Tag: discussions

Fairy-tale relationships

When we were young, we were told about fairy tales, in which the prince and the princess triumphed over the evil with the power of their true love, and then they married each other and lived happily ever after.

Such tales sound wonderful to us. They cultivate imagination, ambitions, hope, love and other good qualities in us. Many of us are especially drawn to the happy ending, in which a faithful and loving life partner will accompany us till the end of our lives.

A fellow gay friend of mine has always been dreaming about one day he would finally meet his ‘Prince Charming’ and live their lives together, happily ever after.

He has a gay couple of many years as his friends, also as a role model couple of such fairy-tale relationship to inspire him. But recently, the couple changed from being in a monogamous relationship to an open relationship. That makes him start to question his search for the one true love of his life.

If this question came to me several years ago, I probably would not be able to answer it, too. But I’ve grown to accept and respect how others choose to love. To some, polyamory maybe more suitable for them; and to some, staying uncommitted maybe the best. Words like ‘single’, ‘attached’, ‘married’, ‘partnered’, ‘committed’, ‘dating’ are becoming insufficient to describe the increasingly more complex state of singlehood or partnership of a gay man today.

The times have changed, it would be silly to think that happiness can only be attained based on the formula defined in fairy tales written decades, if not, hundreds years ago. And if you think about it, are you sure that the ultimate happiness in life that you wish for is just ‘happily ever after’, as vague as it sounds?

And why be bothered by how others making adjustments to suit themselves better in their relationship? Who are we to say that monogamy is a better form of relationship for them?

Some people may think monogamy is the ideal form of gay relationship, but I would argue that is just a concept borrowed from mainstream heterosexual marriage traditions. It would be an irony that we demand the world to accept other sexualities beyond heterosexuality, but we hold on to the idea of monogamy as an indisputably more superior practice. Such unfounded sense of ‘correctness’ that cannot be justified objectively is basically a form of discrimination against differing opinions. Homophobes probably also think of heterosexuality as an indisputably more superior practice, but unable to justify objectively on its indisputability too.

The society and the people were much simpler in those days when the fairy tales were authored. I’m pretty sure that the society back then would not be receptive to the idea of gay relationship and gay marriage. Our rights to love is increasingly well recognised now thanks to the advancement of the society. We owe it to the openness of the people, so it’s only fair that we also allow for ideas that are different from ours to exist.

If you haven’t realised it, those fairy-tale relationships only exist in, um, fairy tales. Setting them as your ultimate relationship goal is unrealistic and inapplicable for us living in this age.

There isn’t anything that special about fairy tales that is worthy for us to hold on so dearly as our dream life. They are just a subgenre of fiction written for a specific group of young audience, at a specific period of time, by authors influenced by a certain geopolitical and cultural groups, of which the society depicted in it is far too simplistic from our society today to seek useful social or relationship inspirations from. Consider more recent fictions for adults written in recent years instead.

While it’s okay to hold on to monogamous gay relationship as your relationship goal, keep in mind that it’s just traditionally the first we were taught. When there’s a need for it, be open to consider and to experiment other forms of relationships until you find the ones that suit you better.

Happiness also comes in many forms. One can feel happiness from being alone, having freedom to do certain things, having a life companion, having someone to commit to, or even from not having to commit to someone etc. It’s really about finding the right balance of different forms of happiness that are most agreeable for you and your partner(s). Don’t think of these adjustments as compromises but as continuous improvement to find the right balance of different kinds of happiness.

With that being said, we don’t really need to refer to fairy tales or a role model couple. It’s only between us and our partners. As long as all parties in the relationship are working towards the sweet spot together, it’s a good relationship.

Toxic relationship

Over the years that I’ve been missing, I’ve been in several relationships. The last one felt hard to get over with after we’ve broken up. I was deeply in love despite our ways of getting along with each other had become toxic to me to the point that I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder as briefly mentioned in my previous post. I had to babysit my ex’s emotion throughout the relationship, even though he is older and is supposed to be more matured than me.

He would get mad at me over random petty things, probably due to a bad day at work, or over things I did but he didn’t express his dissentment on and let it accumulate until one day it exploded. I had to be really patient with him, and be careful with my words while reasoning with him to avoid triggering more anger in him. I kept telling myself that when the two of us were having arguments, it’s important for one of us to be calm and be the reasonable one. So I just held myself together no matter how unreasonable he was being.

