Playing Catch Up...

So since my last post I spent 4 days in Pensacola and then a few days at home. The time in Pensacola was great. We literally just hung around and watched movies all day most of the time cuddling on the couch. We went out one night which was alright, nothing special (not that it needed to be). When he had to work I would do a little school work (finding out just how behind I am today was not a nice welcome back from spring break...). Realized we're definitely just friends. He's a great guy, but there are a lot of issues there besides distance and well, the feeling just isn't there. I will say that it was nice to sleep next to someone for a while. Just having someone to hold for a few days it was great. Then when I got home Friday my best friend from high school texted me and asked if I was in town because he was visiting from North Carolina. I haven't seen or heard from this kid in 6 months (not for lack of trying, he's just awful when it comes to communicating and he's working all the time). So what was supposed to be maybe a one nighter at home turned into a whole weekend. Well Friday night was quite honestly one of the worst experiences of my life. None of the guys I was hanging with know I'm gay, so it was literally just me standing there and playing straight while they continuously kept asking why I wasn't hooking up with one girl or another. Mind you I was also driving, so I wasn't drinking like the rest of them. It got a bit out of control at one point while we were out and I just found myself wondering what the hell to do. Every time I would think maybe I had an opening to at least tell my best friend he would complain that there are already too many Jewish gays and that it didn't make sense and how could you do it, etc, etc... Most awkward part of the night goes to the scene in the pizza parlor after the club where they decided not to put in our order until we asked where our pizza was since we had been waiting over a half hour. Well small talk turned into sex talk and I really just wanted to grab a knife and call it a night. I was so over it. Lately playing straight had begun to bother me, but in therapy I learned that my defense mechanism is to minimize my feelings. Well there was no minimizing that night. I was ready to snap on anyone that gave me the chance (like a wrong look or if you bump me wrong). I finally realized that suppressing who I am sucks. Plain and simple. Saturday night was actually a lot of fun. We had dinner at my friend's house with his whole family, just like back in the day. It was great, then his sisters, him, another old friend and I all went out again. This time (I think because the girls were there) there was no bullshit talk, no taunting it was just a nice time dancing near the bar and hanging out. I don't have all the answers, but I do think I am making progress. I'm actually really looking forward to group tomorrow. That's about it for now. More to come soon. Need to get through 2 tests friday, one of which I forgot about until I was reminded in class this morning about (which means all the reading I should have done over spring break is coming back to bite me in the ass). Oh well, I had fun and it was so beyond worth it.

I Feel: Day 7

So I skipped a day. Yesterday was a pretty blah day anyways, slept most of it away. Today I'm excited. Plans confirmed, leavin for pensacola tomorrow to go see this new guy. It's bizarre, I don't know why I'm so excited. Maybe it's the prospect of something new and different. A refreshing outlook on life that is about more than going out every weekend to the same place with the same people hoping for a hookup. I haven't been this excited to meet someone new in a long time. Best part, we met in a legitimate non-"adult" way, Facebook. He is a friend of friends and then friend requested me. It's been crazy talking to him and I can't believe we're actually gonna meet. Now I need to cover all my bases, so no one wonders where I am. Orlando friends, I'm home; parents I'm at my apartment; anyone else, well I don't really talk to them anyways. So excited!

I Feel: Day 5

Today I felt happy. I got to sleep in and then hang with some good friends. Saw The Crazies, it was ok. I also feel kind of fat... my diet always takes a hit when I go home. What can I say, old habits die hard. Whatever, need to get some cardio in even if i can't lift because of this pinched nerve.

I also still feel happy about my latest romantic prospect. I might go visit him in the next few days, so we'll see what happens.

I Feel: Day 3

Today I feel accomplished and bored... I had a test early this morning and that went pretty well. Then came home and crashed. Well, i guess not every day needs to be a struggle.

I Feel: Day 2

Today I felt alone and unsatisfied. I feel like I am sacrificing my emotional needs for my physical needs. I want a boyfriend so badly, but haven't found that yet. Instead what I have found is mind blowing sex. It's great, but that spark that something is missing. It's not such a big deal during, although as an aquarius I never actually completely detach from my intellect. Afterwards I am just left feeling even more alone than before... Why can I make this kind of connection physically and be left with such a huge hole emotionally. Now I feel disappointed in myself. The worst part, when I think about the sex I get hard. Then I crave something to snuggle with. Then I feel even more disappointed at the fact that one guy I do actually feel an emotional connection to is 400 miles away and a bit of psychologically unstable (depression, anxiety, negative self image). I am encouraged by the fact that he's in therapy now and just got a new medication for his depression. Its good to see people who want to improve themselves actually doing it. Ok, now that I've rationalized my feelings, I think this is over. I got my feelings down, that's what matters most I guess. More to come maybe later... if not tomorrow

Day 1: I Feel...

