One

So the gay Internet world of Sydney has been up in arms about monogamy over the past few days.
It's a common theme in a lot of my blogs, and all the reading I've been doing has moved me to add my two cents into the plethora of opinions.
Keeping in mind this is just an opinion: more my views rather than a claim of what it right or real.

There seems to me like there are a lot of people who construct a binary of promiscuous/monogamous, and if you're not one then you're automatically the other.
Either that, or you just don't get a whole lot of action.
(I might just add that when I say "people", I'm pretty much referring to comments that I have seen on Facebook threads when people have made statuses or written articles about this topic.)
But one thing that has really irked me is the idea that some people think that people who "criticise monogamy" (read: don't blindly preach it as the only good type of relationship) don't have the capacity to effectively do so, because they have their own "experiences" that may have shaped or altered the way they view monogamy.

You know what? Fuck it, I will just copy the comment here, I can't recreate its stupidity in my own words:

"I have not found many critics of monogamy who did not also happen to be incapable of it, or have a sexual history that may make it very difficult for them to be happy in it. In either case, their judgment is affected by their choices. Same goes for those who find such joy, peace, and love in faithful monogamy."

Firstly, to deem someone incapable of monogamy is highly insulting.
To assume that people are unable to remain faithful or committed to a person - based on what, a few failed attempts? - is kind of appalling.

And I'll basically put it out there and say that it offends me so much is because I am one of those people.

If you're no stranger to my blog, you'll know that I often complain about failed relationships and how it just "didn't work" for me.
To say that I am incapable of monogamy, however, would be wrong. In most of my relationships I have remained completely faithful and committed.
It just so happened that more often than not I found myself not happy with the situation I was in, and I terminated the relationship, in one way or another.

Yes, I've had sex with people in between these relationships, fully aware that I am not going to pursue a relationship with that person.
However, I treat all my sexual partners with the utmost respect and courtesy, whether they are a boyfriend of months, a close friend I may have known for a while, or even a guy I met in the club that night.
In all these situations, I still think there is some kind of "connection". The depth and intimacy of these connections obviously vary greatly depending on the situation, but I rarely choose to have such experiences that are completely devoid of meaning or connection on some level.
Tell me, would you rather have a fun and playful one night stand with a guy who can still treat you relatively like a gentleman, or be in a monogamous relationship where your partner beats you every other day? Or holds you in an abusive state of mental anguish?

I am often judged for leading a non-monogamous lifestyle. It's not necessarily promiscuous though - it merely means there is no one single person who I have made myself exclusive to.
However, I had a very close friend say to me one time "You know, judging from your moral values, no one would ever guess you were such a slut."
The comment was meant with love, considering I have been sexually intimiate with said friend, but I was a little taken aback that simply being open and honest about my desires and expectations around sex automatically branded me a "slut".
Of course, there's no objective definition of the word, and I've often reclaimed the term in an attempt to diminish its power as a derogatory term.
I am far from conservative, and I refuse to be told that having an open mind and attitude regarding sex means that I am incapable of being monogamous, now or at any time in the future. 

It's kind of late and I'm getting tired and I feel like I'm running around in circles and not making any clear points - this is a blog after all, not a published article.

My main point is that promiscuity or non-monogamy doesn't make you a bad person, and monogamy doesn't necessarily make you a good person.
I know people in monogamous relationships with terrible self-esteem and issues about their own self-worth.
I'm a confident, single man who knows how to safely and respectfully negotiate my way around a sex life that involves more than two people. I don't do it because I think it's the only way to get guys or any bullshit issues like that. I don't do it out of self-loathing. I don't even do it out of pure hedonistic indulgence.
For one thing, I think forced celibacy (note: that doesn't include asexuality) is kind of unnatural - or to be more politically correct, I just think sex is completely natural - and while I have not found a person with which I have all of the emotional, sexual and romantic connections and whom I would like to commit to and maybe build a life with together, and all that heteronormative jazz that usually (but not always) comes with monogamy, I see no logical reason to completely deprive myself of sex.
When the time comes, I'll be ready, and I'll know.

The time may never come, but that's just life.

This is my personal view and experience. I cannot claim that all non-monogamous homosexual men view their situation this way.
But I see no reason why my experience is any less valid than the next man.
So next time you call a guy a slut for taking home a one night stand, just stop, and realise that you really have no idea what his motives are, or what is going on inside his head.