But when I had my emotional breakdowns with him, he would usually retaliate with more harsh words. Over the time, I learned that before I had my emotional breakdowns with him, I had to reason with myself to get my mind straight because he would not do that with me. That helped me to learn to better control my temper and anger, which, to think about it, is really beneficial for me with my work and family. But that had also caused me to contain everything in myself and force myself to internalise and digest all negative emotions on my own.

Probably also due to my constant checks and reminders to myself for my own emotions, I became a lot more anxious than I already was in nature. My mind became so noisy. I kept experiencing endless trains of thoughts swarming my mind. Before my mind was able to finish processing one thought, another just interrupted. And before the interrupting thought could be completely processed, another one just interrupted again. It felt like there were too many thoughts to handle and my brain’s thought processing mechanism was broken and it couldn’t hold off other incoming thoughts. My mind was constantly noisy with thoughts and I couldn’t sleep well at night.

I decided to take a sick leave for a few days to rest and thought that I could recover by doing just that. I shutted myself off from any work-related messages after applying for the sick leave and only kept in touch with my ex.

A few days have passed but I didn’t get better. Before I realised it, I couldn’t handle my daily life anymore. Even the smallest action of cleaning a mug can cause my mind to be swarmed by hundreds of thoughts. One small anxious thought about a slip of my hand that would break the mug would raise hundreds of other thoughts of how I would get hurt in different part of bodies with different chain accidents that cause more injuries. It was like Scary Movie being played by a broken DVD player that zips through different scenes of mishaps in my mind, except the victim is always me.

I became so worrisome that I stayed in my bed for two days with no food and minimal water in a bottle by my bedside. My ex couldn’t reach me, neither could my boss and colleagues. My mind was so restless and I was so tired and couldn’t even think about the consequences of being M.I.A. At the end, it was my late friend that came to ring my doorbell repeatedly for half an hour until I regain my conscious and pulled my mind out from drowning in the sea of anxious thoughts.

My friend didn’t even know my address before that. He got my address from my ex. My ex wasn’t the one that came to ring my doorbell after he lost contact with me.

When I came to my senses again, I brought myself to see a psychiatrist. My ex insisted to come with me, but he was busy looking at his laptop screen pretty much the whole time when we were waiting for our turn. After the first appointment, I told him that his presence caused more pressure to me because he was always working on his laptop instead of caring and paying attention to me. I felt awful for being a burden that caused him to be distracted from work and told him that it’s better that he didn’t come with me. After that, he never came along for my follow-up appointments.

Throughout the period when I was under the medication, my ex and his unreasonable temper triggered my panic attacks multiple times. I was no longer able to handle the capacity of reasoning with him and he did not seem to have enough empathy for me to control his temper. Good thing he still cared enough to calm me down and take care of me when I was under panic attacks.

After a few appointments with the psychiatrist, I realised that my conditions were only suppressed by the medications and the root cause of them were not addressed. So I decided to see a councelling psychologist. After going through the therapy for half a year, I was able to learn the way to live with my anxiety, what could trigger my panic attacks and the way to observe myself when my panic attacks are close to being triggered. I’ve also learned that he was quite a big part of my anxiety episode. So I broke up with my ex when I was undergoing the therapy.

After about half a year breaking up with him, when I felt that I no longer needed to rely on medication and therapy, I started to miss him again. I started to contact him again and we got back together soon after.

My late friend thought I was stupid to go back to my ex but he was still supportive.

But I promised myself this time around, I would only take two more of his tantrums. The first time, I would issue myself a warning, and the second time, it would be the final call for me to leave him, unless there was a clear indication that he was committed to not do it again.

In less than three months, he had his first tantrum. In less than eight months, he had the second one. To be fair with him, the frequency was a lot less than before. But I still have to be firm on it to prioritise myself over him. It is a promise that I made to myself.

In fact, in my mind, I only needed him to say sorry properly. Given his ego, I know it is a huge deal for him to apologise and own up his mistake. But I needed it to know that he was aware the harm he had been causing me and that he was putting enough effort in not harming me that way. The apology did come in a subtle and improper way when he admitted that I was right about his ego in text messages, but he never showed up in person to say that in front of me, just like how he did not show up to pull me out when I was drowning in anxiety alone in bed.

As much as my love for him wants me to just go with it, my rationale tells me it was exactly the same way I kept letting him be emotional that got me to the state I was. I cannot afford to be easy on him with it anymore because it is at the cost of my own well being. The half-assed apology was too little for me to feel safe from his harm and I just had to keep my own promise to let go, despite still in love with him.

