(First published at mikealvear.com)
"Rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac." I'd like to pretend that I'm wildly smart and that I learned this from having studied one of the world's greatest philosophers. But I'd be lying. I know this because it's a line from a Madonna song. I have not studied Socrates, but I know my Madge.
I don't know why human beings are so drawn to things that reject them. Animals don't even bother obsessing over stuff that they can't have. It's basic human instinct to want things you aren't supposed to want. And the guaranteed way to make someone want something is to deny them that. If you've ever experienced a preacher's kid's Freshman year away at college, exposed freely and suddenly to things like booze and sex, then you know exactly what I mean.
Rejection is a vicious thing that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I often think that the reason I never got into politics wasn't my seedy past or lack of ambition, but my overwhelming disdain of rejection. I avoid it all costs and always have. A guy in a bar has to practically be reciting a poem about me and giving me access to his credit cards before I'll safely assume that he's looking at me. I don't like rejection, and if I even slightly detect its possibility, I turn and walk away.
But rejection, like most horrible things in life, is unavoidable, no matter how masterfully you try to avoid it. Stand-alone rejection is bad, but a drop of lemon juice on the paper cut that is rejection is being rejected by someone that you never in a million years expect to be rejected by. Once, when I was about 23, I asked a less than attractive guy in a bar if I could borrow his lighter. His response? "Not interested." I was dumbfounded as he walked away, having been sucker-punched by rejection. This happened to me again very recently when I was dumped by someone that, by all definition, wasn't playing at my level.
How I got myself into a situation where I was dating someone considerably a league or two beneath me is similar to a conversation I recently had with my friend Annemarie about pink eye.
"Maybe you have pink eye," she said when I told her about my right eye being red and swollen for a few days.
"How do you get pink eye?" I asked.
"Fecal matter."
"Yours or someone else's?"
"Does it matter?!?!"
It doesn't matter how I wound up there, but I was. I was totally into a guy who, in my normal universe, I would've been the one handing out the walking papers. Granted, I'm no prize goose. But I know enough about myself, my life, and the things that I can offer someone to know what's marketable and what's not. I've been rejected before, but normally when that happens the issue is more of an understanding than a sadness. "Yea. You're right. You probably can do better."
I spent a longer amount of time trying to bounce back from this having had happened than my normal pace, and I couldn't figure out why. I had dumped (and been dumped by) cuter, funnier, richer, and smarter men and was always fully recovered in time for the next big party. I'd convinced myself that I'd fallen in love. But my friends convinced me otherwise.
"You got rejected by someone you're better than," was their consensus. But just because something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, like George Bush being president, it didn't make it any easier. Along with it came the normal self-doubt, self-hate, and pure grain misery that comes with being dumped by someone that by all definition is entitled to do so. I guess it boils down to another basic human reaction. Simply put, no one likes being told "no."
You can't dodge rejection. You can't bob and weave through life hoping to miss that punch. So I took one on the nose this time? I'll survive. I'll live to date someone else. And even though it's impossible to know whether I'll get dumped again or if he'll dump me, you can guarantee that either way, he'll be a higher quality ex-boyfriend than this last one.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Goodbye to my Grandma.
I'm endlessly fascinated by the concept of family. Those or you who are kind enough to follow my writing know that I think a lot about the people from which we come and how they shape us into the people that we are. Given that I think very highly of myself (another thing that my "fans" would know), it's obvious that I have no regrets about the batch of humans I sprung from. They not only made me who I am, but they also implanted in me a belief that has served me very well in my complicated life: that if you associate yourself with good people, then you in return, whether you like it or not, will wind up a good person. I've written before about how I've spent my adult life duplicating that feeling of familial closeness with those I'd consider to be friends. This can specifically be found in the November 2008 archives of my blog in a piece entitled "We are Family!"
I wrote that piece after my grandmother threw herself what my family jokingly referred to as her "fake wake." She paid for a family reunion, gathering her loved ones from all over the country, and we spent three days together in a Mississippi hotel. When the weekend was over, we gathered outside of a restaurant and she gave a speech with her oxygen tank in tow. I remember her saying something that was hard for this man who doesn't feel like he'll ever grow up to hear. She thanked us all for coming and told us from behind her tears to love each other, that we were family, and even though that moment might be the last time that some of us ever saw each other alive, to always appreciate where we came from.
My mother called me today and, as it turns out, that indeed was the last time that I would see my grandmother alive. After having fought for eight months in a hospital, she decided to check herself out and let go. Her mind, miraculously still in tact up until the very end, was made up. 82 years, two husbands, five kids, nine grandchildren, and thirteen great grandkids later, she felt it was time to move on. She told her children that she didn't want a funeral because, as I mentioned earlier, she already had one.
In the Spring of 2003, I woke up one Saturday morning at the age of 26 after having cried myself to sleep the night before. I was miserable, living with my mother, working a dead-end job, in a dead-end relationship, and feeling, well, dead. Something had snapped in me between falling asleep the night before and that very moment, and I could no longer foresee living another day knowing that that particular present was my eternal fate. So I decided to move. Those first few waking moments of that morning are ones I can't clearly recall. Basically, I was being pulled by something else, whether it was fate or severe depression. I scrambled about my room to find a pen and a piece of paper. Then I put the names of a dozen cities into a hat and randomly pulled out the name of one. I marched downstairs and announced to my confused mother nursing a Virginia Slim and a cup of coffee that in six months (and despite having never even been there to visit) I was moving to Chicago.
Those next six months were rough. I took a second job, equally as crappy as my other one, to finance the move. And although I was trying not to, I desperately still wanted the guy I felt I was running away from to beg me to stay. Something else occurred over the course of that time too. For the first time in my entire life, no one, not my friends or family, had any confidence in me whatsoever. They thought that what I was doing was reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous. And although they could all tell that my staying in Memphis would equate to a world of personal troubles for me, they found it impossible to support me. That is, everyone except my grandmother.
About two weeks before my set arrival date into Chicago, I began to panic. I was moving to a city where no one knew me, where I had no job or family, and I almost changed my mind. I was desperate to leave, but I was terrified that I'd fail. I was talking about this to my grandmother who lived a few doors down from my mom and this fear manifested itself into concerns over money. Although I'd saved up a bunch, what if it wasn't enough? What if I fell flat on my face financially before I ever even found a job? And my grandmother casually mentioned to me that I should ask my grandpa, a retired successful businessman, not for a handout, but a loan.
So I did. But he made me go back and write up a loan proposal, highlighting my monthly bills. Then he made me go back and revise that written loan proposal when I'd blindly failed to factor in the cost of unforeseen yet unavoidable expenses, like groceries. We decided on an amount and a payment plan. It was then that I had all of the resources that I needed to leave. All that was left was the courage to do so.
In 2006, my grandfather died a few days after I'd flown home to say goodbye. He could no longer talk and was almost unrecognizable from having been sick for so long, but his eyes lit up when he saw me standing over his bed. He squeezed my hand but I said very little because I didn't want to cry in front of him. I foolishly thought that him seeing me cry would scare him, as if he didn't know he was dying up until my tears let the cat out of the bag. When I left the room I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Had he and my grandmother never given me that money, where would I have been? I had found such happiness in Chicago. I became the type of person that for one reason or another Memphis hadn't allowed me to be. I was a good person. I was a happy person. And I wanted him to be proud of me.
My grandmother pulled me aside that day and I tried, while sobbing, to express that gratitude. She told me that his lending me that last bit of money for my move was a decision that they'd both agreed upon long before I wrote up that silly proposal. She said that they knew I was good for it. After my grandpa died, I kept making payments to my grandmother and eventually paid off that debt. It was one of the brightest moments of my life when all of those checks cleared. That's when my grandmother told me how proud of me they both were.
We are who we are because of where we came from. I'm goofy and selfish because of my father. I'm likeable and scatter-brained because of my mother. I'm kind but defensive because of my sister. And I'd like to think, considering that we've now lost them both, that I'm trusting and strong because of my grandparents.
But sometimes "strong" isn't even a powerful enough word to describe my grandmother. Once at Thanksgiving when I was a teenager, I overheard her snap back to her first husband during an argument after he told her to go to hell, "I'll see you there!" Up until just a few years ago, she often wrapped up her day with a strong scotch. She was educated during a time when most women weren't, and had a lifelong thirst for knowledge that led her to being more computer literate and internet savvy than I was. She had a unique take on the world, leaning more towards a belief that almost everyone goes to heaven because, based on her observations, weren't most of us already in hell? She didn't care that I was gay, but she cared that I was a Democrat. I spent just as much time fighting with her about Hillary Clinton as I did my Obama-supporting pals during the 2008 Election.
When you come from good people, you duplicate good people. You build a support system no matter what your lot in life that replicates the one that reared you. Your passions are the same, as are your hopes and your fights. And that all starts to click more as you get older. You catch yourself doing or saying something and you freeze in your tracks because you're acting like an authority figure from your own childhood. Tonight as I write this, sad for my mother that she's taken the biggest hit of grief in her life, sad for my aunts and uncles and cousins and sister and all of those great grandchildren, I somehow still find some admiration underneath all this hurt. Strong up until the very end, my grandmother called the shots and went out her way. She's definately one authority figure from my own childhood that I hope to find myself mimicking in later years.
Maybe I was never able to fully explain how grateful I am to my grandparents for not only believing that I'd succeed in Chicago, but also for helping plant in me the things to look out for in others when you're trying to build your own family. Without their values, their commitment, their efforts, I wouldn't be who I am today.
Hopefully someday I'll get to where they're going. And over a nice, strong scotch, I can thank them then.
I wrote that piece after my grandmother threw herself what my family jokingly referred to as her "fake wake." She paid for a family reunion, gathering her loved ones from all over the country, and we spent three days together in a Mississippi hotel. When the weekend was over, we gathered outside of a restaurant and she gave a speech with her oxygen tank in tow. I remember her saying something that was hard for this man who doesn't feel like he'll ever grow up to hear. She thanked us all for coming and told us from behind her tears to love each other, that we were family, and even though that moment might be the last time that some of us ever saw each other alive, to always appreciate where we came from.
My mother called me today and, as it turns out, that indeed was the last time that I would see my grandmother alive. After having fought for eight months in a hospital, she decided to check herself out and let go. Her mind, miraculously still in tact up until the very end, was made up. 82 years, two husbands, five kids, nine grandchildren, and thirteen great grandkids later, she felt it was time to move on. She told her children that she didn't want a funeral because, as I mentioned earlier, she already had one.
In the Spring of 2003, I woke up one Saturday morning at the age of 26 after having cried myself to sleep the night before. I was miserable, living with my mother, working a dead-end job, in a dead-end relationship, and feeling, well, dead. Something had snapped in me between falling asleep the night before and that very moment, and I could no longer foresee living another day knowing that that particular present was my eternal fate. So I decided to move. Those first few waking moments of that morning are ones I can't clearly recall. Basically, I was being pulled by something else, whether it was fate or severe depression. I scrambled about my room to find a pen and a piece of paper. Then I put the names of a dozen cities into a hat and randomly pulled out the name of one. I marched downstairs and announced to my confused mother nursing a Virginia Slim and a cup of coffee that in six months (and despite having never even been there to visit) I was moving to Chicago.
Those next six months were rough. I took a second job, equally as crappy as my other one, to finance the move. And although I was trying not to, I desperately still wanted the guy I felt I was running away from to beg me to stay. Something else occurred over the course of that time too. For the first time in my entire life, no one, not my friends or family, had any confidence in me whatsoever. They thought that what I was doing was reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous. And although they could all tell that my staying in Memphis would equate to a world of personal troubles for me, they found it impossible to support me. That is, everyone except my grandmother.
About two weeks before my set arrival date into Chicago, I began to panic. I was moving to a city where no one knew me, where I had no job or family, and I almost changed my mind. I was desperate to leave, but I was terrified that I'd fail. I was talking about this to my grandmother who lived a few doors down from my mom and this fear manifested itself into concerns over money. Although I'd saved up a bunch, what if it wasn't enough? What if I fell flat on my face financially before I ever even found a job? And my grandmother casually mentioned to me that I should ask my grandpa, a retired successful businessman, not for a handout, but a loan.
So I did. But he made me go back and write up a loan proposal, highlighting my monthly bills. Then he made me go back and revise that written loan proposal when I'd blindly failed to factor in the cost of unforeseen yet unavoidable expenses, like groceries. We decided on an amount and a payment plan. It was then that I had all of the resources that I needed to leave. All that was left was the courage to do so.
In 2006, my grandfather died a few days after I'd flown home to say goodbye. He could no longer talk and was almost unrecognizable from having been sick for so long, but his eyes lit up when he saw me standing over his bed. He squeezed my hand but I said very little because I didn't want to cry in front of him. I foolishly thought that him seeing me cry would scare him, as if he didn't know he was dying up until my tears let the cat out of the bag. When I left the room I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Had he and my grandmother never given me that money, where would I have been? I had found such happiness in Chicago. I became the type of person that for one reason or another Memphis hadn't allowed me to be. I was a good person. I was a happy person. And I wanted him to be proud of me.
My grandmother pulled me aside that day and I tried, while sobbing, to express that gratitude. She told me that his lending me that last bit of money for my move was a decision that they'd both agreed upon long before I wrote up that silly proposal. She said that they knew I was good for it. After my grandpa died, I kept making payments to my grandmother and eventually paid off that debt. It was one of the brightest moments of my life when all of those checks cleared. That's when my grandmother told me how proud of me they both were.
