Reservations For One

As I nursed the hot chocolate he had placed in front of me, and after we had talked about the small random things, generally just to get them out of the way before we talked about the real things we wanted to talk about. Questions like 'How is work? How is your Mother? How are the family', followed by empty sentiments like 'Tell them I said hi' or even worse making plans to see them, that will never be followed through. He has something more important to tell me, to share with me and to get my opinion on. 

'I went to the cinema on my own' my friend Ben exclaims as if he has just told me a dark secret. I am half expecting at any moment for him to look around to make sure we aren't being watched and then sliding an envelope over to my side of the table, which will contain further instructions and a map. 

I am proud of this development of his, there has been many times when I have recommended he try certain things and challenge himself. There are certain things I have no aversion to and doing things normally regarding as social activities, all by myself. I have often gone to see movies without the accompaniment of a friend and I have and prefer eating alone in restaurants. I love to read and eat at the same time, so it works out perfectly for me. A couple of years ago, I set myself a challenge to go out alone, and I chickened out more than once, it took the intervention of a friend to finally force me to answer that challenge, when I was invited out and then abandoned within a few minutes, followed by an encouraging text message - telling me I could do it. It was a perfectly fine evening and although I got talking to many different people, it didn't feel right. Going out, drinking and socialising is just something that I enjoy doing more with friends. But before then, I never would have walked into a club or a bar without knowing there was someone in there I already knew, now I can easily relax in a bar with a drink and wait for friends without feeling self conscious. 

So I was proud of my friend Ben, who is socially introverted and relies on the company he keeps to partake in social activities. It was this conversation that got me thinking about how I should spend Christmas this year. Possibly alone. 

The simple truth is, I would like to spend Christmas this year with the people I love, my Mother and my siblings. However I can't get enough time off work to make it home this year, with just two days off for the Christmas period. My brother is also away this year, his working keeping him in New Zealand for the foreseeable future and being so far away at such a special time, I know he is feeling very homesick. We have made plans to Skype each other on Christmas day, and depending on if he has any plans with his friends or not, I have suggested that I cook something and put in the microwave, and when he is ready to eat, we can eat together over Skype and open the presents we sent each other. 

That still leaves me with the day time, to fill and make plans for. I have been welcomed around to several different places for Christmas day and I know these offers have been made with sincere intentions. But I don't want to intrude on anyones day and I also don't want to feel awkward being around people I don't know that well. Christmas traditions can be special and private and to be honest, the whole thing seems like too much pressure.  My roommate has suggested that we cook in our flat and have some drinks, should he decide to stay in the city for the Christmas period, something which I am more open to doing. 

But I have also given consideration to what I would do, if I was to spend my first Christmas alone. What kind of humor would it put me in. In my head, I am watching Christmas movies on my couch, eating too much and feeling very much relaxed. But if I was to make that commitment to myself, could I do it? Last year, I had a perfect Christmas, spent the day with my family, evening with friends and then I spent the night alone, watching movies and dozing on the couch and I very much liked spending the time by myself. But I had the right mix of company and me time. 

Can I do it? Spend Christmas alone. I guess we will see.

The Art Of Making New Friends

Saturday afternoon, in a break from my usual routine, of doing not very much. I found myself in the city centre apartment, which belongs to my friend and in between beers and songs we talked about friends and in particular, friendship.

I think, although he hasn't said it that having just come out of a relationship, he has come to realise that the friends he didn't keep up with in the years he spent with his boyfriend have moved on and that friends he and his ex boyfriend shared have picked their side. As we sat on his floor, listening to music and making small talk, he made the exclamation that he would like some 'new friends'. He is not a new person in my life, in fact I have known him for many years but we have never really moved from acquaintance, into good friends. We have many things in common, so there was no reason why we shouldn't be closer, it just never seemed to happen. So that is how I found myself sitting on his floor and going through his CD collection. I was consciously making more effort. I have a great close knit group of friends, a core group and our lives are very much intertwined but sometimes, you do need a break, someone who is just yours, so you can talk about all the crazy stuff you do, that you don't want your core group to know. I met Jay many years ago at a party and we have stayed in contact over the years, through Facebook comments and likes, as I said we have many things in common, so in my quest to make a new friend, I thought to myself, who better than Jay.

