Skin-Crawlers

The first thing we worry about before we leave the house to face the world is how we look. If we look in our bathrooms, there are probably a million appearance-enhancing cosmetics; shampoo, soap, hair gel, razor and so forth. And it's amazing what a blow is served up to our self-confidence when we don't feel we look our best. I know I'm definitely guilty of obsessing over the way I look, grooming and preening trying to look the best I can.

These days, the streets of Melbourne are full of men who look like they've just finished another day on a Vogue photo shoot. And sometimes if can feel like nobody wants to know you unless you look like that. But I think I can hold my own against these mannequins. For those who don't know what I look like, I am definitely not the model type. I don't have washboard abs and rock-hard pecs or the perfect trendy hair style or anything like that. But I'm slim, fashionable to a level commensurate with my income and, I think, attractive enough. So, aside from a few things I would change, I'm generally pretty comfortable with the way I look.

But we all get self-conscious sometimes. The solutions? Attention from complete strangers. Occasionally, when I shuffle through the Melbourne streets in my unobtrusive, space-economising gait, I've seen girls trail off in mid-conversation with their friends and turn their heads to follow my path of movement as I walk past. And once there was this guy at JB's phone section who, just as I walking past, rushed up to me and, with a big smile, asked me if I needed any help (I wasn't even heading in his direction!). Okay, maybe that's a little over the top but when something like that happens, it certainly is a huge confidence booster when you're feeling down.

As comforting as it is to know you're attractive to someone, sometimes the stranger doesn't always conduct themselves in a respectable manner. That's when we enter a grey area. At work, there is this courier who comes to my department every morning. He is probably in his 30s and speaks with a lisp at an almost falsetto pitch; very obviously gay. Of course, I have nothing against gay men, since I'm gay myself. But each time I see him, he jangles my nerves and I shudder involuntarily. What draws this visceral reaction from me? The first time I opened the door for him, he literally looked me up and down, licked his lips and proceeded to salivate profusely while not bothering to pick his jaw off the ground. He then wailed in his jarring high-pitched voice, "Oooohhh, helloooo!"

I feel extremely uncomfortable when subjected to his daily leers and jeers, his eyes scrutinising every minute detail of my body. I thought, "Okay, maybe I'm just being sensitive." After all, I'm not openly gay at work and maybe the presence of another gay man just heightens my paranoia of being outed. But even my friends at work have noticed his disgusting behaviour. If I'm not there when he arrives, he looks around the department, hoping to catch a glimpse of me. Now I have an agreement with my workmates that when the courier arrives, I run off and hide and they would open the door for him.

Unfortunately I may be the mark of something close to sexual harassment. The courier's behaviour isn't so lewd and extreme that it warrants reporting. But I feel like a boundary has been crossed here and it's enough to make me run and duck for cover. So it seems that my daily grooming and upkeeping habits has attracted some unsolicited attention. Nevertheless, I will keep making sure that I look my best. I will not let a perverted individual disrupt a ritual that imbues me with confidence and pride.

On Resilience

Life has ups and down but you don't need a watermelon to tell you that. The variety is a good thing I suppose. But sometimes when you're down, it can feel like the worst moments you've ever experienced. The thought of something so bad happening that it has a permanent, irreparable impact on my life is probably enough to send me into the rescue position with hyperventilating fits because time is something you can't take back. And when something can't be undone, that's something you have to live with for the rest of your life. So I walk around with this mentality where I won't allow myself to make the wrong decisions (even though I still make plenty of them) or do anything wrong in order to minimise any negative impact. Unfortunately, that means I'm extremely guarded and pessimistic. And when something does go wrong, it hits me very hard.

Just as a very facile and small-scale example, I was at work the other night and it was the worst shift I've had since I've been there. I won't go into the details of what I do and what exactly happened but basically, I could get into a lot of trouble if I don't get certain things done. But it was one of those days where absolutely everything that was out of my control went wrong. I knew that I was going to be the mark of some scathing and colourful linguistic missiles, which I really wasn't looking forward to. I was in a constant state of agitation and stress, anticipating the lions pouncing on me and ripping me to shreds. It was like waiting for a death sentence. Even though I really did everything could, lo and behold, towards the end of my shift, the missiles came flying and hit me square bulls-eye right between the eyes. It was, at that moment, the worst few hours I've ever experienced.