We are who we are because of where we came from. I'm goofy and selfish because of my father. I'm likeable and scatter-brained because of my mother. I'm kind but defensive because of my sister. And I'd like to think, considering that we've now lost them both, that I'm trusting and strong because of my grandparents.
But sometimes "strong" isn't even a powerful enough word to describe my grandmother. Once at Thanksgiving when I was a teenager, I overheard her snap back to her first husband during an argument after he told her to go to hell, "I'll see you there!" Up until just a few years ago, she often wrapped up her day with a strong scotch. She was educated during a time when most women weren't, and had a lifelong thirst for knowledge that led her to being more computer literate and internet savvy than I was. She had a unique take on the world, leaning more towards a belief that almost everyone goes to heaven because, based on her observations, weren't most of us already in hell? She didn't care that I was gay, but she cared that I was a Democrat. I spent just as much time fighting with her about Hillary Clinton as I did my Obama-supporting pals during the 2008 Election.
When you come from good people, you duplicate good people. You build a support system no matter what your lot in life that replicates the one that reared you. Your passions are the same, as are your hopes and your fights. And that all starts to click more as you get older. You catch yourself doing or saying something and you freeze in your tracks because you're acting like an authority figure from your own childhood. Tonight as I write this, sad for my mother that she's taken the biggest hit of grief in her life, sad for my aunts and uncles and cousins and sister and all of those great grandchildren, I somehow still find some admiration underneath all this hurt. Strong up until the very end, my grandmother called the shots and went out her way. She's definately one authority figure from my own childhood that I hope to find myself mimicking in later years.
Maybe I was never able to fully explain how grateful I am to my grandparents for not only believing that I'd succeed in Chicago, but also for helping plant in me the things to look out for in others when you're trying to build your own family. Without their values, their commitment, their efforts, I wouldn't be who I am today.
Hopefully someday I'll get to where they're going. And over a nice, strong scotch, I can thank them then.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Lost in Space.
(First published at mikealvear.com)
I grew up during the peak of the Star Wars fad and had I not been genetically predisposed to favor my He-Man toys over my Chewbacca action figure, I might've paid more attention to space. I only knew of it what they said about it at the beginning of Star Trek, that it was "the final frontier." Space was something confusing, big, and daunting. Who needed it? Well, as it turns out, most of us do.
Actual Space, the space above us where the sun burns and galaxies collide, is a complicated mass of mathematics and physics. I have spent most of this year studying a microcosm of space, the space that exists between humans. Although not quite as overwhelming and endlessly possible as actual space, the space that human beings require can be just as complicated and is equally affected by numbers and science.
They say that actual space is relative, like time, and so indeed is human space. People need space, although at varying degrees. I spent two months living out of a suitcase in two of my friends' living room. One of them needed little space at all and the sight of my unemployed ass sitting idly on the sofa when he got home from work was a welcome one. The other friend required much more space, actually the specific space in which I'd been sleeping, and he jumped for joy when I finally moved on and he was able to reclaim the couch as his.
Human space can be trickier than even the most confusing Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking book. Unlike deciphering the distance between planets, you never know exactly how much space a human needs. New relationships are a doctorate level study in space. You spend half of your time trying to figure out when it's appropriate to call, to text, or to ask to see that person again. You don't know if your perception of space is the same as theirs. What if they require more distance than you do? And if they do, then what does that mean? Do they just simply like to take things slower than you do? Or are they orbitting around someone else's sun and you're just some loser supernova dying in the distance?
Trying to describe how much space you require in a relationship is a lot like trying to describe your own genitalia. You know exactly what yours looks like. You know it inside and out. However, words will inevitably fail you should you have to describe them. And like your own genitalia, space is just something that is always there. But you never really feel the need to discuss it with anyone unless it is immediately threatened.
Space is a science. And like all sciences, there is an underlying element of math. Human space is no different. The space that we need is our own unique algebraic equation where X equals the numbers of times you think you were in love divided by half the times you let somebody down multiplied by the number of times your best friend banged your boyfriend. And like the formulas that make up actual space, at first glance the numbers in human space look random, jumbled, and meaningless to the point that you'd rather give up than try to solve it.
Just as that geeky junior high school science teacher we all had tried to do, we try to make ourselves understand space. It's not easy. And many of us will fail. But at some point we have to grasp the beauty, and the power, of space.
Live long and prosper.
I grew up during the peak of the Star Wars fad and had I not been genetically predisposed to favor my He-Man toys over my Chewbacca action figure, I might've paid more attention to space. I only knew of it what they said about it at the beginning of Star Trek, that it was "the final frontier." Space was something confusing, big, and daunting. Who needed it? Well, as it turns out, most of us do.
Actual Space, the space above us where the sun burns and galaxies collide, is a complicated mass of mathematics and physics. I have spent most of this year studying a microcosm of space, the space that exists between humans. Although not quite as overwhelming and endlessly possible as actual space, the space that human beings require can be just as complicated and is equally affected by numbers and science.
They say that actual space is relative, like time, and so indeed is human space. People need space, although at varying degrees. I spent two months living out of a suitcase in two of my friends' living room. One of them needed little space at all and the sight of my unemployed ass sitting idly on the sofa when he got home from work was a welcome one. The other friend required much more space, actually the specific space in which I'd been sleeping, and he jumped for joy when I finally moved on and he was able to reclaim the couch as his.
Human space can be trickier than even the most confusing Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking book. Unlike deciphering the distance between planets, you never know exactly how much space a human needs. New relationships are a doctorate level study in space. You spend half of your time trying to figure out when it's appropriate to call, to text, or to ask to see that person again. You don't know if your perception of space is the same as theirs. What if they require more distance than you do? And if they do, then what does that mean? Do they just simply like to take things slower than you do? Or are they orbitting around someone else's sun and you're just some loser supernova dying in the distance?
Trying to describe how much space you require in a relationship is a lot like trying to describe your own genitalia. You know exactly what yours looks like. You know it inside and out. However, words will inevitably fail you should you have to describe them. And like your own genitalia, space is just something that is always there. But you never really feel the need to discuss it with anyone unless it is immediately threatened.
Space is a science. And like all sciences, there is an underlying element of math. Human space is no different. The space that we need is our own unique algebraic equation where X equals the numbers of times you think you were in love divided by half the times you let somebody down multiplied by the number of times your best friend banged your boyfriend. And like the formulas that make up actual space, at first glance the numbers in human space look random, jumbled, and meaningless to the point that you'd rather give up than try to solve it.
Just as that geeky junior high school science teacher we all had tried to do, we try to make ourselves understand space. It's not easy. And many of us will fail. But at some point we have to grasp the beauty, and the power, of space.
Live long and prosper.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Pillow Talk is the New First Date
(First published at mikealvear.com)
I’ve never been big on romance in the traditional sense. I find the notion of a candlelit dinner or a romantic stroll on the beach to be trite and too structured. My idea of romance has always been along the lines of someone buying me a beer, letting me eat the last piece of pizza, or keeping their mouth shut during my favorite television show.
Contrary to normal consensus, my distaste for romance has little to do with my elevated levels of jadedness. Even when I was younger and much more naïve than I am now, someone buying me flowers or writing me a poem seemed awkward, forced, and cheesy. But now, at 33 and still single, people assume that I hate romance because I’ve been dating for 15 years and I’m simply exhausted. This mis-perception often pops up when discussing my views with less experienced friends, friends who still think that the odds of them meeting someone casually at a coffee shop aren’t actually less than the odds of them getting mauled by a pack of wild dogs.
The topic of romance is often discussed between myself and a particular friend of mine. He came out later in life than I did and has been dating but a blip in time compared to me. When he shows up at a dinner party starry-eyed after having swapped pleasantries with someone at the gym, I am the first one to knock him down a few pegs. I tend to balk at his fantasy of meeting that perfect guy, someone in his mid-30s with a decent job, with no overbearing psychological scars, and who holds a respectable record on the actual number of sexual partners that he’s had. To me, that’s like finding a hundred dollar bill in a swimming pool full of pennies. It could happen, but is it worth the work and patience?
The thing that I’m always trying to relate to my Pollyanna friend is that boyfriends don’t always come from a series of romantic dinners and bonding over things that you’re both passionate about. In my opinion, the majority of relationships begin with the most unromantic thing that two adults can do together: having a one night stand. One night stands that lead to a meaningful relationship aren’t that uncommon. And things that may or may not occur during a one night stand can be either positives or negatives, things that you probably wouldn’t discover about someone until well into the 6th or 7th date. You’ve already seen them naked. And better yet, they’ve already seen you naked and were still interested! You can gauge how successful they are (if that’s important to you) based on their living arrangements. And if the one night stand occurs after several inhibition-loosening cocktails, by morning you’ll know whether or not you’re sexually compatible with each other. It’s easier to gauge total compatibility based on the level of awkwardness come daylight. If you’re both still at ease and talkative in the morning, move forward from there.
Pillow talk is the new first date. In this day and age, where you can get to New York from Thailand quicker than you can get someone’s phone number, why not skip the middle, less significant steps? It’s kind of like skipping the entire dance and just jumping to the part where you take a bow. Romance is all fine and good, but why does it have to come first? Take that car for a spin before you sink all of those romantic dinners and serenades into it. And hopefully, you’ll like it enough to buy it.
I’ve never been big on romance in the traditional sense. I find the notion of a candlelit dinner or a romantic stroll on the beach to be trite and too structured. My idea of romance has always been along the lines of someone buying me a beer, letting me eat the last piece of pizza, or keeping their mouth shut during my favorite television show.
Contrary to normal consensus, my distaste for romance has little to do with my elevated levels of jadedness. Even when I was younger and much more naïve than I am now, someone buying me flowers or writing me a poem seemed awkward, forced, and cheesy. But now, at 33 and still single, people assume that I hate romance because I’ve been dating for 15 years and I’m simply exhausted. This mis-perception often pops up when discussing my views with less experienced friends, friends who still think that the odds of them meeting someone casually at a coffee shop aren’t actually less than the odds of them getting mauled by a pack of wild dogs.
The topic of romance is often discussed between myself and a particular friend of mine. He came out later in life than I did and has been dating but a blip in time compared to me. When he shows up at a dinner party starry-eyed after having swapped pleasantries with someone at the gym, I am the first one to knock him down a few pegs. I tend to balk at his fantasy of meeting that perfect guy, someone in his mid-30s with a decent job, with no overbearing psychological scars, and who holds a respectable record on the actual number of sexual partners that he’s had. To me, that’s like finding a hundred dollar bill in a swimming pool full of pennies. It could happen, but is it worth the work and patience?
The thing that I’m always trying to relate to my Pollyanna friend is that boyfriends don’t always come from a series of romantic dinners and bonding over things that you’re both passionate about. In my opinion, the majority of relationships begin with the most unromantic thing that two adults can do together: having a one night stand. One night stands that lead to a meaningful relationship aren’t that uncommon. And things that may or may not occur during a one night stand can be either positives or negatives, things that you probably wouldn’t discover about someone until well into the 6th or 7th date. You’ve already seen them naked. And better yet, they’ve already seen you naked and were still interested! You can gauge how successful they are (if that’s important to you) based on their living arrangements. And if the one night stand occurs after several inhibition-loosening cocktails, by morning you’ll know whether or not you’re sexually compatible with each other. It’s easier to gauge total compatibility based on the level of awkwardness come daylight. If you’re both still at ease and talkative in the morning, move forward from there.
Pillow talk is the new first date. In this day and age, where you can get to New York from Thailand quicker than you can get someone’s phone number, why not skip the middle, less significant steps? It’s kind of like skipping the entire dance and just jumping to the part where you take a bow. Romance is all fine and good, but why does it have to come first? Take that car for a spin before you sink all of those romantic dinners and serenades into it. And hopefully, you’ll like it enough to buy it.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
So you're dating someone. Now what?
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Why do bad things happen to good people? What is my purpose in life? Why is “The View” still on the air? Most of these types of questions are best left unanswered, yet they bob in and out of our minds on a daily basis.
Being single can be a bottomless well of unanswerable questions, triggering confusion and frustration rarely seen outside of a Physics class. While in the midst of a dating dry spell, one finds themselves consumed with thoughts as to why no one wants to go out with them. Is it because of what you do for a living, where you hang out, who you know, or because you look like an Ewok? These concerns turn out to be as insignificant as a Mosque in Alabama once you actually start dating someone. That’s when the real trouble begins.
Anyone with a lick of sense will tell you that the keys to a happy relationship are simple: trust and communication. But in a way, that’s like trying to breakdown the complexities of something as confusing as organic chemistry into a sound bite. The notion of both trust and communication as being “simple” is ridiculous. In the long run (if you’re lucky to actually experience the long run), they become second nature. But on the path towards commitment they make about as much sense as Sarah Palin.
Trust is something that both attracts and disgusts us when we find ourselves at the start of a new relationship. We are drawn to the idea of having met someone that we trust, yet there’s no fun in dating someone that no one else wants. A little jealousy and confusion can be a good thing, assuming that it doesn’t turn into a situation where you find yourself camped outside of their house dressed in Army fatigues and holding a pair of binoculars. In my experience, trust seems to be something that just suddenly shows up in its true form unexpected, like Shrek’s girlfriend. You really don’t know where exactly that it came from (and it startles you), but you wind up falling in love with it.
