35!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, here I am.  I’m 35 and so what if I haven’t ticked all the boxes I ’should’ have by now in terms of life, love and all else besides.  I’ve been thinking about myself, my life, the way I dress and a load of different things and when I take out what others think and feel, I’m pretty okay with myself and how life’s panning out.

An old man in a new fleece!

Mum bought me a fleece jacket for my birthday from a department store in town yesterday and I love it.  It’s so cosy and warm it’s unreal.  So what if what I wear can hardly be termed haute couture, who wants to buy into all that superficial shit anyway?  I’m me and I like who I am, thank you very much.  35 isn’t so bad when all is said and done …. yes it is, it’s bloody awful!

Chatrooms…

What is it with gay chatrooms?  They are some of the most intimidating and unfriendly places on the ‘net in my opinion.  There’s something about gay chat which I’ve never understood and I’ve been in so many now that I feel I’m able to talk without relying too heavily on generalisations.

On every gay site I’ve used that has a chat facility, there are lists of rooms that are available (30’s, 40’s, 50’s, Coming Out, Advice etc etc) yet in all honesty, they might as well all just be called Hook-up and Get Laid or You Can Come In and Say Hi But We’ll Completely Ignore You Until You Leave or We’re Just Going To Check Out The Profile By Clicking Your Name and If We Don’t Feel You’re Up To Much We’ll Not Bother Chatting To You.

Having read Ulla’s post (which is here) about actually chatting with a lesbian in an online chat, I wondered why we, as gay men, seem unable to do the same.  I remember when I first came online in 2001 there were hundreds of chats to choose from in msn and I spent a very happy 2 or so years attending chat, meeting new people and there was a real sense of solidarity among us.  Some of these people I’m still in contact with today.  Isn’t the purpose of chat to actually chat?

I’m gay.  That’s the term bestowed upon me due to how I feel in relation to my romantic/emotional/sexual feelings but it’s not the sum total of my being.  In there is an intellect, a personality, a sense of humour, hopefully compassion, acceptance, empathy and a whole load more so why is that a LOT of gay people seem to think that if someone isn’t their type that they’re not worth knowing or if they’re not doing something to their genitals or someone else’s, that they’re somehow missing out?

I used to have mixed feelings towards the term ‘gay’ because it seemed to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on sexuality and what ‘we’ get upto in bed but now I wonder whether there is indeed something to it because everywhere I look in the gay media is a heavy reliance on sex, sexuality, sex tips and techniques.  Yes, we’re gay.  We enjoy fucking but it’s not all we are surely?!?!?!?!?!?

Let’s say the average gay man has sex three times a week for an hour apiece, that’s still leaves 165 hours a week doing other things.  A third of that time will be taken up by sleeping, another third by work and I bet there’s more time spent grooming and showering/bathing within that week than by actually having sex so why is there so much emphasis placed on it?  *sigh*

Questions…

I have this blog and then one attached to my website and haven’t been sure what to do with either so what I’ve come up with is all the stuff which is directly related to my coming out and then getting on with life I shall put at the weebly blog and everything else pertaining to my life, all the generalities, will go here.

I spent time in Australia both last year and this and I still have a sense of loyalty to it.  I often find myself on Aus-based gay sites just looking through the galleries, the listings, the people, the places, the bars etc etc because I guess I wasn’t out or accepting of who I was when there and the atmosphere of the place would certainly have been condusive to that kind of enquiry, so I go online and dip into that world every now and then.

It was while looking on a site the other day, I came across the face of a young lesbian and underneath her picture it said something along the lines of “RIP, we love and miss you very much” and I don’t know why but I’ve just had this burning need to find out who she was but where does one start and why would I want to do it?  There’s just something about her demeanour in the pic, about the confidence in who she is which is drawing me to find out more.  There’s a quiet confidence, she’s comfortable in her own skin.  Maybe because for so long I wasn’t?  I don’t know.

A similar thing happened about 2 years ago.  I was on the ‘net and really getting into photography.  I saw a grouping of photos taken by a particular agency (can’t remember which one now) and one of them was a gay man covered in Karposi’s Sarcoma in the final stages of AIDS, I think he died the next day or so.  There’s something about the way he’s looking at the camera which I can’t define.

I had to then find everything I could about him.  There was very little out there though I discovered his name was Ken and I did manage to read an interview he gave where he talked about coming out as gay, moving away from where he lived, getting the diagnosis and then having to undergo horrendous radiotherapy treatment to try and burn the disease away.  It was when I don’t think they knew how to treat it and just threw everything known to humankind at it.

I’m very drawn to people’s faces, especially the eyes.  My mum says that the eyes are the windows to the soul and that “what you are is on your face” and I kinda haul with that.  When I see a photo of someone who’s no longer here, I get a very deep sense of connection with them.  Maybe I’m looking to see if there’s anything within the shot that tells of any future ill-health/pain but of course there isn’t.

I then go through a “why?” phase where I rail at the futility and the randomness of all the crap stuff that happens to others.  Then I just feel sad for the person and for myself, that I’m healthy and why am I okay when they aren’t when all they wanted to do was go out there and live life like everyone else?  Why have they been struck down?  I then think about the fact I’m walking about and they’re not and that, for a while, we both shared the same air, looked into the same sky, wished on the same moon.