But when it was time to leave (and boy, was I happy to leave!), a question sprang to mind: despite having some of the worst few hours in my life, what lasting effect did it really have on me? It got me thinking that maybe sometimes we tend to exaggerate the significance of negative occurrences. That's not to say we do it intentionally to cause drama. While you're experiencing it, the bad times really do feel like you're free-falling down a dark hatchway towards your death. But it occurred to me that maybe people are unaware of the strength and resolve they have and utilise, perhaps subconsciously, to help them fight their way through tough times. Perhaps it's a survival, self-preservation instinct that kicks into action.

I know my example is a superficial and inane one to use to demonstrate the integrity of human resolution and tenacity. But he bottom line is it that humans are, by nature, strong, resilient and driven creatures. And maybe there aren't that many things that we can't get through.

Doppelganger

I think I'm pretty in tune with who I am. In fact, I think most people would say that they're pretty self-aware. After all, you grew up with yourself, experienced everything in your life with yourself and carefully measured and monitored your reaction to every stimuli life threw in your direction. So there is no one who knows you better than you. Now I'm not so arrogant that I won't accept some observations other people might have about me. But sometimes you get people who like to point out things about you that you feel is completely contrary to who you are and then say, "I think I know you better than you do." To me, that has to be one of my top 10 most irritating things anyone could say. But of course no one can ever claim to know everything about anything, including themselves. Nonetheless, each time a self-discovery is made, you can't help but be a little shocked.

Last night, I started chatting to this guy on msn. I had no idea who he was but apparently he's been on my contact list for a month now. We were talking about nothing in particular, just things like past relationships. Turns out he's bisexual. I don't understand bisexuality so I was interested and asked him questions about it. It was a pretty enlightening conversation. But eventually the topic turned to sex. I probably did meet him on a personals site after all. And most of the time, these guys are about sex. Usually, if a guy goes a bit blue on me, I just shut down and tell him I'm not interested in hooking up.

But it wasn't as if he was asking me to hook up with him or anything sleazy like that. We spoke about it as a discussion. I might not be into hooking up but I'm interested in how the whole process works. So he was telling me about how he chats to guys a few times and sees how it turns out. If they get along, then they meet up and take things from there. I never knew that that was how it works. I thought people talk and if there is mutual physical attraction, they meet up and get down to business. But it seems that the reality of hooking up is more like finding someone you can talk to and get along with as a friend with whom you just happen to have sex with. So maybe hooking up isn't the dirty, back-alley affair I envisioned it to be.

He felt he got along with me pretty well so he asked me about the prospect of meeting up with him. But instead of recoiling in horror, I found myself responding to his light innuendo with flirty and open quips. It was like I'd become this completely different person. I'm normally shy and reserved but here I was being witty and extroverted. The strange thing was I didn't even notice I'd taken on this strangely out-going persona until he said, "You don't seem shy to me." Maybe it was the rhythm of the conversation, my curiosity in the sexual habits of other people and the fact that it was an anonymous, online conversation but it was like I was possessed, like a second, darker and personality took over; a shadow slowly seeping in to insinuate its presence. I even thought this could be a possible sexual arrangement; a thought that is completely out of character for me.

Here was a stranger who knew nothing about me, whose approval or disapproval of me is completely inconsequential. Perhaps when there's nothing at stake and no limitations placed upon you, you are free to choose to be whoever you want to be. It seems we never really know the full extent of our capacities until we are put in an unfamiliar situation and certain traits and characteristics emerge to deal with the it. So the question for me is: was I acting when I flirted back or was that really part of who I am underneath all the shyness? I think I know the answer to that.

Houston, Do We Have A Problem?