Or, in a serial monogamist train of thought: get to know them a little better before making any rash judgements or decisions. 

Reflection on 2012

So the end of another year is upon us.
I know it's pretty lame, but I found reflecting upon my year last year was incredibly enlightening.
Because when you actually go back and think about it, you remember all the little things, all the big things, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And it becomes quite apparent just how much can happen in a year.

One milestone of 2012 is that I managed to hold down a casual job for an entire year. Considering my previous record had been no more than a couple of months, I consider it quite an achievement.

But then again, the stories one can tell from their shifts in a fetish store make for some hilarious conversations and interesting ice-breakers at parties.

And the weekend hours suited a partying lifestyle that it almost seemed too convenient. It was as though the job was encouraging me to spend each weekly pay cheque on booze.

And spend it on booze I did.
2012 was a year of 21st birthdays for me, including my own birthday. It meant a lot of reunions and catch ups, seeing friends from high school and other friends who I hadn't seen in a long time.
And it also meant getting together a lot more often with all of my new friends. My own birthday in particular saw the culmination of the last several years of my life, friends from different circles, in all walks of life, coming together to help me celebrate. The highlight of my birthday, however, was definitely taking my mother and my two aunties to my local haunt and stocking them up on cocktails. If you had told me a few months ago that I would have been dancing on top of a podium in the middle of a gay bar with my heavily intoxicated mother... well, knowing her, I might have just believed you.
But I was able to experience it for myself! It certainly made for a memorable night, and in a way it really made this year feel like the closing of a final chapter of my adolescence, and the beginning of the rest of my life. 

I also graduated from university - something I knew that I always could, and would, do. Though I just never really thought it was going to happen so suddenly. One moment I was tearing my hair out over sample sizes and sociological methodology, the next minute I'm handing in final assessments and trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do now.
I went to university to find myself a little more, to discover a passion, and hopefully find some kind of professional direction.
While that hasn't panned out exactly how I thought it may, I'm not too concerned. I met an amazing bunch of people during my three years and university, and I know that some of these people will be the friends that I wil have forever, reminiscing as old folks about the way we skipped tutorials to drink and Manning, or how we were consistently late to lectures because getting your morning coffee seemed that much more important, or even mixing up our dictionary definitions and saying something slightly blasphemous of the student radio station.
I've had an amazing time at university, and while I'm so glad that I've done it, I'm also very glad to be finished with it. I think it's given me a lot more ideas about my life and the world around me, and I've definitely grown and matured as a person.
And I swear I'll get a job out of it in the end, somehow. 

And so after all that, there's my relationships...
Never a strong point of mine, I realised that much like my 2011, I had 3 major relationships in 2012.
All three of them were men who were significantly older than myself - nothing "old enough to be your father" creepy, but there was at least a decade difference between them.
I used to be a little embarrassed about it, as though people would always be judging the age gap.
And while I'm not wrong - plenty of people did, and still do, comment on the age of all these boyfriends - I myself came to realise it wasn't a big deal.
Sure, none of them worked out. Each time, in the end it came down to myself not wanting, or not being ready for, a relationship. It took a few times for that to really sink into my head, but I think I finally figured it out.
I don't regret anything though. I had beautiful relationships will all three of them, and the fact that they were all a little older meant that I learnt so much from them. I learnt about people, about life, and they even taught me a lot about myself. I don't want to clump them all into a single learning experience - rather, each one was so particularly special and unique to me that I'm not going to go too into detail about them.
But you men know who you are, and I''ll always love you for coming into my life and changing it the way you have.

I don't have any profound advice or worldly knowledge that I've gained during this year. It was a finale of sorts, the closing of a chapter. There were peak climaxes during the middle, but almost everything in life has resolved itself out.

Therefore, 2013 is set to be the beginning of not only a new chapter in my story, but a whole new volume, the next book in the series of my life.
It's going to be the year that I travel and the year that I see the world. I've already begun the plans for my round the world adventure, and soon I'll be leaving Sydney for an indefinite amount of time.
I might be home for Christmas, but if this year has taught me one thing, its that things rarely go according to plan.
And that's okay. Take life as it comes, roll with the punches, and you never know what's going to be around the corner.

