Love and Obsessions - 1. Chapter 1

I need to vent

I wish I know what is it that I am doing with my life, right now I scarcely remember any point or purpose to anything that I have done. I can’t pretend to have made some benevolent sacrifice in all of this, but it this what my life had led towards. I am probably better off if I believe in some kind of a god. So I can squeeze a little personal pleasure in the delusion; pretended that of all this is to accumulate brownie points for a spot in the eternal heaven or some unspecified reward in some unspecified future time that will finally give meaning and purpose towards my life. Sadly, I had given up on the idea of gods or organised religions for that matter; the chief reason is the inability to reconcile my own sexuality against the stance of the religion that I been thought to me since childhood; the whole eternal damnation in hell thing is a major deal breaker for me. I had gone though a lot of grief to come towards personal acceptance. The whole gambit of emotional 5-step program that is familiar to every gay person in the world with some kind of religious conditioning as a child; I had gone from ‘it is just a phase’ phase to ‘God hate me’ phase, and all the way to ‘maybe it is not my problem it is everyone else’s’ phase. I can’t really remember if that is all the steps, I probably left out a few important one like ‘make every bad decision you can think of just to screw with your parents’ but mine never included the ‘regrets are for losers so let just be a slut’ phase.

Very few gay persons had gone through life without going through their own versions of it, even without religion in the picture. With religion, you are lucky if you escape with all your marbles intact or without uncovering some personal demons. Even as I am saying that I don’t believe in God, it is more that I refuse to believe in God. I still have some residual let call it ‘after effect’; a lifetime of brainwashing is not something that can I can shakes off just like that. Part of the many demons that I will probably carry all my life. There maybe is a God but I refuse to believe some people versions of Him

I don’t write for the sole purpose of expressing my opinion on religion, so I will leave it at that (or maybe I’ll come back later). This is the story of my life hitherto; be foreworn (I always wanted to use that word) it is not a fairy tale despite the archaic word in use and it is not terribly exciting either. This could possibly become a jumbled mess of incoherent sentences; that only give a glimpse into the similarly jumbled mess of incoherence that is my mind. In other word, this could suck.

For those who had yet to roll their eyes please continue, for those who had for whatever reason; please keep your comments to yourself for now. I have only an adequate mastery of the English language to at the very least to not sound like bumbling idiot and not much more (even that is from my own bias opinion). For those who cannot keep to themselves and have an opinion on everything, get a red pen and go through the whole story crossing out and circling all the rules of the English language that I had transgressed. Make little notations on the margins; like my teacher use to do in school. It will be personally satisfying and from what I have learn in life, if you are unwilling to take the effort and make a difference; keep your opinion to yourself. Sent it back to me, and if this ever amount to anything I will make an effort to make the necessary corrections.

I have read Tristan Shandy and all of this is most probably the fault of that particular book, despite the fact that I don’t understand any of it. Thinking back, I am not even certain that I finished reading it. I know that I liked it; it is how I imagine memories work. History books put everything in to its correct chronological and contextual order. This incident, lead to this event, which in turn resulted in a major shift in whatever thing that seem intractable in that period of time (I hate history, I always imagine that I am somewhat dyslexic when it comes to remembering names and dates, even till to this day).

I believe we remember in fragments of the emotions; how strongly the memories affected us; it is not arrange in any particular order. At the very least, that is how my mind works. If I try to recall something, the first time I have sex for example. It will always seem to go like this. I remember the anxiousness and probably a little too fast into everything (not the decision to have sex, that is probably later than most people’s first time). It’s ‘the kid in the candy store’ effect, I want all of it at once and end up not enjoying any of it. I remember it was awkward and we were apologetic towards each other (cringing); then remember he is that kind of person. We were not madly in love with each other, but it was not a one-night stand either. We took time to get to know each other; we had a few dates and I remember that I really liked him. We drifted apart after that; we did not have sex again or even go on dates after that, it was a onetime thing and I don’t know why it turned out like it did (that is a lie, I did know it was my fault). That lead to me wondering if he had been just as inexperience as I was or that we are simply incompatible, to had led to that whole fumbling around (who have great sex the first time anyways?). Right now, I am thinking about the last time I had sex (cringing again). Maybe I’m doing it wrong; sex is not like in the pornos. They should put warning labels on porn videos ‘For Illustrative Purposes Only, Result May Vary’. I am officially a little depress now.

That last paragraph probably makes very little sense to anyone but me, it is a little like how I takes my history note in school. My life in abbreviated notes; that is exactly what I want to see, it will likely be a very sad and thin volume. So let me begin again.