So in my group therapy session today they decided to make our goal to find the feelings beneath our intellectual rationalization. So, I'm gonna try to do an entry per day, short and to the point about my emotions.

Today, I feel alone and frustrated. I am single. I am gay. I am masculine. I feel stuck between the realm of straight and gay. Fuck! I'm tired of settling and hiding who I am because I'm either not masculine or not "gay" enough... For today, I'm done.

Give Me Therapy, I'm A Walking Travesty

So... I decided to join a group therapy for people dealing with their sexuality. It's not a pray the gay away group. It's just a place to talk about the challenges we are all going through as young gay individuals. I haven't told anyone yet and I don't know if I will. I know it's nothing to be ashamed of to admit you need help, but it still doesn't lend itself to the idea that you are too weak to deal with it alone. It's a vulnerability and well, to be honest, I'm not in a place to be that vulnerable with anyone. It has actually been a very good experience, even if we have only had 2 meetings so far.
One thing that still continues to plague me there and well I guess in most of the gay community is that I'm not "stereotypically gay" enough. I feel like an outsider looking in, but I'm not about to run around calling everyone "Girl!" just because the gays think it's cute. It's not me... I tried to pick up some of the mannerisms and such, but I hated hearing things like that come out of my mouth (it was mostly a habit I picked up by hanging out with so many gays). I have a real problem picking up accents, speech patterns and mannerisms from people very quickly. Luckily I have gotten some away time due to illness and well, just sort of a backlash of wanting not to be with them. At the same time, I feel isolated from the straight community because I'm gay. I hate having to hide it form most of my straight friends and to be honest for the most part I don't really have the energy to go searching for friendships in school. There is no sense of community because there are about 40,000 people and almost everyone commutes. I have made a few friends through the pre-med fraternity I joined because most of them are also in my classes. But I feel like I just have this huge anxiety whenever I'm around them about whether or not they know I'm gay. I hate it. I hate all of this. What about sleeping with a man makes me less of one?

If I Bleed My Lies Won't Fill the Emptiness Inside...

It's official, I need to find a boyfriend. I need to feel the connection that goes beyond friendship emotionally and transcends a hookup physically. I just keep looking around at the people I have met in the gay community here and it scares me to death. Most of them are nearing their 30's or older and they are all single. They simply are stuck on this sad awful loop of work and gay bars, with the occasional circuit party or hookup thrown in. Is this what we've come too as a community? A bunch of men at dead end jobs (I know there are plenty of successful gay men out there, but there is an awful majority of them stuck in whatever type jobs that just get them the money they need to pay rent and go out) who will live out the remainder of their days trawling for dick in one place or another. My worst fear incarnate and I get to see it most weekends...
Now, does this mean I am going to just settle down with anyone? God no! I know what a real connection feels like and I am searching for "that feeling". We all know what that feels like- it doesn't matter what you do with your time together as long as you're together (even if that something is fighting). I'm not naive, I know relationships have their problems and perfection doesn't happen. But is it too much to ask for out of life for a little spark towards someone?
How about someone that isn't several hours away, I understand distance isn't a problem in love, but it really makes things difficult when trying to get to know someone. Or has some kind of mental trauma (paranoia or depression), and actually the guys that I speak of like this are the most real and genuine of the bunch that I know, sad right. Maybe it takes a little psychosis to break the spell of cattiness and superficiality.
Another bug problem is the way that nothing in this town remains private... Everyone has slept with everyone else, then friends shift and the cycle begins anew. It almost feels incestuous around here. I get that it shouldn't matter, but I mean let's face it no one wants to be with the guy that the rest of the town has been with. There are some things about a relationship you would like to be kept between you and your partner and well, let's face it gay men don't know how to keep their mouth's shut. I mean, I know other people aren't actually there to watch what happens in the bedroom (unless you like that sort of thing, but that's a whole separate cluster fuck) yet does someone's performance really change from person to person. The last thing I need to hear from people is whether or not my boyfriend was fun in bed, has a big dick, etc.
Well, a rant about my loneliness has turned into a rant for why I'm single. Sorry, just needed to get that one off my chest.

In other news, school is going pretty well this semester. Spring Break is next week. It'll be nice to have a break where I hopefully won't be sick. I need to clean up my room like it's no one's business. I might also travel around a bit, just get out and see something new. Why not? I'm only young once...

