I don’t have to care about your cause.

Dinner last evening was a bit of an eye opener for me and I think for a random stranger that had the guts to confront me and my friends in a public place.

 I say had the guts to confront, because most people have a tendency to give stink eye or mumble some incomprehensible shit under their breath when dealing in a social situation that they firmly don’t agree with. Thus a passive aggressive dance begins in places like restaurants or supermarkets that result in very little discussion and more than a little resentment.

Here’s the story.

Last night I had dinner with my two very good friends who happen to be in a relationship together and also both happen to be teachers. Grade school teachers. Why is this relevant? Well read on.

We went to a local restaurant (which sells pizza from a Massachusetts city) and sat down. The cutie boy server took our drink orders and gave us our menu’s. When he came back he placed our drinks on the table and proceeded to tell us of the promotion that was going on.

Now I have a problem with 2 kinds selling techniques. One: Schools, teachers or any other institution which thinks its ok to use children as a free selling and marketing tool  to guilt parents and family members into buying wrapping paper or popcorn or some other shit just for a small percentage of the profits.

Two: if I am trapped in your power by my choice of restaurant I don’t want to be made to feel shamed into donating to a cause that does not affect me or I don’t believe in.

That said…..

When cutie boy server started in on the spiel about the “Kids with Cancer” promo that the restaurant was involved in, both I and one of my friends exclaimed at the same time “No thanks that is not our issue”.

The server obviously having the corporate imperative to explain the whole campaign that the company was involved in continued cautiously to finish his rhetoric. To this I replied that both of the men that I was dinning with have spent more than enough time in the protection of children and this was really not our issue.

Our dinner proceeded with the usual frivolity. We joked and laugh and teased the server, who by the way had a huge tattoo on his arm and when asked about it told us he got it when he got out of rehab.

Time flew, we ate and joked and were inappropriate with each other as always.

Then it happened.

 A small mousy woman exited the booth behind us and approached our table.

“I didn’t appreciate the joke you boys made and I just thought you should know” she said. I looked at her and casually responded “Which one?” because trust me there was more than one beige joke bandied around that night.

She responded with “The one about donating to the kids with cancer”.

I think I blinked a few times and then I patronizingly put my hand on her arm and said “my dear not that it’s any of your business but this is not my issue, it may be yours but not mine.”

This must have pissed her off because then the rant began. How she was sensitive to “our” issues and she would never say things about our charities and it’s not funny to joke about.

This started me thinking about a few things.

One: How does a straight mother of a minor child have one clue about the issues that affect my “people”?

Two: I wondered what kind of stink would have been made if a main stream restaurant forcibly told its servers that it had to collect money for say Pflag or any LGBT cause.

Three: How brave this woman was to confront three articulate professional gay men on a topic she was passionate about.

Four: how fast this incident turned to name calling and profanity on both parts.

I’m not going to say this was my finest hour. It clearly was not. I could have taken the high road and apologized to her for the off color joke and just gone on with my day but I couldn’t let it go. To be frank I’m a bit sick of the high road.

While I was impressed with her gumption I was a bit miffed at the whole idea of some random person being so incensed at me for an issue which was not directed at her, aimed at her or meant in any way to insult her. She was clearly eavesdropping on a conversation that was not geared at her but at the restaurant which started this whole thing in the first place.

My friends being professional child wranglers also look at this blatant abuse of a situation of power to extort money out of people all in the name of children as a type of community sponsored abuse. Which it is really. I guess our option is to walk out of the restaurant, but then if nothing is said it continues.

This woman’s behavior was equally bad as it didn’t take her long to fall off her high horse and wallow in the mire that the rest of us live in. The example that she set for the toddler that she was dragging through this exchange was anything but class.

As we watched her stamp off and pay her bill as the sounds of our laughter rang in her ears. I started to think maybe we went to far.

My eyes watched her get in her car start it up from her key fob, place the child in its restraints and sit in an idling vehicle on the phone for the next 23 min (yes I timed it).

I guess the environment is not one of her causes.

Is it me or were we helping a friend.

