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