I think the last thing I feel and especially when I see anyone in the gay community afflicted in any way, is the fact that I have wasted a good deal of time fighting myself, time which won’t ever be got back.  Then I see these people who were brave enough to face up to their sexualities and identities, who probably took shit from others but held onto what they believed was right, went out there and grabbed life, a life which has now ebbed away while wastrels such as myself were out there being miserable and wishing they could just dig a hole and die.  I’m now out of my hole and they’re in theirs.

Life can be horribly cruel sometimes.

Coming out is a continual thing….

A lot of people ask why gays/lesbian/bisexuals etc etc need to ‘advertise’ their sexualities by Coming Out?  It’s not advertising, it’s merely wishing to honestly share a massive part of your life with another.

Straight people don’t have to come out.  They grow up, they’re accepted as the norm, they talk about the opposite sex, settle down with someone and it’s all cool.  Not so with many of us.  Some people are fortunate and are blessed with supportive family and/or friends.  Most of us however have to deal with some kind of upset when our sexualities are realised and we wish to address how we feel to loved ones.

Feelings of anger, disappointment, sadness etc etc are only too common.  Sometimes, these feelings can spill over into verbal attacks and actual physical assaults.  Things have been known to go much further too, which I’m shuddering to think about if I’m honest.  How can you take the life of someone who only wants to live and love like everyone else?  How can that happen?

I am gay and it is a large part of who I am but it’s not all that I am.  My Mum can be homophobic, though to be fair having a gay son has opened her eyes quite a bit to what being gay is all about and also, what it’s not about.  If you’re reading this M (you know who you are!) I think you’ve helped to educate her enormously – she thinks the world of you.  I think you’re pretty cool too by the way.  She still has a tendency to view a lot of gay men as being promiscuous.  Some no doubt are but a LOT of het guys are too.  We’ve all met straight guys who stand around talking about who they’ve ’shagged’ and how good they are in bed.  My bet is the only sex they regularly have is with Mrs Hand and Her Five Sisters!

It’s no surprise then that to get to where I am now, I’ve had to have a couple of nervous breakdowns and much sadness before realising that my sexuality wasn’t going to go away however much I may have wanted it to.  When I first told Mum I was gay, she went ballistic as I expected her to and she spouted every possible hateful comment that she could think of, the object of which was to wound I’m sure.  Every malicious arrow hit its target which took me a long while to get over.

The other day, her and I went out together and the subject of being gay came up because she was talking about John Barrowman, the actor.  She likes him because he’s gay but doesn’t go on about it, just lives his life privately though I think she’d baulk if she realised that being gay actually means having sex with someone of your own gender.  I’m sure she believes that John’s partner is really nothing more than a good friend whom he ‘just happens’ to live with.

When her and I had got through the really stinging horrid stuff shortly after my initial revelation and actually sat down and discussed my gayness, she couldn’t get her head round the fact that I wanted a boyfriend and not just a guy who was a mate, that they’d be actual sex happening and when she realised this, she went off on one again.

Anyhow, getting back to the point.  I happened to mention that I quite liked John Barrowman and that he was quite fanciable in a strange sort of way.  She went mad!  “But you’re a fella” she almost shouted.  “Yes, and I’m gay Mum.  You know that.”  This seemed to get her very angry indeed.  “I thought because you haven’t spoken about all of this for a very long time that you’d had a change of heart.”

I said “Mum, this isn’t something which is ever going to go away.  I am gay and will always be gay.”  “I don’t like that word” she said.  “Alright then, I’ll always be homosexual.”  She pursed her lips at this and then said “I don’t want to talk about it anymore” to which I probably unfairly replied “that’s handy for you then isn’t it?  Change the topic when you’re hearing something which don’t like.”  She then said “the conversation’s closed.  Look here comes the bus!

Indeed there it was, which served to break the absolutely horrendous atmosphere that was hanging between us.  Once on the bus, we talked about nothing very much and I think that suited her HOWEVER she did say before we got off that she liked Paul O’Grady and Dale Winton and thought they’d be good friends to have.  I think she was trying to bridge the gap between us, it was bloody clumsy but I took it in the spirit it was intended and we went about our day together.

And that’s just it.  The act of Coming Out I wanted to be just a one-off thing.  Yes, I discuss being gay here, yes I know gay people, yes I watch gay programmes etc etc but that’s my own life.  The act of saying the words “I’m gay” was a way for me to be completely honest with those I care about, so I don’t have to hide, so I don’t have to watch what I say and who I look at.  A way of saying “here I am” and then just being.  Being what you may ask?  Just BEING.

I’ve found that in some circumstances though this is not to be the case.  The process of coming out is constant anyway because there will always be new people to tell, people who hopefully will just take it in their stride and say “thanks for letting me know but you’re still the person I know/care about/love” and maybe getting a hug after, that’s always nice.  It seems though there will always be people who cannot or simply will not understand.  That’s difficult but I guess nothing really good ever comes easy does it?