Okay, enough of that. Let's get drunk.


"I don't wanna go to sleep
I wanna stay up all night
I wanna just screw around
I don't wanna think about
what's gonna be after this
I wanna just live right now" - Ke$Ha, C'mon

Beginnings

The topic of this blog is a reader request: trust me, I'm just as surprised as you are...

I have a love-hate relationship with relationships.
Ask any one of my close friends (please don't) and they will tell you that I fall hard, fast and deep, loving intimately and passionately, with a relatively high turnover rate. 

Maybe it's all the Taylor Swift I listen to. I don't know, whatever.

As you will know if you've read my previous blogs, I love being single and the freedom that comes with it. 

I really do.
You get those people who are like "I'm a strong independent woman and I don't need a man to complete me", and then they go home and cry themselves to sleep with Adele's "21" and their nineteen cats. Almost as though the societal discourse that tells us we need a relationship to be happy has warped and evolved and turned itself inside out to tell people that you have to actively display just how totally okay you are with not being in a relationship, even if you're not okay?
Yeah I think I went too far with that one. But the point is, I am usually quite genuinely happy to not be in a relationship.

Despite this, I find myself more often than not in a stage of 'between boyfriends', never really single for long (a la Fergie in that awful track Clumsy, for those with a penchant for bad pop).
I honestly try to avoid it, but something always pulls me in. 

It's those butterflies you get when you make eyes across the room and you instantly want to know whats going on behind those big brown eyes.

It's the chill you get when he his skin brushes against yours for the first time, and despite not knowing him that well you feel like he's gotten under your skin and memorised you from the inside out. 

We're only human, and these simple little human pleasures are what really get under my skin, in the best way. 

I wasn't looking for it. I know its a hideous cliche but love stumbles over and sucks your face off in the middle the Midnight Shift when you really least expect it.
As soon as you really stop looking for love and learn to be happy, that's when it finds you.

Which is actually really cruel and ironic of the universe but just roll with it for now, okay?

And despite repeatedly telling myself that I do not want a boyfriend, I gave him my number and I took the offer for a date.
The nervousness of whether he'll find you interesting or funny when you're sober, the relief when he thinks it's cute when you stumble over your one pre-planned joke and he laughs anyway, the simultaneous relief and excitement when you discover some common mutual interests and you breeze through an hour of conversation like it was nothing.

It's the little things, things that don't make a relationship, but more of an intense, heart throbbing crush. When he walks you home and kisses you by the front door before bidding you goodnight (or rolls over in the morning and kisses you on the forehead before slipping out of bed because he's late for work - I don't judge), and your heart expands while your head contracts and you just feel as though you've turned over every new leaf in the middle of Autumn to find that the ground you once stood on has changed completely. 

It's a certain kind of magic that exists between two people, and with enough energy and enough belief, it's truly a spark that will never go out. 

That's the rush that I live for. 

But as is always the case, life has other plans. 

Sparks can live forever but it doesn't mean it's going to keep two people together.
And now I find myself on the other side, spark still lingering, but my head coming back down to the atmosphere and acknowledging that I just wrote the final sentence in my latest chapter. 

I knew it was coming the moment I laid eyes on him, the moment I laid my hands on him, and the moment I just laid with him.
But I'll regret nothing. 

Whether is burns forever or eventually fades, those who are lucky enough to have experienced real love should never, ever regret it.
And as my life continues on, and I strive to make it out of the 'between boyfriends' zone and land safely into 'single', I feel lucky to have had these incredible beginnings with incredible people.
And one day in the future, I might even have them again. 

"isn't this the best part of breaking up?
finding someone else you can't get enough of" - Liz Phair

"and on a Wednesday, in a cafe, I watched it begin again" - Taylor Swift 

See

I hate the question, 'What do you see in him, anyway?'

I mean it in the most obvious context.
You're head over heels for someone, or at the very least have a little bit of a crush, but the other person you're talking to - your best friend, your therapist, your mother - simply doesn't understand.
They don't see the attraction, or maybe they can't see you working together, or maybe they just thought they had you figured out, and knew your "type", and you're just throwing a spanner in the gears.