That’s my story of the relationship that I’ve felt the most deeply in love in while being the most toxic one for me at the same time. Have you ever been in a toxic relationship like that?

How is it like being a Chinese gay guy?

I tweeted about my curiosity on how is it like being a Malay, Muslim and gay at the same time. The reason being, I see more Chinese gay guys than Malay or Indian gay guys on Grindr. That makes me wonder, could it be because of cultural difference that makes more Chinese gay guys? And Muslim’s religious views seem to be very much against homosexuality, while that’s not in the case of Buddhism, Taoisim, Hindusim or Sikhism (at least not that I know of any absolutely opposing views from them).

soul232 took care to answer my queries.

But on second thought, I think I should probably write a post about how is it like being an almost free-thinking Chinese gay guy like me. I think it’s good for us gay guys to understand each other who are from different cultural and religious backgrounds in the context of homosexuality.

I can’t exactly speak for Chinese, and I doubt I know enough other Chinese gay guys to have a representative view on this. But at least for my case, homosexuality is not something that can openly discussed in my family. Not that my family is blatantly against it, but rather, I don’t dare to talk about it with my family for the fear of disappointment of my parent. I doubt my family will disown me over this though.

Being born in a Chinese-Buddhist + Taoist family, I’ve never heard of anything from my religions and beliefs that have anything against homosexuality. In Taoism, we have Pangu who was said to have created the Heaven and Earth, Nuwa who was said to have created humans from clay, but I doubt any Chinese of today still think they are true. We are very much inclined to think of them as mythologies and believe a more scientific explanation of human evolution.

On the side note, I don’t consider myself a Buddhist nor a Taoist, but I don’t think this part of me makes me have different views on sexuality from a, say, practiced Buddhist/Taoist Chinese gay guy. Our religions have rules but it’s up to us the believers to adopt it up to any level we want. I don’t believe in religions but I believe in morality, ethics and philosophies. I believe the philosophical part of Taoism but I don’t practice the rituals.

I have a conservative view on sexual activity and ideally, it should only be done between married couples, or couples who are sure to marry each other. In a gay context, to me ideally, it should only be done between very stable couples even since they can’t get married in front of law and in a ceremony in Malaysia. But this is a very different view from most other Chinese gay guys who simply don’t care.

Probably that’s also because I’m a good boy. =P I don’t drink and I don’t smoke, too.

With regards to the process of coming out, I didn’t realised that I’m not quite the same as others until when I was in high school. I accepted the fact that I’m gay when I was in university, but I decided to stay in the closet. And I fully stayed in the closet for about 5 years. It only takes me about two years from a fully closeted guy to someone who is starting to come out. But I guess those are more of my character than my cultural background.

How is it like being a gay like you with your religion and cultural background? I would love to know about anything, even if you’re of the same cultural background as me. Link to this blog post if you’re writing in your blog so that Blogger can automatically post a pingback in the comments and notify me (I think it does), or click the ‘Create a Link’ at the bottom of this page to post to your blog directly and notify my blog at the same time.

Racial Preference

Do you have a special preference on what race your ideal partner should be?

I thought being a very ‘Chinese’ person, I would only be able to accept a Chinese guy, too. I was quite against interracial relationship for myself due to cultural difference. But it turns out race doesn’t really matter to me. What I mean is, if I fall in love with a Malay guy, it will be no different from falling for a Chinese guy. I still get the same lovey feeling, except when we go into a relationship, I might have to change my diet and lifestyle a bit. Other than that, love is still love, there’s no such thing as Chinese love or Malay love or Indian love. (Okay-lah if you’re more into sex, the same goes, too—there’s no Chinese sex, Malay sex or Indian sex.)

I think it’s okay to have a preference on the race you would like to be in a relationship with. Some guys even have a special fetish on a certain race other than their own. I know a Malay guy who prefers Chinese guys. When I asked for further explanation (because I couldn’t comprehend why), he told me that he’s fond of the ‘scent’ or pheromone of Chinese guys. I still don’t really understand, especially when I don’t even know if I can smell pheromones, but I accepted his explanation and respect his preference.

What I disagree with is to base our preferences merely on the prejudice we’ve got for other races. And unfortunately that happens to Chinese in Malaysia a lot, according to what I’ve seen. There’s a fallacy among many (but not all) Chinese that Chinese is more superior than other races in Malaysia. What is it based on? Nothing, other than the prejudice against other races that they were less hardworking, less smart etc. As Chinese, while I’m proud of my heritage and culture, I often feel ashamed by this notion among the Chinese people. That opinion itself is exactly the thing that makes us less superior than other races IMO.