I'm a painfully shy person when it comes to meeting new people. Unfortunately, that's going to cause all sorts of problems for me. I have only very few friends, all of whom are the best sort of friends anyone in this world could hope for, but nonetheless, very few in number. Just as a yardstick, I have about 20 or so people listed as friends on my Facebook account. Everyone else has at least 60. For most people, this scenario generally would be no cause for concern. After all, how many times have we heard stories of people who are surrounded by an entourage yet still feel achingly lonely? Quality over quantity, as the old adage goes. So from this perspective, I'm doing pretty well.

But the problem for me is that I'm a gay boy amidst a hoard of straighties. I don't feel ostracised or anything like that. I love my friends and, as far as I can tell, my friends love me too. But I can't help but feel none of my friends understand what it means to be a twisty. Of course, they don't think of me as gay so they don't behave as if there is this underlying factor that separates us. But it's hard for them to understand what it's like underneath to know you're different, that the world sees you a certain way. Maybe that's just me focusing on the differences but it's human nature to want to be among people that are like ourselves and be understood. I guess I feel a little out of place sometimes. But a greater concern is that I'll never have the opportunity to find true love if I dont venture out of my circle of (straight) comfort.

About three months ago, with loneliness in the heart and the computer at hand, I decided to sign up for one those personals sites, Gay Matchmaker. Skip three months to the present and nothing much has changed. I put myself out there but I'm still within my circle of comfort. I have not yet managed to make a single gay friend. I've gotten plenty of winks though (I'm hot apparently) but generally not from people who are looking for the same things I am. Sure, I chat to a few guys here and there but our intentions don't seem to coincide. I think I made my intentions pretty clear on my profile. I explicitly stated that I'm looking for people I can get along with on a purely platonic level and if things progress, then great. If not, then we've both gained another friend. So I assume that any wink was sent with the intention of making new friends too. Even with my clearly defined criteria, some ineligible people still apply, perhaps just to try their luck. I guess I should be flattered.

In any case, apart from being painfully shy, I have another factor working against me: I don't understand gay etiquette very well. You can't live a life surrounded by straighties and simultaneously be a social butterfly in the gay world. So I might've made a grievous mistake.

I've been talking to this guy. He winked at me once a long time ago but I rejected him because it looked to me like he just wanted to 'hook-up'. But we somehow got to swapping msn details and began chatting. As he and I chatted, I found him immediately engaging. He seems funny and friendly and complex. When I talk to him, it feels like talking to a real friend, as opposed to an online friend. And I find him endearing. He's like a nice guy who has a few underlying issues, which doesn't bother me. Who doesn't have issues? I once told him he has sad eyes and that seemed to have sent him through the roof. I didn't understand why. I thought his sad eyes looked nice. The point is, he seemed very human.

I thought to myself, "Hey, this is a really great guy that you could probably just hang out with, go to clubs with and explore the gay world with." In other words, a decent guy to be friends with. So I took what would seem like a small step to most but a giant leap to me: I gave him my phone number, not to 'hook up' or with the intention of a relationship or anything heavy like that, but just to talk or sms and see what happens from there. After all, there's only a certain distance online chatting can take you and my objective was to get to know real people, not digital words on a screen.

I don't really know what's going to happen from here. I've seen him online twice since but he didn't send me any messages on both occasions. And I'm a little ambivalent about sending him one. Maybe he thinks I came on too strong and is now running the other direction. Have I violated some rule in the book of gay etiquette? He knows I write this blog but he might not read it if giving him my number has caused problems. In any case, if he doesn't talk to me the next time I'm online, I guess I'm going to have to take another giant leap and be the one to initiate the dialogue.

Self-Discovery Blues

I wouldn't exactly call my life busy. I work part-time and study here and there, hang out with friends every now and then, nothing the average guy can't handle. That's me, just an average guy. In fact, I think my life is a little insipid so I tend to take things on just to give some variety to my day. For example, I read a tonne of books (my to-read pile is now taller than me), I'm an avid shopper (my credit card is heat-warped) and I play the piano, just to name a few things. And of course, I've started up this blog.