Sometimes I think I have a type - I feel like I go for the bad boys who eventually screw me over, because I get bored with the "nice guys".
Yes, I'm one of those people.
But other times it's not that simple.

So some people have check lists; ideal qualities they'd want in a lover.
It can be material things - body shape or size, approximate salary and career/lifestyle, age range.
It can be more personal things - vital common interests, attitudes about certain issues, etc.
You know what I mean; the recipe for concocting the "perfect man".

So people ask you what you see in him - as though, slowly but surely, you could sift through man himself, cast aside the pulp, boy-bits and semen, and look at your near complete checklist of things that you find attractive in a partner.
Why does it have to be like that?

Why treat love like a logical, rational procedure of selecting the most suitable candidate?
Maybe I'm a little jaded because most of my friends have told me that every single one of my boyfriends have never been completely right for me, and time after time, my friends have always proved to be right.
But it's because I don't see anything in them. I just see them.

Those feelings that make someone so appealing, but you can't for the life of you explain why.
When other people see you together and think you're both completely crazy, yet when you're with them everything just feels to insanely good.
Where you can pick just as many things that you hate about that person as you can things that you love about them, yet they don't appear to you as a process of elimination, a competition of pros and cons or a seemingly boyfriend of best value.
You don't want any particular thing about them - you just want them.

I didn't see anything in him.
I just saw him. I just wanted him.
Whether I get him or whether I don't, whether I'll keep him or whether I won't - it's all pretty arbitrary anyway because there's really no way to control it.

All I know is that love isn't logical.
So don't ask me what I want, and for the love of God, please don't ask me 'why?'

'you're the finest thing that I've done
the hurricane I'll never outrun
I could wait around for the dust to still
but I don't believe that it ever will' - The Hush Sound

Perspective

I've always considered my personality to be pretty malleable, adaptable.
My spirit animal is probably a chameleon - I can take the viewpoints and opinions of the people around me and make sense of them, understand them. Well, to an extent.
I use to hate this, because I thought it made me somewhat less of a person. It was like I didn't really have any views of my own and I seemed to be so easily swayed by whatever the people around me had been propagating and arguing.
Now, I guess it's changed. I'm still finding my place in the world, but I feel as though I've listened to enough, and learned enough, to articulate my own views in the context of others, and not be spoon-fed everything by my surroundings. Critical thinking, if you will (I had to get something out of an Arts degree). I found my perspective on the world, finally.
But having the malleable intellect that I do, even that was subject to change.

I've probably written about monogamy before.
I don't know what I said, but I can almost guarantee it's different from what I'm about to say.

Over the past couple of years I've had a lot of lovers, and a handful of partners who were more than just crossing specks of dust, or ships passing in the night.
We got together and moved forward together in the same direction. And I learnt a lot in all the time I spent with them. Yet the inevitable fact is that we, as two specks of dust, separated and continued on our own journeys.
I used to be so wrapped up in the happy ending fairytale, finding the right guy, falling in love. You've seen Disney movies, you know what I'm talking about.
God knows, I tried.
I really did.

I had guys love but ultimately get bored and leave me. I had moments where I drunkenly fucked up and made some bad decisions and said some bad things that pretty much rendered relationships void. I've had people who I couldn't be with any more due to geographic undesirability. But perhaps the worst of all was when, after all the mishaps, I was in a great, committed, happy relationship... except I wasn't happy.
It had nothing to do with the guy - he was probably one of the sweetest guys I've ever dated, and that's what makes it so hard. Why did being with him feel so wrong?

After much contemplation and deliberation and wondering if it was all a mistake, the answer hit me.
I don't need - no, I don't want a relationship.
Human company is something that I enjoy, and necessary throughout my life. But I don't find that level of intimacy essential.
I love my friends, and there's people I can turn to for sexual intimacy if I so desire, without having complications or commitments that I feel, to an extent, restrict my independence.
I felt like I was losing myself in relationships as much as the conversations I had on a daily basis, and now that I've finally found myself, I'm starting to think that maybe it was never my place to be in a relationship in the first place.
I guess this relates back to monogamy purely on the basis that I don't think there's any one person I really want to confine myself and completely share myself, and inevitably lose myself in, just yet.
And I don't think that's a bad thing.