Communication is a painful necessity in the family of body waxing and paying your taxes. You hate doing it, it’s painful and expensive, but you really have no choice. These days, what exactly constitutes communication is as abstract as a Picasso. If you don’t hear from someone for a week, yet they commented on a photo of you on Facebook, does that meet communication requirements? Are emails and text messages considered communicating? The wonderful thing about communication in 2009 is that there are dozens of avenues towards staying in touch with people that you already know and care about, but finding that perfect forum to get to know someone better can be a real pain in the ass. Plus, communication in itself can be something that you thought you wanted with an individual that you’re just getting to know, but that granted wish can turn on you like a pit bull. While communicating, they can inform you that they’re an ex-convict, a Mormon, or that they have no interest in monogamy.
Not a blessing in disguise, but a curse in disguise, dating is tough. For most single people, life is divided between wondering why you’re not dating anyone and then trying to decipher the code of that person that you just started dating. With a little luck and patience, trust and communication might suddenly appear like the Publishing Clearing House people. Hang in there. Be honest about what you want. And don’t get caught outside of his place wearing night vision goggles.
Why do bad things happen to good people? What is my purpose in life? Why is “The View” still on the air? Most of these types of questions are best left unanswered, yet they bob in and out of our minds on a daily basis.
Being single can be a bottomless well of unanswerable questions, triggering confusion and frustration rarely seen outside of a Physics class. While in the midst of a dating dry spell, one finds themselves consumed with thoughts as to why no one wants to go out with them. Is it because of what you do for a living, where you hang out, who you know, or because you look like an Ewok? These concerns turn out to be as insignificant as a Mosque in Alabama once you actually start dating someone. That’s when the real trouble begins.
Anyone with a lick of sense will tell you that the keys to a happy relationship are simple: trust and communication. But in a way, that’s like trying to breakdown the complexities of something as confusing as organic chemistry into a sound bite. The notion of both trust and communication as being “simple” is ridiculous. In the long run (if you’re lucky to actually experience the long run), they become second nature. But on the path towards commitment they make about as much sense as Sarah Palin.
Trust is something that both attracts and disgusts us when we find ourselves at the start of a new relationship. We are drawn to the idea of having met someone that we trust, yet there’s no fun in dating someone that no one else wants. A little jealousy and confusion can be a good thing, assuming that it doesn’t turn into a situation where you find yourself camped outside of their house dressed in Army fatigues and holding a pair of binoculars. In my experience, trust seems to be something that just suddenly shows up in its true form unexpected, like Shrek’s girlfriend. You really don’t know where exactly that it came from (and it startles you), but you wind up falling in love with it.
Communication is a painful necessity in the family of body waxing and paying your taxes. You hate doing it, it’s painful and expensive, but you really have no choice. These days, what exactly constitutes communication is as abstract as a Picasso. If you don’t hear from someone for a week, yet they commented on a photo of you on Facebook, does that meet communication requirements? Are emails and text messages considered communicating? The wonderful thing about communication in 2009 is that there are dozens of avenues towards staying in touch with people that you already know and care about, but finding that perfect forum to get to know someone better can be a real pain in the ass. Plus, communication in itself can be something that you thought you wanted with an individual that you’re just getting to know, but that granted wish can turn on you like a pit bull. While communicating, they can inform you that they’re an ex-convict, a Mormon, or that they have no interest in monogamy.
Not a blessing in disguise, but a curse in disguise, dating is tough. For most single people, life is divided between wondering why you’re not dating anyone and then trying to decipher the code of that person that you just started dating. With a little luck and patience, trust and communication might suddenly appear like the Publishing Clearing House people. Hang in there. Be honest about what you want. And don’t get caught outside of his place wearing night vision goggles.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
This just in: Other states besides Caifornia have banned gay marriage!
(First published at mikealvear.com)
I logged onto Facebook today and was bombarded with invitations by friends to hit the streets in protest of California’s not overturning Proposition 8, their law that bans same-sex marriage. Noble protests, in my opinion, but misdirected, considering that neither myself nor anyone inviting me actually lives in California. This sort of logic escapes me, like storming a McDonald’s demanding a refund because Burger King got your order wrong.
I am pro-gay marriage. I don’t think it runs the risk of devaluing marriage in American society. Straight people have devalued it enough (Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, for example). I think gay marriage would be an enormous boost to a struggling economy, extremely benefiting the entertainment, real estate, and legal communities. More importantly, I think gay marriage would dramatically improve the lives of thousands of overlooked children trapped inside the broken foster care system in this country.
That being said, why aren’t gay rights activists focusing more on states where the struggle is far more complicated and unfair than it is in California? In the most populated areas of California, gay people can congregate safely and reap the benefits of basic equality granted by living in a forward-thinking state. The majority of Californians can be out at work without fear of losing their jobs. They can purchase property with no fear of discrimination. They can report hate crimes and harassment to their local police departments with full confidence that the law is on their side.
I live in what is strongly considered to be the gayest neighborhood in America. Per capita, there are supposedly more gay people in my neighborhood than even in any neighborhoods of New York City or San Francisco. We even have our own Wikipedia page outlining just how gay we are here! So every time this California gay marriage ban news hits the airwaves, the protests here in Boystown, Chicago begin. In a neighborhood where a heterosexual couple holding hands in the street catches your eye quicker than an 8 foot tall drag queen in a bedazzled onesie, is a gay rights protest really necessary? My pro-protest friends tell me that it’s merely to give the issue visibility.
There are 29 other states in the Union where gay marriage bans are written into their constitutions. That’s more than half! And the majority of these are states that arguably not even heterosexual African Americans are yet given full equality. I wonder every time I get these protest invitations not only why I’m being asked to protest a law in California when I live in Illinois, but also where the protesters were when the GLBT communities of states like Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Oregon needed them? When a law was passed in Arkansas in 2008 to ban gay adoption, which to me is a far worse crime than banning gay marriage, I didn’t receive a single email asking me for money from the Human Rights Campaign. No one in my neighborhood, for “visibility” purposes, marched from the gay bar past the gay gym, rallying together outside of the gay coffee shop.
During the Civil Rights Movement, it was decided that the fight for equality would begin at ground zero, even though most states still had laws restricting the rights of African Americans (yes, even the northern states!). The south would be where the battle would be more visible and more effective. Why aren’t gay rights activists using that proven method? It turned out to be quite effective, in case you hadn’t heard, because not even fifty years later we have an African American President.
California will come around. Californians are quite progressive. It’s a state that tolerates 60 year old women with pulled back faces and the store-bought boobs of a teenager. The gay community in San Francisco alone has more political pull than John McCain. How long do you think they’ll actually stand for prejudice? Why not focus more on rallying around the gay people of Utah, Oklahoma, or Mississippi, for example? Those are some protests that I’d get up off of the couch for.
I logged onto Facebook today and was bombarded with invitations by friends to hit the streets in protest of California’s not overturning Proposition 8, their law that bans same-sex marriage. Noble protests, in my opinion, but misdirected, considering that neither myself nor anyone inviting me actually lives in California. This sort of logic escapes me, like storming a McDonald’s demanding a refund because Burger King got your order wrong.
I am pro-gay marriage. I don’t think it runs the risk of devaluing marriage in American society. Straight people have devalued it enough (Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, for example). I think gay marriage would be an enormous boost to a struggling economy, extremely benefiting the entertainment, real estate, and legal communities. More importantly, I think gay marriage would dramatically improve the lives of thousands of overlooked children trapped inside the broken foster care system in this country.
That being said, why aren’t gay rights activists focusing more on states where the struggle is far more complicated and unfair than it is in California? In the most populated areas of California, gay people can congregate safely and reap the benefits of basic equality granted by living in a forward-thinking state. The majority of Californians can be out at work without fear of losing their jobs. They can purchase property with no fear of discrimination. They can report hate crimes and harassment to their local police departments with full confidence that the law is on their side.
I live in what is strongly considered to be the gayest neighborhood in America. Per capita, there are supposedly more gay people in my neighborhood than even in any neighborhoods of New York City or San Francisco. We even have our own Wikipedia page outlining just how gay we are here! So every time this California gay marriage ban news hits the airwaves, the protests here in Boystown, Chicago begin. In a neighborhood where a heterosexual couple holding hands in the street catches your eye quicker than an 8 foot tall drag queen in a bedazzled onesie, is a gay rights protest really necessary? My pro-protest friends tell me that it’s merely to give the issue visibility.
There are 29 other states in the Union where gay marriage bans are written into their constitutions. That’s more than half! And the majority of these are states that arguably not even heterosexual African Americans are yet given full equality. I wonder every time I get these protest invitations not only why I’m being asked to protest a law in California when I live in Illinois, but also where the protesters were when the GLBT communities of states like Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Oregon needed them? When a law was passed in Arkansas in 2008 to ban gay adoption, which to me is a far worse crime than banning gay marriage, I didn’t receive a single email asking me for money from the Human Rights Campaign. No one in my neighborhood, for “visibility” purposes, marched from the gay bar past the gay gym, rallying together outside of the gay coffee shop.
During the Civil Rights Movement, it was decided that the fight for equality would begin at ground zero, even though most states still had laws restricting the rights of African Americans (yes, even the northern states!). The south would be where the battle would be more visible and more effective. Why aren’t gay rights activists using that proven method? It turned out to be quite effective, in case you hadn’t heard, because not even fifty years later we have an African American President.
California will come around. Californians are quite progressive. It’s a state that tolerates 60 year old women with pulled back faces and the store-bought boobs of a teenager. The gay community in San Francisco alone has more political pull than John McCain. How long do you think they’ll actually stand for prejudice? Why not focus more on rallying around the gay people of Utah, Oklahoma, or Mississippi, for example? Those are some protests that I’d get up off of the couch for.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Am I an alcoholic or am I just single?
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Gay men by nature are more judgmental than Christian Fundamentalists and the Taliban combined. Having spent over half of my life immersed within the culture, like an abused spouse with no real intentions of walking away, I’ve simply gotten used to it. You quickly adapt to what is acceptable dress and music choices. But the one aspect of gay life that still eludes me, leaving me as mesmerized as Jane Goodall observing a pack of wild monkeys, is the appropriateness of how often one goes to the gay bar.
It would appear that a line has been drawn in the sand. On one side are the gays that would rather vacation in liberal, free-thinking West Virginia before they’d step foot into a gay bar. On the other side are the gays that can tell you the drink specials at any bar on any night and which drag queen is hosting what and where. The two rarely cross paths, obviously, but when they do, who exactly has the upper hand in judging the other?
Recently a friend of mine went out on a date with someone whom he’d met at the gym. Being that he is a friend of mine, he happens to be one of the gays that goes out, like a lot. During the unavoidable round of questions and answers, his date asked him how often he goes to the gay bars. Not knowing what sort of response was in order, he stumbled. He didn’t want to come across as a drunk, but he also didn’t want to withhold critical information that would inevitably resurface if the relationship moved forward.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’ve met up for drinks with guys I met online, at “this little place I know of,” only to have them recoil in horror when they realize that I’m on a first-name basis with the door guy and that my paycheck is directly deposited there. I’ve chatted up guys in bars who “hate going out, but my friends drug me here,” only to watch their interest vanish when they overhear the bartender invite me to the staff Christmas party.
I think that most of the judgment comes from the assumption that going out equates to sleeping around, which is an extremely weak argument. Stepping foot into a gay bar doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re open and ready for a one-night stand. Some of the most sexually adventurous of my friends never go out. You shouldn’t judge someone as being a slut for going to the gay bar. But if you haven’t logged off of Manhunt since 2006 and get frequent-customer discounts at the local bath house, that’s another story.
Given, I have been known to enjoy a cocktail or ten on occasion, but going out to me is more than getting tanked and getting laid. Not only is it something that my friends and I enjoy doing, but it’s also a very handy avenue for meeting single men. I’m a horrible online dater. I have the attention span of a gnat and photograph worse than Britney Spear’s crotch, so I rarely have success meeting guys through that medium. I participate in very few extra-curricular activities that might expose me to a mate (read: zero), so I don’t have many options for meeting someone. I actually prefer to meet men the old fashioned way: drunk in a bar.
Going out should be looked upon with the same type of respect that we use in judging any behavior that doesn’t mirror our own. It may not be for you, but live and let live.
Let’s drink!
Gay men by nature are more judgmental than Christian Fundamentalists and the Taliban combined. Having spent over half of my life immersed within the culture, like an abused spouse with no real intentions of walking away, I’ve simply gotten used to it. You quickly adapt to what is acceptable dress and music choices. But the one aspect of gay life that still eludes me, leaving me as mesmerized as Jane Goodall observing a pack of wild monkeys, is the appropriateness of how often one goes to the gay bar.
It would appear that a line has been drawn in the sand. On one side are the gays that would rather vacation in liberal, free-thinking West Virginia before they’d step foot into a gay bar. On the other side are the gays that can tell you the drink specials at any bar on any night and which drag queen is hosting what and where. The two rarely cross paths, obviously, but when they do, who exactly has the upper hand in judging the other?
Recently a friend of mine went out on a date with someone whom he’d met at the gym. Being that he is a friend of mine, he happens to be one of the gays that goes out, like a lot. During the unavoidable round of questions and answers, his date asked him how often he goes to the gay bars. Not knowing what sort of response was in order, he stumbled. He didn’t want to come across as a drunk, but he also didn’t want to withhold critical information that would inevitably resurface if the relationship moved forward.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’ve met up for drinks with guys I met online, at “this little place I know of,” only to have them recoil in horror when they realize that I’m on a first-name basis with the door guy and that my paycheck is directly deposited there. I’ve chatted up guys in bars who “hate going out, but my friends drug me here,” only to watch their interest vanish when they overhear the bartender invite me to the staff Christmas party.
