Somebody Found The Mute Button & Somebody Found The Butte Mutton

Can't write anything too meaningful or clear right now, but I need to write.  So, you're getting (annoying?) poems again.

"MUTE BUTTON"

And yet, I long to break out of these chains.
I cannot look out to any captor.
I want to end each day that reigns,
Over me darkly while I am stuck in this chapter.

Someone somewhere found the button,
The one that holds me bound.
There seems no end to the feast for the glutton,
Their focus is to silence my sound.

The freedom cry that yearns to escape me,
Is their life's joy to silence.
Despite all sense telling me to let it flee,
My captor remains in defiance.

"BUTTE MUTTON"

There displayed at my control,
Someone found the lost soul.
He had been there all alone,
Wondering if the mountain was his own.
No, it wasn't, as he turned to see,
The creature that brought him to me.
They caught his intimate moment of thought,
As they, a beautiful nature vista, sought.
He looked back, feeling lost,
As though his loneliness no longer bossed
Him to and fro searching for,
What he'd never felt before.
They opened him up, and found the mutton.
No, not with a knife, but with the camera button.
His flesh all remains intact,
His soul felt the brunt of the attack.
He's exposed for my display,
I fear to feel just like him some day.




Spoiler: I wrote the sheep one first and kind of tried to somewhat loop them together despite the different rhyme patterns, speeds, and themes. No, I didn't have these planned out at all.  I originally just liked the phrase "somebody found the mute button" to give a name to my inability to speak to anyone about being gay, despite how WIDE open my opportunities with one person in my real life have been.  I just added the second half about butte mutton to rhyme, but it made me think of a picture of a mountain goat on top of a mountain that I often have displayed as my desktop photo. (see below)  So, for the sake of a better poem I pretended he was a sheep and that he was on a butte (for titular consistency).
As per my typical poetry style, these were written rather quickly, but have a very significant meaning to me.  Wish I felt okay enough with being gay to let you all see my poetry blog, but alas, it has my real name on it.  If you hadn't picked up on the meaning of the sheep poem yet, let's just say that I fear to be exposed for display.

Baby Steps & Hawk-eyed Amoebas

Well, I've made a small milestone.  Someone who at least knows my first name (my REAL first name) and what I look like knows that I am gay.  He also now has my phone number.  I've been chatting with a guy on a dating site, and I just appreciate how open he is.  It's the first time I've ever given someone my number from a dating site, too.  (I never got that far with girls.)  He's probably too young for me dating wise, but I sure appreciate him already as a friend.  He's a caring guy.  So, yay for a baby step in the direction of being free of my secrets.

I can't help but compare my approach to dating guys to how I used to approach dating women.  I think I'm already a lot more comfortable with talking to men.  Turns out, I might not be "terrible at dating" as I've said of myself for about a decade.  This should be taken with a grain of salt, though, as I'm still not actually dating.  I just feel more at ease with all the stuff that comes before dating.  Turns out that if you're physically attracted, it makes it easier to find the confidence to do all the pre-dating rituals.  All that said, however, I still feel that I have a fatal flaw with men that I had with women, too.  I have always really wanted the guys or gals that are far beyond my reach.  I'll start quietly obsessing about trying to pursue someone who I think is amazing... and then I'll find out that I'm in line behind a hundred other people.  As was the case with my roommate (who, much to my devastation, has now moved far away), I tend to want people that are really popular.  I think my roommate that moved out probably has about 60 to 70 beautiful girls (HONESTLY) that would agree to ten dates with him up front.  He's just one of those people that can't be bothered with being a loser at all.  So, to spend more than a nanosecond of my time trying to overcome the queue of girls, (yes, GIRLS, he's straight, to boot) is a completely farcical endeavor. I also realized that with the hundreds of friends he has, I guarantee that he has at least a few MEN in line ahead of me, too!

I just can't help getting the butterflies when I think about he and I though.  He's an all around great human.  I, on the other hand, have issues.  I'm not the most attractive guy, (shocker) I lack confidence, and I am not super motivated in life.  I don't have a lot of friends, and I'm still trying to find out who I am at 27.