More than ever with marriage equality rights debates, it seems now everyone is bombarded with the fantasy of a happily ever after, when in reality it doesn't have to be like that. I mean, I'm still perfectly happy. Maybe one day I'll find someone, but that doesn't have to be the conclusion to my story.
The cynical streak in me would go a little further to say that none of us are really fit for the happily ever after - it's not natural, and the people who've found it are just delusional.

But I won't - if you found love in this hopeless place, then good for you, I'm happy for you.

Though for the rest of you - don't feel pressured to live your life the way society says you have to. Most importantly, don't let your happiness depend on the lie that there is one single person out there that is going to make you happy, and that you have to find them.




"I'm gonna overcome this, paper hearts can't win this time
and all along I should have known this wasn't your dream, it was mine" - Firewater, Yellowcard


"And what would be practical, Theodore? To get married? And move to the suburbs, and become a home loving, child raising, God fearing imitation heterosexual? And for what? So that I can become another dead soul going to the mall and dropping off my kids at school and having barbecues in the back yard? That's their death, not mine. I'm a cock sucker. I'm a queer. And to anyone who takes pity, or offence, I say 'Judge yourself.' This is where I live. This is who I am." - Brian Kinney, Queer as Folk

Pairs

I'm going to vent a little bit about something that I've been noticing a lot recently.
It's going to be a very whiney, pathetic blog consisting of first world problems, so if you're not really in the mood for that, then this is your final warning: close this window now.

If you're still here, you're either really sadistic, or just as lonely as I am.

Lately in my life, I can't help but notice how everyone is pairing up, and relationships are just becoming so common place that it's almost deemed weird to be single.
And especially weird to enjoy being single.

In every movie, book, social situation, there always seems to be the ostracism or 'othering' of the single person.

And the happy ending, the resolution to all the fucked up shit that happens, etc., is when they meet the love their life and everything is dandy forever and ever.

Peachy. Fucking. Keen.

But it's not like that.

You know it, I know it, love doesn't always come along and smack you in the face, saying "Cheer up buddy, I'm here to save the day!"
Sure, sometimes it does sneak up on you unexpectedly, but for me that usually ends up with me being bowled over and flattened, my feelings and organs being smushed into the ground, like a slightly less agile cousin of Indiana Jones who just couldn't keep ahead of those giant rolling boulders.

I had something pretty good going on towards the end of last year.
But I had to give it up, involuntarily, and I was left without the raging range of motions that I usually go through when I'm getting over someone (if you've ever heard my music, you'd know I'm really just a bitter old bitch).
I guess you could say I was still in a phase, and I power dated (yet I use the term 'date' loosely) through a bunch of guys. None of them really held my interest for long, and the couple that did either didn't reciprocate it, or just fooled around with me and fucked me over (big surprise, I know!).

I've always been an advocate of the "Love finds you as soon as you stop looking for it" theory, so I acknowledge that it would be nice to find a great guy and be in a wholesome relationship, but I try not to let it bother me that I haven't and that I'm not.

So I just try to put it out of my mind.
"Don't think about it, when you stop thinking about it, you just open yourself up more to the possibilities of meeting someone."

And yes, I would totally do that... if I wasn't constantly reminded of these romances and relationships in nearly every single waking minute of every day of my life.

All around me I see couples; old, young, recent, passing their golden anniversary - and everyone just looks so damn happy.

Which is fine - I am absolutely happy for them.

But it kinda puts a burden/air of retardation on a guy like me who's longest relationship has been the better part of two months.

I'm at the point where I want to stop thinking about it, I want to get on with my life as a single person, and start enjoying it. I used to love being single! The freedom, the fun, the independence!

But such is the saturation that I can't not think about it.

It makes me think about the gay rights movement, and all the rights of relationship recognition that we fight for, and at the end of it, everyone seems to go, "Well, we've almost got gay marriage legalised - now I just need to find a man to marry!"

I'm well aware the the principle of gay marriage is about ending legislative discrimination and stopping homosexuals from being classed and second class citizens, regardless of whether you want to get married or not.

But when it is legalised, well... I won't be off the hook of the expectations that most parents (and most of society, at that) have, of their kids growing up, getting married, settling down and giving them grandkids.

Which is all well and good. I honestly have nothing against that.
I just wish I had something else to take my mind off it.