I think that most of the judgment comes from the assumption that going out equates to sleeping around, which is an extremely weak argument. Stepping foot into a gay bar doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re open and ready for a one-night stand. Some of the most sexually adventurous of my friends never go out. You shouldn’t judge someone as being a slut for going to the gay bar. But if you haven’t logged off of Manhunt since 2006 and get frequent-customer discounts at the local bath house, that’s another story.
Given, I have been known to enjoy a cocktail or ten on occasion, but going out to me is more than getting tanked and getting laid. Not only is it something that my friends and I enjoy doing, but it’s also a very handy avenue for meeting single men. I’m a horrible online dater. I have the attention span of a gnat and photograph worse than Britney Spear’s crotch, so I rarely have success meeting guys through that medium. I participate in very few extra-curricular activities that might expose me to a mate (read: zero), so I don’t have many options for meeting someone. I actually prefer to meet men the old fashioned way: drunk in a bar.
Going out should be looked upon with the same type of respect that we use in judging any behavior that doesn’t mirror our own. It may not be for you, but live and let live.
Let’s drink!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monster.com and Match.com. 1 in the same.
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Like way too many people in this ravished economy, I have recently found myself unemployed and looking for a job. My resume sits patiently on dozens of online job boards, waiting for any part of it to catch someone’s eye. Daily I scour employment sites, trying to find the perfect marriage of a job and my skill level. The entire process seems oddly familiar to me, the constant hope that with the click of a mouse I’ll stumble upon a suitable match. I check my email dozens of times a day, hoping to have heard back from a company I’ve contacted. Empty mailboxes are sober reminders of rejection. I’m openly advertising that I want something, with very little promise of reward. It occurred to me recently after reviewing my employment profile for the seventh time in one day, trying to see my work history through the eyes of a stranger, that I’m not only looking for a job, I’m online dating.
It’s rough putting yourself out there. Gone are the days when to avoid rejection we simply didn’t strike up a conversation with the gorgeous underwear model standing next to us in a bar. Now we willfully put up pictures of ourselves, slave over our online bios, and launch our dignity off into cyberspace for all the world to see. With the internet, even the most timid of us becomes a titan of ego. With what basically breaks down to be a billboard of ourselves, we submit our dating profiles to a cruel and judgmental public. We become marketing geniuses. We find just the right picture from just the right angle with just the right lighting. Then we sit back and wait for the customers to come to us. And just like with any failed business plan, if the strategy doesn’t generate any foot traffic, we rework our efforts.
As if combing over our products with a fine tooth comb wasn’t trouble enough, along came Facebook. Facebook has a feature to which your friends can tag you in photos, meaning that if someone snaps a picture of you drunk out of your mind, topless, moments before you vomit all over the coffee table, without your consent that Kodak moment can wind up on your online profile. In one instant, Facebook can destroy your brand. You are able to remove the unwanted photo, but you have to be logged in to do so. You can be innocently away from your computer, grocery shopping, giving the dog a bath, and return to discover that your life’s work has been destroyed by a bad picture. Suddenly your Match.com boyfriend whom you’ve yet to meet and have befriended on Facebook falls off the map.
Another striking comparison between the online job search and the online dating scene is that of the half-hearted attempt at contact. When you first begin either of the two, you shoot for the stars! No one is out of your league! The Italian plastic surgeon millionaire with a full head of gorgeous hair? Sure! I’ll send him a wink! CEO for a Fortune 500 company? Sure I only have a Journalism degree and manage money worse than Enron, but why not? But as your email inbox sits barren, over time you change course. Divorced, overweight, and unemployed BUT he also likes music? I’ll give it a shot! The local bathhouse is hiring guys to hose down the spooge on the floor? Why not? It’ll get me out the house.
Obama has promised to fix the current employment crisis, but what exactly does he have planned to fix the dating crisis?
Like way too many people in this ravished economy, I have recently found myself unemployed and looking for a job. My resume sits patiently on dozens of online job boards, waiting for any part of it to catch someone’s eye. Daily I scour employment sites, trying to find the perfect marriage of a job and my skill level. The entire process seems oddly familiar to me, the constant hope that with the click of a mouse I’ll stumble upon a suitable match. I check my email dozens of times a day, hoping to have heard back from a company I’ve contacted. Empty mailboxes are sober reminders of rejection. I’m openly advertising that I want something, with very little promise of reward. It occurred to me recently after reviewing my employment profile for the seventh time in one day, trying to see my work history through the eyes of a stranger, that I’m not only looking for a job, I’m online dating.
It’s rough putting yourself out there. Gone are the days when to avoid rejection we simply didn’t strike up a conversation with the gorgeous underwear model standing next to us in a bar. Now we willfully put up pictures of ourselves, slave over our online bios, and launch our dignity off into cyberspace for all the world to see. With the internet, even the most timid of us becomes a titan of ego. With what basically breaks down to be a billboard of ourselves, we submit our dating profiles to a cruel and judgmental public. We become marketing geniuses. We find just the right picture from just the right angle with just the right lighting. Then we sit back and wait for the customers to come to us. And just like with any failed business plan, if the strategy doesn’t generate any foot traffic, we rework our efforts.
As if combing over our products with a fine tooth comb wasn’t trouble enough, along came Facebook. Facebook has a feature to which your friends can tag you in photos, meaning that if someone snaps a picture of you drunk out of your mind, topless, moments before you vomit all over the coffee table, without your consent that Kodak moment can wind up on your online profile. In one instant, Facebook can destroy your brand. You are able to remove the unwanted photo, but you have to be logged in to do so. You can be innocently away from your computer, grocery shopping, giving the dog a bath, and return to discover that your life’s work has been destroyed by a bad picture. Suddenly your Match.com boyfriend whom you’ve yet to meet and have befriended on Facebook falls off the map.
Another striking comparison between the online job search and the online dating scene is that of the half-hearted attempt at contact. When you first begin either of the two, you shoot for the stars! No one is out of your league! The Italian plastic surgeon millionaire with a full head of gorgeous hair? Sure! I’ll send him a wink! CEO for a Fortune 500 company? Sure I only have a Journalism degree and manage money worse than Enron, but why not? But as your email inbox sits barren, over time you change course. Divorced, overweight, and unemployed BUT he also likes music? I’ll give it a shot! The local bathhouse is hiring guys to hose down the spooge on the floor? Why not? It’ll get me out the house.
Obama has promised to fix the current employment crisis, but what exactly does he have planned to fix the dating crisis?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Married Marys.
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Despite having been out and proud for almost fifteen years, I am at constant odds with my fellow gays and bleeding-heart liberals over holy homo matrimony. I understand that gay couples are denied the financial and legal perks that come with the legalized sanctity of marriage. However, these perks come at a cost. I’m still not convinced that most gay people actually get what gay marriage would mean not only to our community, but to their relationships. I’ve compiled a short list of activities that will no longer be acceptable once the gays are able to start filing joint tax returns.
A. No more three ways. Ever! Not even when you’re both really drunk, out of town, and the hot bartender asks where your hotel is. Remember growing up, how your parents never came back after a night out with some random person? Exactly.
B. No more moving at the speed of light. If you connect with someone that you’ve met at a softball game or sex party, you cannot make copies of your house keys for them within the week. Think about all of the straight weddings you’ve been to, how the couples knew each other since high school or college. Just because someone swallowed on the first date or can make your ex jealous does not necessarily make them marriage material. Clearly, when the Iowa Supreme Court deliberated on gay marriage, they did not take that into account.
C. No more of this open relationship crap. Sure, you and your partner may have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but once gay marriage is legal, that policy will be known by two new names: “adultery” and “goodbye, half of my shit.” Even if you two have an understanding, that agreement won’t mean squat when they start planning to divorce you and hire a private investigator to follow you around. Judges in divorce cases don’t care about open relationships. They care about granting people alimony.
D. No more internet trolling. I was once working on a Saturday when the cops came in and confiscated a straight male co-worker’s computer. Apparently, he’d been using his work computer to meet women on Match.com. Needless to say, his wife, the mother of his children, did not approve and procured herself a court order proving that her husband was cheating. This means no more faceless body shots splattered all over Manhunt. Actually, if gay marriage is legalized, Manhunt should remove the “Open Relationship” option from their profiles for liability purposes.
I realize that many heterosexual couples also have less than traditional relationships (Hollywood actors, polygamist cult members, the Clintons). But I’d venture to say that in a random sampling of gay couples and straight couples the gay couples will outshine the straight ones in dysfunction 2 to 1. We homosexuals should think long and hard about what we are willing to sacrifice for marriage equality. Monogamy is not easy. And failure at monogamy, within the boundaries of marriage, is punishable by law!
(The author must disclose that he hasn’t had a boyfriend in over a year and is admittedly jealous of gay couples)
Despite having been out and proud for almost fifteen years, I am at constant odds with my fellow gays and bleeding-heart liberals over holy homo matrimony. I understand that gay couples are denied the financial and legal perks that come with the legalized sanctity of marriage. However, these perks come at a cost. I’m still not convinced that most gay people actually get what gay marriage would mean not only to our community, but to their relationships. I’ve compiled a short list of activities that will no longer be acceptable once the gays are able to start filing joint tax returns.
A. No more three ways. Ever! Not even when you’re both really drunk, out of town, and the hot bartender asks where your hotel is. Remember growing up, how your parents never came back after a night out with some random person? Exactly.
B. No more moving at the speed of light. If you connect with someone that you’ve met at a softball game or sex party, you cannot make copies of your house keys for them within the week. Think about all of the straight weddings you’ve been to, how the couples knew each other since high school or college. Just because someone swallowed on the first date or can make your ex jealous does not necessarily make them marriage material. Clearly, when the Iowa Supreme Court deliberated on gay marriage, they did not take that into account.
C. No more of this open relationship crap. Sure, you and your partner may have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but once gay marriage is legal, that policy will be known by two new names: “adultery” and “goodbye, half of my shit.” Even if you two have an understanding, that agreement won’t mean squat when they start planning to divorce you and hire a private investigator to follow you around. Judges in divorce cases don’t care about open relationships. They care about granting people alimony.
D. No more internet trolling. I was once working on a Saturday when the cops came in and confiscated a straight male co-worker’s computer. Apparently, he’d been using his work computer to meet women on Match.com. Needless to say, his wife, the mother of his children, did not approve and procured herself a court order proving that her husband was cheating. This means no more faceless body shots splattered all over Manhunt. Actually, if gay marriage is legalized, Manhunt should remove the “Open Relationship” option from their profiles for liability purposes.
I realize that many heterosexual couples also have less than traditional relationships (Hollywood actors, polygamist cult members, the Clintons). But I’d venture to say that in a random sampling of gay couples and straight couples the gay couples will outshine the straight ones in dysfunction 2 to 1. We homosexuals should think long and hard about what we are willing to sacrifice for marriage equality. Monogamy is not easy. And failure at monogamy, within the boundaries of marriage, is punishable by law!
(The author must disclose that he hasn’t had a boyfriend in over a year and is admittedly jealous of gay couples)
Friday, April 3, 2009
'Tis the season.
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Growing up we always had dachshunds. My mother was partial to the females because they wouldn’t hike their legs and mark all the furniture. They were such cute, fun, caring animals, playful and dedicated to us. Until they went into heat.
Overnight, our dogs would lose interest in playing fetch or chasing us around the yard. They had one thing on their minds as they walked around in a daze. They wanted to get laid. And they wanted it bad.
Everything made them horny. There was no avoiding it. Even pats on their backs would send them into a frenzy, whining and grinding their butts against your leg. No stuffed toy was safe in our house when the dogs were “in season.” Any unattended dolls or teddy bears would be violated like Jodie Foster in “The Accused.” Care Bears, ALF dolls, and Cabbage Patch Kids were used up and thrown out like street whores. Our adorable and loving pets transformed from Mother Theresas into man-eating Paris Hiltons right before our eyes.
That always stuck with me, how at just the thought of sex some creatures will completely change. Knowing this better prepared me for life as a man, particularly for life as a gay man.
I am famous for thinking up ridiculous pick-up lines and using them on men in bars, anticipating nothing from the effort except big laughs from my friends. For example:
- “Congratulations,” you tell a guy. “For what?” he asks. “Because,” you coolly respond, “I am attracted to you.”
- “Hey, handsome. I recorded tonight’s all-new ‘Ghost Whisperer.’ What do you say you and I get out of here and go watch it?”
Recently, on a random Sunday afternoon, a champagne brunch turned into a pub crawl and by 4:30 in the afternoon I was drunker than the time I fell into the Christmas tree at a holiday party. I was in the throws of a long sex drought and found myself behaving like my randy pets from yesteryear. Given my fondness for awkward pick-up lines, to every guy that I’d rub against I’d say, “Pardon me. I’m in heat. Don’t mind me. I’m just in season.”
I went home alone that day.
Men can also be in relationship heat. This is when a guy craves a boyfriend more than he craves banging hot bartenders, his trainer at the gym, booty calls, etc… Here in Chicago, many gays go into relationship season just as summer starts to fade. As the temperature drops, so does attendance at the boy bars. Packing on winter weight and wanting to stay inside when the wind chill falls below zero, wild nights out hitting on out-of-towners become romantic evenings curled up with that special someone watching movies under warm blankets. As the seasons change in weather, so do the seasons of men. No longer in relationship heat, they move on. Always be cautious when entering into a relationship that starts on the outskirts of summer. You could merely be an avoidance from their trying to look cute while cruising for guys in ill-fitting winter sweaters. A man who loves you in a crowd of 500,000 half-naked gay guys during a summer Pride Parade is a man who will love you forever.