I'm a prospective medical student and assuming all goes well and I finally decide to stick to medicine (but that's a story for another blog entry), I think the way my mind works is very suitable to becoming a doctor. I've heard stories of medical school where your life is pretty much engulfed by it. You have to live it, breath it, dream it because there's such a huge volume of information that needs to become second nature. I know I definitely have the capacity to absorb all that information because I've always been the type that tends to focus on a unified subject and master it rather than having a scattered knowledge of disparate matters.

But aside from medicine, I'm also an avid music lover. Now when I say music, I mean pretty serious music: Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and so forth. And so it came to no surprise, to me at least, that when I first laid my hands down on those black and white keys at 19, they just made sense to me. So now I can the piano. The only problem with me is that I do everything instinctively. That's not always a good thing because there's no progressive development and honing of skills and technique. After 6 years of frustratingly clumsy finger work, I finally got around to attending my first piano lesson last week.

But to my horror, my piano teacher thought I was pretty good. She then gave me 5 eighth-grade level pieces to learn in a week. Now I know I'm alright at the piano but I'm nowhere near talented enough to learn 5 any-grade pieces in a week. So in my flurry of sudden musical obligation, I've been slaving away at the keys, trying to master the music the best I can. As a result, any attempts at writing a blog entry - and I do have a lot of things I want to write about - have been thwarted. Instead of thoughts of words and sentences, everything I want to say is transmuted into a mental slurry of treble clefs, key signatures and pedal indications.

Amidst my concerns about my retarded writing, it occurred to me that I just made an interesting self-discovery: I'm a uni-tasker. I've always dreamed of being a Renaissance man so it pains me deeply to admit it but I think that's what I am, a uni-tasker. Faced with such a devastating revelation, I lowered my head in shame and wallowed in the despair caused by my inability to multi-task.

But here I am writing an entry. It's not a great entry but the words started to come to me because I picked up my copy of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and lo and behold, the words are flowing, albeit stunted and clumsy. It seems that my mind is elastic: it tends to activate certain abilities according to what I'm focusing my attention on at a given moment. If I continue reading, maybe my mind will recognise that I'm in literature-mode and my writing will pick up again. And that's how I made the second interesting self-discovery: I'm adaptive. I'm cheerful again. I may not be able to do many things at once but I'm able to do many things given the right head-space. Now, I can lift my head up high and poignantly and romantically whisper to myself, "I'm capable. . ."

I'm sitting next to my piano as I write this. I'm a little scared to touch the keys because, having written this, I may have negated 3 days worth of work tortuously trying to elucidate the structural complexities of the two Beethoven sonatas I've been trying to master. I feel my fingers stumbling already.

BB & P'n'P

I've always been gay. Now I'm not going to make the argument that people are born gay or whatever. It's just a pure fact that I've never been attracted to girls. In any case, it took me a while to accept who I am. And in the process of doing so, I've slowly dipped my toes in gay culture to see what it's all about. I don't particularly adhere to the gay stereotype or go clubbing every week but I have learnt that the gay scene is this entire sub-culture, a world within itself with its own etiquette, rules and language.

Not being a scene-guy, all my friends are straight so my contact with the gay world has largely been in the form of visiting sites like Gay Matchmaker and the like. As I was perusing the profiles, I was bombarded with all these acronyms and terms that were like secret codes within an exclusive society. For example GWM means gay white man, Poz and Neg means HIV+/- guys respectively and I've learnt recently that BB means bareback and P'n'P means party and play.

For those who aren't gay, bareback means to have anal sex without protection and party and play means to get hammered on drugs and then screw your brains out. I've seen profiles on personals sites that say, "Looking for BB and P'n'P sessions." Excuse me for sounding like a prude but aren't those extremely dangerous activities? The gay community is plastered with advertisements that expound the importance of safe sex to reduce transmission of HIV and other STIs. Why are there guys out there willing to put their life on the line for a night of 'fun'? It's not just the health implications of STIs that scare me to death. I've read stories of lives completely ravaged by disease; people abandoned by their partners, people losing their career trajectories due to illness, living in poverty and squalor, relying on government and the AIDS Trust's assistance and the like. All of which could have been prevented by a little rubber device.