I did this kind of thing with girls, too.  However, I have recently assumed that it could have been a defense mechanism against having to deal with my sexuality.  If I go after the beautiful girl that I know won't pick me (and if she does start to pick me... I'll freak out and make things complicated), then I won't need to ever be in a relationship that might require me to deal with sex.  The majority of the hints I had at my sexuality when I would let it be a part of my thought processes probably reenforced this non-dating dating method with women.

For whatever reason, though, I'm at it again with men.  I just have to want the wrong people for some reason.  I have developed a crush on a man that lives on the other side of the world.  He's beautiful.  He's popular.  He seems like a winner.  He doesn't know I exist.  The chance that I will ever get to be with him are this big:

(I made a dot with a font so tiny that a hawk-eyed amoeba couldn't see it.)

I know I'll keep figuring things out.  I will hold out hope that I'll meet an amazing someone that won't realize that they're one of these incredible humans that shouldn't even spend time with me.  I'll trick them into dating me.  It will be great.

See!?  I ended on a positive note!  Things are looking up for old "Graham!"

P.S. I wish I were a more patient writer.  I might actually write something people will not only read, they'll actually enjoy.  I must say that I'm pretty damn proud of the amoeba picture though.  :-)

Titanic of Opportunities & Breaking Bad

I don't know why... but I wanted to look my best.  I worked out.  I cut my hair.  I washed my face.  I shaved.  I dressed in my best looking outfit.  I got there early... so early.  I ate a good breakfast.

I remained silent.

As I look back on this morning, I don't think I really had the proper resolve.  Why was I thinking about what I'd look like as I told her I'm gay, and not what I'd actually say?  What's really important in this moment?  Why the hell does a married woman care what I look like, especially after I've told her I'm gay.  I certainly had a very low resolve indeed.  I mean... we talked about boobs!  We talked about my 12ish year old self watching Titanic with my sister, and what that scene must have been like for me.  We talked about people being falsely accused of being homosexual.  What better excuse, transition, segue could possibly come up for THAT conversation?  The one where I tell my boss I'm gay.  The one where this saintly woman who has borne some of her most private moments to me to empathize with my pains, sympathizes as I explain what has caused me all this pain.  Why didn't I just tell her?

I sat silent... with a stupid grin on my face as I thought, "Wow, who knew I'd get such a great opening to tell her?"  I sank my opportunities to finally be free of this secret known only to me and Graham's Blogdom.  Let's hope I can extract the remnants of the opportunity from the bottom of the abyss.  I've got to find my "big piece."  (On display at the Luxor in Las Vegas! ... I should get paid for product placements.)

For now... it's just another lost opportunity.  I hope another will come along.  I think I thought I'd derail our work day far too much.  I need a good few hours to really vent it all anyway.  I may still tell her, but I don't think I can do it while we're at work.

Well, that's that.  Tomorrow is another day.

I'm addicted to television.  Have we talked about that?  Probably not.  I think I've been so depressed and disillusioned that I love the distraction.  I love being taken away into another world.  Right now, I'm so glad I've stuck with Breaking Bad.  This final half of the final season has made it all very worth it.  I think it's been so, so good.

I devour television.  I can't let it go.  It's often all I have to look forward to.  I sometimes build my life around when I can watch.  That's tragic.  Especially when what I REALLY want to do is to travel... but I keep just settling for traveling through my computer screen to previously-recorded vacations to new worlds, new beings, and new places.  I am never sated.  I just keep coming back... expecting the hole to be filled.  One day I'll find HIM.  The one that can fill that void.  That can travel with me.  That can help me escape into reality.  For now... I guess I'm stuck in reality television.

Poems & Procrastination

I know.  I can't stop writing.  This is the only thing that makes me feel better.  Ironically... I'm writing in here so much that I'm procrastinating the writing I'm supposed to do for work.

"IN"
I worry that it will simply spill out of me.
Just as the tears flow, and sobs surprise,
I worry that it will be told to an enemy.
I can't know enemies though, until I see their eyes.

Some can bandy it about like a joke,
A simple little trivial detail.
I feel like it's likely to evoke,
Anger, frustration, even betrayal.