So when he made that statement, whilst sipping on his beer, It hadn't occurred to me that he might be looking for the exact same thing. As I made my way home in the evening, it got me thinking.

I was lucky as a child, to have a best friend growing up. With just 2 months between our births, he was always there, we were always friends, stories like, we shared a playpen and a pram have done the rounds in both our families and I had my brother, I have never really struggled to make friends or keep them and there are just two occasions in my life so far, when I have felt like I had no one. I had a solid group of friends in high school but when school finished, I wasn't really prepared for how quickly that group would just disappear. Almost overnight, I found myself without buddies, even my brother moved away at this time, so there was this year in my life, when I had no friends and no real idea on how to make any.

One of the lasting lingering feelings from that time was coming to the harsh conclusion that I was so very uncool. There may have been some situations, in my over eagerness to have a friend, that I might have been pushy or needy whenever (Rarely...!) I was invited to social situations. Which tended to be work parties.

So it goes like this, you have a cool work friend, who tells you about all the fun stuff they do in the weekends and you listen and you smile and you laugh at the right places but really you are dying a little bit inside and they utter those immortal words like 'You should come next time' and then they flutter away, whilst you stand there not able to say a word and you don't sleep for days because you just can't tell if they were being sincere or not. Turns out they weren't.

 But it is a feeling that has stayed with me over the years, not having anyone to talk too, about family and life stuff at the time was very difficult and I have been fortunate enough to never having had to experience it again. Even if I didn't have someone to talk about scary life stuff with, what I missed the most was just hanging out, escaping the drudgery of of my daily routine every now and then.

When I moved to Manchester for the first time, I was aware that I was putting myself out there again and for a couple of months, I found myself right back to that insecure place and I was relying on my brother and his boyfriend for my social respite, whilst at the same time living with them. When I tried again a few months later, I had the support of two of my best friends, so when I started working in the city, I quickly made some new friends, who just happened to be the greatest people I had ever met.

That is always the way, whenever you already have something, you have it in abundance but when you need it or want. Tumbleweed. It can by a very tricky mine field, sometimes more precarious than dating. Finding a good friend, that you can trust, rely on and confide in, is far more subtle and understated than finding love. With dating, its out there, both parties are aware of the intentions, with finding a new friend, its hard to decipher the subtle hints of friendship and at what point do you confide in or invite to social occasions and more importantly let them see you at your worst. Plus, you have to figure out what kind of relationship it is. Work friends, acquaintances, best friends, friends of friends, buddies, chums. But really, its not quantity, it is quality. If you have even one person, you can rejoice with, love, laugh and cry with, inconvenience and annoy, spend hours and hours with doing absolutely nothing and calling it the time of your lives. Then count yourself fortunate.

Friendship can be the most important relationship you ever have, people forget how complicated it can be or how beneficial to us for our survival, as a person and a race.

Bright Lights

There is nothing remarkable, in fact all across the country there are people doing the exact same thing, in locations just like this one. But I can't imagine anyone of them are feeling exactly the same way I am. I am riding such a high, its not just narcotics - it feels almost visceral and as I move to this beat. I know I am exactly where I need to be.

I am surrounded by people that love me, people I love, fellow revellers and people who don't know me and I feel epic, so much in unison that simple looks convey an entire conversation in just seconds. Adjectives like amazing and fantastic are exchanged with glances and smiles, not words. Bodies are moving, individual and unique all of them, they move in unison to a familiar beat, jam or melody.

My friends are all around me, touches to show how we love each other, hugs to celebrate those bonds. He is there and his attention is not on me and I don't care because to me, in that moment everything is about riding out this wave of fantastical arrogance. It's about me, I feel amazing. I feel alive.

