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