Where I Left Things With Some Guys

Sometimes, it really doesn't register in your head that we're only three months away from 2014. Last night, I finally got to chatting again with E which led me to write about where I recently left things with a couple of guys.

M²  (Last mentioned here)
Within the month of June, him and I continued to have a couple more sexual escapades behind closed doors of the same disabled toilet. There were times when it was exciting, and there were times when it wasn't very enjoyable. I still did not have full blown sex with him, although I'm hoping that we could outside office grounds.

Ever since I left the company, he and I never kept in touch. I did however sent him one or two text messages to see if there was a possibility of us taking the fun we had further. He never returned any of my messages and that was it. I still find myself occasionally yearning for his dexterous hands and the thought of him topping me like how he suggested. But nothing is going to happen for now.

J  (Last mentioned here)
2 months ago, I accepted J's invitation to meet up for the third time in the spirit of wanting to catch up even though he kept reinforcing the idea that he has a crush on me and wants to try dating. I wasn't exactly interested in him but went to see him anyway because I believe in giving gay friendships a chance.

Throughout the time that we sat down together, I noticed the same pattern of him talking a lot about his own life without ever genuinely asking about mine. The conversation revolves mainly around his experiences and what he does, what he likes. As I observe him and used my instincts to read his character, I realised that being with him can be very exhausting.

I already knew from the beginning that I wasn't physically or mentally attracted to him. I did try to find it or dig up something in me that would fall for him but to no avail. I told him that we should just be friends and the impression that I got was that he wasn't very happy with my suggestion. Then about 2 months ago, he moved away to be based in another state due to his job.

E  (Last mentioned here)
So after the second time I saw him at his home, I kept some distance to think about what I wanted. Did I lose interest in the fun or in him? "You're losing interest in the guy who was nice to you in bed? How shocking", the voice teases sarcastically from the back of my head.

One might lose interest in the fun, but it doesn't mean we can't be friends. So I reached out to E about a month and a half ago to see if there was a chance of us getting to know each other better in public for drinks rather than always at his home. He said he prefers me naked and wants to kiss my back all over again. I didn't think we both were on the same page so I left the distance as it is.

Then here comes the needy part. The more guys I seem to try and engage on the cruising apps, the more I seem to miss E appreciatively on the inside for the way he turned out to be so different from the other guys when it comes to generosity with me. And with that, I dug out my buried sense of gratitude for him and got in touch once again yesterday.

As usual he's very content with his life. He told me a couple of guys wanted to be with him but the chemistry just wasn't there. Finally, a guy friend got closer to him within the past 3 months and he is now newly attached with a partner. "There we go", I thought. I was just wondering to myself how long more would a nice and attractive guy like him be single.

I wasn't surprised, but neither was I very happy about it. I think deep down, I was just jealous. I was jealous at the fact that people around me seem to be finding that special someone, or getting attached with the partner they want to be with and I'm the late developing person who still can't seem to put his faith in destiny to bring him the best he is meant for.

On the other hand, I smiled silently out of happiness because I know deep down in my heart E deserves this. I took the opportunity to tell E everything that I thought of him in my heart. About how he is a good guy and how he deserves someone who really wants to be with him whole-heartedly. I told him I am happy for him and thanked him for everything that he did for me. He said he just did what every other normal guy would do. I said no, not every other normal attractive guy. Especially to a newbie like me? And I enclosed a smiley face.

He appreciated my words of thankfulness and started opening up too. He told me how he wanted to kiss me the first time we met, of how moments with me were different from other guys because it felt loving, of how nice and good he felt when he was with me. Apparently he wanted to see me more often, but I was 'distant' and 'didn't seem interested'. Yeah, I was kinda responsible for that part.

He wished me well and hoped that one day I'll open my heart up to the right guy. Regardless if everything he said was the truth, it certainly gave me the realistic words of encouragement I needed to hear. His words give me hope that I might not be what I thought I am, and that I can be special in my own way. And that one day, I will get to experience what it feels like to open your heart up to another man. To feel those feelings of love and emotional intimacy that everyone seems to get so effortlessly in my eyes.

The 'Get It On' Website from New Zealand

There is a brilliant website called Get It On [ www.getiton.co.nz ] from New Zealand. I'm recommending it as an amazing resource to check out for young guys, coming-outers, first timers, or men in general who have questions regarding gay sex and how to do things safe the right way. 