I know I can't keep holding it in,
As emotions grow more and more erratic,
It's the fear of them spotting the sin,
That keeps the secret in my attic.

I crave for one, just one real human being,
I can trust, and tell, and they'll support my weary heart.
I can't stand having so much love no one's seeing.
I can wait no more for old to end, and new to get its start.


"WATCH IT WORK"
I go on.
I don't think.
I feel fine.
I live life.

Then a picture comes in view,
All I wanted, at his shoe.
Pick it up, kick it away,
He can have it all his way.

I fight, and scrape, and sing my song,
I dance and shout, all the day long.
I'm the bird with the wounded wing.
It's some rare perhaps extinct breed that hears me sing.

I watch it work.
It seems so natural.
She likes him, he likes her,
I can only watch, analyze, infer.

I watch it work.
I try my hand.
It's another skill--
It's another tree where I cannot land.

Females of the Past & Hindsight

It's interesting how I claw for every scrap of silver lining I can get in my struggle to come out of the closet.  Is it weird that I take comfort in how unsuccessful I've been with dating women?  It makes me feel like telling my family and friends that I'm gay will be just that small bit easier because they can't have built up any preconceived notions that I'm a womanizer or that I'm way into women.  In fact, I've said to friends before that I'm a little surprised no one in my family has ever (even jokingly) asked me if I was gay.  I mean, I've never even kissed a girl.  Doesn't that make it that much more obvious that I'm gay?  I just kind of hope that none of my family and friends are completely shocked.  I think it's when people are utterly shocked that they have a harder time accepting it, and that they're more likely to react badly.

The clearest example from my past that should have left them with at least a little doubt about me being heterosexual is a girl we'll call Gretta.  Graham and Gretta?  Wow, I'm great at these pseudonyms!  Anyway, I got a serious crush on Gretta in high school when I heard her sing.  I was so drawn to her talent, intelligence, sense of humor, and our similar approaches to many things in life.  (Like dating... we both said that we didn't want boyfriends/girlfriends in high school.  I probably mostly only said that to have something in common with her.)  We became very very good friends and spent a TON of time together.  We graduated, time passed, and I was home from college and getting ready to go on my Mormon mission.  We spent almost every day together.  We would be alone in her parents' basement on the couch together, watching TV shows and movies galore.  I might have thought about kissing her once.  MIGHT.  I certainly never would have done it though... because "I didn't want to have a girlfriend before my mission."  So a two year mission passed, and I came home with loads of expectations from what our relationship would be.  She wasn't really into me the way I was into her, she said.  So we became just friends.  For years... and years.  We still spent almost every weekend that I came home from college together.  And summers... we were always together.  She was my de facto girlfriend... but without anything physical and without any of the expectations of a real relationship.  Now... along came one day that we were alone together in her apartment.  Sitting together on her couch.  Talking about us.  How we could definitely be married and have a relationship.  "But what about the physical stuff?" she asked.  We both thought for a second about how weird it would be to be physical... oh wait... no... it was probably ONLY me that thought that.  What the hell kind of heterosexual man who's alone with a female that is amazing to him, who he says he's attracted to, and who asks a question that is basically an invite to make out when he's sitting next to her on a couch DOESN'T REACT?  I was filled with so much regret as I drove home reflecting on that moment that passed us by.  That moment I could have just kissed her and gotten years of relationship, pain, and struggle out of the way.  That moment we could have either found out that we could, in fact, have something physical and emotional, or that I was gay and lacked any real sexual attraction to women. I didn't know about the latter part of that potential for discovery at the time... but now I look back and I do know that I could have learned something in that moment.  Maybe the lack of action should have been a huge clue... but it wasn't.  I just assumed that I was protecting our friendship from the possibility of trying and failing to start a relationship.  Oh, Gretta.  Why didn't you tell me to just kiss you?  Oh, Graham... why didn't you just realize and accept that there was an underlying reason you NEVER did anything (or even really thought much about doing) more than hold girls' hands or cuddle?

