Journey

So as the year rolls around to a close, I thought it fitting to end the year with a reflective blog on my life and year in general.

I've made plenty of new friends, lost a couple too, had lots of firsts, and hopefully a few lasts, kissed too many boys, drank too much alcohol, had dozens of other amazing experiences and still managed to hold onto a high credit average.

My initial idea for this post was that it would be about the 'end': the end of a year, the end of a saga, the end of a journey.

But then when I think about it, this is so far from the end.

If this year has taught me anything, it's that things never stay the same, never stay how you expect them to, for very long at all.

And while midnight tonight might strike the end of the year, it's merely the close of a chapter, in a book that is simply a volume in a massive series depicting this crazy, beautiful life.

In the wise words of Flavia: "There are no endings, only new beginnings."

In a way, I don't feel as sentimental about New Year's Eve this year.

This year has showed me to don't need a countdown or a dropping ball to make a change or keep a resolution.

If you want to make a change, then do it.

In a sense every day is like New Year's Eve with that kind of philosophy (and hey, I'm drinking enough of the time to make that even more plausible).

And everyday is a new journey.

This will be my last post in over a month.

In a few days I will be setting out on a journey, and not the metaphorical sense.

5 weeks in the Costa Rican jungle is sure to be a grounding experience in reality, it will probably have it's own book in the saga.

So happy New Year Sydney, and don't change too much while I'm gone; I don't want to miss out on the excitement.

"if you can wait 'til I get home, then I swear to you that we can make this last" - A Day To Remember

Happiness

Some times, things just make you happy.

You can't explain it, it doesn't always make sense, and sometimes you might even feel like you really shouldn't be feeling the way you're feeling at such a moment.

It might be something as powerful as love, and twisted as a fetish, or as innocent as a favourite track of music.

Yet I think the most important thing we have to learn is that different things make different people happy.

You might think that something seems incredibly wrong, that it shouldn't be happening, that no good would come out of it.

However, I believe this reasoning comes from a lack of empathy or understanding.

There really isn't any foolproof way of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and experiencing exactly how a given circumstance makes them feel.

Most of the time, your third party judgement is clouded, based on some ulterior motive or pre-conceived belief on what you think you know.

I think there would be a lot less drama in the world if everybody learnt how to accept and care a great deal less about things that didn't directly impact them, or to have much less of a say in things that are just none of their business.

At the end of the day, you can judge and you can complain and you can pass all kinds of comments, but you're never going to change the way people feel.

Most of the time, it only takes a simple something, or someone, to make someone happy.

You can kick and scream and disapprove as much as you want, and maybe it might make a difference.

But you're just changing the way anyone feels.

You're just becoming a barricade, a bar in the road, putting a halt to something that one would expect, and hope, to come to naturally.

I don't know about you, but the last thing I want to do is stand in the way of someone else's happiness.

"I'll spend forever wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you" - Taylor Swift

Talk

One thing that I've learnt a lot in my life, quite a lot in the past year, but particularly in this past month, is that people thrive off gossip.

People will believe anything that makes a good story.

Any sense of perspective is thrown out the window in order to spin recent events into the hottest news that is sure to get tongues wagging.

Tabloid media does it all the time, and it's most unfortunate that life feels the need to imitate the press.

And I won't claim to be immune: when some delicious scandal has gone down, I as much as the next person am more than curious to hear the details, to know who said that, what happened and where it went down.

I'm not some superhuman that is resistant to our innate desire to know what is essentially none of our business.

However, one thing I do try my hardest to do is utilise the tool of perspective.

If university has taught me anything, it's that critical thinking skills really are required in everyday life, and you really can't believe half of what you hear, see or read.

I'm wary to take any piece of gossip with a pinch of salt, to question the integrity, and to ultimately understand the perspective of the informant and the nature through with the information is acquired.

But enough with the big words.

Basically, to steal a quote from Lord Voldemort's Twitter, "The reason the world is so screwed up is that people can't appreciate that the villain in your personal story is the hero in their own."

People who feel sorry for themselves have the ability to twist the details with a story, keeping enough fact in tact to hold onto the truth, and paint themselves as the victim.

And quite frankly, it's pathetic.

I am not the villain.

If they had the ability to see from my perspective, maybe people wouldn't be so stuck and thriving on high school drama and we might all be able to behave like real people again.

Wouldn't that be nice? Though maybe I'm asking for too much...