Everyone’s at nature’s mercy. Whether it’s wild monkey sex or a boyfriend, when we need it, we need it. We can only hope to stay one step ahead of our instincts. Do you like them because you like them? Or do you just want to hibernate for the winter? Or do you just need to get laid really, really bad? You know, like my dachshunds.
Growing up we always had dachshunds. My mother was partial to the females because they wouldn’t hike their legs and mark all the furniture. They were such cute, fun, caring animals, playful and dedicated to us. Until they went into heat.
Overnight, our dogs would lose interest in playing fetch or chasing us around the yard. They had one thing on their minds as they walked around in a daze. They wanted to get laid. And they wanted it bad.
Everything made them horny. There was no avoiding it. Even pats on their backs would send them into a frenzy, whining and grinding their butts against your leg. No stuffed toy was safe in our house when the dogs were “in season.” Any unattended dolls or teddy bears would be violated like Jodie Foster in “The Accused.” Care Bears, ALF dolls, and Cabbage Patch Kids were used up and thrown out like street whores. Our adorable and loving pets transformed from Mother Theresas into man-eating Paris Hiltons right before our eyes.
That always stuck with me, how at just the thought of sex some creatures will completely change. Knowing this better prepared me for life as a man, particularly for life as a gay man.
I am famous for thinking up ridiculous pick-up lines and using them on men in bars, anticipating nothing from the effort except big laughs from my friends. For example:
- “Congratulations,” you tell a guy. “For what?” he asks. “Because,” you coolly respond, “I am attracted to you.”
- “Hey, handsome. I recorded tonight’s all-new ‘Ghost Whisperer.’ What do you say you and I get out of here and go watch it?”
Recently, on a random Sunday afternoon, a champagne brunch turned into a pub crawl and by 4:30 in the afternoon I was drunker than the time I fell into the Christmas tree at a holiday party. I was in the throws of a long sex drought and found myself behaving like my randy pets from yesteryear. Given my fondness for awkward pick-up lines, to every guy that I’d rub against I’d say, “Pardon me. I’m in heat. Don’t mind me. I’m just in season.”
I went home alone that day.
Men can also be in relationship heat. This is when a guy craves a boyfriend more than he craves banging hot bartenders, his trainer at the gym, booty calls, etc… Here in Chicago, many gays go into relationship season just as summer starts to fade. As the temperature drops, so does attendance at the boy bars. Packing on winter weight and wanting to stay inside when the wind chill falls below zero, wild nights out hitting on out-of-towners become romantic evenings curled up with that special someone watching movies under warm blankets. As the seasons change in weather, so do the seasons of men. No longer in relationship heat, they move on. Always be cautious when entering into a relationship that starts on the outskirts of summer. You could merely be an avoidance from their trying to look cute while cruising for guys in ill-fitting winter sweaters. A man who loves you in a crowd of 500,000 half-naked gay guys during a summer Pride Parade is a man who will love you forever.
Everyone’s at nature’s mercy. Whether it’s wild monkey sex or a boyfriend, when we need it, we need it. We can only hope to stay one step ahead of our instincts. Do you like them because you like them? Or do you just want to hibernate for the winter? Or do you just need to get laid really, really bad? You know, like my dachshunds.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
I don't recall.
(First published at mikealvear.com)
I’ve heard that the city in which I live, Chicago, has the most gay people per capita than any other city in America. Then why, I often wonder, despite my living in this vast gay wonderland, do I seemingly run into the same douche bag ex-boyfriend everywhere that I go?
I have never experienced a “good” break up. I have friends who are on speaking terms with their ex’s, and I observe these situations with the same curiosity I’d exhibit were I to stumble upon two aliens having sex. What the hell is going on? How do you do that? Generally, a break up is caused by someone wanting to rid their everyday lives of someone else. Break ups are rarely mutual decisions. What I have never understood is the level of maturity required to forgive someone who has decided that they would rather risk dying alone than contend with you on a daily basis.
I hope for a world that when a person wrongs you, they cease to exist. I don’t want to see their names pop up in my phone. I don’t want to read their Facebook updates. I don’t want to see them walking down the street. I want them to vanish into thin air, destroying all evidence of their having ever existed. This clearly has not happened to my aforementioned ex. I ran into him the day after Valentine’s Day and, in an experience that I can only assume was as comfortable as water boarding, listened to him talk about him and his new boyfriend’s romantic evening together. What did I do for Valentine’s Day? I got blind drunk at a lesbian bar.
Chicago may be big, but it clearly isn’t big enough.
Scientists in Amsterdam have begun experimenting with a common blood pressure medication that has exhibited signs of helping individuals forget trauma and fear, similar to the storyline in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Put me in a cage, feed me cheese, and call me a lab rat. I want in on this research.
Joy washes over me at the thought of living in a world where I have no recollections of this ex or how he ripped out my heart and self-esteem and fed them both to wild dogs. Gone would be the nights when, despite looking and feeling great, I suddenly find myself trying to escape through a bathroom window because he and his new boyfriend were spotted coming into the bar. I could face the world free from this constant fear of seeing him and going from confident and funny to beaten and broken in the blink of an eye.
“Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” I disagree with that. If I want to learn from my mistakes and grow as a person, I don’t need to be dumped. I can simply revisit some of my fashion choices from the mid 90s. When you’re able to look back on a relationship and realize that you didn’t do anything wrong except openly and honestly love someone, then there’s really not much else to be learned from the experience besides the fact that life is cruel, random, and out to destroy you. That’s not really the type of life lesson I care to learn.
So Chicago’s gay population either needs to get even bigger or I need to jet off to Amsterdam and get in on that study. I’m getting just about as sick of looking at this ex everywhere that I go as, well, he got sick of looking at me.
I’ve heard that the city in which I live, Chicago, has the most gay people per capita than any other city in America. Then why, I often wonder, despite my living in this vast gay wonderland, do I seemingly run into the same douche bag ex-boyfriend everywhere that I go?
I have never experienced a “good” break up. I have friends who are on speaking terms with their ex’s, and I observe these situations with the same curiosity I’d exhibit were I to stumble upon two aliens having sex. What the hell is going on? How do you do that? Generally, a break up is caused by someone wanting to rid their everyday lives of someone else. Break ups are rarely mutual decisions. What I have never understood is the level of maturity required to forgive someone who has decided that they would rather risk dying alone than contend with you on a daily basis.
I hope for a world that when a person wrongs you, they cease to exist. I don’t want to see their names pop up in my phone. I don’t want to read their Facebook updates. I don’t want to see them walking down the street. I want them to vanish into thin air, destroying all evidence of their having ever existed. This clearly has not happened to my aforementioned ex. I ran into him the day after Valentine’s Day and, in an experience that I can only assume was as comfortable as water boarding, listened to him talk about him and his new boyfriend’s romantic evening together. What did I do for Valentine’s Day? I got blind drunk at a lesbian bar.
Chicago may be big, but it clearly isn’t big enough.
Scientists in Amsterdam have begun experimenting with a common blood pressure medication that has exhibited signs of helping individuals forget trauma and fear, similar to the storyline in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Put me in a cage, feed me cheese, and call me a lab rat. I want in on this research.
Joy washes over me at the thought of living in a world where I have no recollections of this ex or how he ripped out my heart and self-esteem and fed them both to wild dogs. Gone would be the nights when, despite looking and feeling great, I suddenly find myself trying to escape through a bathroom window because he and his new boyfriend were spotted coming into the bar. I could face the world free from this constant fear of seeing him and going from confident and funny to beaten and broken in the blink of an eye.
“Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” I disagree with that. If I want to learn from my mistakes and grow as a person, I don’t need to be dumped. I can simply revisit some of my fashion choices from the mid 90s. When you’re able to look back on a relationship and realize that you didn’t do anything wrong except openly and honestly love someone, then there’s really not much else to be learned from the experience besides the fact that life is cruel, random, and out to destroy you. That’s not really the type of life lesson I care to learn.
So Chicago’s gay population either needs to get even bigger or I need to jet off to Amsterdam and get in on that study. I’m getting just about as sick of looking at this ex everywhere that I go as, well, he got sick of looking at me.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Why are you single?
(First published at mikealvear.com)
There are some questions that you just don’t ask people, questions beyond the obvious ones like “How old are you?” or “How much money do you make?” When asked, some questions trigger responses that can linger in the air like a bad fart. I once innocently asked a cute guy I’d been flirting with at a bar why he was drinking bottled water. Expecting to hear something generic - he was in training or had to get an early start in the morning - I was subjected to a twenty-minute diatribe describing not only his struggles with addiction, but also the origins of said addiction. And believe me, when you’re trying to pick someone up in a bar, nothing turns you off faster than the topic of childhood incest.
Dating makes you highly vulnerable to questions that you just can’t seem to answer, no matter how long you ramble. Like fumbling during a job interview, a simple question such as “Why did you move to Chicago?” can trigger an endless monologue on running away from a dysfunctional relationship revolving solely around alcohol, infidelity, and weed (trust me). Given that my lot in life seems to be eternal solitude, I, as the constant dater, have learned to dodge such open-ended questions. Question: Why did I move to Chicago? Answer: Work.
However, I was recently stumped by a rather crafty question while having drinks with someone I’d met online. Well trained in what is acceptable to say and what is completely off limits, I was stunned that I hadn’t considered this question in all of my preparation. In all my years of experience in dating, no one had ever asked me this: “Why are you single?”
I knew better than to take the easy route and blame my appearance. Even the most novice of daters know that a lack of self-esteem is not attractive. I also knew not to fault myself. Dating is all about the upsell, and nothing knocks down your sticker price like exposing your insanity and trust issues to a potential buyer. The question merited a response focused on blame. So not knowing who exactly to blame for my being single, I did what any over-educated American liberal would do. I blamed society:
• Every sane guy worth dating within my age bracket (25 – 35) is already in the throes of their first serious relationship.• When those guys hit the market again after that first serious relationship ends, they will need a few years to resow their wild oats, which would then leave them pushing 40.
• 40 year olds have too much baggage. Their baggage mixed with my baggage will be way too heavy for any two people to carry.
• Catching younger guys before they get into their first serious relationship with someone their own age is not an option for me. Younger guys who like older guys do so because they have issues with their fathers or they like to spend someone else’s money. I’m too young to be anyone’s father and I’m poor, deeming me useless with the younger guys.
The tirade ended, and shortly afterwards, so did the date. I’d taken the long way around one of those questions best left unanswered. Now, moving forward, I know exactly what to say:
“Why are you single?”
“My boyfriend died.”
There are some questions that you just don’t ask people, questions beyond the obvious ones like “How old are you?” or “How much money do you make?” When asked, some questions trigger responses that can linger in the air like a bad fart. I once innocently asked a cute guy I’d been flirting with at a bar why he was drinking bottled water. Expecting to hear something generic - he was in training or had to get an early start in the morning - I was subjected to a twenty-minute diatribe describing not only his struggles with addiction, but also the origins of said addiction. And believe me, when you’re trying to pick someone up in a bar, nothing turns you off faster than the topic of childhood incest.
Dating makes you highly vulnerable to questions that you just can’t seem to answer, no matter how long you ramble. Like fumbling during a job interview, a simple question such as “Why did you move to Chicago?” can trigger an endless monologue on running away from a dysfunctional relationship revolving solely around alcohol, infidelity, and weed (trust me). Given that my lot in life seems to be eternal solitude, I, as the constant dater, have learned to dodge such open-ended questions. Question: Why did I move to Chicago? Answer: Work.
However, I was recently stumped by a rather crafty question while having drinks with someone I’d met online. Well trained in what is acceptable to say and what is completely off limits, I was stunned that I hadn’t considered this question in all of my preparation. In all my years of experience in dating, no one had ever asked me this: “Why are you single?”
I knew better than to take the easy route and blame my appearance. Even the most novice of daters know that a lack of self-esteem is not attractive. I also knew not to fault myself. Dating is all about the upsell, and nothing knocks down your sticker price like exposing your insanity and trust issues to a potential buyer. The question merited a response focused on blame. So not knowing who exactly to blame for my being single, I did what any over-educated American liberal would do. I blamed society:
• Every sane guy worth dating within my age bracket (25 – 35) is already in the throes of their first serious relationship.• When those guys hit the market again after that first serious relationship ends, they will need a few years to resow their wild oats, which would then leave them pushing 40.
• 40 year olds have too much baggage. Their baggage mixed with my baggage will be way too heavy for any two people to carry.
• Catching younger guys before they get into their first serious relationship with someone their own age is not an option for me. Younger guys who like older guys do so because they have issues with their fathers or they like to spend someone else’s money. I’m too young to be anyone’s father and I’m poor, deeming me useless with the younger guys.
The tirade ended, and shortly afterwards, so did the date. I’d taken the long way around one of those questions best left unanswered. Now, moving forward, I know exactly what to say:
“Why are you single?”
“My boyfriend died.”
Age actually IS more than a number.
(First pulished on mikealvear.com)
There is no bigger cosmic joke on humanity than aging. It’s a universally non-biased experience laden with irony. One moment it’s congratulating you on your successes (a promotion at work), then the next moment it’s reminding you that you’ll die someday (you find your first gray pubic hair).
It’s proof not only that there is a God, but that he has a wicked sense of humor. For example, by the time you can actually afford to drink in martini bars, your body can no longer tolerate alcohol like it could when you were young and poor. Or by the time you actually start to see the world as a beautiful place full of grace and understanding, you’re old and no one cares how you see anything.
