Entry #27: Hand In My Pocket

The weather has been so changeable recently, very confusing. I've been like the calm before the storm, without the storm. There's so much brewing in my head without precipitation.

I've been at a new job for a fortnight. Its a permanent data cleansing job but looks to be a bit more involved than the temporary one. It's a walk down the road away, so I'm home in half the time, and I'm working with three other guys in a newly created role. Definitely a job that doesn't follow me home. I said to myself that the past year was to be mainly just chilling out, so now it's time to do something with myself. I have various interests and ideas and must start moving forward with something.

There's some comfort in being stagnant, the comfort zone of normality. My life is lacking forward momentum and this will only change when I put myself out there to feel the fear and do it anyway. I've put some negative feelings into perspective. I haven't exactly eliminated feelings of resentment about being gay, I've only lessened their dominance. While I am in a world with such discrimination and inequality I will feel negativity.

However, being aware of negative things does not have to necessitate turning the negativity on myself. I've been put here like any other person, we don't choose the place or world we're born into. If every meal I eat I remind myself there's someone out there going hungry I will only get myself down. Likewise comparing myself to the straight guy settling down with a wife and kids will do me no good.

It's been said for a long time that ten percent of people are gay, but nowadays the thinking is that it's more likely two percent. In my year at school there were about 200 pupils, so the statistical expectation would be four of those being gay. This stark reality is why I have little expectation of being with someone. In 2005 upon becoming boyfriends with a guy who knew a friend of mine, my friend asked me if I could stop shagging his friends.

I recently joined Facebook and searched for men in Manchester who like men. The first guy I liked the look of, guess what, two of my friends knew him. If I were to meet someone down the Gay Village it's unlikely that they'd be disconnected, unknown, untainted. Even that boyfriend in 2005 turned out to have had sex with someone I'd had also had sex with. The systemic incestuous nature of the gay scene is one issue that puts me off being open to meeting someone.

I was explaining this to Gina when we went for a few drinks around the Gay Village the night before I started the new job. As these things go, someone did make the effort to come on to me. Despite my surprise and lack of enthusiasm, we kissed and he even invited me to dinner. We texted in the week but I could not entertain going to the effort, of leaving my comfort zone, my excuse was a lack of socialising while I adjust from weekly to monthly pay.

I'm safest doing nothing at all, but I'm now so embroiled in this way of thinking that I risk dismissing something wholesome. I am unfulfilled all round, and I exacerbate this further. I stopped smoking for all of two days, for smoking is something to do in my unmotivated boredom. I don't use the word “boredom” often, it annoys me when people say they're bored. There's so much to do and see, but even knowing this that's the way I feel.

So, let's make this a turning point. Actually do what you say you're going to do. Go back to the gym, stop smoking, put the loose CD's back into order, write that damn blog entry at first chance, stop oversleeping…. You know these are all easy, simple things to do, but in a state of mind that precludes proactivity procrastination ensues. For me my Web site is really important to me, and I've been failing with this too.

My site does not fulfil my principles of a good site, after I started the blog I was going to put up an about me section because that's an absolute necessity. It's now been half a year that I've not been getting around to doing that. When I stop holding back and do the simple things that I intend then the positivity will snowball and the rest will follow.

entry info

Entry #27, published on Monday, 23^rd of July 2007 at 00:55 local time (Swatch Internet Time @023 .beats)

Returning in 2008 ;-)