I'm Sorry You Are Stuck With... Him.

Love, they say, means never having to say you are sorry.


Personally, I think that is one of the most idiotic and selfish ways to view love.  That ranks pretty high up there, almost equal to the idea that in love, the other person has to accept you as who you are with not a single change required at all.

And that's why you're lonely.
Or why others pity your partner.

What a huge steaming pot of cow offal these adages are!

First of all, even if you are in a loving, honest and responsible relationship, if you in any way mess up or do something wrong, then by the powers that be you better fess up and apologize to your partner.  It does not matter if your partner is socially-inept, image-conscious, uneducated, weathly-rich-spoiled, uglier than your penis warts or more beautiful than the love child of Papa P and whoever becomes his Mama, if you do something that insults him, abuses his trust, makes him look stupid, wastes his time, or worse, plays with his heart, then apologize for your lack of actual intelligence in doing it.  The act of realizing and accepting one's guilt and role in a mistake is crucial in a proper relationship to work.  So you woke up late to show up at a date?  Apologize!  Fess up as to why you did not sleep earlier and be man enough to say you are sorry.    Or maybe you somehow started a small white lie, like claimed to call your partner open-minded enough to let you fuck around, and now the lie has reached his ears and the world can see he never really saw things that way... would you really have the gall to believe you had every right to do what you wanted because in a relationship, the man you claim to love and have labelled an idiot to all your conquests should accept you as who you are?

Or rather, as WHAT you are?

Because if you are going to act like a self-centered manipulative bastard, your partner has every right to punch your lights out and call you exactly what you are.

If you are guilty, you better admit you are.
Only then does a "Sorry" really have worth.

Many counter that love requires compromise.  This is true.  But the sad thing about this truth is many stretch it too far into realms beyond actual compromise.  For example, compromise is cutting down on going out since your partner wants to stay home on some nights.   Compromise is smoking outside the house since your partner is asthmatic.  Compromise is not owning a pet since your partner is actually phobic to the said animal.

Those are proper compromises.  Those are compromises that happen in a relationship where communication actually happens.

"I thought you were just living with your ex... oh."

Compromise is not sleeping with anyone you want to since the other has never complained about it.    Compromise is not letting your partner sleep around because you are afraid to complain and mess things up and end up living life alone.  Compromise is not giving up on your hobby or dreams because your money is needed to pay your partner's extracurricular needs.  Especially when those needs are fickle expenses that he should, had he had any real-male balls between his thighs and actual contents where his brain should be, be responsible enough to curb if he can't afford on his own.

Admittedly, many people have dreams of living a carefree life.   Marry rich and die happy, they say.  Find a wealthy foreigner to foot your bills for the rest of your life.  Better yet, make sure you find someone who is afraid to be left alone.  In the straight side of things, this was very prevalent towards women.  Find a handsome rich man.  It doesn't matter if you don't really like him, you will be happy with him.  He has money. Get pregnant before he escapes.  Horrible.  Simply horrible.  Did these parents ever realize they were telling their own daughters to give up being people and just sell their vaginas to the closest man with a hefty wallet?

Makes me wanna Expose, Educate, Inspire people who think they're already perfect.
Perfectly messed up and selfish, if you ask me.

And strangely, many gay guys have embraced the very same idea.    They want to live Eat-Pray-Whatever the Fuck that book is called lives where they splurge money needlessly on quests to find themselves when their real problems were issues with them not being honest to themselves.    And before you even try to peg it on me, I have nothing against rich people or foreigners.   I do have huge issues with gold diggers.  Especially those who believe they DESERVE the other person's hard earned money.

Does he know you measure him based on his monetary worth?

A relationship requires a real sense of balance.  
And understandably, how that is defined differs from couple to couple.  I know of long term couples that have opened their doors to having sex with others.  The beauty of this?  Full disclosure.  No lies about being single to net the next cutie.  No slanderous excuses given to explain away the "room mate."  Real open relations where one tells dated guy he is actually in a relationship but the partner is open to the idea.  And the partner himself does the same thing.  Equity.  Balance.

Some how, that seems so hard to accept for most people.
So they do what is easier.  They lie.  They invent.  They tell their loved ones how special they are, then ask for money to go out and find someone new to fuck.  And that someone later on will have to discover to his horror  his hook up happens to be taken.  And the loved one learns as far as the hook up was concerned, he didn't exist... well until shit hit the fan.  So many lies.  Layer and layer that when sprung, can destroy trust that took years to earn.   That can destroy all the joyful memories that were built through the months.  Or years.

Why are you so afraid to be yourself?

It makes me wonder why bother lying?
Why not be honest to your partner?  Why not admit your needs?  Or insecurities?  Or fears?  Why not work though everything AS a couple?  After all, that is what you want to be right?  A couple?

Love is means you say sorry.  But most of the time, you won't really have to.
Well, you won't if you are doing your part.

Love fuels a relationship, after all.
And if you're not really doing your share to keeping a relationship running...

The best liars are the ones who believe their own lies.

.. you are not in Love.
So just admit it.
Don't add another layer to the lies you might already struggle to hide.

