other words, is promiscuity part of the gay gene/“lifestyle” or is it just something that most men would do, given half the chance? Are gay men just more honest about it, given that the heterosexual prostitution industry is so big? Would all marriages be more like the (fairly common) gay men’s “open” relationship, if women (in particular) knew the true extent of their husbands’ affairs and/or meaningless shags? How many marriages would survive if they all had the News of the World digging up the dirt?
Am I ensuring that I won’t find a potential long-term partner by seeking a quick fix? Or does every encounter with a stranger contain the germ of a possibility of a long-term relationship? Am I open to it or resistant to it? Would I recognise a potential partner if he slapped me on the cheeks, or would my roving eye pass him by? Am I really choosing a life of the bachelor gay, forever outside family life (of whatever 21st century hue)? Or am I constantly choosing people who are wrong for me, reject me, undermining my self-esteem? Am I throwing pearls before swine? Or am I just a pig who gets off on piggy sex and you can take back your pearls? Is sexual pleasure in itself a bad thing? Is the emptiness that follows good steamy sex a sign of moral decay, a good sense of sin, or is it inevitable, as night follows day, that carnal union is followed by the spirit of loneliness, le petit mort? Does chastity/virtue bring with it wholesome committed intimacy as a reward? Does being a slut guarantee a lack of respect and a life of misery and dissolution? Which feels better? Which is more loving? Which is more creative? Do I have a choice?
Is it a universal human impulse, to feel free and uncommitted and ready to roam sexually at a moment’s notice? Or is there a universal need to care for and be cared for by one person for life?
By asking these questions, am I any nearer some answers? Are there any?
Fucked if I know.