The useful thing about tabloids, however, is that most people know they're full of shit.

The people they report on can, in most cases, shrug off the gossip knowing that it's silly banter that no one need take seriously.

It's all talk from a skewed perspective.

So they can say what they want, but I honestly couldn't care less.

"Honestly I think it's kinda funny that you waste your breath talkin' about me - got me feeling kinda special, really." - Ke$Ha

Advice

A problem I've always had is being able to listen to my own advice.

I don't think I'm on the only one.

I've known people who have had the most amazing, intelligent words to tell their friends to help them through their problems, but when something bad happens to them, they just can't seem to apply their wisdom to their own situations.

I just can't help but wonder why.

I think that maybe, deep down we already know these words that people are constantly telling us in our times of need.

But we subconsciously refuse to recognise or acknowledge it, because there's a part of us that wants someone else to listen to our problems, and hoping that someone else will care.

It's all well and good to be able to sit down and logically work out the best thing for you to do, but in the end there's little emotional satisfaction in that.

We just have this inherent need for the human companionship that comes with having a shoulder to cry on, and the objective advice of a third person perspective.

Sometimes I find myself doing stupid things that I would probably reprimand my friends for doing, or at the very least throw my 2 cents in and give them some advice. Even if they haven't asked for it, I'd like to think there might be something in my words that might help them.

I don't think of it as butting in or telling them what to do; I think it's letting them know I care by having an opinion on their actions.

But when it comes to my own actions, I struggle to repeat the words I tell them to myself.

Maybe it's because secretly I'm a hypocrite and I love what I'm doing.

Or maybe it's just because I want someone to tell me what to do.

Maybe I want someone to offer their advice and opinion, in a similar display of letting me know they care.

Everyone needs a helping hand, now and then.

Sometimes you find those people who resist any kind of advice or help.

I think in some ways, they're the people who want or need it the most.

I've got no qualms about independence and doing your own thing.

I just think that sometimes, the reason we can't listen to our own advice is being we simply need other people to say it for us.

To remind us that we're really not alone.

"I've got a feeling if I sang this loud enough, you would sing it back to me" - Paramore

Contrast

There's always two sides to every story.

Or at best, there's always part of if you never knew.

One person's pleasure is another person's pain.

One man's loss is another man's gain.

You can know someone so well, like the back of your hand, and still get a surprise every now and then.

In life, we have to compare what we think we know against what is possibly, or probably, the truth.

I was ignorant to think that my selfish actions could be divided from the personal experiences of those around me.

And now I sit here on the floor, God only knows what coursing through my body, I begin to realise that.

Doing what you want to do, you're going to hurt people.

No matter what you do in life, someone is going to get hurt.

I suppose it's all about choosing the path of the greatest utility, maximising the good for everyone.

Or is it wrong to make your own personal decisions based on your own personal motives.

I trace over my skin, fingering the lines of my tattoo.

I chose the yin-yang as a representation of balance and duality; recognising both sides to every story.

I've lost sight of that goal in some ways, I think. I guess that's why I had it tattooed into my skin; to remind me of the values that I try to uphold in my everyday life.

Put it all together; the dark and light, the black and white, the wrong and the right.

Everything you do is significant and important.

Make sure it's the right decision for yourself, but make sure you know how it effects everyone else.

Chapters

Every so often in life, something huge and life-changinly significant happens, and we all sit around in shock and think, "It's strange how quickly one event can change your whole life".

But in the past 72 hours, I've noticed that it's not always the big things that change you.

A series of seemingly small and meaningless events collaborated over the course of a weekend to change my perspective on the world quite substantially, to the point where I was genuinely shocked as a reflected on how I felt about my life 3 days ago.

It wasn't as much an emotional roller-coaster as it was a stroll around the scenic route.

I went from excited, to content, to confused, to anxious, to relieved, to complacent, to disappointed and hurt, resignation, pleasure, and perhaps even a tinge of regret.

All mixed in with copious amounts of alcohol (which may or may not be a contributing factor to my perceived problem).

But the changes in emotion were so smooth and subtle that I never really acknowledged them to myself.

It wasn't until it was all over that I realised the past 3 days had been one large significant event in themselves.

Although I suppose that's all life really is: a series of ever-changing circumstances.

Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't.

But you will always feel them.

It felt like I was only between chapters, when in reality I was coming up to the end of the story.