Again, Kylie speaks volumes of this.

Be honest from the start.
Full disclosure.  Better, after all, as Kylie said the devil you know.
And you will see how easy it becomes to be sensitive and true to one another.

But even French Fries deserve to be happy.
The birds though, they should learn to be content.

Saying sorry becomes a rare event.
Because there are fewer times you will ever need to say it.

I'm Better than I've Ever Been. Can you say the same?

Christmas has just zoomed passed us and in a few more days 2010 will be bidding us farewell.  Who would have thought time can move so quickly when you are having this much fun.  To be honest, I still find myself at times pinching myself to make sure I'm not caught in a dream or lost in some food-induced ecstatic vision.  The number of things that I had accomplished in this year alone are quite overwhelming, to be honest.  It was almost as if I had been stagnating for so long and had never really noticed it.

Merry Christmas from us!

But I guess life is really like that.  There are the ups and downs, the zig zags and the u-turns, the humps and the rapid roads that fast-track us through what we are meant to experience.  There are the scenic routes and the dumpy boring ones.  There are the long agonizing treks that move past galleries of regrets and frustrations.  And there are the wonderful stop overs that are there to remind you, "Hey you deserve this!" that quietly then hitch along for a ride as you go through your life.

Life is like Inception.
Confusing.

Let's face it:  Life can be challenging enough as it is.   From academic to economic expectations, dealing with the pressures of school and work are already a lot for some people.   Add to that the pressures from siblings, friends, and parents who all (well, at least the real ones) really just want was is best for you.    Then finally, add the delicate act of sharing and yet respecting boundaries that is necessary for a relationship to remain healthy and not dip into either obsession or abuse.  Life is pretty challenging enough as it is.

Add to that the discrimination from both others and one's peers for being gay.
And for being a geek.

Trust me, you guys have it easier :-P

And trust me, it can be a far greater challenge than most would expect.

But in many ways, this never-ending challenge of embracing one's true self, and celebrating it with the world, is what makes life worth living.  It is only when one is able to say, "Hey, look!  This is me and I love being me!" can one start to honestly consider finding that special someone else whom one can share one's life with.  Cause one has to be very careful out there.  There are a lot of predators, users, and abusers out there who would not really feel any moral obligation to care about how easily they manipulate your naïveté to their advantage.   A large part of knowing how to avoid such people is to learn to trust yourself first and to love yourself for who you are.   Once you do, the adage like-attracts-like easily comes into play and before you know it, you will find someone who "gets" you as much as you "get" him too.

Really.  No.  Don't go there.

So yes, 2011 is inching its way closer with barely a week left of time remaining.  Lots of people talk about having a "resolution" this new year.  Others mumble about trying to accomplish a list of goals.  Me?  I think what would be best is to review one's life and consider what one has done to be both oneself and at the same time an even better version of oneself.    Others might be content to judge the joy in the lives by the branded things they buy, or the free trips out-of-town they connive out of others... don't mislead yourself into thinking they have it "better".  After all, all they've done is measure the quality of their lives on financial means.  Celebrate being you and celebrating always becoming even a better you each and every single day!

Year of the Rabbit is coming up!

Here's to another year filled with real rainbows that color the sky!

*Thanks to my partner Rocky for some of the pictures!

---

George Washington
Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better be alone than in bad company.

Are you REALLY worth it?

An interesting question was raised to me earlier while I was at my favorite haunt regarding relationships.   I showed up to hang with my friends when out of the blue, someone who I have only begun to know as a friend threw me an interesting query:

How does one know when someone is worth it?

It seemed like a strange thing to ask, given we were at O bar enjoying our drinks while dancing to Kylie, Duffy and other wonderful singers.  The mood, though muddled a bit by a pair of horrendous monkeys who were practically dry humping on the stage, was far from serious and the drinks were still in their infancy.  I considered the fact that it may have been a question that had been nagging the said person's mind and he may have opted to ask me for my opinion given he knew me to be both old and much more introspective about things.

I repeated the question aloud and thought about it for a moment.  After all, the question had much more weight than one would expect.  Is a person's "worth", for example, something that another person has the right to determine?  Would factors such as occupation, personal wealth, good breeding, eloquence of speech and courage to come out be valid standards to forge the proper measure of a gay man?  Would judging another based on such color one as being materialistic?  Or a bigot?  Or even elitist?

We've all found ourselves at one point or another questioning our
own self-worth because of how another abused our trust and love.

Deciding it was best to get a better picture of why the question was asked, I prodded for more information and soon it became clear based on his answers why the question came to mind.  In brief, the guy had sacrificed numerous things for the other, thinking the other guy was a sure candidate for a long-term relationship, only to be rebuffed with a statement about not "wanting to be tied down" and then countered with accusations of flirting around with others and the like.   While I decided to tip-toe away from the dangerous quest of knowing whether the accusations or complaints were valid, I realized the specifics of why he asked the question were irrelevant to how I ultimately would answer the question.   And my answer was this:

The question of whether a person one likes is worth the effort or not is a question only the person involved can honestly answer.  

While other people may have opinions, informed or not, about the other, the person involved remains the sole holder of the right to decide if the other is worth his time.