I met him where all great love starts, online. On a website that lies in the middle between a utilitarian hook up site like Grindr and a serious matchmaking site (I have no idea what site to write for reference for the last part because I honestly have no idea). My profile was intentionally vague for obvious reasons. The site is mild by today’s standard; there is still some weirdoes’ on it. Despite all the homophobic stereotypes about gay men and sex, I am a total vanilla. In the middle of the many propositions for one night stands and someone asking for something that to this day I have no idea what it meant (that is a lie for a little drama, you were just now imagining the biggest kink you can think of right?). I googled it immediately and a little freaked out that it is even possible. I have googled a lot more things since; in the scale of things, I shouldn’t even blink.

His first massage was not a romantic note, or even a witty comment or self-introduction he to saw that I was online and asked me what I was doing (rom-com lies). I was bored so I reply with a non-committal ‘nothing much’. Those two words, strangely enough lead to a conversation that end up with both of us agreeing to a date. Thinking back on it, I was a little bold and most probably a lot stupid; I gave out my address to a total stranger online so that he could pick me up for our date. I my defence I don’t own a car at the time and it is almost impossible to get anywhere without it in this city (that statement was shallow and I like to think that I am not).

The first date was a movie and have a late lunch or an early dinner. We saw the two o’clock show and decide to eat right after; his work was to blame for the awkward time and the fact that a dinner date I thought was a little too serious (I wanted the ‘we just hang out’ excuse in case it went bad). If we didn’t exchange so many insignificant personal information through all those first dates questions, I don’t even think it even qualify as a date. We might have well been two friends hanging out (again rom-com lies. No one have a great first date, it is always awkward or maybe just mine?).

The only rom-com worthy moment of the entire date was when both of us can’t seem to remember where he parked the car. It was funny at first; we both laugh and makes jokes about it, it could have been what salvaged the date. The stuff that will make a great story to tell to friends on dinners; if we lasted long enough to tell stories to friends, but it wasn’t. It took us too long to find the car and that ruin the moment. After going through two stories of parking spaces, he became short and started cursing, not at me but at the situation. I froze; I have no idea what to do. Do I console him; tell him that it happen to everyone; suggest that I thought we could seek help from the guards. In the end, deciding that I don’t know him well enough to do anything, uncertain on how he would respond; I just stay silent. Following him through his visible anger and frustration before finding his car on the third floor basement car park.

When get in the car he kiss me. Not a deep passionate kiss; the kind that would magically made us realized that we were meant for each other. It was a peck on the mouth; the same you would expect from a friend on Christmas and birthdays. It shocked me and my mind was thinking the worse when he lean in closer towards me. He didn’t do anything more than that kiss. I am still unsure to this day that all he intend to do was to kiss me, or did that he stopped himself when he saw the ‘deer in the headlights’ expression on my face.

He drove me home, both of us pretending to listen to the radio and made little comment about the songs. I noticed that he was tapping the tunes on the steering wheel and wondering if it was a nervous twitch. We exchange phone numbers on the guest parking lot of my apartment (I can’t believe how stupid I was). By now, most would run out of there as fast as they could; I gave him a means to contact me. After another awkward silence, the one of many that I lost count. I reach to open the door.

“I’m sorry” he said it almost under his breath.

“Huh?” I turn to face him pretending not to hear.

“Nothing...Good night” he gave a weak smile with a clearly embarrassed expression on his face.

“You too, call me sometime” for the first time the whole night I saw the colour of his eyes clearly and thought it was beautiful. I gave him an almost enthusiastic smile without realizing it. It dawned on me what I have done, ‘call me sometimes’ it came out of my mouth involuntarily. I decided that I will just don’t answer when he does call, he’ll get the point eventually. Nothing solve a problem like running away from it right?

It was on fourth day when I started to check the private massages on the dating website and my email every day to make sure that his email isn’t knocked to the spam folder by accident; by then I started to feels a little insulted. I thought I would at least got a call to ignore; I thought it a rule somewhere that I get at least one call back, so that I wouldn’t feel so rejected. Of course that work the other way around too. It never occurred to me to call him; that would upset the balance of power, you don’t call someone to tell just them no (I am such a fucking girl). It was a little over a week when he did finally call and I answered.

“Hey, it’s me” I tilt my head a little to glimpse at the screen for a second just to make sure it was he.

“I know. My phone displays the name of the caller when it receive a call” I didn’t mean to sound too cross. Out of nowhere, my left hand just smack me on the forehead; it’s my Pavlovian respond every time I did something stupid. It was drilled into me by my dad.

I can almost hear the awkward silence creeping in; he probably thought it just became a bad idea to call.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to sound like I’m mad at you. I just get off from work and my boss was being an extra special kind of ass today” I lied I didn’t just get off from work but I needed an excuse and who better to get the blame than my boss.