Luckily there's still time for a sequel, keeping some of the old favourites, but hopefully introducing a whole batch of new characters (and eliminating the ones that simply failed to further the plot).

and so continues the comedy/drama narrative that is my life.

but The Story of Us will only ever be a chapter in the The Story of Me.

"the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now" - Taylor Swift

Other

Potentially revisiting an old topic here, but it's just something that's been playing on my mind recently.

One thing I will never understand in the apparent quarrels, and even fears, that some gay people have at the ideas of anything "hetero-normative"; basically, conventions or other standards and ideals that are upheld in a generally 'straight' community.

I don't think it's a bad thing that the general community has these 'straight' values; after all, they are a majority in the people.

But also, I think it's kind of narrow-minded to think of these values as inherently straight at all.

Especially from a group of people who seemingly want equality and tolerance among the broad scope of sexual orientation.

There's no denying that there is a rich and complex variety of colourful people in the gay community.

You've got drag queens, leather daddies, dykes on bikes, lipstick lesbians, underage twinks, fetish guys with more piercings than you can shake a dick at; huge variety of people who lead crazy lifestyles that deviate substantially from the perceived 'norm'.

However, it would be a mistake to think that the ability to lead such potentially wild and hedonistic lifestyles stem from the fact that they are queer-identifiying.

There are just as many straight people who have fucked up lives full of extraordinary events that don't commonly happen in everyday life.

I had a guy say to me once: "Don't be all normal and boring, like the hetero's".

At the time I laughed and shook the comment off, but the more I think about it, the more infuriating it becomes.

The notion that all hetero's are "boring and conventional" is almost as stupid and narrow-minded as the idea that all gay people are crazy sex freaks who are incapable of leading lives with any degree or 'normality'.

Because for some people, there's nothing that special about being gay; it's a minor facet of the bigger picture, and they don't put much emphasis on it.

Although normality is such a subjective term that that argument almost means next to nothing.

I'm all for recognising differences, but they're not the things that we should be focusing on.

This process of Othering between sexual orientation does nothing for any equality movements.

I'm proud to be gay, and I do have some pretty crazy fucked up life experiences.

Some of them happened as a direct result of my homosexuality, but that doesn't mean I don't a crave a little bit of conventional normality every now and then too.

And any gay person who thinks that their purpose in life is to be the antithesis of heterosexuality seriously needs to re-evaluate their priorities.

Freedom

There's always a calm before a storm.

But in the words of Katy Perry, "after a hurricane comes a rainbow."

Not that my life doesn't resemble the personification of a rainbow in most cases.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for soul mates and eternal happiness with the one you love.

But I think there's a part of you that you lose when you're in a relationship.

Maybe when you find "the one", that part is replaced with the matching piece of your partner.

But if that's not the case, breaking up and re-discovering that lost piece is absolutely amazing.

I still feel the heartache of breaking up, and probably always will, whenever it happens.

But every cloud has silver lining, and pulling myself out of that rut to see the sunshine of freedom is such an intense feeling of liberation.

I would much rather get on with being that guy turning multiple heads (and kissing them too) in the club, which I've really always been, instead of wasting time being the desperate soul who sits around banging on about "What if...", "Why me?" and "What the Hell went wrong?"

So what are you waiting for? If your glass is even so much as half-empty, grab that vodka or bourbon or a damn martini and fill it the fuck back up!

"so if you're too school for cool

and you treat me like a fool

you can choose to let it go

we can always party on our own..

so raise your glass if you are wrong

in all the right ways" - P!nk

Love

First and foremost, I believe in love.

You'd probably be right if you called me crazy, or said I was a dreamer.

I listen to my heart before my head, and more often then not I'll make my decisions based on a feeling rather than any rational logic.

It might seem self-interested and hedonistic, but I can assure you that such wild and fantastical thinking incurs just as much pain as it does pleasure.

How could something, or someone, that fills you with so much joy and happiness, also inadvertently break your heart into tiny little pieces?

That, I believe, is the great paradox of love.

Some would say I fell hard and fast, and maybe there is some truth in that.

But I think it's hard for anyone but myself to see the caution I exercised when approaching this love.

Shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice: that kind of thing.

Every time Kingdom Hearts is shattered into rubble, I build the walls up twice as high and doubly thick.

But sometimes there's something, or someone, worth the risk, and for once I find myself breaking down the walls, letting someone in.