"I'm gonna ask you to stop,

thought I liked you a lot but I'm really upset

so get out of my head,

get off of my bed, yeah that's what I said" - Avril Lavigne, Don't Tell Me

Body

So I joined a gym a couple of weeks ago.

It had been a long time since I had any kind of regular exercise routine, and while I wasn't overweight or particularly unhealthy, I thought it would be a reasonable idea to take some proactive measures towards increasing my fitness.

Because I do enjoy a good workout.

I love the feeling of the endorphines after a good long run, and the burn in your calves and quads as you stretch out to touch your toes.

I've been going to a lot of the scheduled classes, developing a still sporadic kind of routine throughout my holidays, but today I had a free consultation and assessment with one of the gyms personal trainers, that was complimentary with my membership.

He looked at the answers from my lifestyle survey, and measured my fat in twelve key locations on my body.

Now, I know I'm no body builder, but I've always thought that I've had a pretty good body and a decent level of health, considering the some of my extra-curricular activities.

Yes, I probably drink more alcohol than is considered healthy, but if I thought it was affecting my body extremely adversely, I would stop.

After my assessment, I was told that I had 20% body fat, the "optimum level" being 10%.

By this personal trainers standards, my chest was classified as "man boobs" (direct quote), and my situation, for a 20-year-old, was "not good".

As I said, I know I'm not the picture of perfection when it comes to healthy living. I don't know what I was expecting from the session, but it wasn't to be torn down and have my self-esteem eroded away along with my "man boobs".

I left the consultation feeling miserable, like all good intentions for simply being healthy were naive and worthless if I didn't have the sculpted body to prove it.
Which I could have, with some drastic changes and sacrifies... and for $50 of his time each session (fat chance, pardon the pun).

Someone came into my life recently and mentioned something in general conversation which I actually found quite profound.

He said: "I find that a lot of the good looking guys can be particularly rude or nasty. Especially models. These models, they become very insecure, because they're constantly being told that they're not good enough, that they have to look better. It's a very harsh world, and they develop these bitchy defence mechanisms to cope."
Or something along those lines.

And knowing a couple of models, it was an argument that hit pretty close to home (and made me wonder why on earth I'd ever considered pursuing it).
But today, at the gym, it did more than that. It was a nuclear bomb that just demolished everything that I thought I knew about esteem and confidence.

It's a problem that I find rife in the gay community. There's a reason the gym was coined 'gay Church' in Will & Grace. 'Gym bunny' is a common sub-stereotype, and we lust and idolise over the buff men that dance in our bars (and on them, for that matter).

The world is finally starting to realise that the muscly hunks on the cover of fitness/gay magazines are having just as much adverse effects on guys as the wafer thing women on fashion magazines are having on teenage girls.

"You're not perfect until you have the body to go with it" was the personal motto/gym inspiration of one of my friends. Personally I thought his body was fine, but I guess I must have left my gay culture lenses at home that day.
Or maybe people aren't satisfied with being "fine" these days.
Which is legitimate, I suppose. But I've lost relationships/friends to people who were just so obsessed with the gym, that they wouldn't eat out, or splurge every now and then, all because they were so set on getting or maintaining their 10% body fat.

It's sad that people need to have that "perfect body" in order to feel confident.

Sure, some people are overweight, and exercising and losing weight to have a more average sized body is a good thing for them.

It's just this near unobtainable idea of perfection that makes me a little sick in the stomach.

I'm not going to stop going to the gym, as demotivating as today was for me.

I'm going to sweat my ass off going yoga, Pilates, Zumba, whatever. I'll lift a few weights every now and then.

But I don't need a personal trainer telling me what to do, what to eat, and how to live my life.

For me, confidence isn't the biggest set of pecs, or a chiseled abdomen.

Confidence is eating that block of chocolate, or that KFC Ultimate Burger meal, or shit loads of carbs in a bowl of pasta after 6pm, and still being able to say "I am happy with how I look, and how I feel."

Even if it means feeling the burn after an hour on the treadmill the next day.
I want to be healthy, but I refuse to let the quest of having the 'ideal' body get in the way of me enjoying my life.

"but if you can't look inside you,
find out who am I to

be in a position to make me feel so damn unpretty" - TLC