298 posts, 299 posts, 300!!!!

Wow 300 posts, what should I say. I would like to thank all the little people for getting me here, Santa's elves, the seven dwarfs and especially the oz munchkins. Three Hundred posts, actually I thought there would be more, I started back in 2007, was halted by life and no internet access, then restarted or more like continued since I didn't actually quit. I like to go back and read some of my first posts. The flood of memories that come back can be almost a little intoxicating. I think because it's almost like reading about someone else but at the same time being transported back to that moment, with all the emotions and feelings that come from those memories. ........................................ I was recalling the early days, when I was a lurker only. I thought I had stumbled upon a gold mine, a gay gold mine. At that time it still was the straight community that tried to define us and of course they would only stick to one stereotype. I didn't connect to that stereotype, I didn't want to be some super fabulous gay guy who hit on straight men and never had a relationship longer than one night. According to the thinking of that time, that was what I was supposed to become. Keeping in mind I was growing up in the country so I didn't have any exposure to positive gay role models or any gay people for that matter. ............................................. It was the everyday little things in life that attracted me to the blogs. I know it sounds silly now but I would soak up the details of a gay couple cooking dinner, doing laundry or buying a house together. The interactions between the guys, it was something the straight world would never allow us to see, not exciting enough, no one wanted the gay secret to get out, the secret that gay relationships were pretty much just like straight relationships. ............................................ I watched and watched and watched and finally a little light began to flicker, that I could have a relationship, that I could be like those couples, on my terms, just like my straight friends. I had this fantasy, to be watching tv or something ordinary like reading a book, my boyfriend would walk in, we would kiss and I would ask how his day was. It seems so small now but at that time, I couldn't even say the sentence "I am gay" out loud in my apartment, for fear that the sky would collapse down on me once spoken. ............................................. The day to day living of gay men and couples was what first brought me to the blogs. I then decided to use the blogosphere as a private community, to get the support I needed and to work out my thought process along the way while I came out. Blogging is different for me now as circumstances are different now. The blog rambles a little to other tropics, maybe because as I get older I ramble off or so I am told. Blogging is different now also in that I no longer "need" to blog, now it's more like thinking out loud or a hobby, plus I like to see what others are saying, thinking and doing. Also the community has changed but most bloggers are a friendly bunch and as an introvert it's easier for me to meet new people this way. ...................................... Well that's it 300, woo who, however going forward if I happen to meet a cute guy, then I will neglect this blog and probably you won't hear from me until he does something stupid, which is the way it should be. Then I will blog about how it's all his fault and what a perfect boyfriend I was to him.

Thirty Three and Up.

Not recommended for 33 and up, apparently that could be on a label for music CDs, if you were thinking of giving them as a gift. Maybe I am showing my age, do people buy music CDs any more? I keep hearing about a fact that most people stop listening and buying music after the age of 33. I know regarding my music habits that is mostly true. Some speculate that may be due to the fact most people are heavily into career and family at that age. Clearly that statement doesn't apply to me. I did begin to notice my lack of interest in songs and music and I figured it has something to do with age. Every now and then I come across a band or song I like, but I find after a while I grow tired of it/them. ........................................ I happened to read a comment the other day saying eighties music was really bad, at first I was slightly offended since eighties music was the soundtrack to my coming of age. Then I began to think of a lot of the songs and bands of that time, yup they really were bad weren't they! In my defense I didn't listen to top forty type songs. I have also gone through the stage in life around twenties and thirties where you are excited to hear an old song from your teen years because it makes you think back. Now I no longer want to hear anything from those years, they make me feel down because it's a time long ago that is fading away faster each year, I want to move on. .................................... Sometimes when I feel sleepy while driving I will play a music station and I find I hate nine out of ten songs. Except for one singer, lately I perk up when I hear Adele, she snaps me out of my music hating stupor. I love her slightly gravely voice, that woman exudes pain lol. If you are going through a bad break up, listen to Adele she is going to wail your tortured heartbreak, she gets it, she knows. I just heard while writing this post that she is only going to sell her new CD as a CD only, no downloading, lol she must have read my post! Now let's get the video stores back!

Nuances, Subtleties and Secret Moments.