Gretta's married now, and we don't really talk much.  After giving her an ultimatum of sorts that she refused (wow, poor girl... had to lose her gay friend because he still didn't think he was gay and confused an incredible friendship with love) we drifted apart.  I became bitter that she took up so much of my dating time.  That she'd been so selfish in not letting me go.  Clearly, I see now that I was probably just staying in that impossible relationship because I didn't want to face facts.  I think that's why I never had a real serious relationship.  There was the girl we'll call Heather that I dated for about a month.  That was my most serious relationship ever.  I think I called her my girlfriend a couple times.  She and I had a lot in common.  I think she was pretty much what people call a "beard" though.  Which makes me feel terrible.  I think I only tried to date her because I wanted a girlfriend.  It's like... I would constantly date just to avoid suspicion that I was gay.  But it wasn't just for other people... I would convince myself that I had fallen head over heels about these girls and get devastated when things didn't work out.  This happened over and over and over.  I think I was really just trying to convince myself that I was capable of caring that much about a girl.  If I really cared, at least in the way that a heterosexual man would care... I would have just kissed them.  I would have given them the physical signs that I was as emotionally attached as I really was.  And I was emotionally attached... I just didn't have the physical attraction to back it up.  I wish sex just didn't have to be a part of all of it.  (See why I think I'm asexual sometimes?)

Free Agency & The Secrecy Trap

Mormons who read this (if there are any) will likely immediately assume from the title that my mention of free agency refers to the doctrinal concept associated with the fall and the plan of salvation.  Not exactly the case.  I was pleased to realize that titling this post so would create a great play on words, but I'm actually referring to the sports term.  In my confusion about who I really am, I began saying to myself "I don't know which team I play for.  I'm a free agent!"  I have alternately thought that I played for Team Straight (The Utah Saints?), Team Asexual (The Boston Celibates?), Team Bisexual (The Buffalo Bis?), and, of course, Team Gay (The Tampa Bay Gays?).  Turns out, even after all I've learned about myself and my sexuality in the last few years, I don't really know if I've been signed by any one team.  I do know 100% that I'm sexually attracted to men.  I really doubt whether I'm sexually attracted to women at all.  I've worried though, that because I've never had sex, I might not actually like it at all and that may be why I'm not very driven to have physical relationships with anyone... in other words, that I'm an asexual excepting masturbation.  Free agency is a tough place to be.  I'm just looking for a team to accept me, and I'm becoming more and more aware that I may never get signed to play ball.

And maybe that's ok.  I've realized that because of my 100% asexual nature at least until I was 25, maybe I'm the perfect person to be chosen to deal with same sex attraction and still follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  And maybe if I had discovered that I was gay before I turned 25, I could be living a gay-but-celibate lifestyle that still manages to follow Christ's gospel as I believed it to be true.  But, that's the very problem... "believed."  My testimony is a wisp of what it once was.  I don't even know if it really exists.  When I used to go faithfully and consistently to church, I would have Sundays that were incredibly uplifting and that I engaged and got a lot from, and others that I just got through... maybe bored, tired, or just feeling a bit apathetic.  Nowadays if I go to church I always fall into the latter category.  I'm just there to be in the Mormon culture, not to be uplifted or to worship.