Psych Paper... If you're really that interested

            Confabulation is a normal part of everyday life. As human beings we attempt to explain the world around us even if we have to make it up. Previous work by Wolford, Miller and Gazzaniga has demonstrated that the part of the mind responsible for making up such hypotheses, at least verbally, resides in the left hemisphere of the brain (2000). It is hypothesized to be in the frontal cortex, since this is an area “important for self generated behaviours” (Bower, 2000), but the actual area of the brain responsible has yet to be discovered. This paper suggests a theory for future experiments in an attempt to locate where in our brain these hypotheses stem from. This would be accomplished by having split brain patients perform a task which involves both pointing/choosing and verbally speaking during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.

Nature vs. Nurture and The Left Brain Interpreter

Sorry Percy, but I needed to write about that sermon you sent me.

For anyone else reading, it's a sermon about a pastor's experience dealing with his homosexual attraction. It was an interesting sermon and I actually really enjoyed it until he got into the idea of nature vs. nurture. He blamed his homosexuality on the relationship he had with his parents and then proceeded to generalize that everyone he knew with homosexual attractions had the same type of relationship with theirs. Well, from there I was kind of turned off to most of what this guy had been saying. Being a psych major I know what perceptions can do to any objective listening experience. I tried to keep an open mind for the remainder of his speech.
Well this guy has been going to therapy in an attempt to become heterosexual. A large chunk of his speech was basically an explanation for why he believes he is attracted to men. Something I learned by studying psychology is that the brain loves to be rational. Listening to his story and his explanation, all I could think of was that this is a combination of psychobabble and a desperate attempt at his left hemisphere to rationalize uncertainty.
In my senior psychology seminar I wrote a paper on the left brain interpreter. Basically it is the part of the brain responsible for confabulation, the replacement of a gap in a person's memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true. While this sounds like something only crazy people do, know this, EVERYONE confabulates. What separates most people from the crazies is that the crazy ones do it without provocation, we do it only when it is necessary. Our necessity stems from our mind not being able to chalk things up to randomness, it constantly seeks pattern and order in a world of chaos. It leads to so many other problems and myths including gambling habits, but I digress. I'll try to attach the paper if you are really interested.
Anyways, listening to this man talk I could kind of relate to some of his arguments. The most piercing of his arguments was his desire for marriage and children, to which I can relate. [Side note, there was no question of nature vs. nurture when he thought about being with a woman- just because it's the "norm" does not mean that society plays no role in bringing about this desire. I mean there is a part of me that hates the idea that I'm probably not going to get to fulfill that dream we all grow up holding on to, but I know there is no repressing who I am. I talked with a friend of mine who actually has a son, and he told me "yeah I could obviously be attracted enough get it up, but that doesn't mean I was happy with a woman." That really hit me hard when he said that. It has actually helped me come to terms with a lot of my own feelings.] When the pastor mentioned his hope to battle through and marry a wife and have a family, I wonder if he means can he fool himself enough into getting a woman pregnant and calling it a day? I know marriage is no fairy tale for most people, add latent homosexuality and you're just asking for a mess. I'm slowly beginning to accept the idea that it's actually ok for me to be gay. To embrace who I am, even if it's not the norm and especially not how I pictured my life when I was younger. 
The pastor admitted his need to repress his homosexual desires. He does it for Jesus, he denies himself a shot at happiness because he feels god frowns on gay people. I understand that throughout history the clergy have given up many things in their service to god, but I thought that was mainly in Catholicism. I guess I'm lucky I'm not christian or super religious because it's one less hurdle I have to jump in my own mind when thinking about this.
Anyways... I'm attaching the sermon at the bottom. It's about 30 min, but I think worth the listen if you have some time.

Matt’s Story

Breath of relief...

So last time I blogged I mentioned how sick I was and that the doctor made me go get a bunch of blood tests. Thrush usually occurs in people with diabetes or... well HIV. You try to be safe, but there is always that shadow of a doubt in your mind. Well, I had been suffering waiting for the results for over a week. Thank god everything came back negative. It was one of the scariest times of my life. I don't think I would know what to do if things had come out the other way. Also turns out my triglycerides are 70 and my good cholesterol is a little low.
Had 3 tests yesterday that went relatively well considering the fact that I also went to Gasparilla. Then I went and got my results. I could have failed each and every one of those tests and after the moment they said I was negative I wouldn't have cared. So yeah, that's about it. OH, I bought a box of condoms (had a few, figured a 12 pack can't do any harm). Never feeling like this ever again. Not that I'm planning to be with anyone, but my life is too important to risk it for anyone if it should come down to it.
Ok, its bed time for me. Just a little quickie for a certain someone.

If you're not drunk and half naked by this point, you're not paying attention...

