intro and dating question

Hi all,

Nice to meet all of you. Glad to find a community where I can talk openly about this stuff.

I started CPAP a couple of years ago because I went home with a girl and she kicked me out of bed for snoring--I'd never known that I snored. After that I called up a couple of my ex-gfs from 5-10 years ago and asked them, and sure enough, I'd been snoring back then, too. Seeing that this was a serious and apparently longtime problem, I went in to get a sleep study done. I was diagnosed with moderate OSA. I was shocked! I'm 6'2, 200 lbs, ride my bike everywhere, and run several times a week. It seemed odd to me that I should have a health condition typically associated with being seriously overweight. Apparently I'm actually overweight, based on my BMI. It turns out my dad has it too, although he's about 40-50 lbs overweight, so it's not clear if it's weight-related or a birth defect.

My big question for you all is about dating, specifically about casual hooking up. Before I started wearing the mask, I'd often go out to a party or a club, meet someone exciting, and either they'd come back to my place or I'd go home with them, and we'd spend the night together. It was a lot of fun.

But I've had to stop doing that because I don't want to have to lug my CPAP with me whenever I go out partying. Usually I make an excuse and leave, or sneak out after the other person falls asleep. And overall, my sex life has fallen way off, because knowing that I have this disease makes me feel less confident, more limited in what I can do.

It is, as many of you have said in similar threads on this subject, an extremely unsexy condition. I've heard about pretending you're Darth Vader or a fighter pilot, and honestly, neither of those things are real turn-ons for me or my partners. Then again, neither is snoring and intermittent bouts of gasping and coughing.

And I've heard about how someone who loves you will accept you for who you are. But honestly, this isn't about love, it's about lust and animal attraction among people who are very body-conscious, and like it or not, that is something much more fickle and skittish and less tolerant of deformity than true love.

Now I know that at this stage of medical science we don't have a lot of other options, but being involuntarily celibate is no fun at all. It feels like there's a great big awesome festival going on next door and I'll never be invited to it for the rest of my life.

So I guess I just wanted to tell my story and see if there's anyone else out there in a similar position--trying to navigate a fitness-oriented hedonist lifestyle while suffering from OSA.

Guest wrote:
My big question for you all is about dating, specifically about casual hooking up. And overall, my sex life has fallen way off, because knowing that I have this disease makes me feel less confident, more limited in what I can do.

It feels like there's a great big awesome festival going on next door and I'll never be invited to it for the rest of my life.

-trying to navigate a fitness-oriented hedonist lifestyle while suffering from OSA.

Are you a troll or just a male pig really leading that lifestyle?

You may soon have more than one disease (as you call it) to cramp your licentious lifestyle.

I think the first thing you have to do is realize that sleep apnea affects all kinds of people, thin, fat, old, young, etc. Sure, being overweight and unhealthy makes apnea worse but losing weight and having a healthy lifestyle won't necessarily cure the apnea. Also, i don't look at apnea as a disease, but a condition. Just like having high blood pressure or high cholesterol. You can have both of those two without being overweight.

But i feel your pain. I'm 38 and married now but ten years ago, i was living your lifestyle. I was hooking up and partying and sleeping around. I actually have a younger brother who is 27 and i think he has apnea but I'm not sure how to convince him to get it checked out. He's living the great single life and has a girlfriend and honestly, i don't know how she or any other woman would react. If i were you, i'd be really up front with it. I'd joke about it and not spring it on them right after sex, oh excuse me while i strap on this mask baby.... If they don't understand, then really, are they worth keeping around anyway?

Good luck

Thanks for the advice, josh73. Good to hear from someone who's been there.

I just wish I could live a life where i could lie down with someone in a lovely quiet forest and go to sleep to the sound of the wind sweeping softly through the trees, and not have to hear that industrial hiss telling me that I'm tied to a machine forever.

sorry i didn't introduce myself before. i'm M.A.S.K.

m.a.s.k. - I admire you for being so open and honest, and I'm sure there are plenty of other men, and women, wondering the same things as you. I don't have any advice for you I'm sorry, however your honesty will surely open up some lively discussion which might give you some answers.

Whether I agree with a promiscuous lifestyle is irrelevant IMHO - you ask very valid questions and I hope you get some answers.

You might also care to register and add your equipment to make it easier to help you with other questions you might come up with.

Cheers,
xena

Not judging you here, but, if all your interested in is a hook up, why spend the night, hook up and unhook? Also, do more research on OSA before you assume it's all about weight issues. Might want to beef up, (no pun intended) on the meaning of hook up while your at it.

I have to agree with Portiemom. If it is a hookup, why care if you snore afterwards. I'll admit most guys snore after a hook-up anyway because there usually alcohol involved and most guys tend to snore when they drink.

But then again I'm the person that made a boyfriend get CPAP or I wouldn't date him anymore.

Jenn

Have sex at their place and leave. Or have sex at your place and be honest, and they'll either choose to stay or leave. As it's not about love, just a one-night stand, it shouldn't matter to you if they decide to leave.

Perhaps you can say, "I have to use CPAP so the apnea doesn't kill me before the STD you just gave me does."

[quote="

I just wish I could live a life where i could lie down with someone in a lovely quiet forest and go to sleep to the sound of the wind sweeping softly through the trees, and not have to hear that industrial hiss telling me that I'm tied to a machine forever.
[/quote]
That would be nice. Be thankful the cpap is not a wheelchair. Accept your condition and be unapologetic with you other 'hookups'. It is what it is. They either like you or not. If you go home with someone tell them you have to leave to go home to your cpap. It is not worth the gamble to go without it....although it does seem you are a gambling man.

Tell him it's a high tech bong.

archangle wrote:Tell him it's a high tech bong.

Ooops, I forgot to mention, I hope you're not toooooooooo embarassed to bring a condom with you too!! If you are, don't give a second thought to leaving your Cpap home, it just probably won't matter....Russian Roulette is Russian Roulette.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

Guest wrote:
Are you a troll or just a male pig really leading that lifestyle?

You may soon have more than one disease (as you call it) to cramp your licentious lifestyle.

Granny, Granny, Granny... don't you realize the pig had to be with a pigette?

M.A.S.K.: maybe this is your wakeup call...

I have to agree with the sheriff;
Hey m.a.s.k., when you decide you deserve better, set some standards for yourself.
You will be happier and healthier for it.

Sheriff Buford wrote: Granny, Granny, Granny... don't you realize the pig had to be with a pigette?

M.A.S.K.: maybe this is your wakeup call...

+1 for Dirty Harry.
btw, he was my idol growing up!