A friend of mine recently had a doctor tell him that his life was in serious peril because of his size. So like all good geeks he posted a form of “Please help me” on Google Buzz. To be honest the first couple of posts were helpful and encouraging to this individual. Not coddling but giving firm advice and good sound opinions but it didn’t take long before some neurotic academic wind bag turned it into a thread all about them with no regard for the topic at hand which was “a friend in trouble”. Seriously there were three more following threads talking about PIE for Christ sake. Yes pie is going to help this poor man start on the road to a healthier lifestyle. It’s not going to make him crave unhealthy foods or start thinking about all the things he will be giving up, NOT AT ALL! Idiots. This made me so mad I tried to change the course of the conversation back to a more productive train of thought by offering my help and quietly trying to tell these idiots to stop talking about pie and other shit that a person in this kind of trouble can’t eat. Like seven layer dip and heavy non digestible carbs. They were having none of this though one dough-head posted a recipe for Pie right after I suggested that this thread may not be the place to post all your love of the Taste of Edmonton or the foods that this man should avoid like the plague.

 I guess I went too far in my ire however, my response to the pie recipe was I’ll admit a bit scathing and not too friendly but I just couldn’t believe that these people could not see that they were not helping the situation AT ALL. All I said was “they sounded like Amy Winehouse’s publicity team. A friend’s in trouble with he’s weight and we throw pie?”
 This quieted the pie conversation and I think cooled more than a few personalities’ that don’t really care for me as it is. I guess I could have let it go, they weren’t talking about me but I just couldn’t. The poor bastard stopped responding to the thread after about 2 posts. It really amazes me that some of the brightest minds can come up with the most stupid behavior

Life, love and other weirdness.

Sometimes I look back on the decisions I have made in my life and I wonder “hum if I saw the red flags would I have done anything different?”

This question perplexes me as I embark on a new chapter of my dating life. I have decided, for the time being, to narrow my dating options to just one man.

He is sweet and overly kind to his friends and funny as hell. Smart, good looking and well off financially.

He is totally into me or what he knows of me so far and has started to say things like “boyfriend”.

Red flag one could be that he is overly emotional and clingy but for whatever reason I don’t seem to mind his brand of clingy.

Red flag two is that I think he drinks a bit too much especially knowing the fact that he has a clinical depressive disorder that he has been medicated for.

Red flag three is that he has this weird symbiotic some might say parasitic relationship with a fellow trust-fund baby friend of his (don’t get me started on that dude).

Red flag four is that he has had more plastic surgery at 51 than any other person I have ever met. I worry one morning I’ll wake up next to Joan River’s (there’s a visual).

But with all of this ,and I know that I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and wonder if he is compiling his own list of “Red Flags”, none of the above Items change the fact that when it comes right down to it after only three weeks of dating I am starting to develop this little warm feeling in my heart for this guy. I can’t explain it. It’s like he has somehow shown me all of his faults up front and made me search for all his good quality’s and in that search I have developed a crush on him. It’s rather insidious actually.

My biggest concern going forward is what happens in the future when I am totally wrapped up in this guy only to find out that one day what I find in my Attic is not an Indian but a privileged, over medicated, over plastic, Alcoholic smoker.

My brain says I can do better. My heart feels that he is great or could be great.

Will I look back and think wow I saw that coming maybe I should have dodged the bullet or will I have missed out on the road less traveled and not have the joy of this beautiful mind in my life.

Such is life. All choice and no answers.

P.S.

Moving to a new venue and starting a fresh home of my own. Can’t wait.

Thats SO GHAY

  I love my friends (hence they are my friends ) however I am getting a little tired of the use of the word gay in every conversation to denote something that is stupid or weird.
  I don't think that the people that use it mean to be insensitive but they aren't paying much attention to the people around them and if the word is so easy to say that it "just slips out" I think I take more offense to that. What are they saying when I'm not in the room homo or fag?
The worst part is that for the most part I don't want to say anything because it starts a whole "political" conversation that I don't want to have with these people.
So either I don't say anything then I have to listen to my sector of society being unilaterally insulted or I become this P.C watchdog  that people have to watch their mouths around. I don't want that but i don't know how to make it clear that its not O.K for that terminology to be ingrained in the English language as a negative.
Oh and by the way changing the spelling to GHAY does not make it better it just shows me you know its wrong.