Well, let me just say that 2010 has not been much easier than 2009. New Year's Eve dragged up every old piece of baggage between Ted and I. I don't think he has really forgiven me for everything that went down that night. Let's just say I need not to get black out drunk anymore because bad things just seem to happen and I don't know about them until the next morning when it's far too late. Did go see Sevendust and Lady Gaga that weekend, which were both a blast. Love concerts!  Well on the 4th Ted and I had our first talk since the meltdown one NYE and he proceeded to tell me just how terrible I had been even before the climax just after midnight. He asked me if I even considered him a friend... Well, the more I hear about the less I'm convinced he's willing to move on. Oh well, haven't really seen each other since then anyways. Skip forward the next weekend in January, where I actually had a real date. Like we went to dinner, talked and then headed seperate ways for the evening. It was very refreshing, it ended in a wonderfully unexpected kiss. Anyways, ended up going to another party with this this guy on Saturday which was really nice and low key (Friday was a game night, which ended up bein a bit of a wash thanks to monopoly). So we really hit things off, but there is not "that" feeling. We'll see, it's just nice and he's a great guy. I don't know what it is with me and these older guys, but yeah he's older than me. We'll see what happens.

School Started last week and I have not been so sick in a long time. Started with a sinus infection, then a swollen lymph node, followed by fever and weakness, and now thrush... i'm crumbling. I have not been sick like this for as long as I can remember. So i'm going for an HIV test ASAP, wish me luck. Havent actually been to a doctor in awhile, simply had the Zpak called in. Ugh... OK. That seems about right for the moment.

Merry Christmas to all...

Is it bad that I'm over it? All of it. 2009: So Over It, might just be my New Years mindset. It has been a crazy roller coaster of a year and I am ready to get off and try a different ride. I didn't realize how much I liked Orlando until I came home and started missing my life and independence. I miss the ability to go where I please with whoever I want without having to suffer through the 5th degree and without feeling like I'm abandoning my brother or my friends here. I just want my life back. I'm done here.

What Is This Feeling So Sudden And New? I Felt The Moment I Laid Eyes On You...

Bad news I am an idiot. Good news I am going to be OK. Well, I made it through finals. 2 A's and a B for the semester. Not too shabby considering that I put forth a terrible effort. I got into a med school, it might be Caribbean, but it's at least a back up plan I can live with. I'm happy with that part of my life for the moment.

Now, let's move on to more personal matters. My ex is in jail. Turns out that is most likely why I stopped hearing from him. I found this out right before I texted him last Thursday. I felt bad for him, but I was sooooo happy I got out before all of this. I am way too young for this shit in my life. I can only give so much as a boyfriend and that was far beyond anything I could handle. My last thought Thursday or first though Friday morning was "I'm over it. I'm done." This came after a week of torturing my mind, 4 walls and awful attempts at studying. So I did the sensible thing, I went out Friday and Saturday nights, yes I had finals Monday. Oh well. Had a blast with great friends. Much needed break from reality. Let's fast forward to Monday after my exams. I am napping in bed when my phone rings. I answer the random number and it's my ex's mother. She had called to tell me how much he missed me and asked if I would write and possibly visit him. REALLY?!? Really? I am going to guess she doesn't know we broke up, hell she didn't even realize I live in Orlando not Ft. Lauderdale. The next day I wake up realizing that today is the ex's day for visitors. The day after his mother called me. I tossed it around in my head. Should I? Shouldn't I? Well, here is where the idiot in me decided to show up. I got into my car and started driving. I drove to Ft. Lauderdale to go see him. Now best part of my trip, beside the fact that I was constantly questioning myself the entire ride. I get to the jail only to be told that he has already had a visitor that day and that I should try again next week. Oh, and I should get there earlier... Well, that ride back was the most miserable time of my life. It prompted me to go out Tuesday night, which was also fun.

Now to the subject of this post. I have a crush. He is seeing someone and questioning whether or not he's gay. PERFECT! I am a mess. Crazier part about this is that he reminds me of another guy I had a crush on up at school. It's crazy. Every time I look into his face I see this other guy. They are similarly awkward, but the one up at school knew he was gay and was actually kind of scared of girls (lol). It's weird. I can see all the red flags and I still can't help myself. Oh not to mention he has terrible friends. He seems to have one decent one, but the rest are just awful. Unfortunately he is linked to one friend via money (this one is actually the worst of them all. $50,000 in plastic surgery and it's awful). Well, that's it for the night. Need some sleep.

Bulletproof

So instead of studying like I should have I went out with friends, heard this one before but somehow it really means something now...


LA ROUX 'BULLETPROOF'