I think for most of us born before 1990, we unknowingly or maybe knowingly, developed a sixth sense about the people around us. The basic truth is that we had to, in order to be able to maneuver through the planet of the straights. I think many of us began to read the subtleties of body language, read between the lines and pick up on things that went over the top of most other's heads. We had gaydar long before the word was invented. I also realize now that all the times I thought my gaydar was broken, it was working perfectly. Just that the handsome jock with the wife and 2.5 kids, also secretly had a boyfriend that would later show up in life. ....................................... One thing that I love about the way gay couples are not only accepted around here, actually pretty much a none issue, is the result regarding the younger guys. The young guys that are completely the opposite of a gay stereotype, those guys were the most hidden but the new generation is not burdened by past bigotry. I love when I am surprised, I love when some handsome guy who looks straight to me, very casually says "no you go ahead sir, I'm just waiting on my husband" a little voice laughs in my head and says "you have just been schooled". ........................................ However this is not the reality of most gay people in the world, which makes me think about the bad old days. Everything gay for me was a negative, I felt it was under control, I had my whole routine, I would stick with it, I had a life long plan and it involved hiding, hiding and hiding. I remember my first positive experience. It happened at a bus station (you better not be thinking about under stall sex or something). I was in my last year of high school, I lived in the city and was on my way home to visit my parents. I had just hunkered down in a chair waiting for the bus, listening to tunes on my Sony walkman (remember those) eating Doritos when something caught my attention. It was a blip on my gaydar. ............................................ Three young people about my age, a girl and two guys were fooling around in a photo booth (do they still have those) and there was something about the two guys. I couldn't put my finger on it but something about them grabbed my attention like a magnet, the way they looked at each other, spoke to each other or seemed comfortable being close to each other. They were trying to fit in the booth to get a picture before the girl had to leave. The bigger guy sat in the chair, the girl sat on one knee while the thinner guy sat on the other knee. Laughing and joking they pulled the curtain to take a picture but had pulled it too far and that's when I saw it, affection.... and I was stunned by it. Affection between two guys and not the kind I was used to. It was a moment in time, it seemed like everything slowed down for me. The bigger guy wrapped his arms around both the guy and girl to hold them by the waist, however the smaller guy held his hand, not knowing I was watching the smaller guy learned back and relaxed into his friend, the bigger guy leaned forward placing his chin on the other's shoulder closing his eyes and hugged him close, the kind of hug that says "I love this guy". I just stared, caught up in their private moment. Suddenly the bigger guy opened his eyes and looked right at me, saw me watching and snapped all three off the chair. They were scared, they quickly left, I wanted to tell them it's ok, I wanted to give them a thumbs up, but that was a different time and I was a different person. That night I couldn't sleep, I saw a gay couple, they were in love and that was a beginning.

Fear of Self.

What scares you? Most people I would guess have some type of fear. I think a lot of gay men maybe have fears, or are at least in touch with their feelings enough to admit it. Unlike straight guys who lie lie lie, they have fears as well no matter how much they shrug it off. There are all kinds of fears real and unreal, fear of losing your job, fear of getting cancer versus fear of bridges or fear of darkness. ....................................... Lately I struggle with fear of doing something stupid, as in meeting the wrong guy at the wrong place and time, then doing something stupid that I will regret later on. Fear of myself, fear of a bad decision. Yes, sometimes I don't think enough, just so far I have kept myself out of bad situations, I sometimes feel that is why I isolate myself from the gay community. I do not sleep around, my track record looks pretty good by most (actually almost all) gay standards but.... it has come close. I find there is that point of desire where a guy has one thing on his mind and it almost becomes tunnel vision, I don't know about any of you but I find it much stronger as I get older. I don't trust myself anymore, part of me wants to get swept up in the moment and stop over thinking everything. .................................. There seems to be a move towards no longer caring about your fellow man in the gay community, instead there is a drive for your own personal gratification. I don't like wearing condoms either but when did wearing one become some slight against the gay community's freedom, when did a person become a loser for using one and when did having HIV become cool. Even worse, when did spreading it become erotic. I hate hospitals, I don't want to be stuck going to one the rest of my life, I don't want to have to take pills all the time, that really frightens me. ...................................... Being in a gay relationship from my understanding is not a guarantee against any mistakes, I understand (or I'm told) gay relationships are more fluid (no pun intended) and guys often go wandering outside of the relationship for a moment of excitement. I confess I thought about it during my last relationship since sex ended up being about every four to six months. Just being honest so as not to pretend that I am perfect. .................................. I scare myself now sometimes, I think about hooking up, how hot it could be and I am afraid that if the opportunity were in front of me, I would take it. Later when I cool down I wonder what is wrong with me, that's not who I am, or is it me. I am not sure what I want to get out of posting this, maybe I want to show my darker side or maybe if I put this down in writing, I will see how stupid my thinking has become.