It has comprehensive articles, videos and educational guides that will pique your interest such as How to Have Anal Sex, How to Put On A Condom, First Timers, Heavy Duty etc. Some of the images and videos are very adult-oriented, so make sure the coast is clear before visiting.

Second Round of Fun at E's

Back in June, I drove to E's home and visited him for the second time on a Sunday night. For days, I've been longing lasciviously for someone to kiss, someone to embrace, someone to smell and someone to drown in.

When it came to E, I was more interested in making out with him, running my fingers through his hair, embracing his broad shoulders and being close to him rather than get naked. I discovered this preference after my first sexual encounter with him which further validated that I was hungry at the "idea" of the fun with him as opposed to the "reality" of the fun with him.

If I was being honest with myself, I reached out to him that day because he was the only guy I could think of. Even though I wasn't very excited at the thought of getting naked with him, I told myself to always give things a second or third chance and go with the flow.

[ Reminder: Sexual Content Ahead ]

Playing With the Triangle of Good, Fast and Cheap

I remember the scene from a TV show where one of the characters was using the triangle of expectation to explain the concept of how interior refurbishment work was going to be carried out. Fast, Cheap and Good each take a corner of a triangle. The rule is that one can only pick two at the expense of the third choice. 

So you can have it Fast and Cheap but it won't be Good. You can have it Cheap and Good but it won't be Fast. Or, you can have it Fast and Good but it won't be Cheap. 

I have always been fascinated by this triangle because it seems to reinforce the realistic idea that it's impossible for one to truly have it all. However, bear in mind that I am not advocating this as some kind of sure-fire theory, but more of a fun exercise out of curiosity.

Keeping this rule in mind, I had a little fun of my own by applying this triangle of expectation into the search for an ideal partner. Using three qualities that are deemed most conventionally important to people, I replace them each at the corner of a triangle and pick only two.

For example, let's say we are looking for a partner who is handsome, financially wealthy and also one that loves you whole-heartedly for real. Replace them in the triangle of expectation.

Supposedly life is a bitch and we are only entitled to two. So I can have him handsome and financially wealthy but he won't love me for real. Or I can have him financially wealthy and loves me for real but he wouldn't be handsome. Or I can have him handsome and loves me real but he wouldn't be financially wealthy?

Let's try another example by replacing it with something a bit more complicated. Supposedly I'm hoping to find someone who lives in the same city, has a good career and is understanding of my feelings. 

In a universe where life is a bitch, he will either live in the same city, has a good career but is not understanding of my feelings. Or be understanding of my feelings, has a good career but is not living in the same city. Or he can be living in the same city, is understanding of my feelings but doesn't have a good career.

The myth behind this triangle can be applied to a multitude of situations. For example, I want a job that pays me my expected salary, comes with a good boss and is within easy commute. The triangle says that I can have a job that pays me my expected salary, comes with a good boss but it wouldn't be within easy commute. Or I can have a job that is within easy commute, comes with a good boss, but doesn't pay me my expected salary. Or I can have a job that pays me my expected salary and within easy commute but doesn't come with a good boss.

So, can we really have it all? Anybody out there who can vouch for having conquered this triangle in all aspects of their life?

If You Hold On to Your History

I am aware that I've been doing a lot of posts lately that seem to contain the word God or take on a strong tone of religiosity. If passers-by are thinking what I think they're probably thinking, don't you worry. I am no staunch Christian, nor do I consider myself seriously religious and have said this many times before in my previous writings.

Although spiritual and philosophical teachings are very meaningful to me, but I promise that this journal of mine is not about to take on a "holy" approach and will stay true to the realities of my life.

Having cleared that up, here's another speech I found so deep and inspirational about destiny that I couldn't resist giving it an entry into the journal of my growth.

"If you hold on to your history, you do it at the expense of your destiny."

"If you're gonna spend all that energy energising where you've been, then you're not gonna have the fuel and the fire, and the tenacity and the aggressiveness that you need to energise where you're going.

People are taught to think that it is powerful to hold people hostage with what they did wrong. That 'that' is your power.

Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself because you let it go so that you are available to be your highest and best self, and because you are saying that 'It' is not stronger than me. 'It' is not stronger than me. I disconnect from 'It' is a sign that I am in control of 'It', and 'It' is not in control of me.

It has been my philosophy. If I had held on to all the things that happened to me in my childhood and in my life, I wouldn't be standing here today. I had to realise that when you rehearse those visions and images, you empower them. You actually enshrine them. I decided to cast down the idols of my history, and to embrace the possibilities of my destiny."

Bishop T.D. Jakes

Another Time, Another Place, Another Person's Life

I recently got to thinking about my habits and the way I've been living my life. What is the lesson here? What is it trying to teach me? As I analyse the past decade of my growing up, I realised that I was never properly happy or genuinely content with myself at any given point of my life. And because of my unhappiness, this internal sense of discontentment that started from young, unknowingly gave rise to my severe addiction of always living in an idealised future where everything in my life righted itself and I'm happy. 

I would believe everything that I told myself and everything my mind was capable of conjuring up. The problem was clear. I was living in the future in my own head, and living in the ugliness of my past without wanting to let go of the baggage and all the emotional labels that came with it. What-happened, who-did-what, what-I-went-through, why-me...

For a long time, I couldn't grasp the concept of living in the present. I couldn't comprehend what being present to the life you have meant. However, that all changed this year when something inside my head just clicked after witnessing an interview on CNN and writing a post on it.

It took me a while to get to this point where I realised what I'm doing to myself is paralysing, if not self-destructive. In an attempt to change the way I perceived things, I asked myself what was the reason it took me so long and at twenty something years old to realise this?

After thinking long and hard, the answer that welled up from the back of my head, was that it was my coping mechanism for escaping the present reality of my life that I found so unfulfilling. The more unhappy I was in the week, the more I focused my energy into wanting to bridge the past with the self-imagined everything-will-be-great future.

Apart from that, my tendency of living in the past and the future also translated itself into the habit of me living in the lives of others. Regardless if it was within the high school classroom, the university campus or during my travels around the world, I started noticing in the recent years that I was always living in the excitement, the image, the body, the privilege, the blogs and the life of others. It was always another time, another country, another city, another achievement, another person's life.

There was a time where seeing and reading about the lives of others, living in their light through the internet or social media was capable of making me feel so inadequate about myself. I found myself pondering one day as to why have I made this about the outside world and how did I ended up giving it so much power over my very own life?

Today I had a thought,. I asked myself if living like this was truly worth it and if it gotten me anywhere. The answer was no. I'm at a turning point where I'm starting to wake up to the voice in me that is constantly reminding me to stop whatever it is that I was doing to myself. Stop living in the past, stop living in the future, stop living in the lives of others.

As I write this down, I'm going to try my best to live the present from now on and see how things go. I'm not saying that those bad habits that have become the pathology of my being will not resurface itself down the road, but merely reminding myself that I truly owe it to me, to make an effort to be present in the life I have and start living it in the best way I know how.

Tomorrow Will Take Care of Itself

Interviewer:
"You've said in one of your most popular books Living Buddha Living Christ. What do you see the similarities between Buddha and Christ?"

Peace Activist:
"Jesus Christ is a Buddha of the West. And his teachings are also about understanding and compassion. In the Gospel there is also the teaching of living happily in the present moment."

Interviewer:
"Yes."

Peace Activist:
"In the Gospel according to Matthew, he said that... 'Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself.' It's very clear. And 'Give us the bread of today'. "

"We care about today. We live today. And if we know how to handle the present moment, we don't have to worry much about the future. If the present moment has peace and joy and happiness, and then the future will have also. "

What's Your Love Language?

I recently discovered a really cool quiz on a website called The 5 Love Languages by American relationship counsellor and author Gary Chapman. The concept of the 5 Love Languages is to help people speak and understand emotional love when expressed through one of these forms.

The 5 love languages are:

Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Physical Touch

Upon completion of the quiz, participants will receive a score sheet telling them which of the following 5 love languages are most essential to their character and how they perceive love. I hope that by sharing this information, it will help others be more aware of themselves along with their capacity for love towards others. Try it out, it's fun.

A Little Something About Being Angry With God

Part of the journey that comes with growing up is understanding how the relationship between heaven and Earth works. As someone who was raised to believe in a higher power, I found myself resenting the heavens when things don't play out in a way that would give me the closure I seek.