You go out, you drink, you smoke, you sniff, you ride and it gets tired. You get tired of the same routine, same faces, same judgements, same backwards glances, recrimination. Because on paper the itinerary looks the same but each night holds something so different, new people, new moves, bad experiences combined with some good times. But every now and then something just happens and it erases everything that's come before it and from then on, you are living up to a new expectation of wondrous ambiguity. What exactly will happen next.

You can tell yourself after a bad time, that it was the last time. Sometimes for some people it is. But not for me, for me its an empty term because I know I will keep going back until it has nothing left to offer me. The premise itself is so simple yet so magical and it takes just the right combination, the correct mix to get it exactly right, people, friends, lovers, music, timing and the rest. That X meets the spot, that X which you can't quite put your finger on but it holds the key to keeping everything else in tune, connected.

Eventually the time comes when it has to end and I might be going home alone but I don't care because I feel like I have shared something whole with a room full of people who don't even know my name but they have seen me dance, they have danced with me, beside me.

For just a few short hours, it felt ok to be part of the crowd and as I walk home to place that isn't mine but is filled with some of the greatest people I have ever met, I feel good.

No.

I feel fantastic.

We are fantastic.

Cheating Scumbag?

It was a discussion I had with a friend about the intricate workings of a relationship, that got me thinking about this again. Like the inside of a watch, it takes a complicated system, to keep the hands turning. If one part of that system fails, well like a house of cards, it can come tumbling down. So many of the rules of a relationship are unspoken, most work under the assumption, that the normal socially acceptable standards of love, apply to their union. I have come to this conclusion, not from having many relationships of my own, but of watching the couples around me.

Many people disagree with my outlook on cheating, I have to use the word cheating to make my point a little more simpler and to avoid confusion. I have been guilty of cheating in the past, guilty is a word I use but not something I really felt. I was guilty in the eyes and standards of social norms.

For most people, once a relationship becomes serious, there is usually a discussion of exclusivity  That person becomes yours and yours only. But sometimes, it just doesn't work out that way. Maybe its a text message on a phone, or an email in an inbox, or worse, walking in and seeing it with your eyes. This usually spells the end of a relationship, when someone betrays the bed and home which you have made together.

But what if I was to tell you that love and fidelity were not mutually exclusive. What If I said,  you could have one without the other. In the same way, you can have monogamy without really being in love. Separating the act from the person, can go along way in making sure your union lasts.

The first time I ever 'cheated' was when I stared to really think about this. My first real relationship almost came to an end when I on a wild night out, which last almost a full 24 hours, alcohol and speed and a bathhouse. When I sat down and told him, a few days later, I was understandably nervous. I wouldn't have told him at all, had it not been for the fact that some of his friends had already heard I had gone to a sauna. I felt it would be much better if it came from me. I had thought long and hard about why I had done it and what it meant for our relationship. At the time I thought I loved him and that hadn't changed and after much supposed soul searching, I found the answer to be rather mundane. I was simply horny, it was there and it was convenient. I didn't say this to him of course and I went through the motions of telling him how sorry I was and that it would never happen again. I assessed what it might have meant again when the relationship ended and couldn't really give myself a different answer.

A few months after the relationship came to a much relieving end, I met a couple. The couple propositioned me for a threesome and as I got to know them and saw they had a pretty strong bond, I was enthralled about what they told me. How they had come to have such a unique understanding. It was the first time I ever came across an open relationship, in the flesh and working so well. 'We are not naive, we know that even though we love each other very much, that both of us will look outside the home for sexual gratification and that is okay, as long as both of us know, that it is just sex'.

The concept seemed so remarkable to me but at the same time, it made so much sense. Since then, my outlook on what most people would call cheating has been very different from those of my peers. Explaining this to people who have not agreed with me in the past, has always been frustrating and I have reached a point now, where I don't bother. I have not yet had the opportunity to explore this with another partner but ideally it is something they would need to be at least open to discussing as our relationship developed.

It has also made me think about what I would consider to be 'cheated on'. If someone I loved, slept with someone else, would I feel betrayed. No, I don't think so. As long as they were upfront and honest about it, careful about my health then I would be able to deal with that. But what if they developed feelings for someone else? That makes the situation understandably trickier.