Gay men struggle more with age than any other pocket of the population. While most straight people resign themselves to physical collapse at age 30, gay men on this birthday MUST begin working out regularly, otherwise they are no longer allowed to attend Gay Pride parades or watch “Project Runway.” I was at a 30th birthday party once for someone whose friends purchased him a gym membership. How’s that for unconditional love?
Although we gays fight aging with more purpose and drive than the Allied had when defeating the Germans, we are all still fully aware that it’ll happen. We use three gauges to measure our marches from Twink to Sugar Daddy:
• By when different Madonna albums were released. I was enrolled in a school run by Southern Baptists during the Like a Prayer era. I was a junior in high school during the Erotica and Sex book era. I moved to Chicago during the American Life era. Every gay man, no matter how masculine they may appear to be, can tell you exactly where and how old he was the first time he heard “Ray of Light.”
• By how many Republican presidents have screwed us. Maybe you remember Richard Nixon ignoring the Stonewall Riots. Or you might recall Gerald Ford not acknowledging gay Americans despite having been saved from assassination by one, Oliver Sipple, in 1975. Maybe you remember Ronald Reagan’s Communications Director calling AIDS “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Or maybe you’re only young enough to recall George W. Bush’s attempts to write social discrimination into the pages of the Constitution with his proposed marriage amendment. The GOP! Progress defined!
• By which bars and social scenes you tend to gravitate towards. Since most cities only have a handful of gay bars, there is little wiggle room surrounding the types of clientele they tend to attract. The dance bars tend to attract younger people. The quieter, more civil bars tend to attract an older crowd. Recently, along with two other thirty-something friends of mine, we went to a bar that would more likely have a place for us to sit down and hear each other talk, bypassing the late night disco packed with half naked drunk boys. “Did that just happen?” my friend Matt asked worriedly. “Did we really pick this place over the dance bar? Wow. We just got old.”
And it does happen that fast. One second you’re jumping up and down shirtless to Madonna’s “Music.” Then, in the blink of an eye, you’re asking the DJ if he can turn down his extended mix of “4 Minutes” because you can‘t hear yourself think. Gay men have a very dysfunctional relationship with aging. We hate it, but without it, we wouldn’t be alive. Much like the relationship most of us have with our parents.
There is no bigger cosmic joke on humanity than aging. It’s a universally non-biased experience laden with irony. One moment it’s congratulating you on your successes (a promotion at work), then the next moment it’s reminding you that you’ll die someday (you find your first gray pubic hair).
It’s proof not only that there is a God, but that he has a wicked sense of humor. For example, by the time you can actually afford to drink in martini bars, your body can no longer tolerate alcohol like it could when you were young and poor. Or by the time you actually start to see the world as a beautiful place full of grace and understanding, you’re old and no one cares how you see anything.
Gay men struggle more with age than any other pocket of the population. While most straight people resign themselves to physical collapse at age 30, gay men on this birthday MUST begin working out regularly, otherwise they are no longer allowed to attend Gay Pride parades or watch “Project Runway.” I was at a 30th birthday party once for someone whose friends purchased him a gym membership. How’s that for unconditional love?
Although we gays fight aging with more purpose and drive than the Allied had when defeating the Germans, we are all still fully aware that it’ll happen. We use three gauges to measure our marches from Twink to Sugar Daddy:
• By when different Madonna albums were released. I was enrolled in a school run by Southern Baptists during the Like a Prayer era. I was a junior in high school during the Erotica and Sex book era. I moved to Chicago during the American Life era. Every gay man, no matter how masculine they may appear to be, can tell you exactly where and how old he was the first time he heard “Ray of Light.”
• By how many Republican presidents have screwed us. Maybe you remember Richard Nixon ignoring the Stonewall Riots. Or you might recall Gerald Ford not acknowledging gay Americans despite having been saved from assassination by one, Oliver Sipple, in 1975. Maybe you remember Ronald Reagan’s Communications Director calling AIDS “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Or maybe you’re only young enough to recall George W. Bush’s attempts to write social discrimination into the pages of the Constitution with his proposed marriage amendment. The GOP! Progress defined!
• By which bars and social scenes you tend to gravitate towards. Since most cities only have a handful of gay bars, there is little wiggle room surrounding the types of clientele they tend to attract. The dance bars tend to attract younger people. The quieter, more civil bars tend to attract an older crowd. Recently, along with two other thirty-something friends of mine, we went to a bar that would more likely have a place for us to sit down and hear each other talk, bypassing the late night disco packed with half naked drunk boys. “Did that just happen?” my friend Matt asked worriedly. “Did we really pick this place over the dance bar? Wow. We just got old.”
And it does happen that fast. One second you’re jumping up and down shirtless to Madonna’s “Music.” Then, in the blink of an eye, you’re asking the DJ if he can turn down his extended mix of “4 Minutes” because you can‘t hear yourself think. Gay men have a very dysfunctional relationship with aging. We hate it, but without it, we wouldn’t be alive. Much like the relationship most of us have with our parents.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love.
I consider myself to be an expert on a wide variety of subjects. None of the topics on which I claim to hold a credible opinion were taught to me by traditional means. For example, I consider myself to be an expert on folk music, not because I have read anything about (or even own any albums by) Bob Dylan or Nancy Griffin, but because I know all of the words to every song off of the Indigo Girls' "Rites of Passage" album. I am your go-to guy regarding the great city of New Orleans, not because I am from there or have even studied there, but because I've gotten very drunk there many, many times. I consider myself to be an expert on how Western civilization has corrupted and oppressed the nations of Africa over the past four hundred years, not because I know anyone from Africa (nor do I have even the slightest desire to ever go to Africa), but because I have read Barbara Kingsolver's African-staged epic "The Poisonwood Bible" more than once.
Most of my self-proclaimed knowledge comes from television though, but not sophisticated television like PBS of CSPAN. I know the effects that electro-magnetic energy can have on air travel thanks to "Lost." I know what it's like to run a late night comedy sketch show because of "30 Rock." And I also feel that I'm quite the historian when it comes to Hip Hop because I watched all three seasons of "Flavor of Love." And now, thanks to A&E's brilliant show "Intervention," I am now an expert on the subject of addiction.
"Intervention" is an hour-long documentary that each week follows around an addict who will soon be confronted by their friends and family about undergoing treatment. The show highlights every type of addiction, from gambling to drugs to booze. It sucks the viewer in by showing how the person got from Point A to Point B, how they went from studying medicine to huffing glue or from being a world champion cyclist to panhandling for crack money. It's a very heartwarming show. You find yourself rooting for the addict, wanting them to get better and to turn their lives around. And, if you have a sick sense of humor like I do, the show is often hilarious. Watching someone on crystal meth attempt to do algebra is always good for a chuckle. Or seeing the mother of the bride get so drunk that she starts making threats during the wedding toast is pure comedy gold.
We all have addictions, and sometimes the worst addictions are ones that move under the radar. Those are the things that we can't stop doing, things that might be damaging to us but are highly unlikely to completely destroy our lives. Chocolate, for example, might expand your wasteline and rot your teeth, but it's doubtful that you'll ever have to steal from your friends and family or prostitute yourself to pay for it. Outside of nicotine and the binge drinking (which I blame entirely on the influence of others), I only have one real addiction. And this only occurred to me recently when I was challenged by a friend of mine to stop doing it. It turns out that I couldn't stop. My name is Tony, and I'm addicted to dating.
"Intervention" has taught me many things about addiction, primarily about how it sneaks up on people and without them even realizing that it's happened, their lives have started to revolve around it. The guy who used to only do cocaine on the weekends doesn't know at exactly what moment he began needing it first thing in the morning, but he does. The girl hooked on heroine can't remember how smoking weed occasionally with her friends led to her living underneath an interstate overpass, but it has. The path to addiction is complicated and consists of many variables. It's not all about the physical need you develop for it. Your past plays a huge part, as do your fears. Addiction is like a cute baby tiger. Overnight, it can go from being something small and fun and controllable to something big and powerful and capable of killing you.
Simply put, when an addict gets their fix, they feel good. These feelings of bliss eventually pass, leading them desperate to return to that level of comfort. My history with dating addiction is the classic story of the small town boy gone wild in the big city. I grew up in the suburbs and went to college in the sticks. I lived in the very conservative mid-sized city of Memphis throughout most of my twenties, and dating for gay men was about as frequent as live vocals at a Britney Spears concert. Fast forward to my moving to the big gay city of Chicago (into the gayest neighborhood to boot!), and needless to say I lost control. I became obsessed with it. It was easy and accessible and an amazing deterrence from reality. I was hooked!
There were a few periods where I was able to stop dating, to stop scouring dating sites or hitting on strangers in bars, because I was in what I considered to be at the time a "relationship." But addiction latches on to people's insecurities, and you begin to tie that need into other shortcomings in your life. There was a string of disappoints in my dating life from the Fall of 2006 until the Summer of 2008 (six to be exact), and very soon into that cycle I began working from the angle that in order to stay ahead of the game (translated: in order to keep from feeling hurt again), I had to always have one or two guys "on deck." This way, when things inevitably failed with whomever I was officially seeing, I had someone available immediately to distract me from the most recent disaster. And just like with every type of addiction, this behavior was fun at first. I was young and wild. I could quit anytime I wanted to.
One key aspect of addiction is that at some point every addict realizes that what they crave is doing them more harm than good. But due to the mappings of basic human behavior, they don't know how to quit. At the encouragement of my friend Hector, I first tried to stop a few months ago when I began spending quite a bit of time with someone. Hector suggested that perhaps all of my relationships were doomed to fail because there was no way I could focus on developing any sort of intimacy with someone when I had too many burners going on the stove. So I quit, putting all my money into one pot. That particular pot ended up making an *ss out of me on the dance floor of a gay disco and for the first time in a long time I didn't have anyone else in queue to help with the damage. And I remembered that without that extra netting getting screwed over by someone you're dating really sucks.
This past weekend, I spent a lot of time with another friend of mine going through his first break-up. Despite his being my age, he is a relatively new gay, meaning that he has not been out all that long. Considering that I've got fifteen years of gay dating stacked up against his four, he's pretty much a baby. He laid out all the gory details to myself and another friend of ours over a bottle of wine. I felt so bad for him, then I felt guilty, for the only solid advice I had for him was to hurry up and start dating someone else. I was laying out a mound of cocaine on the coffee table, handing him a rolled up dollar bill. I was trying to push my addiction onto someone else.
I often consider what it would be like to be the target of an intervention. Would I be leaving a coffee house after a first date with someone, heading to a bar for a drink with another date, texting the guy I had plans with the night before, when my family and friends suddenly spring on me and plead that I get help? Would months of therapy and twelve-step programs teach me patience and faith and how to use the internet for purposes other than updating my various online profiles? What would I do with all the time and energy that I typically waste on dating? What would I do when the next relationship comes to a close and I have no one else to immediately turn to? And is it even possible for me, a dating addict, to ever be "normal?"
I'm enough of an expert on addiction now thanks to A&E to know exactly what circumstances led me here. I'm insecure. I have trust issues. I have absolutely no faith in my own gut instincts. I have fears of abandonment. These shortcomings certainly aren't unique to me, but the way they cultivate themselves into my daily life seem to be. I seem to have completely lost the ability to spend a few weeks buried under the covers feeling sorry for myself when a relationship ends. But there's still a large part of me that thinks if or when I meet the right guy, that I'll be able to quit dating cold turkey. And I guess I won't actually know if I indeed have that strength until that moment comes, if it ever does.
I wonder if there is a rehabilitation clinic somewhere where I could spend ninety days detoxing from dating. If so, I wonder if I could meet someone there...
Most of my self-proclaimed knowledge comes from television though, but not sophisticated television like PBS of CSPAN. I know the effects that electro-magnetic energy can have on air travel thanks to "Lost." I know what it's like to run a late night comedy sketch show because of "30 Rock." And I also feel that I'm quite the historian when it comes to Hip Hop because I watched all three seasons of "Flavor of Love." And now, thanks to A&E's brilliant show "Intervention," I am now an expert on the subject of addiction.
"Intervention" is an hour-long documentary that each week follows around an addict who will soon be confronted by their friends and family about undergoing treatment. The show highlights every type of addiction, from gambling to drugs to booze. It sucks the viewer in by showing how the person got from Point A to Point B, how they went from studying medicine to huffing glue or from being a world champion cyclist to panhandling for crack money. It's a very heartwarming show. You find yourself rooting for the addict, wanting them to get better and to turn their lives around. And, if you have a sick sense of humor like I do, the show is often hilarious. Watching someone on crystal meth attempt to do algebra is always good for a chuckle. Or seeing the mother of the bride get so drunk that she starts making threats during the wedding toast is pure comedy gold.
We all have addictions, and sometimes the worst addictions are ones that move under the radar. Those are the things that we can't stop doing, things that might be damaging to us but are highly unlikely to completely destroy our lives. Chocolate, for example, might expand your wasteline and rot your teeth, but it's doubtful that you'll ever have to steal from your friends and family or prostitute yourself to pay for it. Outside of nicotine and the binge drinking (which I blame entirely on the influence of others), I only have one real addiction. And this only occurred to me recently when I was challenged by a friend of mine to stop doing it. It turns out that I couldn't stop. My name is Tony, and I'm addicted to dating.