Burner Slut

I have rapidly come to the conclusion that either God in his infinite wisdom has decide that I need to date a man that I have expressly forbidden myself to date or..... I am just a burner slut and should hang out in the back alleys of restaurants randomly picking up any stray Cook, Chef or Sioux’s that comes out the door.
 I don’t want to date a smoker from Saskatchewan that has 2 cats and is ten years my junior.
I want a stable man with a good job and no pet's preferably from a province that doesn’t feel the need to keep the entrance to all their gay bars in dark back alley’s just to "see" what happens.
 I want a man that looks at my life and says "hey there is a stable guy with good long term prospect's" not a guy who thinks that just cause he has smoldering green eyes, thick brown hair, strong hands (no doubt from all the cutting and prepping of food), a fruit basket with more than average size banana and an ass that won't quit.......................................

Where was I? Oh yeah. I don’t need to date a guy that spends his time cutting up calamari and then comes home smelling of fish. In his tight checked pants and splotchy whites with hat head from one of those baseball caps that the restaurants are favoring nowadays. With a light undertone of burnt gas and charbroil. Face glowing from a night in a hot kitchen running from the weeds and making it all work out. Calling “86 the fish we only have 3 plates left".
 I don’t need it. I lived it once already. Will I ever learn?
A smoker! How in the 9 rings of hell can I date a smoker? A cat lovin, Saskatoon smoker of all things.
 I think Bogie said “of all the on-line dating sites in all the world why did he have to walk into mine?"

I think this is a test. I might have to go out with him a few more time before I know for sure though, but it’s probably a test.

Old friends and other injuries

The age of social networking has finally caught up to me. I received a friend request in FB from a guy that used to be my best friend. We went to High School together and I thought he was the best thing to ever happen to me. The truth is he was my first straight boy crush and I loved him.

I have changed a lot since those days and have not seen or heard from him since the day he decided to elope and marry a stripper that he met at the bar one night. I don’t think he ever knew how much I loved him and how much this self-imposed betrayal made me hate myself just that much more for being gay.

Now being the curious man that I am I went through his friend list and realized that he is FB friends with a lot of our old school friends most of whom have caused me no little amount of pain and anguish.

For example: The one I’ll call “M”

I thought we were best friends , little did I know that she used all the information that I told her to backstab me in all the little ways that makes it difficult to stay friends in a large group of people, however  over the years I just got used to it and was careful how I dealt with her. We maintained a friendship of sorts out of High School and then later when she was having trouble with her man, I let her move in with me.

 The end of that story is a common one. It ended with her owing me about $2000.00 and a lot of resentment.

She is his friend on FB.

In my Elementary School days I had these boys who, for no other reason but because he could, use to beat me up about twice a day every day for about 6 months. The frustration of this caused me to seek ways in which to defend myself, that to this day I am thankful for but still carry the scars of these beatings. I didn’t even know that they knew each other.

He is his friend on FB

There are more people on his list but these two scare me the most. I know that I am not the same person as I was back then but somewhere inside me there is a voice that is screaming “DANGER WILL ROBINSON” and I have been sorry every time I have ignored that voice.

Still I miss him.

I would love just to grab a coffee and see how his life turned out. I wonder if he is still married to the stripper or if that ended badly. I wonder if he has kids or grandkids even.

I wonder if he ever knew how much I adored him. I wonder why after all this time I am forced to look at this part of my life again, relive some of the worst moments of my past. Is this part of the process of being O.K with the person that I am?

I don’t think I can open that door again but if I were truly over the events of that part of my past would it really matter what others said or did?

Or maybe this is the poison vial that needs to stay closed and I have to move on never knowing the little things.

The lesson here might just be to let the doors that we close in our lives stay closed.

I think I will have to ignore him for now.

on-line dating?

