Category: ire

Info Transgender People Wish You Knew

The article below is called Eight Things Transgender People Do Not Owe You and it’s a call to check our cisgenderedness (BOOM! new word right there fuckers) at the door (okay perhaps cispriviledge works better). Every time I see an article like this I prepare myself to be educated on what I’m doing wrong. I’m not perfect, but I try my damnest to be a better person each day than what I was before. Luckily, I haven’t made any of these transgressions but I’ve come perilously close to a few of these.

If you have made these mistakes it’s okay to feel regret about it, just make sure to focus that remorse correctly. Regret alone accomplishes nothing. Instead use it to guide your future actions or apologize for something you may have said in error.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/trans-people-dont-owe-you/

Getting Dumped, Kind Of: A story of honesty

For those of you who don’t know I’m currently choosing to date non- monogamously. For some of you this probably sounds great because I can have multiple partners. This is technically true, but it hasn’t really worked out that way for more than a week or two at a time. This brings me to the other part of being non-monogamous, that you may not have considered, which is that I end up getting dumped more often.

This just happened to me ten minutes ago (at least at the time of this writing). Here’s the skinny: I met someone online and reading her profile was like reading my own in many ways so I reached out to her and we clicked. On our date it was awesome. We met with a long hug. We laughed and shared intimate moments of our existence with one another such as how she doesn’t share her phone number with people until she can trust them. When I moved closer to her just for the sake of it she closed the gap, kissed me and then told me how great it was. Later upon kissing her neck she moaned. The night was over in a flash, but we had talked for 6 hours. When I walked her to her car we held hands and kissed goodbye.

I sent her a message later that night with my phone number. I told her that she didn’t have to use it until she was ready and that we could use the dating app until that moment arrived. She replied with a text telling me that I had beat her to it.

I was in, or so I thought. The day before our next date she sent me a text to say that our distance was an issue (20 miles) and that a relationship she had with a guy in the same town as me hadn’t worked for that reason. I called bullshit (in my head) on both fronts and decided to remove that excuse. I knew she wanted out and that I wasn’t going to change her mind; so be it, but I wanted to know the truth. I told her if that was all there is to it I could be the one to come see her each time. Of course, such a one-sided solution is not a tenable situation for any relationship, but I was just gambling and cutting through her fake answer.

It worked. “To be honest,” she said, (for the second time) “I was trying to make it easier by saying that. I’m just not feeling it.”

I told her I accepted that and thanked her for being honest. Just knowing the real reason helped me to put most of the situation behind me immediately. I don’t know what to make of everything else that happened, but now that I have the truth, somehow I don’t have to.

A Middle Finger Salute to Valentine’s Day

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Everyone by now knows the story of St. Valentine. He created a bad name for himself peddling heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and greeting cards with sappy sayings on them. The final straw came when he did “a diamond is a girl’s’ best friend” commercial and he was beheaded. Those Romans might have been cocky, but they didn’t mess around.

For the first time in 21 years I’m experiencing Valentine’s Day as a single person and I’m absolutely fucking thrilled about the idea. Can you say stress free? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being in love and doing things for my partner. I’ve done more candlelight dinners than I can count. I’ve read heartfelt poems with tears streaming down my face and willfully performed a host of other gestures that would be worthy of happening on February 14th. The kicker is that very few of them have occurred on that day. I’ve just done whatever, whenever I’ve desired.

I have also been lucky that my past partners haven’t been too hung up on the day as a way to define a relationship. Even so, Valentine’s day has always been an uneasy fit for me; a forced gesture that if not fulfilled, society seems to insist, renders all of my other relationship qualities and occurrences meaningless.

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It was a home invasion officer!