Take for instance a couple where one is a wealthy, well-connected man of high profile status.  The man may be raking in thousands per week, driving the best car money can buy, and practically be a celebrity in his field of practice.  Some (and most of the time these would be parents or titos and titas) would say such a person is a great catch! That someone who is that successful is worth it, no matter how he is as a person.  For some, such a person can even be a habitual liar who sleeps around with total strangers, or a manipulative bastard who brainwashes his friends to like him by bribing them with gallant displays of generosity.  The idea that he's successful is worth those "tiny" problems.

On the other hand, imagine if one of the people in the couple happens to be a man who proclaims himself some kind of modern day hippie, despising work and relishing on spending his days doing practically nothing under the guise of searching for artistic perfection.  The lazy slob might automatically be deemed as worthless by others who think the fact he doesn't earn his keep makes him less of a man.  

But sometimes, such a strange mix can still work.  Sometimes, the unfaithful bastard in the first example might simply have psychological issues that the other understands and accepts.   Or sometimes, the sloth in the second example might truly be fantastically creative when the moment hits him and his partner embraces that probability and waits with him for that moment.

It takes two.  Two people who sleep around freely in a real open-relationship would work.
But one doing so, while the other has no idea or is kept from doing the same... that's doomed to fail.

Are these relationships doomed to fail?  Are they bound to work?

Maybe.  The only ones who can really answer that are those involved, if you ask me.  Yes, maybe they can be abusive.  Maybe they can be unfair.  But if the people involved ultimately are happy, then they deserve that happiness, as twisted and inappropriate as others might deem it.  Hey, come on, think about it.  We are gay.   We are in same-sex relationships.  A majority of the people of the world already deem us immorally inappropriate and biologically wrong.  

Does that make the relationship worth it, though?  Does that make it worth the pain?  The anguish?  The self-doubt?

Maybe.

Be honest.  

But while ideals are far from typical, I personally believe that one should always strive to at least reach for them.  And in a relationship, the ideals I uphold are those of Trust, Sensitivity, Patience and Responsibility.

In a relationship that is worth it, I believe both couples strive to maintain an ever present existence of trust with one another.  Trust after all, once broken, can take quite much more time than expected to heal.  And worse, many mistake a "bahala attitude" as trust.    Sensitivity, on the other hand, when present already reduces the presence of infidelity, selfishness and shallowness.  When one learns to hold one's partner's feelings in mind, one remains conscious of things that may strain the other's trust and patience.  A sensitive person would never hit on someone else, because that person knows such an act can be painful to the other.  A sensitive person would never claim to be okay with something, then complain about it once the other actually does it.  Patience is the glue that strengthens the three.  When one is patient in a relationship, one embraces the fact that no matter how close and wonderful two are together, one accepts the truth that they are still two different people.  And two different people may have differences in opinions, interests, or taste.   One learns to respect the needs of another, but, guided by sensitivity and empowered by trust, knows that such time will not be abused to the point it leaves the other feeling dejected or unwanted.   And lastly, Responsibility.  Knowing what resources exist in the relationship, from the material (cash) to the immaterial (time) and understanding that one has to treat such things with a much more mature perspective.  Many who simply "do what they want since no one is complaining" fail to realize how irresponsible they are.  Such people try to throw the blame on the other for not "telling them to stop" as if they were not given the brains to realize how abusive they are getting.

(I posted about this here too, for those who haven't read it.)

And with those said, we return to the question:

How does one know when someone is worth it?

I think ultimately we all can try to assume someone is for an unspecified period of time.  When we find someone we like, or feel we have a connection to, we decide, "Yes this person is worth it" for a period of time.  Ironically, this period of time tends to be the time we are merely getting to know someone more.  During this period, we cancel plans to make time for the other.  Or cancel purchases to treat the other out somewhere we like.  Many make the mistake of putting their best "show" forward, rather than being themselves, thinking it would be better to "win someone over" by showing them an "ideal" rather than to let someone get to know them as them and face the consequences.    But I personally don't think there's anything wrong with assuming someone is worth it this early.

In fact, I think ultimately, we never know for absolute certain if someone is worth it.  We can only assume.  Or rather, to be more accurate, we can believe the other is.

When we find someone we feel is worth it, we make a leap of faith.  We trust in something that doesn't exist.  We give that someone a chance to show us otherwise.  And sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes, we give more chances.  Sometimes, we give up.  Too soon.   Too late.

But we believe.

And that is a belief no one can tell us is wrong.  Because as individuals we have the right to make such decisions.   What we should never do, however, is blame the other for choosing to believe.    (We can always, however, curse them for lying if they do.)  And if we find someone who deserves us, it won't be hard to see how they too took that chance and believed in us.

And reached for the same ideals you had.

Leaping ain't too hard if you know you're both doing it for each other.

There is no harm in loving.  No harm in caring.  No harm in believing.
But if that trust is shattered, that sensitivity is trampled on, that patience is broken, and that sense of responsibility is abused, I only hope that you realize these things and remember:  You deserve better.

And someone out there, deserves you too.