And I fell in love; at least I thought I did.

But in the words of Gretchen Weiners: "You could be wrong".

It's not that he didn't love me at all; simply that he didn't love me in the same way.

And truth is one of the most important ingredients in the elixir of love.

Is it wrong to suggest that an unequal, unreciprocated love is tantamount to no love at all?

Were my feelings wasted on a chemistry that never came to boil?

Was I ever in love if I was only ever, in that sense, by myself?

I'll never know the answers to these questions, though if someone asked me if I've ever been in love, now I would most likely answer 'yes'.

For all I've come to believe in, to aspire to, and to know; for all intents and purposes, I would say that I have loved.

Or at the very least, that what I did, the choices I made, the risks I took, the joys I cherished and the losses I suffered: they were all in the name of a greater good.

In the hope that one day, truly, I may fall in love.

"won't forget, can't regret what I did for love" - A Chorus Line

Drowning

Sometimes, I feel like enlightenment is a curse.

It's crossed my mind whether there's really a quantifiable difference between believing a lie, and simply not knowing the truth.

Maybe I was wrong; perhaps ignorance is bliss.

I'm sitting here in a library; a place of knowledge, filled with so much factual text, information and intelligence, and people studying these volumes and presumably bringing themselves to some of elevated awareness, higher and intelligent.

And it's dawned on me that I've never felt so out of place.

I live my life in a sort of limbo.

Some people find that purpose they have in life, no matter how mundane, and they do it.

They work, they play, they have fun; they don't tend to venture beyond the boundaries or their normal existence, but that's okay with them.

They're content with their lot in life. They're all set.

Then there are people who, similarly, feel they have some goal in life, yet conversely have to spend years of their life immersing themselves in some chosen aspect, vastly broadening their horizons so they can achieve their ultimate passion.

I know for a fact that I'm neither.

I stepped into the outer world, into the waters of intellect and skill.

I just don't know how to swim.

I don't have a purpose. I don't have a passion. I don't have a goal.

I'm struggling to stay afloat, and the shore's nowhere in sight.

What if this was all a big mistake?

There's so much in my life that I don't understand, but I feel like I would have been happier if I'd never known it was there.

Like not being able to not see the trick to an optical illusion, things will never look the same to me. I don't know how it will ever be like it was before, yet I still struggle to make sense of what it is now.

Worst of all is I feel as though I'm wasting my time. I'm stuck in this strange place where I obviously don't belong.

And there's no way out.

"I've watched you fly on paper wings, halfway around the world

until they burned up in the atmosphere, sent you spiralling down

landing somewhere far from here with no one else around" - Rise Against

Confessions

I've always been an advocate for the truth.

There's nothing I hate than master class deception, and sometimes I even let little white lies get the better of my temperament.

Sometimes a lie is told out of malice and spite; the worst kind.

Sometimes it's told out of fear of the consequences of the truth.

A little more understandable, but in the long run the impact is probably much the same.

Yet concealment, no matter how big or small, leads to confession; an act which in itself can be very liberating and empowering.

I know form experience that certain confessions are extremely difficult.

My breathing gets all out of whack, and I feel my chest get so heavy because I've apparently forgotten to exhale.

But when you finally spit it out, there is a consequence, a react, and the ball starts rolling.

But what of self-confession?

Something you know, deep-down in your heart, but something that you can't bear to acknowledge.

Something you'd rather bury than accept.

No matter how difficult it might be to verbalise my most clandestine feelings, it's confronting myself with my deepest, darkest fears that is the hardest part of any confession.

Because they're usually the things you don't want to hear.

They're usually about the things you pretended weren't real.

And they usually come with the terrifying aspect that everything as you know it could change.

However, as terrifying as they are, these kinds of confessions tend to be the most fulfilling.

They bring with them the degree of acceptance that lets you "move on".

I've written many a blog on change, and how ultimately it can be a positive force. You shouldn't try to stand in it's way.

But sometimes, it's gentle, and waits for your permission.

All you have to do is say the word.

A simple confession is all it takes.

"guess I'm wish my life away

with these things I'll never say" - Avril Lavigne

Worry

Last night, I fell asleep clutching a Worry Doll.

Tradition dictates the after you finish telling it all your troubles, you put it under your pillow and the doll takes care of them for you, so you can sleep well.

