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?

To all the asshole in the steam rooms.

Look I get that you can hang out in a steam room and be yourself but seriously if you have to blow your fucking nostril nuggets out of your nose don't do it on the floor of the steam room. Go out and blow your nose for Christ sake. Unbelivable. 

Its the little things

I find as I grow older (over forty) I am fascinated, not by the things that used to drive my attention when I was in my twenty’s and thirty’s but by the stupid little things that I never noticed before. Like what happened to my ass. Was it always this shape? Did it always dimple in that way when I squeezed it together?

I think that I am concentrating on these stupid little things because my own sense of mortality is getting to the point where I have to actually acknowledge it. Forty. Four Oh . Now to someone eighty, that may seem young and “wait until your my age” but that is the point. I look back and see just as much time back there as I probably have before me and it scares the shit out of me. Was my ass always this shape? Did my toes always curve that way? Little things to grasp onto just so I don’t go insane from the vast amount of time behind me and the inevitable declining years in front of me.  

As an aging single Gay man there are no books to tell you what the landscape is to look like.

I was at a play the other day “August: Osage county.” Excellent play by the way and the reason for the name of this blog, but I digress. There was an obviously gay man working the crowd and by working I mean skulking from group to group listening to snitches of conversations and then moving on. The only reason I noticed him was because he was very flamboyant and wearing the most amusing full-length black beaver pelt coat and carrying a matching purse or “man bag”. I started to wonder what motivated such behaviour. Why so obviously flamboyant but skulking around like Gollum looking for the ring of power? Then it hit me. He was a lonely old queer that wanted to feel involved but not sure how to quite break into the conversations of the people around him and frankly I think he made most of the people sipping their champagne a bit nervous. This is what old and gay has always been to me. Eccentric, odd old men hanging around closed groups trying to find a way to feel loved and accepted.

I find it odd that after all the years of fighting to be accepted in a world that either hates us or is so ambivalent to our existence that they stop seeing us after we turn forty that we still feel the need to ingratiate ourselves to this mass of norm. Yet I can feel myself drifting in that direction.

I would hope that it’s different when you’re in a relationship. Having one other person that loves you might stop the madness of over tanning and plastic surgery and all the little things that older gay men do to grasp desperately at their youth so that they can find that other person that loves them.

Someone once said to me “well you have to love yourself before you can expect any one else to love you” well I have been loving myself for about 20 years now and I think I would like to try it with someone else in the room for a change. I think that would make all the difference.

It’s not that I haven’t had great loves, I have, just none that loved me back.

Now looking back I see a laundry list of shit that really doesn’t matter to the now.  My divorce, The cancer, the broken bones, the vascular bleed, the restaurants that I opened and then closed or sold, the men I slept with, the pets that are gone, the family I no longer talk to, houses I owned, the cars I’ve had. All of it a mess of human garbage that at this point in my life formed who I am but doesn’t help me wake up any brighter in the morning.  I am terrified that one day I am going to wake up from this dream that I am walking in and realize that (as the Matriarch in August: Osage County did) all my life has changed, all the people that I have loved are gone and I have an Indian living in my attic and I have no Idea how she got there.