Yesterday, I watched something life-changing about being angry with God that completely altered the way I will ever again live my life. The scene shows a life coach trying to help a widow deal with her overwhelming anger with God because she lost her husband to cancer.

Life Coach:

"Who are you angry with now?"

Widow: [silent]

"..."

Life Coach:

"Tell the truth."

Widow:

"God."

Life Coach:

"Absolutely..." 

"Powerful awareness?"

Widow:

"Yes."

Life Coach:

"Powerful courageous acknowledgement?"

Widow:

"Yes."

Life Coach:

"Many of us are angry with God." 

"And we think because we don't say it, God doesn't know it."

Widow:

"I know he knows."

Life Coach:

"You know, God knows you're angry and he really is just waiting for you to admit it to yourself. And you're angry with God because...?"

Widow:

"I thought He was going to let him live."

Life Coach:

"He is living! Just not the way you thought it would be..."

Widow:

"Okay, keep him here with me."

Life Coach:

"So you're angry with God because God didn't do what you wanted God to do."

Widow:

"Yes."

Life Coach: [turns to the crowded workshop audience]

"Is she alone? Raise your hand! Let me see your hand! I am angry with God because God didn't do it the way I wanted it to be done."

[Hands raised]

Life Coach: [back to the widow]
"And how were you trying to communicate to God what it is you wanted God to do?"

Widow: [tears up]

"Daily prayer."

Life Coach:

"Prayer..." 

"Now you know prayer is not your bargaining chip with God. You see a lot of us go off like that." 

"Prayer is the way we align our mind with divine mind. Prayer is the way that we commune with the God within and align that with divine mind." 

"But we started using spiritual tools to do human things."

Widow:

"Yes."

Life Coach:

"And then when we don't get what we want, we get pissed off with God. Yeah."

"Where did you make up... in your mind that God was supposed to do God the way you want God to do God?" 

"Where did you get that from?"

Widow:

"In my mind, if I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do, which is from prayer to staying at his side, never leaving..."

Life Coach:

"You made up a story about what you were supposed to do and then held God hostage to that. You get that? Is it working for you?"

Widow: [tears and smiles]

"No."

Life Coach:

"Okay. Are you willing to try something else?"

Widow:

"Yes."

Life Coach:

"So here's what I wanna offer you my beloved. You have made this about your husband. Your love for him. You love him he loved you... So here's what I wanna offer you."

Widow:

"Okay."

Life Coach:
"You said that... you loved your husband for the last 8 years of his life and you know that God sent you to love him, chose you to love him and take him out! Is that accurate?"

"I wanna offer you... Suppose God sent your husband to you, to show you the depth of love you are capable of. Suppose this ain't about what you did for your husband, but what about what your Husband did for you."

"Because your husband didn't bring in the love, the love was already there! What your husband did was give you an opportunity to experience and express the depth of love you are capable of. And you keep making it about outside, when what I wanna offer you is all going on on the inside."

Does Love Fade After Some Time?

A few months back, I remember having a chat with the elder Irishman who told me he has been in a couple of relationships. The most recent one of ten years, ended about a year ago because they both grew apart.

Me:
How did the two of you grew apart? So does love die or fade, eventually?

He:
You have to nourish. Love like it is a flower. Over watering and under watering can kill it. So you need balance. We lost both of this, and I guess the balance could not be restored.

Me:
But you know that feeling when people 'fall out of love'... I know it happens, but I have trouble believing in 'how' it can happen. Like you said, when 2 people say they love each other, they love each other.

And also, how could you still limit yourself now to still being a hopeless romantic when you personally have experienced that love doesn't last forever and that people fall out. Just like your last relationship.

He:
Because the human mind is strange. You can listen to a song for many many times and love it. One day you may listen to it and it does not touch you any more. Bit like love. But after you grieve from past love, you start to feel there is another love out there.

I have no experience in love. Neither do I have the confidence that I will get to experience it any time soon. To be honest, I feel so weird discussing about love in the shoes of somebody who has never before had the capacity and luck to be in a relationship. I hope it won't be too long from now.

God Doesn't Give You the People You Want

"God doesn't give you the people you want, he gives you the people you need. To help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you and to make you the person you were meant to be." - Unknown