"Intervention" has taught me many things about addiction, primarily about how it sneaks up on people and without them even realizing that it's happened, their lives have started to revolve around it. The guy who used to only do cocaine on the weekends doesn't know at exactly what moment he began needing it first thing in the morning, but he does. The girl hooked on heroine can't remember how smoking weed occasionally with her friends led to her living underneath an interstate overpass, but it has. The path to addiction is complicated and consists of many variables. It's not all about the physical need you develop for it. Your past plays a huge part, as do your fears. Addiction is like a cute baby tiger. Overnight, it can go from being something small and fun and controllable to something big and powerful and capable of killing you.
Simply put, when an addict gets their fix, they feel good. These feelings of bliss eventually pass, leading them desperate to return to that level of comfort. My history with dating addiction is the classic story of the small town boy gone wild in the big city. I grew up in the suburbs and went to college in the sticks. I lived in the very conservative mid-sized city of Memphis throughout most of my twenties, and dating for gay men was about as frequent as live vocals at a Britney Spears concert. Fast forward to my moving to the big gay city of Chicago (into the gayest neighborhood to boot!), and needless to say I lost control. I became obsessed with it. It was easy and accessible and an amazing deterrence from reality. I was hooked!
There were a few periods where I was able to stop dating, to stop scouring dating sites or hitting on strangers in bars, because I was in what I considered to be at the time a "relationship." But addiction latches on to people's insecurities, and you begin to tie that need into other shortcomings in your life. There was a string of disappoints in my dating life from the Fall of 2006 until the Summer of 2008 (six to be exact), and very soon into that cycle I began working from the angle that in order to stay ahead of the game (translated: in order to keep from feeling hurt again), I had to always have one or two guys "on deck." This way, when things inevitably failed with whomever I was officially seeing, I had someone available immediately to distract me from the most recent disaster. And just like with every type of addiction, this behavior was fun at first. I was young and wild. I could quit anytime I wanted to.
One key aspect of addiction is that at some point every addict realizes that what they crave is doing them more harm than good. But due to the mappings of basic human behavior, they don't know how to quit. At the encouragement of my friend Hector, I first tried to stop a few months ago when I began spending quite a bit of time with someone. Hector suggested that perhaps all of my relationships were doomed to fail because there was no way I could focus on developing any sort of intimacy with someone when I had too many burners going on the stove. So I quit, putting all my money into one pot. That particular pot ended up making an *ss out of me on the dance floor of a gay disco and for the first time in a long time I didn't have anyone else in queue to help with the damage. And I remembered that without that extra netting getting screwed over by someone you're dating really sucks.
This past weekend, I spent a lot of time with another friend of mine going through his first break-up. Despite his being my age, he is a relatively new gay, meaning that he has not been out all that long. Considering that I've got fifteen years of gay dating stacked up against his four, he's pretty much a baby. He laid out all the gory details to myself and another friend of ours over a bottle of wine. I felt so bad for him, then I felt guilty, for the only solid advice I had for him was to hurry up and start dating someone else. I was laying out a mound of cocaine on the coffee table, handing him a rolled up dollar bill. I was trying to push my addiction onto someone else.
I often consider what it would be like to be the target of an intervention. Would I be leaving a coffee house after a first date with someone, heading to a bar for a drink with another date, texting the guy I had plans with the night before, when my family and friends suddenly spring on me and plead that I get help? Would months of therapy and twelve-step programs teach me patience and faith and how to use the internet for purposes other than updating my various online profiles? What would I do with all the time and energy that I typically waste on dating? What would I do when the next relationship comes to a close and I have no one else to immediately turn to? And is it even possible for me, a dating addict, to ever be "normal?"
I'm enough of an expert on addiction now thanks to A&E to know exactly what circumstances led me here. I'm insecure. I have trust issues. I have absolutely no faith in my own gut instincts. I have fears of abandonment. These shortcomings certainly aren't unique to me, but the way they cultivate themselves into my daily life seem to be. I seem to have completely lost the ability to spend a few weeks buried under the covers feeling sorry for myself when a relationship ends. But there's still a large part of me that thinks if or when I meet the right guy, that I'll be able to quit dating cold turkey. And I guess I won't actually know if I indeed have that strength until that moment comes, if it ever does.
I wonder if there is a rehabilitation clinic somewhere where I could spend ninety days detoxing from dating. If so, I wonder if I could meet someone there...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Break it down.
I am endlessly fascinated by the most random of things. Like a baby hypnotized by a set of dangling car keys, I seem to be mesmerized by odd and often overlooked occurrences. Last summer, when visiting the Berlin Wall, I spent most of my time watching a brown shaggy dog sit at the foot of his owner on a park bench. I am known to do such things. I have eaten at five star restaurants and my only opinion walking away is not one of the food or the service, but of the lighting in the restroom. Once, while at a party packed full of beautiful gay men, me and a friend of mine with a similar take on life were spotted in the corner under the spell of a particularly interesting aluminum garbage can.
Maybe it's the writer in me that draws me to the details. Maybe, as a therapist once told me, it's the self-conscious feeling that I belong on the side lines, so I can't help but notice the smaller things off in the distance. Maybe (and this is the more probable reason) I am simply not as smart as I think I am and as a simpleton I gravitate towards the miniscule things that no one else sees, like empty cardboard boxes, matches, or a particularly overweight cat.
A very recent fascination of mine is one that exists all around us, but only those with an eye for things happening under the radar will notice it. It's that of the breakdown, the mental collapse of a perfectly sane individual right out in the open. It's happening all around us, but unless you've got the eye to spot one, the odds are stacked against you that you won't even notice it. Like a skilled hunter who can spot a quail a hundred yards away, I see them all around me. They happen in the cars next to us in traffic, in airport bathrooms, and in elevators. People momentarily lose their sh*t in public all the time.
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine over instant messaging. We were both at work, unproductively chatting the morning away as we often do, when he confessed to me that he had cried that morning on the train. Dealing with a lot in his personal life, I wasn't surprised that everything had finally come to fruition. But I was fascinated that it happened when it did, in front of God and everybody, during rush hour on the Red Line heading downtown. And last week, another friend of mine and I were also instant messaging during work hours, when she broke down. We had been analyzing a very distant crush of hers, your atypical aloof twenty something single straight guy, when she compared him to her habit of cigarette smoking. "I know he's bad for me," she typed, "but I don't know how to stop." After I drew further comparisons from the analogy, that the guy was something she does out of boredom and that he was something she knew she did now but would not be doing her entire life, she let me know that she was now sitting at work in tears. And again, I was drawn to that moment when otherwise normal adults allow their emotions to collapse on top of them, leaving them a crumpled pathetic heap in the fetal position on the floor.
I am the master of the breakdown. Once in college, I had to get up and leave a class because, as the teacher rambled on about Literary Theory, my thoughts roamed far off towards something apparently upsetting, and the next thing I knew tears were running down my face. What felt like the end of the world to me went unnoticed. I returned to class with no one the wiser that I had just openly wept in front of a room full of strangers. Breakdowns were part of my daily routine when I first moved to Chicago. I didn't know a soul, was dirt poor, and I perpetually entertained the idea that the boy who had broken my heart back home in Memphis, the one I had moved to Chicago to get away from, would show up outside my door begging me to come back. Needless to say, that didn't happen, and the breakdowns were sneaky and quick, like a cobra, and I'd find myself in line at the grocery store, or in a bar, when the overpowering need to cry would wash over me.
When one sweeps down on top of you, it may feel as if the entire world is watching you. But the public breakdown is not often noticed in the shadow of bigger things going on around it. As one sweeps down on top of you, it may feel as if the entire world is judging you, but odds are that something else is going on around you that is holding everyone's attention, like the Berlin Wall. But someone like me will notice, partly because I pay unnecessary attention to even the slightest points of interest, but probably mostly because I am certifiably crazy. When I see people in public fighting back their tears (and believe me, they are everywhere), I find myself pulled into what I think might be their situation. Is it that their heart is broken? Are they scared? Or did they wake up that morning to the cold reality that life for them would never be more than it was that day, or the day before?
The devil's in the details. And the reasons why we are who we are lie in the fine print. Nothing is what it seems to be. There's always more underneath the surface. So don't feel ashamed or weak if the weight of your problems finally knocks you down and you just so happen to be in public. Trust me. You won't be the first person to do it, and you certainly won't be the last. And the odds are that no one will even notice. Except maybe me...
Maybe it's the writer in me that draws me to the details. Maybe, as a therapist once told me, it's the self-conscious feeling that I belong on the side lines, so I can't help but notice the smaller things off in the distance. Maybe (and this is the more probable reason) I am simply not as smart as I think I am and as a simpleton I gravitate towards the miniscule things that no one else sees, like empty cardboard boxes, matches, or a particularly overweight cat.
A very recent fascination of mine is one that exists all around us, but only those with an eye for things happening under the radar will notice it. It's that of the breakdown, the mental collapse of a perfectly sane individual right out in the open. It's happening all around us, but unless you've got the eye to spot one, the odds are stacked against you that you won't even notice it. Like a skilled hunter who can spot a quail a hundred yards away, I see them all around me. They happen in the cars next to us in traffic, in airport bathrooms, and in elevators. People momentarily lose their sh*t in public all the time.
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine over instant messaging. We were both at work, unproductively chatting the morning away as we often do, when he confessed to me that he had cried that morning on the train. Dealing with a lot in his personal life, I wasn't surprised that everything had finally come to fruition. But I was fascinated that it happened when it did, in front of God and everybody, during rush hour on the Red Line heading downtown. And last week, another friend of mine and I were also instant messaging during work hours, when she broke down. We had been analyzing a very distant crush of hers, your atypical aloof twenty something single straight guy, when she compared him to her habit of cigarette smoking. "I know he's bad for me," she typed, "but I don't know how to stop." After I drew further comparisons from the analogy, that the guy was something she does out of boredom and that he was something she knew she did now but would not be doing her entire life, she let me know that she was now sitting at work in tears. And again, I was drawn to that moment when otherwise normal adults allow their emotions to collapse on top of them, leaving them a crumpled pathetic heap in the fetal position on the floor.
I am the master of the breakdown. Once in college, I had to get up and leave a class because, as the teacher rambled on about Literary Theory, my thoughts roamed far off towards something apparently upsetting, and the next thing I knew tears were running down my face. What felt like the end of the world to me went unnoticed. I returned to class with no one the wiser that I had just openly wept in front of a room full of strangers. Breakdowns were part of my daily routine when I first moved to Chicago. I didn't know a soul, was dirt poor, and I perpetually entertained the idea that the boy who had broken my heart back home in Memphis, the one I had moved to Chicago to get away from, would show up outside my door begging me to come back. Needless to say, that didn't happen, and the breakdowns were sneaky and quick, like a cobra, and I'd find myself in line at the grocery store, or in a bar, when the overpowering need to cry would wash over me.
When one sweeps down on top of you, it may feel as if the entire world is watching you. But the public breakdown is not often noticed in the shadow of bigger things going on around it. As one sweeps down on top of you, it may feel as if the entire world is judging you, but odds are that something else is going on around you that is holding everyone's attention, like the Berlin Wall. But someone like me will notice, partly because I pay unnecessary attention to even the slightest points of interest, but probably mostly because I am certifiably crazy. When I see people in public fighting back their tears (and believe me, they are everywhere), I find myself pulled into what I think might be their situation. Is it that their heart is broken? Are they scared? Or did they wake up that morning to the cold reality that life for them would never be more than it was that day, or the day before?
The devil's in the details. And the reasons why we are who we are lie in the fine print. Nothing is what it seems to be. There's always more underneath the surface. So don't feel ashamed or weak if the weight of your problems finally knocks you down and you just so happen to be in public. Trust me. You won't be the first person to do it, and you certainly won't be the last. And the odds are that no one will even notice. Except maybe me...
Monday, January 5, 2009
Stipe, Soup, and Manolos
Michael Stipe, the ambiguously gay lead singer of REM, spent almost twenty years refusing to identify his sexuality to curious fans and reporters. In 1994, Stipe said in an interview that he didn't believe in labeling humans, that "labels are for soup cans." He eventually came out of the closet, and much like the news reports when Clay Aiken and Lance Bass came out, the revelation was about as shocking as learning that Christmas is in December.
It's ironic to me to consider that such an observation concerning human sexuality came from a gay guy. Gay guys love and adore labels and very rarely do we refuse to acknowledge them. Aside from our obvious affection towards designer fashion labels, gay men can label one another within millions of classifications and sub-categories. We can be twinks, bears, daddies, jocks, art house gays, retail queens, bar trash, bottoms, tops, self-hating, on the down low, activist gays, queeny, or butch. We can be a Garland Gay (aged 60+), a Streisand Gay (aged 40 - 59), a Madonna / Cher Gay (aged 25 - 39), or a Britney Gay (aged 25 and under). We can be the type of gay guy that likes to go camping (the lesbian gay) or we can be the type of gay guy that likes to vacation in urban cities with large gay populations (the normal gay). So, in my opinion, when Michael Stipe made his famous soup can label comment, he must've been in the throws of a full-on debilitating case of denial towards his own homosexuality. No gay man in his right mind would ever suggest that we as a group NOT label one another. Like being self-centered and witty, labeling things just comes naturally to us.