It's this loss or severe dilapidation of my testimony that has left me feeling like I'm in a bit of a secrecy trap.  As I've said before, I want so badly to be 100% honest about who I am because I've spent so many years lying to everyone, including myself, about who I am and about other things, too.  Coming out feels like it's absolutely necessary.  Living with so much secrecy and with so little veracity is unsustainable.  I've learned this the hard way through severe depression and suicidal thoughts.  I want out of all of these lies... but I'm very aware that I can't do that without hurting people around me.  That is, unless I choose to embrace the gospel again.  Just as I feel that I no longer think I could have a strong heterosexual relationship, I don't really think I can ever reconcile the doubts, both independent of and related to my present predicament, that I've had about the church.  This is what will really hurt. The people I love most in my life will all be hurt by my separation from the church, should I choose to do so.  (Perhaps with the exception of my dad, who (even though, or perhaps because, he hasn't been an active member of the church since I was 5) will  probably be the least accepting of me being someone with same sex attraction.  I don't really trust my dad much, so I likely won't tell him for a long while anyway.)  So, if I'm going to hurt my INCREDIBLE mother, my amazing siblings, other relatives and my great friends who are virtually all active members of the LDS church by telling them that I'm gay and I don't intend to follow the gospel path... why not keep keeping the secrets?  Well, because it's unsustainable... as I mentioned.  I need at least one person I truly trust to be on my side in all of this.  I just really can't figure out who, if anyone, that should be.  Who should I hurt, at least a little?  I just get so frustrated.  I mean, there's still the good kid inside me that just wants to go back to church and do everything right and feel like I'm going to heaven and everyone can rely on me and my family doesn't have the pain that we all have dealt with in thinking that we'll be separated from my dad for eternity all over again.  (I think I need run-on sentences like this to express how quickly this stuff flows when I'm upset.  So lay off how terrible this blog's authorship is.)

Apparently I am no longer content to try to play for the Utah Saints.  Anyone want to be my agent and make a call to the front office for Boston, Buffalo, or Tampa Bay?  I'd appreciate it.

Empathy & Lies

I was just struck with a brief moment of pride in the constitution of who I am.  Not pride in the sense that I'm better than other people.  I don't know whether I have God, my mother, or genetics and the environment I was raised in to thank for a certain quality I'm happily possessed of.  I am an empathetic person.  I almost always approach problems from the perspective I believe others may have.  My moment of happiness about this characteristic just now was kind of odd, because I realized that that quality may be just what is going to see me through the present turmoil that is coming out to myself.  I thought, perhaps I've been given an empathetic soul so that I can give myself a break, and accept me.

I know that this is not really what empathy is about. I have often times had friends vent to me about what other people have done to them or about people that annoy them... and my first reaction and almost always part of my advice to these friends is to put things in that other persons' perspective.  Empathy is about OTHER people.  But let's face it... my personality is made up of multiple people.  One of these "people" is extremely judgmental of all the other Grahams.  I am virtually always my own harshest critic.  I can never really seem to cut myself some slack.  Maybe, just maybe, I've been given empathy to counteract that problem... I've just never known to use it.  My simple point is that this characteristic of mine that is almost annoying to other people, could be used for my very own good, too.  Maybe I can start looking at things the way my other sides do, and judgmental Graham can give it a rest already.  I deserve some slack.

I used to always tell close friends that I felt like my life was so easy and that I didn't really have any big trials.  I would also tell them that this lack of trial made me fearful for my future.  Boy, was I right to fear.  My trials over the past few years have been almost unbearable.  I almost didn't make it.  So many times I've just wanted to run away.  But I'm still here.  I'm still fighting.  And maybe that's just enough heroism for me to actually respect myself.

I don't know if anything that I've just said makes any sense.  This blog really does feel quite vomitty. (There's that word again!)  But I think I feel glad that I know that I can't be expected to handle all of this with perfect grace.  I think I'm allowed a period to be a freak and lose a bit of the control that I'm always so protective over.  It's all good.

One thing that I do still judge myself for is the lies.  Having lied to myself for so long about being gay, (or, at least, how gay I am) has made it so natural to lie to others about it.  Yes... that's what being in the closet is.  But I don't want to be anymore.  I'm not saying I'm ready to be out, because I'm not.  I'm still reeling from finally telling myself that I'm gay.  (Man, I'm REALLY making it sound like I have mental illnesses (read multiple personalities) in this post... I promise that I don't (except for depression, but that's another story.))  I'm just tired of the little lies all the time about how "hot" I think a woman is.  I hate how I feel so phony when I say it.  I wish I could eradicate everything from my life that makes me feel that way.  I loathe feeling like a liar, so I'd like to be able to no longer be one.