Other than that, we ourselves as gay have been discriminated enough, why discriminate others too? We all know how it feels, right? Having prejudice against other races is a form of discrimination. Same goes to discrimination against effeminate guys or transexual people. We can disagree with the way they behave physically, or the way they dress up, but we should not judge them by those. We may prefer people of our own race due to cultural similarity, but not because we feel our race is more superior without any other further reasons.

Anyway, everyone is entitled to their opinion. As much as I’m against having sex with someone you don’t love, I can’t stop you from doing it. Same thing goes to this case. While I disagree with the preferences that are based on prejudice, the people with this kind of preferences can still keep them. The most I can do is only to advise and advocate on getting rid of the prejudice and prejudice-based preferences, but I can’t force you to submit to my opinion on this matter. It’s the very same human right concept that LGBT people have been fighting for, “self-determination”—everyone has their right to have the autonomy on their own matters, including but not limited to deciding who they are, how they live their lives, and what they think and do.

"Rouge Confidant"

EDIT: Corrected translation of ‘红粉’ as ‘rouge’.

In modern Chinese vocabulary, there’s a type of friend that is categorised as ‘红粉知己’, literary means pink rouge confidant. The colour pink word rouge here refers to female. In a straight context, this phrase can mean the woman in a man’s extra marital affair or a man’s secret lover other than his girlfriend. But in a gay context, this phrase means a trusted female friend whom one can confides anything in.

I think my coming out to a handful of friends has earned me such a friend. She’s sensible and rational. She’s always ready to give good advices—even if she doesn’t have them, she has resources to consult to and in turn forwards the advices to me.

At first, I only talked to her on matters regarding my sexuality, because at that time I was only out to her. But slowly I started to talk about my career, my ambitions etc. and now practically anything when I need opinion on.

I do not have many friends that I can talk to. So when I’m having a hard time, I try my best to get through it. If I really need someone to talk to, I would chat with her. Like the other day, we talked about my career. She told me not to make decisions recklessly.

roti: Okok, promise you I’ll think over even if I get an offer tomorrow. You’ll be made known about it too.

pink: LOL, knowing u, u’d probably hop on a plane and settle down there, then baru tell me

(I thought that was really true considering my track record to her. I only told her about something happened to me after I have made a decision)

roti: Haha. I’ll try not to haha

pink: omg it’s 2.40 am. Could you please just sleep already????

roti: Yeah, go to sleep woman.

pink: u’ve got a haywired bio clock

roti: Damn true

pink: yeah yeah good night gay man

roti: good night woman 🙂

I think that’s a casual conversation, which rarely happens on me. I can hardly put up a casual conversation like this with others.

While I may not be successful in looking for my significant other, I think at least there’s someone I can talk to when I need some sense of acknowledgement. I’d say I’m pretty lucky already.

 

Do you have such a friend? Male or female?

 

Of Grindr … and Stalking

Lately, I’ve decided to put up my profile photo on Grindr. It turns out I’ve got some ‘market’ too. I guess although I’m not really gorgeous looking, I’m not as bad as I thought too. At least people are still willing to start a chat with me.

Also lately, when I’m browsing on Grindr, there’s this one guy that really got my attention. Decent looking (that’s how I and probably most of us ‘browse’ anyway). But what got my attention the most is his ‘About’. I’ve never encountered another person who describes himself in a way so alike to me.

After stalking observing him for some time, one fine day I went on searching for things about him on the Internet. It’s not that hard to look for things about him with the online information gathering skills that I’m kinda proud of. Plus, the name he puts there is kinda uncommon. Within a couple of minutes, I get to know his full name, where he works and has worked at, his blog etc. I know it’s kinda creepy that I’m able to get to know so much about him (like those pervert middle-aged stalkers) but well I guess stalking online is socially acceptable, right? After all, we all do that on Facebook all the time (actually I don’t).

So back to this guy, I wanted to know him but I think again and it’s probably better to train myself to be more confident talking to others first.

I’m probably overly careful but I guess it’s because I’m really concerned to make sure I do well. Also, I want to observe myself to make sure it won’t be like last time, and I really want to affirm my feelings and thought before making a move.

 

So do you stalk on Grindr like I do? =P