When did going for coffee start to mean something else entirely?
  I have been trying to date and as I don’t really do the bar scene the only way that a workaholic computer geek can meet men is on the internet however I think I am missing some minutia in the language that internet daters use.
Going for coffee = pick me up for sex?
Going for dinner = Blow job in my car?
Meet me at my office = (you don’t want to know what that guy wanted.)
I shudder to think what going to a movie might mean.
I talk to these guys for three or four days of nice texting back and forth and finally get to the point where I think I am comfortable enough to maybe meet them in a well lit room to see if there is a spark. What was once a nice date turns into a situation where I have to have an extraction protocol similar to a C.I.A agent in deep cover? This is disturbing.
Going for coffee.

I started to talk to this guy and things were going well, his picture seemed normal and not to out-there so when he asked me to go out for coffee I thought “cool maybe we can connect”. Well we connected alright. We got to the Tim Horton’s about 7:30 and started to chat. He was charming and I really liked the look of him, professional and handsome in an understated way. It took about 20 min of light chit chat before we got to the meat of what was really going on. He was in a loveless marriage to a woman that he has known for 15 years (no shit its loveless YOUR GAY.). He proceeded to tell me all kinds of crap as to why he was still with her and that she was O.K with him seeing other guys because she was as well. I started to get the feeling that the parachute I had on was really a knap sack.
This is a scary feeling to have on a first date.
 He was making plans to take me back to my place and we could fool around a bit before he went back to the little woman.
This was never going to happen, I have a little woman of my own at home (my roommate) and doubt that she would have appreciated a random stranger in our house. I told him this and things got cold very fast. You would have thought that I had turned on the air-conditioning in minus thirty while making him sit on a block of ice.
 Now I know what you thinking, why did I not just up and leave after I heard that he was married? Well to be frank he pissed me off and I wanted the opportunity to get back at him for not telling me that all he was after was a fuck buddy. I started asking questions about his marriage and the moral implications of his cheating on his wife. How was he ever going to have a relationship if he couldn’t be honest with himself let alone anyone else? You know things that make this type of douche bag uncomfortable. This ended the “date” and we went our separate ways with the usual online catch phrase “good luck in your search“ which loosely translated means “fuck-off”.
I went home and felt kind of sick to my stomach because I really like this guy. From what I saw he had all the parts I like in the right places. He was well spoken and interesting.  Then I remembered the fly in the ointment, He was MARRIED.  NEXT.

Going for dinner.

The next date I had was a little better. We had been talking for about a week and this time asked the question about being married and he answered no not married but his brother and he shared a place. I thought O.K that’s not too weird.He asked if I wanted to meet him. I thought what the hell.

 We met at my local Boston Pizza for dinner and I knew he had a long drive in as he lived in Camrose which I thought was nice of him. The least I could do was buy him dinner. The night went well and I thought we were connecting he told me about his family and his Siblings and his family and his mom and dad and his family and his dog and his family and his faith and his family….. I had no idea what the hell the family was until I had it explained to me by some friends of mine what it was. I guess it’s a rural cult that has had such distinguished members as David Koresh.

I had no idea of this at the time but the rush of air that blew past my ear that night must have been a bullet.

Anyway after dinner we decided that going for a drive might be nice so we got in my car and drove down to Hawrelak Park to see the festival of lights (didn’t know it was canceled). We sat in the park and decided our next move. He kissed me. It was kind of romantic. We kept kissing and kissing then I felt a slight pull on my neck so I kissed his chin but the insistent pressure of the hand on the back of my neck kept pulling me down and I thought “shit I think he wants me to give him head” at that point I pulled away and looked him straight in the eye and told him that I don’t let people eat in my car let alone do that. He looked at me and blinked and blushed a bit (how lady like) and said he was sorry. I told him it was O.K but maybe we should go out a few more times before we end up in a situation where I need to have hand towels available.

We drove back to the Boston Pizza and he got in his car.

The next day he sent me a nice text saying he thought we wanted different things out of a relationship and "good luck in my search".

Meet me at my office

I can’t even go into this one. This was not a date but a blatant request to hook up with mounds of dirty talk and again someone married (to a guy this time but no difference in my mind).

 I thought it would be safe to meet him in his office for a first meeting. You know safe, lots of people around, it was lunch time what could go wrong.

Needless to say I got the hell out of there in a hurry and did not stop to tell him "good luck in his search".

I have come to the conclusion that I need an on-line dating translator. I wonder if iphone has an app for that?