Today, I went to lunch with my roommate.  Because it was just the two of us at a restaurant, he predictably became concerned that people would think we were gay.  It's been bizarre letting go of my homophobia that I also used to feel.  I used to be SO afraid of people thinking I was gay.  If I saw someone laughing at me when I was alone with another guy, I used to always instantly assume they were making fun of me for being gay.  Well... I still think that... but it's been weird realizing that I shouldn't have a problem with them laughing.  That's their own damn problem now.  I am gay.  Deal with it judgmental jerks.  (I just went to the Internet to find a better word than jerks, but I came up empty. I'll settle for judgmental jerks, I guess.)  So anyway, I still am just as over-anxious about people judging me, but it's kind of nice realizing... oh wait.  I AM GAY.  It doesn't matter now if people think I am or that I look it.  I'm not saying I'm necessarily embracing being ok with being perceived as portraying gay stereotypes, but I'm just trying to elucidate that it's nice to know who I am.  Homophobia is really a waste of mental time and labor.

It will be so great when I can quit lying and quit acting like homophobia is alive and well in me like normal.  I'm not ready to tell the world that I'm gay yet, but I don't feel like it's too far off that I might come to be THAT accepting of myself.

I got abducted by aliens.  Ask me about it.  The end.
(Curious to check to see if anyone (who isn't crazy) made it through this post.)

Sacrifices & Options

I think what's really been so hard lately, is that I'm realizing that no matter what I do, I am going to lose something.  I don't get to be what I've always been trying to be.  It's hurting me, too, that I'm only getting to realize that so much of my pursuit of a heterosexual "eternal" marriage in the Mormon sense has been in vain at the age of 27. I feel like I've missed out on so many years that could have been spent so much better if I would have just been honest with myself.  I need to be honest now and know that I am going to have to make some serious sacrifices if I want to find happiness.


This video struck me as pretty apt for exactly what I'm dealing with.  I'm particularly referring to the list of four options this guy offers as the four things his MoHo friends suggest that they consider as their only options.  I must say that #3 (half in, half out) hasn't really crossed my mind.  I need more honesty.  Which makes it a wonder why #1 (suppressing and trying to live heterosexually) is something I considered as the only option for so long, and I still kind of consider it an option.  Of course, as I've mentioned, I'm not fully not attracted to women.  However, I'm realizing lately that I think I've built up in my mind the kinds of attraction I do feel toward women so that this option #1 can remain viable.  (And only for that reason.)  I think I've fabricated a lot of the attraction I claim to have felt toward women... if I'm being the most honest I have ever been.  So, I think it's really time for me to figure out whether I'm ready for door number 2, or door number 4.  I'm either in all the way as a MoHo who don't ho.  Or I'm all the way out.  Just a ho.  This is where I'm at.  I'm seriously considering who I want to come out to, and talk to about this.  I'm still too terrified at the prospect.  Oh, life.  You're just way too much fun.

Identity Crisis & Cooking

I chose to stay home from church today.  I tried to do some more thinking about where I am, and where I want to go.  I am feeling incredibly lost.  More lost than I've ever felt before.  It's as though I've always had this identity of being an active super-Mormon who keeps his slight homosexual tendencies hidden from everyone, including himself.  So, now that over the past two years I've finally come to terms with the fact that I am almost exclusively attracted to my same gender, I don't know who I am.  I don't go to church.  And even when I do, I don't care about the gospel... only the people.  I want people to be happy.  I just don't seem to care if I'm happy, because it's like I have lost the one and only path I've ever known to happiness.  The great "Plan of Happiness" doesn't include me being gay.  I genuinely miss being oblivious, but I'm aware that I'll only ever get to where I can actually be fully happy if I just endure this period, and find out what will work for me.  What new identity I can take on.  Hopefully, it's a more honest one.

On a completely different note... I wish that some of the gay stereotypes came with being gay... because I suck at cooking.  I'm eating a rather gross pile of frozen chicken that I baked in the oven.  It came preseasoned, etc. of course... because I'm so lazy about cooking, too.  I wish I could add that to my being gay pros and cons list.  Pro: I will now be a fabulous cook!  Nope.  Not gonna happen.