But all of this is just thoery, as I have not put it into practice. It could all go out the window, if I met the one and he made me want him and only him.

The Gay Agenda

Tonight, I have been reading a lot of other posts, by many fine bloggers. This is something I used to enjoy doing quite often, committing to a few hours in the evening to doing just that, but admittedly over the past few months, I have been really just posting, checking for comments and not much else. I have read this evening, a couple of posts from gay men like myself, who talk about campaigning for gay marriage and equality, how much it means to them, I have read other posts about homophobia, about identity issues and struggles.

I don't mean to isolate myself from my peers but some of these things, have not been something I easily identify with.

On Facebook, I read posts and status updates from my gay friends, expressing their outrage at government legislation that will not allow them to legally marry, or express their dismay that the new pope, has already condemned the gay community, less than 24 hours after taking position. I should be equally angered, dismayed and disappointed.

But I am not.

Coming out, is one of those rights of passage that all of us, as part of the LGBT community must go through, at some stage in our lives and it seems for the majority, this tends to be a time, rife with tension, conflict and confusion.

We read so much about suicide, alienation from loved ones and even violence. I have never encountered genuine homophobia, I have been called a faggot or a queer, usually as a generic tool of insult or good humored shade.  I have never knowingly encountered someone, who had real disdain or disgust. When someone goes through that, I can understand then, that gay rights are of paramount importance to them.

But, I didn't experience any of this. My coming out was an almost non event, there was no conflict, no alienation and no violence. It was just a fleeting moment in my life. I have not been defined by this grand gesture of taking ownership of my sexuality. So I can only surmise that the reason, that fighting for my right to get married or seen as equal in the eyes of the church and the law, are not that important. There is no fight in me for such causes. I don't much care what the church or the government thinks of me, or my choices and I have no desire to campaign along side my brethren for the rights we deserve.

Being gay, does not define me. In all honesty, its just a really small part of who I am. I have sex with other men and to me, and that's where it ends really. I think it's only a matter of time before it all comes together and we are all declared equal and I am happy to wait, I doubt I will even find it cause for celebration. It will just be another fleeting moment in my life.

The Break Up

Do you remember the post I made about relationships and the terms and conditions that usually accompany them? (Read it here).

The perfect couple that I looked up to, used as a template for any future relationship, have made me seriously consider entering into a new relationship, with a new glimmer of hope. Well, they have split up. There have been a whole load of issues which have 'caused' the break up, I won't go into them here as it is not my story to tell.

Whenever I have dealt with a break up directly or seeing a friend or family member, I have always seen it as something that needed to happen. These relationships have been close to breaking point, or one of party has done something which means the relationship cannot plausibly continue, others have just been volatile from the start and it was obvious they would not last long. Regardless of reason, the break up is usually the best thing for everyone involved.

But not in this case, as I said this is not my story to tell but there was some circumstances which may have caused friction in the relationship. They have recently moved from the suburbs to the city centre, one of them has been ill, both are feeling stress from their jobs and they have made a lot of new friends, socialising a lot etc.

I can't help but feel that the stress has got to both of them and they have blamed their relationship for it. They are so perfect together and I am so sad they have come to this decision. They have been together for four years and I am worried they have rushed into the decision. It came about and they had split up in a matter of hours. I do hope this is just blip and when they sit down to talk and figure some stuff out.

On a more selfish level, I want them to get back together as they are very good friends of mine and we socialise a lot and have a lot of fun and I don't want them fun times to end. I like them as a couple and I know they love each other very much and I think the reasons they have broken up can be fixed or changed, it just takes time and might be hard work.

When I split up with my last serious boyfriend, it was on the horizon for months, we had a very volatile 12 months and in the last 6 months, I fell out of love with him, I started to resent him and when I finally took the big step by moving out of our apartment, I was more excited than heartbroken, I was happy. However these two are missing each other very much, it makes no sense to me that they should be apart.

I really hope they get back together, if they cannot make it work, then what hope do the rest of us have.