To me, partaking in such risky activities indicates an underlying self-destructive streak. The concept of the self-hating faggot isn't one too difficult to grasp. Our society doesn't look too kindly upon my kind. We are the subject of constant ridicule and subtle but pervasive attack. You only need to look at the commercial success shows like Queer Eye or movies like Chuck and Larry (with Adam Sandler) to see that we're seen as these ineffective, useless anomalies. And that's how society likes us. When put in this context, it begins to make sense.

But more destructive perhaps is that, living in a society built on Christian values, each generation is indoctrinated with homophobia. And stories of the internal conflict inside a kid who happens to be homosexual is all too common these days. A particularly painful childhood memory of mine is any argument between my brother and I would inevitably end with him invalidating my very being with the expletive 'fucking faggot cunt'. And God hates fags apparently. To this day, we don't talk. I did a lot of self-destructive things back in those days and I remember spending my teenage years lying in bed, wishing I would die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to spend another day as a faggot.

But I never understood how love between two people, regardless of being the same sex, is seen as a sin on par with murder. Or how discrimination, ridicule and violence against gay people is seen as acceptable or even laudible practices. And I still don't understand. Today, I'm a happy gay man because I refuse to accept this irrational doctrine. It's the world that's warped and twisted, not me. And I will not live by its standards.

Fortunately I learnt to shed my self-destructive streak in my teens. Otherwise, I could've been a guy that posts 'ISO BB and P'n'P sessions' on my profile. I hope the world will come to its senses and sees what it's preaching doesn't make any sense. In the meantime, I will continue to contribute to the AIDS Trust to help my gay brothers who were not as fortunate as me.

Lovelorn Blues

So anyway, I'm a single guy. And like other single guys I think, "Why on earth would anyone want to be chained to another person?" Now I'm not one of those guys that jumps aboard anything that comes my way. What I love is that I'm not accountable to anyone. Being single, as I see it, is a blessing and I certainly I cherish and enjoy it immensely. I see it as being wild and free to cavort in the bucolic spendour of Singledom, being able to sniff all the wild flowers and roll freely in the meadows like a child, laughing and breathing deep the liberating fresh air of my independence.

And enjoyed it I have, that is, until I look around and see what's happening around me. These days the people around me are pairing off one by one. What used to be weekly weekend outings have slowly become fortnightly then monthly then whenever they can be bothered. But more disconcerting than the waning companionship of friends is the fact that Singledom is beginning to lose it's sheen, the grass is becoming a little browner and the air a little dirtier. Now that I've had a glimpse of Coupledom, it seems the once pristine landscape of the Land of the Singles I once found so beautiful and arresting is starting to look a little barren and lifeless because in the Land, there is no other soul except me.

I have two very close friends who happen to be a couple and from what I can see from their relationship, you have to explain every detail of any plans that doesn't involve the other party, justify money spent on a spree, be home at a certain time, worry if the other has eaten dinner, things like that. Okay, so it doesn't exactly sound like a horror story but it would certainly be a huge adjustment to have to accomodate the presence, habits and personality of a separate entity in your life. Why would anyone put themselves through that?

But I also see that they have someone to kiss whenever they want, someone to mull over thoughts and ideas with, someone to hold when it's cold, little romantic things like that (which I'm a complete sucker for). A wise friend once told me that the ultimate human truth is that we all seek to be understood. Romantic gestures aside, perhaps a relationship offers the means to be understood at such a deep and penetrating level that isn't possible with any other kind of human interaction. Maybe that's why I'm ovecome with this aching melancholic loneliness when I see my coupled-off friends hold hands then argue then hold hands again. They have another person who accepts their flaws and bad habits but also basks in their presence. In other words, someone to understand them. I'm starting to believe that wise friend of mine.

As with all things in life, we have to take the good with the bad. It's all about balance. But I'm starting to feel that the good in having a relationship tips the scale so far that it render the effects of the bad negligible. Do I have an all-too romantic view on the whole concept? Probably. In any case, it's time for me to log into Gay Matchmaker.