To me Valentine’s Day feels like the dis-ingenuousness of a window dressing or an election campaign. It’s mainly subterfuge and not representative of my real world experiences with my loved one’s. There’s a tendency of not just trying to prove the worth of my relationship on this one day, but to prove it against other people’s relationships as well. “Did you hear what Jim did for Brenda on Valentine’s Day? He jumped out of a plane with only white doves slowing his descent and a banner trailing behind him professing his love while he sang a song he wrote with Coldplay (because not everything can be A-list).”

I think this day can be whatever we want it to be. We each have to make our own way in this life, but for fucks sake people, let’s not get carried away. Remember that this day has been created for you by a greedy corporate class. At it’s core Valentine’s Day is a way to commoditize our emotions and sell them back to us in the form of products and services. If corporations have to use your insecurities to get what they want (your money and loyalty) then they’re cool with that. Hell, those slimy bastards went to college and studied hard so they could learn to do that very thing.

My hope is that you don’t wait for a single day throughout the year to tell those close to you how you feel (or to judge the state of your relationship). Tell them now, show them often and say fuck you to the commodity based holiday calendar.

For those of you, like me, who are single on this day. Count your blessings. Maybe you want to date someone or maybe you don’t but realize that there is a certain freedom in being free from the rat race of consumerism. Besides, if you feel left out you could always take up celebrating Christmas.

So with all the smarmy sarcasm I can muster, “Hey Fucker! Won’t you be my Valentine?”

Do You Love An Idea Or A Person?

http://elitedaily.com/dating/someone-loves-idea-you/1321834/

I can add another sign to tell if someone was in love with the idea of you or the actual you. If they use one of the reasons for their initial attraction as a reason to break up then it’s likely you were idealized to some extent.

I’m pretty sure this happened to me. I had a beautiful relationship, or I think it was, with a pretty dynamic individual for almost three years. Shortly before we started dating she told me that she had always wanted to date a bisexual man. I knew I was being fetishized to some extent and that her urge was built upon what she believed a bisexual guy would be like, but it is important to me that my partner accept my sexuality and on that front this seemed like solid ground.

Fast forward to the end and it was the primary reason given for our breakup. She accepted me being pansexual intellectually, but had a negative visceral reaction to me liking men. Identity issues are a big deal for me so for the person I cared the most about to reject me on a very fundamental level was deeply hurtful to say the least.

I struggled with this for awhile, until I read the article below and it started me thinking that maybe this is what had happened to us. The idea of dating a bisexual guy was a romanticized one. The actual experience was apparently drastically different for her and it was too much to handle.

I want to leave you with a slightly different approach to handling the reality of who a person is. For me learning the ways someone violates my expectations is one of the exciting things about getting to know them. In the television series Firefly there is a line that has always resonated with me, “It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another.” It’s about nuance and the juxtaposition of the ideal verses reality. It’s what I love about people and eventually it will be one of those things that someone loves about me.

So what about you? Has this ever happened to you and which side of the relationship were you on?

Coming Out as a Celebrity and Why I Care . . . Now

This is an old piece I wrote for another blog that is defunct, but the message is still wonderfully relevant today (Caitlyn Jenner comes to mind).

“I finally watched the video of Ellen Page coming out as gay. Yes, I know it’s been at least 3 or 4 weeks since it happened but I’ve been reticent as of late to learn about those who are famous. However, watching it helped me to remember something important about celebrities; they are not so dissimilar from other people. Celebrities too have real experiences and the core of what it means to be human is something that none of us can avoid.

The reason this is such a lesson for me is that I have recently taken a dim view of celebrity culture as it pertains to entertainment. I don’t think celebrities are horrible people; it’s just that I think they are people like the rest of us. They have my general respect, but my admiration is earned by actions other than showing up on a television screen.

I see my coworkers devour every piece of celebrity news. These fans know the people, the movies they’ve been in, where they shop, who their kids are, and what they wear. It becomes more than a game, going beyond the fun of “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” This stuff is seemingly their life, and certainly their obsession. Sports fans count in this as well. “Did you see who we traded in the draft?”