A particular labeling fondness of the gay guy is to relate themselves and their friends to the characters of very gay friendly shows like "The Golden Girls," "Will and Grace," or "Sex and the City." Both shows were mainstream successes, enjoyed by straight women everywhere and even a few ashamed heterosexual men. But given that all three shows were written primarily by gay men, the themes throughout each and the basic qualities of their main characters are things that gay guys often directly identify with. Not once since "The Golden Girls" began airing in 1985 has a group of gay guy friends NOT sat around and debated on which one among them was the Blanche (the self-centered slut), or the Dorothy (the cynical intellectual), or the Rose (the naive but kind idiot), or the Sophia (the caregiver). You can take quizzes online to determine if you're the Will or the Grace or the Jack or the Karen. And every group of gay friends on EARTH has had a conversation over Cosmopolitans as to who among them is the Samantha, the Charlotte, the Miranda, or the Carrie.
Two weeks ago I set out on the drive from Chicago to Memphis, heading home for the holidays. Thanks to a craptastic winter storm, what was supposed to be an eight hour drive turned into a two day journey, meaning that I had A LOT of time to think about my life and further dissect the typical thoughts and observations that we all experience around Christmas and the New Year. I have found myself recently in a romantic situation that is foreign to me. As anyone who spares the ten minutes to read this blog every few weeks clearly knows, I have been through just about every relationship quandary you can think of. I have dated people out of boredom. I have been pity f*cked. I've been dumped via a Facebook Relationship Status Change. I have dated more than one guy at a time. I've been mad, sad, elated, selfish, hopeful. You name it and I've been there, on either side of the coin. But lately I've been treading new territory. I am spending a great deal of time with someone who makes me feel like wearing a ballerina outfit as a bus drives by with my picture on it and splashes water all over me. I am starting to hear myself speak in a voiceover, saying things like, "Meanwhile, across town," and, "It suddenly occurred to me." Well, it suddenly occurred to me, sitting in my car somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis (after having crept slowly down an icy interstate for almost six hours), that I was Carrie Bradshaw, enamored and confused by my own Mr. Big. Da da da da. Da da. Da da da da da! Let's do brunch with the girls!
I could trump a room full of a million gay guys who would label themselves as a Carrie with my current situation. All of the key elements are present. I am hanging out with an older successful gentleman (after almost three months, we are not yet allowed to call it dating). I'm artistic, care-free, in my early thirties. He's established, handsome, driven, in his early forties, the target of many boys younger and cuter than me. He's comfortable moving at a snail's pace, in no hurry to jump into another relationship that will more likely than not end with someone getting very hurt. Although slightly jaded, I am still a relationship idealist. I believe that there's still a chance for me with someone. He doesn't care if I date anyone else. Our time together is generally spent with us alone, so my friends know very little about him. And what slight information I give them consists mostly of my confused ramblings about what he wants, what I want, and our inconsistency with how we treat one another leaves my friends with a less than favorable opinion of a man they barely know. When I try to explain to my friends what I'm doing with him (which is basically impossible because I don't know), they stare at me with concerned looks on their faces. All that is missing from this "Sex and the City" playbook is shopping for shoes, the New York skyline, and cute (although ridiculous) puns.
Like Carrie towards her Mr. Big, I find myself uber-emotional around my Mr. Big. I think I want him to want me, but when something happens that gets us closer to that point I start drifting away. Would it be easier with someone else? Is there a furniture designer or a writer out there that I should be dating instead? Will he dump me and marry someone prettier and younger than me? Will I meet an older Russian artist and move to Paris? Or, like what happens to Carrie in the movie, will he leave me at the alter? Will he come back? Could I ever be happy with him? Will asking myself all these f*cking questions eventually drive me crazy?
Before I moved to Chicago, I studied "Sex and the City" with intensity. Sure, those ladies never seemed to get it right until the very end of the series, but didn't they look great? And didn't it seem like they were having fun despite all of their relationship shortcomings? My friend John who lives in New York is working on a book about how the popularity of shows like "Sex and the City" were inspiring people, particularly gay guys and single women, to haul ass to large cities like New York and Chicago. I guess I was like that. I wanted so badly to walk amongst the crowds in a busy city street, to have party invitations coming out of my ass, to date constantly, to f*ck everything that walked, to meet up with my stylish, fun, smart friends once a week and wax philosophically on our sophisticated lives in the big city. And I guess that happened, that I got what I wanted in regards to that, but that life, that lack of something solid beyond your friendships to lean on, got old for Carrie and the girls after six seasons. 2009 marks my sixth year in Chicago.
I love Michael Stipe. He was, in all honesty, the first male celebrity I was ever attracted to. He was by no means nothing to look at, but when I was sixteen years old I was so impressed and moved by his brilliance with words and the way he flaunted being misunderstood by society as opposed to being ashamed of it. That really turned me on at a point in my life when I felt like everyone in the world could see right through me. I remember looking at the picture of him shirtless, in water, in the lyrics insert of REM's "Automatic for the People" CD. He moved me to the point that I had re-occurring dreams of him throughout college, dreams that generally consisted of he and I being married. I used to touch myself inappropriately if I was alone when the video for "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" came on MTV. My point is that I took his soup can observation to heart. I took all of his observations and actions to heart. Stipe made me proud to be a liberal Democrat in Mississippi. Stipe made me proud of my own opinions and proud to express them. It wasn't until my late twenties, well after REM had fallen out of fashion, that I realized that labels are not, as he'd proposed, meant solely for soup cans. Labels CAN be applied to people. And sometimes they should. Because once you're able to solidly identify someone as something, it helps you in maneuvering your behavior around them.
So what if I am a Carrie Bradshaw? I think that's a label I'm comfortable with. Carrie never once strayed from the idea of what she wanted out of a relationship. She wanted safety and comfort and humor and honesty and friendship and sexual compatability. Although it took Mr. Big six years to figure out that he wanted the same things, Carrie never stopped moving. She kept her eye on the prize, so to speak. And the prize was not a man. The prize was her being happy.
My apologies to Mr. Stipe. I still love him (although he's aged so horribly). But I'm fine with being tagged yet another label at 33 years old. I'm a Carrie. And that's quite the badge of honor. Carrie never waited on a Mr. Big to make her happy, and I won't either. It wasn't until Carrie fully believed in her own ability to fulfill herself that Mr. Big finally came around. When you come to terms with yourself, your own skin, your own shortcomings and your own talents, good things and good peole have a way of gravitating towards you.
Meanwhile, across town...
It's ironic to me to consider that such an observation concerning human sexuality came from a gay guy. Gay guys love and adore labels and very rarely do we refuse to acknowledge them. Aside from our obvious affection towards designer fashion labels, gay men can label one another within millions of classifications and sub-categories. We can be twinks, bears, daddies, jocks, art house gays, retail queens, bar trash, bottoms, tops, self-hating, on the down low, activist gays, queeny, or butch. We can be a Garland Gay (aged 60+), a Streisand Gay (aged 40 - 59), a Madonna / Cher Gay (aged 25 - 39), or a Britney Gay (aged 25 and under). We can be the type of gay guy that likes to go camping (the lesbian gay) or we can be the type of gay guy that likes to vacation in urban cities with large gay populations (the normal gay). So, in my opinion, when Michael Stipe made his famous soup can label comment, he must've been in the throws of a full-on debilitating case of denial towards his own homosexuality. No gay man in his right mind would ever suggest that we as a group NOT label one another. Like being self-centered and witty, labeling things just comes naturally to us.
A particular labeling fondness of the gay guy is to relate themselves and their friends to the characters of very gay friendly shows like "The Golden Girls," "Will and Grace," or "Sex and the City." Both shows were mainstream successes, enjoyed by straight women everywhere and even a few ashamed heterosexual men. But given that all three shows were written primarily by gay men, the themes throughout each and the basic qualities of their main characters are things that gay guys often directly identify with. Not once since "The Golden Girls" began airing in 1985 has a group of gay guy friends NOT sat around and debated on which one among them was the Blanche (the self-centered slut), or the Dorothy (the cynical intellectual), or the Rose (the naive but kind idiot), or the Sophia (the caregiver). You can take quizzes online to determine if you're the Will or the Grace or the Jack or the Karen. And every group of gay friends on EARTH has had a conversation over Cosmopolitans as to who among them is the Samantha, the Charlotte, the Miranda, or the Carrie.
Two weeks ago I set out on the drive from Chicago to Memphis, heading home for the holidays. Thanks to a craptastic winter storm, what was supposed to be an eight hour drive turned into a two day journey, meaning that I had A LOT of time to think about my life and further dissect the typical thoughts and observations that we all experience around Christmas and the New Year. I have found myself recently in a romantic situation that is foreign to me. As anyone who spares the ten minutes to read this blog every few weeks clearly knows, I have been through just about every relationship quandary you can think of. I have dated people out of boredom. I have been pity f*cked. I've been dumped via a Facebook Relationship Status Change. I have dated more than one guy at a time. I've been mad, sad, elated, selfish, hopeful. You name it and I've been there, on either side of the coin. But lately I've been treading new territory. I am spending a great deal of time with someone who makes me feel like wearing a ballerina outfit as a bus drives by with my picture on it and splashes water all over me. I am starting to hear myself speak in a voiceover, saying things like, "Meanwhile, across town," and, "It suddenly occurred to me." Well, it suddenly occurred to me, sitting in my car somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis (after having crept slowly down an icy interstate for almost six hours), that I was Carrie Bradshaw, enamored and confused by my own Mr. Big. Da da da da. Da da. Da da da da da! Let's do brunch with the girls!
I could trump a room full of a million gay guys who would label themselves as a Carrie with my current situation. All of the key elements are present. I am hanging out with an older successful gentleman (after almost three months, we are not yet allowed to call it dating). I'm artistic, care-free, in my early thirties. He's established, handsome, driven, in his early forties, the target of many boys younger and cuter than me. He's comfortable moving at a snail's pace, in no hurry to jump into another relationship that will more likely than not end with someone getting very hurt. Although slightly jaded, I am still a relationship idealist. I believe that there's still a chance for me with someone. He doesn't care if I date anyone else. Our time together is generally spent with us alone, so my friends know very little about him. And what slight information I give them consists mostly of my confused ramblings about what he wants, what I want, and our inconsistency with how we treat one another leaves my friends with a less than favorable opinion of a man they barely know. When I try to explain to my friends what I'm doing with him (which is basically impossible because I don't know), they stare at me with concerned looks on their faces. All that is missing from this "Sex and the City" playbook is shopping for shoes, the New York skyline, and cute (although ridiculous) puns.
Like Carrie towards her Mr. Big, I find myself uber-emotional around my Mr. Big. I think I want him to want me, but when something happens that gets us closer to that point I start drifting away. Would it be easier with someone else? Is there a furniture designer or a writer out there that I should be dating instead? Will he dump me and marry someone prettier and younger than me? Will I meet an older Russian artist and move to Paris? Or, like what happens to Carrie in the movie, will he leave me at the alter? Will he come back? Could I ever be happy with him? Will asking myself all these f*cking questions eventually drive me crazy?
Before I moved to Chicago, I studied "Sex and the City" with intensity. Sure, those ladies never seemed to get it right until the very end of the series, but didn't they look great? And didn't it seem like they were having fun despite all of their relationship shortcomings? My friend John who lives in New York is working on a book about how the popularity of shows like "Sex and the City" were inspiring people, particularly gay guys and single women, to haul ass to large cities like New York and Chicago. I guess I was like that. I wanted so badly to walk amongst the crowds in a busy city street, to have party invitations coming out of my ass, to date constantly, to f*ck everything that walked, to meet up with my stylish, fun, smart friends once a week and wax philosophically on our sophisticated lives in the big city. And I guess that happened, that I got what I wanted in regards to that, but that life, that lack of something solid beyond your friendships to lean on, got old for Carrie and the girls after six seasons. 2009 marks my sixth year in Chicago.
I love Michael Stipe. He was, in all honesty, the first male celebrity I was ever attracted to. He was by no means nothing to look at, but when I was sixteen years old I was so impressed and moved by his brilliance with words and the way he flaunted being misunderstood by society as opposed to being ashamed of it. That really turned me on at a point in my life when I felt like everyone in the world could see right through me. I remember looking at the picture of him shirtless, in water, in the lyrics insert of REM's "Automatic for the People" CD. He moved me to the point that I had re-occurring dreams of him throughout college, dreams that generally consisted of he and I being married. I used to touch myself inappropriately if I was alone when the video for "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" came on MTV. My point is that I took his soup can observation to heart. I took all of his observations and actions to heart. Stipe made me proud to be a liberal Democrat in Mississippi. Stipe made me proud of my own opinions and proud to express them. It wasn't until my late twenties, well after REM had fallen out of fashion, that I realized that labels are not, as he'd proposed, meant solely for soup cans. Labels CAN be applied to people. And sometimes they should. Because once you're able to solidly identify someone as something, it helps you in maneuvering your behavior around them.
So what if I am a Carrie Bradshaw? I think that's a label I'm comfortable with. Carrie never once strayed from the idea of what she wanted out of a relationship. She wanted safety and comfort and humor and honesty and friendship and sexual compatability. Although it took Mr. Big six years to figure out that he wanted the same things, Carrie never stopped moving. She kept her eye on the prize, so to speak. And the prize was not a man. The prize was her being happy.
My apologies to Mr. Stipe. I still love him (although he's aged so horribly). But I'm fine with being tagged yet another label at 33 years old. I'm a Carrie. And that's quite the badge of honor. Carrie never waited on a Mr. Big to make her happy, and I won't either. It wasn't until Carrie fully believed in her own ability to fulfill herself that Mr. Big finally came around. When you come to terms with yourself, your own skin, your own shortcomings and your own talents, good things and good peole have a way of gravitating towards you.
Meanwhile, across town...
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