Mormonism & Neighbors

I don't know why I thought it would preserve my anonymity any better to never say I was a Mormon. If I'm going to be the most honest I have ever been, I need to talk about my church in a few more specifics.  So there you have it.  I'm a Mormon.  I still am going to church sometimes, but I really struggle to believe any more.  Every once in a while I'll hear some talk or something that will turn me back around and make me strive to be fully active again and work toward marrying a woman.  But that's just so hard to do when I have so many serious and honest doubts about whether there is any way a marriage to a woman can work for me.  I really really doubt my fortitude to just be abstinent, too.  I basically never consider that as an option. So invariably, I get sick (depressed) and skip church for a couple weeks and slip back into wanting to run away from everything.  This week I've been strongly considering giving it up and trying out a different lifestyle, so I wonder what will happen when my roommates want to go to church with me tomorrow.  Will I get up and go?  Pretend to be a good priesthood bearer?  Duck questions from the bishop?  Endure dating advice that I didn't ask for?  Or... will I lay in my bed feeling miserable that I can't figure out what to do or how to fix everything.  Miserable that I can't be happy whichever way I choose?  I know there is a solution out there for me.  I know there is a way I can be happy in this life.  I just don't know how to get there.  Especially without enduring a LOT of pain and grief... and those two things ain't my faves.  I think I've pretty much lost my testimony.  It's like I just keep wanting to stick with the church because it's what I'm comfortable with.  It's how I relate to so many friends and my family.  It's how I see the world.  It's how I've made so many major decisions in my life.  So, the fact that I don't really find myself having a lot of faith in it any more is a bitter pill to swallow.  Ugh.  I'm just so frustrated.  I was in such a great place a few years ago.  I believed.  I dated women.  I was ignorant.  And it was, in fact, bliss.  I didn't know that the reason I never kissed them, or that I lacked the normal sex drive was that I was actually attracted to men.  I would never let myself think that about myself.  I virtually never let myself think anything related to sex.  It kept this storm at bay for a while, but when the dam broke a couple years ago, all Hell broke loose.  (Literally?  Get it?  I'm going to Hell now because I'm gay and I want to act on it.  Oh, boy... now I'm making light of the situation.  Can you see that my coping mechanisms are struggling?  I usually use humor to diffuse any tough situation, but it doesn't work when it's a conundrum on such a grand existential/eternal scale.)  So... anyway.  Apparently I'm a MoHo now.  I just learned what that was the other day.  A Mormon Homosexual.  It's a tough crowd to be in.  Lots of drama, pain, crying, and whining.  (Well, at least I'm experiencing/doing all of those things.)  I don't know if there was a point to this post or if it was just another way for me to vent what could be summed up in just a few words:  I'm effing confused.

On another note, I had the strangest feeling the other day when I was told that the neighbor upstairs is gay.  It was probably the first time in my life that I really struggled to fake being disgusted.  I was talking to a particularly homophobic Mormon roommate, too.  I wonder, actually, if he noticed that I took the news kind of weird.  It was like I wanted to just rush upstairs and give my neighbor a hug.  As though I am family to him now.  I know that's stupid.  Especially because I'm not out, and I am not the most accepting of gay guys.  Meaning, I'm still kind of indoctrinated with the non-threatening anti-gay mentality.  As in, I'll love the sinner, but hate the sin... and gossip about the sinner.  Am I wrong in thinking that this is REALLY how it is for Mormons/Christians that profess to hate the sin and love the sinner?  We still bash on them behind their backs?

It reminded me of when my friend came out while he was in college at BYU.  He had previously dated girls and had kind of a rebellious streak to him, so many of us talked about him behind his back.  Saying that he had made the choice to be gay.  That he could really be straight if he wanted to.  I said things like that so many times when that friend came up.  Makes me feel super great now.  It's not like I think that he made the choice to be gay and I didn't.  I understand now.  He was doing his best to be what everyone wanted him to be.  He finally caved and chose the lifestyle that would really make him fully happy.  Now he has a great boyfriend and seems to be very happy.  Yes, he chose to be gay, but only after it chose him.  I get it now. It's not a choice, because believe me... who would choose this much pain and anguish?

I don't know what this post did for me except let me vent frustrations a bit.  So, sorry about how poorly written it is.  I'm still just trying to figure out what to do with this blog, and more importantly, my life.