Instead, I woke up in the middle of the night, quite unsure of the reason.

But there, now only loosely clutched in my fingers, was my Worry Doll, staring back at me.

Maybe I didn't realise how many subconscious fears I actually have.

Maybe I didn't have enough time to get them all out before the veil of night washed over me and I fell asleep.

I couldn't let the doll out of my grasp, and I somehow woke up with an unparalleled sense of dread.

I have a friend who used to ask me if they worried too much.

I replied: "I don't think you can worry too much. It just means that you care, and that makes you a good person."

The reasoning seems to satisfy us both at the time, but a few years on, I'm suddenly not so sure.

In the event of someone worrying too much, is there the possibility one could care too much?

Similar to someone worrying or stressing about things which they cannot change, which they have no control over, is it possible for someone to care too much about any particular thing, to have too many hopes or dreams riding on something that could potentially prove quite temporary?

I'm no advocate for apathy: I believe passion is the driving force behind everyone's true nature.

It's important to care about a lot of things, but is there a limit?

Putting too much faith in one thing, or being so passionate that it comes to the verge of fanaticism, unable to accept anything else.

Caring too much because of everything you've invested, with far too much at stake.

Or maybe the two terms aren't as synonymous as I've come to view them as.

Caring is about maintaining the positive, aiming for an optimistic end point.

Worry, on the other hand, seems like a constant stream of pessimism, with a deep focus on all the possible negatives.

It's okay to be nervous, and it's okay to care.

All you need is a little bit of hope.

And leave the worrying to the doll under your pillow.

"I'm just as nervous as you

but last night I took one look at you

and I got the feeling you're the right one" - Plain White T's

Thought

It's common knowledge that I think too much.

What's worse is that I typically don't think about anything too productive.

If I put as much energy into thinking up a cure for world poverty as I do into deliberating pointless topics and scenarios that don't even affect me... well, we would be living in a land of plenty, to say the least.

The worst of all is that most of the time, I'm completely lacking of an original thought.

Sometimes it's as though my entire stream of consciousness is just a plagiaristic re-hash of my daily intake of mass media.

Even when I try to buck the trend and deviate from mainstream opinion, I find I'm just extending further someone else's left-wing argument.

Conforming to non-conformity, if you will.

This discovering is disappointing - to say the least.

It would appear to me that when making an argument, rationality tends to escape me.

I am a very passionate person. Whether I choose vivid or subtle means of expressing it, I find I'm always plagued with some excess of emotion.

And the thing I love about emotion is that no one can tell you that it's wrong.

Despite all concepts of rational thought, I don't believe anyone can ever tell you the correct way to 'feel'.

Hence, having such passionate and personal justification to an argument would render it unfalsifiable.

Which leaves you at an epistemological dead end; a stalemate.

I'm not afraid of being wrong; in fact, I've come to expect that most of the time.

I guess my passion has given me a sort of blind faith in my own ideas.

I don't see the point in pressing my arguments incessantly, if I believe them, and they make sense to me, then I am - for the most part - satisfied.

However, it's when my own thoughts are undermined, and I feel forced to back up my passion with logic...

Well, that's when I come to a typical conclusion of "thinking is over-rated".

Self-condemned, my heart is going to rule my head.

Every time.

"now it feels like I'm losing my mind, I used to think all the time

now thinking hurts, and feeling is worse

I liked reality better when it was a dream" - Bayside

Normativity

Disclaimer: gay rant ahead.

Lately I've been seeing, both in the media and in examples in my own life, of the ways in which homosexuals, and homosexuality, seem to be characterised as overtly sexual beings. As in, because we identify with a certain sexual minority, our lives must surely revolve around sex; having as much as possible, with as many different people as possible, simply because we can.

As though being gay is almost synonymous with promiscuity.

And sure, there are a lot of examples as to why this reasoning might be justified. Anyone who knows about the iPhone phenomenon of Grindr will know that this modern age has made finding 'fun' so much easier. In my opinion, it's almost too easy, taking - for want of a better word - the 'fun' out of it.

People seem to follow this train of thought:

- Men always want sex --> Gay men want sex with other men --> Gay men are constantly having sex with each other because they both want it, all the time.

Again, I can't deny this is sometimes the case. Keyword: sometimes.

I will admit (and I wouldn't be the first) that sex is fun. But promiscuity is certainly not something that defines homosexuality.

