Sunday, May 21st, 2000 @ 3:30 AM PST

Alrighty.. my birthday update..

So I turned 19 on Friday.. in BC that's the legal drinking age, so it was a special birthday.. Every year I get asked the same dumb question.. "so, do you feel any older?".. and every year my responce is the same "no older than I did last night", but this time, I actually do feel older. It's like turning 30.. people dread turning 30, or like turning 50.. mid-life crisis. I think that because I have had such a busy, eventful year this year, I looked back on what I accomplished, what I learned, what I did and realised that I've lived a pretty good life so far.

When I was 15.. I was a pretty fucked up person. Suicide was never far from my mind, and I think I jokingly told myself that if I lived to be 19, I'd kill myself then, because all my "good years" (which were at the time and in retrospect pretty awful) would be gone, and all I'd have left would be the remaining 50 or so years of work, work and more work. At that time, a lot seemed hopeless. I was pretty miserable.. and looking back NOW, I think a lot of it had to do with my sexuality. There was a lot of self-loathing going on in my mind back then, and to a certain degree, I think it was how I was coping/repressing the fact that I wasn't the same as everyone else. Top that off with a lot of gay bashing at school, and it makes for a very unhappy person. Hating yourself is bad enough, but when you have others justifying (or so you think) you're self-hatred, it just intensifies it and makes it even worse.

Now however, I've accepted who and what I am, heck, I've embraced it, and now I'm able to cope better. I don't have that wall there, blocking certain parts of my brain, and so everything is just a lot clearer now.

OK.. so that was depressing.. Thursday night my mom and my brothers and I went out for my birthday dinner, because I was doing my other dinner with friends on Friday. Anyway, we got a reservation at this restaraunt for 7:30. We got there about 5 minutes early, so they told us it'd be a couple of minutes. What started out as 5 minutes turned into 45 minutes for our RESERVED table. I can't believe we stuck around THAT LONG.. I don't think I've ever done that. If I get screwed around by a restaraunt like that, I usually walk out after 20 minutes of waiting for a reserved table. Anyway, the food was decent (no screaming hell, and certainly not worth waiting the extra 45 minutes for), but our waitress was a complete idiot. She forgot to bring us water, she forgot to bring us bread, both of which were complimentary (that's the assumption you make with water atleast), and to top it off, she mixed up everyones food AND drink orders. Pfft! Oh well.. it was fun.. when I wasn't annoyed.

Anyway, Friday was my birthday, so here's a rundown of the nights events. My friends and I went out for dinner. It was fun.. there was about 10 of us there.. It was great seeing some of them again, because I hadn't seen a couple of them in quite a while, so it was great to see everyone again. After dinner, Justin was pretty tired, so he decided he was going to go home, and that left me, Craig and Jenny with nothing to do.. (it was about 11ish) so we decided to go on a little road-trip out to Hope. Hope is about an hour and a half away.. so we had a lot of fun just driving out there, coming back.. you know.. pointless road-trips can be fun. :) Anyway, I got home around 3:30am and headed off to bed.

Tonight, my friend Lucas and I went out for coffee (actually, he went out for Snapple, I went out for something, but never got around to actually getting it).. He was actually at the restaraunt I was having my little birthday dinner at, so he joined us last night, so it was nice to see him again tonight. We hadn't seen each other since the middle of April and were meaning to get together, but we both work, and are pretty busy, so we didn't get around to seeing each other until our accidental (which was only accidental in so far as much as I knew he was going to be there, but only after I had made my reservation and he called me up asking what I was doing around 6 PM.. when he found out we were going to be at the same restaraunt, he stuck around till 8 to meet up with us) meeting last night, and then again tonight. It was pretty fun going out with someone and being able to look around a restaraunt and say "that guy's HOT!".. (  <smirk> Lucas.. the guy in the corner.. he's straight.. I'm sorry..)

Anyway, I'm heading off to bed now.. it's 3:30 and I'm pretty tired..

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2000 @ 1:23 AM PST

I was reading something in the newspaper a couple of days ago. It was talking about how gay youths look for rolemodels in society, people they can emulate etc.. There are very few gay role models, because most choose to be silent about their sexuality for fear of being targetted. Teenagers tend to look up to sports figures, actors, politicians (apparently?) and other public people. There are very few OUT actors, sports figures or politicians, and so gay teenagers must look for others to look up to. That's why it's important for gay teenagers to have strong gay role models in society.. it's just unfortunate that there arn't many public figures to look up to.

So what's my point? I think when I first came out I was looking for someone to emulate, someone to model myself after, someone to just hang out with who was gay. I didn't do a lot of that stuff though, and I think I know why.. Most people are sure of their sexuality. They're either GAY or they're STRAIGHT I convinced myself that I was neither, and so, I kind of left myself in the middle. I thought I was reasonably sure of myself, atleast as sure as I could be under the circumstances. It's hard to be sure of anything when you're questioning something so fundamentally essential to who you are.

Looking back a couple months to when I first came out, I realise a huge mistake I made.. I was trying to lessen the blow.. not only to others but to myself as well.. I said I was bisexual.. hell, I think I was doing a pretty good job of convincing myself that I was.. it was a lie. I'm not bisexual.. One of my friends told me that being bisexual was a mindpoint between being straight and accpeting that you're gay..

I'm Gay. Accept it.. I have. If I can accept it..

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2000 @ 4:06 PM PST

"How can you say you're gay if you've never had sex with a guy?" I have had people ask me that question for a while now.. (I was asked "how can you be bisexual.." but the idea is the same)..

My responce..

How can you say you're straight if you've never had sex with someone of the opposite sex?

Because it's normal.. right? It's just the way you are. It's the way God made you.. (there are other answers)..

How can I say I'm gay if I've never had sex with a guy?

Because it's normal.. It's the way I am. It's the way God made me.