Role play.

The other day I was talking to someone about a couple we both know. The person I was talking to is straight, the couple is gay. The straight guy made the comment that since one of the men in the couple is a rugged construction type guy and the other man is more the fashion model type of guy, we should be able to see which of the two is the wife. No one has made that stupid statement to me in years, I used to be really disappointed in any of my friends if they asked me who was the wife in my relationships. .................................... I found with gay couples there are no set rules. One guy may be more into what is considered the traditional male role than his partner, both may be, neither may be or even each may compliment the other. As I get older however I am discovering that it's not just a gay "thing". I am noticing there are many straight couples where the traditional roles of each person are not that strictly followed. How many times do we hear someone say the wife wears the pants. ..................................... There are many couples around where the wife takes care of the car, fixes the drywall or removes the mouse from the trap because the husband is either clueless about fixing things or is squeamish. No one starts asking them who plays the dominant role in their relationship. There is still that implied way of thinking that if one of the men likes to cook, is into fashion or decorating the house, then he is a lesser man than the one who changes the tires or saws wood for the winter. ........................................ When I visit my straight friends I love to secretly observed this dynamic. Often the quiet guy, shy guy has a bold in your face wife or the comical, laid back guy has a serious and results driven wife. They compliment each other, maybe opposites do attract but often (I think) roles in a relationship are defined by the personality of each partner. If the woman swings a hammer and the husband is a file clerk, no one feels a need to figure out where they fit in that partnership. ..................................... In my last relationship, I was dating this six foot plus construction renovation type guy, we each had our strengths and he was always telling me to get comfortable with being gay etc but there was one thing I found a little funny. It was that he wanted to be seen as the dominant person in the relationship by others. Mr I am so cool with my sexuality was worried about not being viewed as the alpha male, strange for someone who was supposed to have worked all that out years ago. Me, I don't really care, I mean if they know I am sleeping with another guy, I think the picture of me as a ladies man has gone out the window. I would imagine if people talked about us, they would have assumed I was the wife in that relationship, according to their way of thinking. However they would be wrong, it was a partnership, we each stepped up to our strengths just like most couples gay or straight. I think the more we get to know about relationships the more we realize how much we all have in common, no matter what our sexuality is. Maybe one day there will be no more stupid questions like "who's the wife".

Halloween Fright.

Well it's over for another year, people ask me if we get any children because I live out in the country and I always answer yes we do, we usually get one or two every eighteen to nineteen years. That is the true fright about life around here, it's dying out. Every now and then a young family will move in but once the children reach school age, the parents realize their kids will not have access to the type of education that schools in the city offer and so they leave. Very sad actually, many of the small villages around here have no children, like some sci-fi movie where all the children have been taken away. ............................................ The other scary thing for me is that Halloween marks the beginning of the pre drab grey days before winter. Gone are the colourful leaves, the bright orange pumpkins, the ripe red apples, the cool nights with warm days. No, now it rains and rains and everything looks grey, the sky, the trees and the cold air runs down the back of your neck like ice water. .......................................... Scary as well, Halloween has become political, some places ban it so that people won't be offended or left out because they choose not to take part. I can't help feeling nostalgic about Halloween, it was a fun evening for us, back in the day when kids were constantly reminded to be seen and not heard, compared to today where they are expected to be spoiled and catered to. When did Halloween become a symbol, once upon a time it was just a fun activity for kids, to dress up, to meet their neighbours, to get treats, end of story. There is no great conspiracy behind the tradition. ...........................................I wanted to post yesterday but internet goblins prevented me, so more annoying than scary. Speaking of annoying, I was getting candy yesterday afternoon just in case some little lost child did show up at my door and I had to duck and weave around all the store employees putting up the Christmas decorations, too soon, too soon.