“As oppose to the usual assness. Is that even a word?” I can almost hear a smile.

“My boss is an ass every day; I can handle her everyday ass. That sounded wrong. I don’t want to handle that woman’s ass ever. She just being extra generous with her assness today”

I heard he tried to supress a laugh “You are laughing at me right now aren’t you?” I mocked injury.

“What do you do anyway? Or did we already have this conversation” his interest sounded genuine.

“I can’t remember having told you, so its ok I guess. You first” I can’t believe I just said that

I cut him off before he said anything. “That sounded juvenile I know. ‘You first’ I have no idea where that came from. It must be my latent twelve year old girl trying to break free” this time he really did laugh.

“It’s ok, we all have all of that,” he is still laughing.

“What? Latent twelve year old girls?” I walk right into that one.

“No. assy bosses. That other thing, you may be alone on that one,” he laughing harder now.

“Stop making fun of me, and you haven’t answered my question” I feign hurt again.

“I’m a nurse” he just said it straight.

“You probably been asked this a million times but, if you’re a guy do you still call yourself a nurse?”

“I didn’t bother me. There is probably is an official name for male nurses out there but I don’t know it. So I just call myself a nurse”

I can hear it in his tone that he have strong opinion on the subject so a prodded a little “You should Google it and sound smart when you tell people what you do, and having to explain it to them”

“The way I see it, I am not ashamed to be called a nurse. The word isn’t the problem its people. We don’t make up gender specific words of any other professions, why should we start now. As with everything else, it is the implied connotations of the word. How we associate images with words. Every time we see something that breaks our set image of a particular word, we see it as a novelty but we don’t see that it is just us stereotyping it in the first place”

I really like him at this point and couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Your right. When someone says nurse to me it always bring an image of women in those sexy white uniforms” all that he just said just hit me. I can’t help to think is there any other stereotype of peoples I carry in my head. I always imagine myself to be a liberal educated person, but I started to wonder.

“Just like the word nurse conjure up images of women in the white uniforms for you. Imagine to a homophobic person, the image of a gay person in their head is something very different from what we have. While we see friends and peoples close to us with every type of personality traits and mannerism you can think of. The image they carry in their head is very singular; they were thought that is very deferent from who they are and something to hate. That is why gays should be visible, to show as many different types as gays possible so that it will break that singular image” for first time I realized that the passion in a person’s voice can be very attractive.

“The media don’t help with that singular image much right” I tried to add my two cents worth.

“The media don’t help with any kind of stereotypes, I guess the hardest thing to change is the preconceived idea about everything, not just gay rights,” he sounded a little defeated.

“How do we get from asking what you do for a living to solving the world problems” I was trying to break the intensity a little but probably end up sounding a little shallow.

“I don’t know”

A thoughtful silence, I mistaken it for awkwardness before. After listening to him just now, I just imagine him gathering his thought before he say something; so this time I didn’t cut him off.

“I’m sorry for the horrible date” his voice is almost shy.

“Don’t worry about it; you just makes up for it just now”

“What do I do? I didn’t say anything,” he sounded genuinely surprised.

“Let just say just what needed to be said and I am really starting to like you”

“I like you too, maybe we can do a do over on that date” again that hint of shyness in his voice is starting to unhinge me.

“So…” I can feel that the conversation in over by now, but I don’t want to be the first person to hang up the phone.

“So…you hang up” I can almost hear his wicked grin through the phone.

“Don’t you tempt me” I raise my voice just a little and couldn’t help but smile. ”My latent twelve year old girl can do this all night”

He was laughing so hard “Ok, I’ll quit while I am ahead. I’ll call you later”

“Ok. Later” I hang up the phone but still can’t wipe the smile on my face.

Later turns out to be the next day, he called almost every day since. I get taste of his crazy hours at work because we had to schedule our calls to match his and my free time. Most times that mean early mornings or late nights; that is the only time we had the chance to really talk; aside from the random texts during the day. Everything is still in that phase where everything is still new and exciting, where there is excitement in waiting for a simple phone call or a text. I made notes of every single of personal information that get exchanged, important stuff like birthdays, favourite colour, bands, music, foods, places to eat; I kept it as if I would get tested on it. My head conjured up fantasies where I would use those notes to get him presents, impromptu surprises as if we were going to last forever; when the truth is we still haven’t had that second date. It is only been less than a month since we first met. It was an infatuation; I know now that it is mostly one sided, he didn’t fall as hard as I did. That is why I said that we were not I love; love is I believe something that is shared. A singular that is shared; an unrequited love is an obsession.