In much the same way, promiscuity is not something that escapes heterosexuality.

The point that I am slowly coming to is that, in the endless debate of 'gay marriage' (which I am actually not discussing in this blog), some queer parties have been accused of "subscribing to hetero-normative ways of life" in an attempt to gain approval.

Um, what?

Since when has monogamy been the exclusive domain of the straight couple?

I don't want to be straight; I just want to have the ability to have a loving, exclusive relationship with a man and, should I choose to do so, not be accused of being a sell out to hetero-normativity.

We joke about a female being 'a gay man trapped in a woman's body'; why can't we just accept the fact she's a highly promiscuous woman and be done with it?

I'm not saying gay people don't have lots of sex. I'm not saying they do either... well maybe I am, but it's not only gay people.

I know there are fundamental differences between the culture of sexualities.

What annoys me is that so many people fail to see some of the fundamental similarities.

To me, wanting a loving, monogamous relationship doesn't make me 'straight'.

It makes me human.

"Sure, in a lot of ways, I am just like you. I wanna be happy, I want some security, a little extra money in my pocket, but in many ways, my life is nothing like yours. Why should it be? Do we all have to have the same lives to have the same rights? I thought that diversity was what this country was all about. In the gay community, we have drag queens, leather daddies, trannies, and couples with children - every colour of the rainbow. My mother's standing way in the back with some friends. My friends. She once told me that people are like snowflakes; every one special and unique... and in the morning you have to shovel 'em off the driveway. But being different is what makes us all the same. It's what makes us family." - Michael Novotny, Queer As Folk

Temporary

I've often thought of change as a vicious, merciless entity that walks among us, forever subjecting us to its undeniable effects.

Usually I see it as a beast, something that charges in and, for the most part, wreaks havoc and destruction in my life.

I used to make peace with this and justify that logic by saying that when one door closes, another one opens, and that karma will come around and reward you for being patient.

I also get through it by knowing that no change is permanent; those changes will change, and the cycle will continue.

But what of those times when Change throws you a bone, and throws a random, positive twist in your life?

Of course, you don't sit around thinking 'why me?' in such cases, and philosophies over the possible meanings of what is happening.

You just go out and enjoy what you've been given.

Well, most people would, at least...

But my theory on change being a temporary thing, always shifting every which way, has turned upon me in the event of something good actually happening.

Suddenly I find myself nervous that my volatile and temperamental existence is just going to keep shifting, keep changing, and that newly found happiness will change and morph into something else, like water rolling off a ducks back.

Potentially, it could get better; however, optimism and I aren't really on the best of terms right now (hence this chronic anxiety-blogging)

But I've always been hopeful.

Sure, it's optimisms desperate cousin, but it's better than nothing.

So here's hoping change slows down a little, and let's me enjoy the hand it's dealt me.

"and please don't tell me that I'm dreaming,

when all I ever wanted was to dream another sunset with you" - Mayday Parade

Truth

As a collective, I think we're afraid of the truth.

There's something about total honesty that just seems so brutal that to most people it's unbearable.

How many times have you ever caught yourself saying: "I'd rather not know" ?

So many of us choose to live in ignorance, due to the presupposition that it equals bliss.

But how can you happily live in a world knowing that what you know isn't really knowledge; that it's just a lie, a big fucking fake?

Worse than the people who wilfully accept falsity over truth, are the people who consciously project these lies from their very person.

We all have a self-conception that we unsuccessfully fill, but most of us try to, to an extent, 'be ourselves'.

But I've had the misfortune of knowing quite a few people who actively lie and cheat as though it were normal.

I've come to the conclusion that my subconscious is punishing me by making me attracted to men who are complete and utter, for want of a better word, douche bags.

They are scum. They seem to be genuine people, and they're only doing whatever they're doing for their own enjoyment. You're just a plaything in their mind games.

I used to think I was a good judge of character.

I've since been advised by someone wiser that, in reality, you cannot judge someone's character at all. Or at least, not when you first meet.

First impression are probably the most unreliable thing to dissect in order to make judgements. That's because there are the scum that make up a majority of my dating history who can easily project onto the world what they want you to think they are, what they want the world to see.

In reality, they're just so much worse. And it all comes from the plain and simple truth that so many of us are afraid of... well, the truth.

"I'm a gentleman and you're a liar

I'll expect the best of you, but it's so hard" - A Day To Remember