The public’s fascination with celebrities has real harm because it is often employed as an escape from reality. Many use immersion and vicarious living as a way to anesthetize themselves to many of the things happening around them. After all, most people don’t want to read about civil unrest, the abuse of corporate and political position, or the myriad of ways in which humans are supposedly ending their existence every day. It can be depressing at times to say the least. It is much easier to retreat from the things that really affect one’s life in order to enjoy some sense of calm and even power that can come from being on the inside track of celebrity life. The reality, cruel as it is though, is that ignoring the ills of the world doesn’t make them go away. The larger that socio-economic issues loom, the more the public’s escapism with celebrities increases—much like an ever escalating arms race.

So, when I read about Ellen Page coming out, I thought, “Who cares, so what if she’s gay? Join the club.” I was busy reading the coming out accounts of people that didn’t have the insular effects that money can bring and who aren’t part of the Hollywood culture that allows for and even revels in this type of admission. I was convinced that these everyday accounts were the stories of legitimate consequence, unlike those from media darlings.

Then I watched the video. I’m not sure how it happened. I didn’t even know who Ellen Page was aside from an actress. Nevertheless, perhaps in a moment of weakness or boredom I clicked on a link to open the video.

It was readily apparent from the beginning that I was watching something of importance. Culture and wealth might change certain aspects of how we feel society’s pressures, but here was a woman bravely laying open an aspect of her identity and hoping for something positive and transformative as a result. As I watched her nervously shake I became anxious for her. It was a humbling and informative experience for me and, as identity issues often do, it brought me to tears. Throughout her address the core message of hope, love and perseverance was ever present. This message rang out and not once did she allow it to be overshadowed by her personal declaration. It was beautiful; every part of it. The experience made me realize that when someone decides to forge their identity through self-revelation that it is important to listen regardless of their social position.

Even after this revelation, I will admit that I still don’t care for celebrity worship, but this reminded me that much of what I see isn’t something that those in the spotlight can always control. A large portion of what they say and do is recorded by photographers and writers who then rush the latest tidbits out to news stations and publications. When I think of the gaffs I have made throughout my life it becomes very apparent that I’m fortunate to be free of such scrutiny.

The truth is, I was right all along: celebrities are just people. However, instead of using this fact to marginalize them as I had done before, I realize that it should be used to recognize the struggles they endure and that they too can contribute something valuable to our lives. The next time I see a celebrity in a vulnerable position or trying to communicate in a meaningful and positive way, it won’t take a moment of weakness to discover their message. I will seek it out willingly and with purpose, hoping to expand upon what I know of the human experience. When this happens, like many of the adventures that play on the big screen, it truly will be something to watch.”

A Letter to the Catfish Who Hurt Me: The one that didn’t get away (video)

A Catfish in the online world is a person who pretends to be someone else. The term was popularized by the MTV Documentary called Catfish, which you really should watch because it’s pretty good. Plus, you’ll never understand where the name comes from if you don’t. That’s right; I’m not going to tell you. You’re just going to have to get off your ass and sit down and watch this movie. Essentially though, a Catfish is someone who has created a fake online profile, usually for dating, in order to lead others on.

Recently, I matched with a woman on Tinder. Let’s call her Heather. Primarily because that was her name, but also because I’m sure it was a fake. Her pictures showed a very short but also very attractive woman. Upon contacting, I relayed my relationship desires to her and she fit perfectly. I realize now that she was just mirroring my sentiment in order to hook me. We sent texts for a couple of days, talked on the phone and agreed to meet for a wonderful physical encounter leading into a friendship.

She wasn’t perfect of course; her main flaw was that her responses were so short. In return I write fairly extensive and in depth messages. However, this is nothing new because even though women chastise guys for messaging them with “Hey” I’ve found that 75% of women suck at conversations too (don’t get cocky guys you’re probably closer to a 90% suck rate). I usually end any conversation with this dynamic, but I was in a particularly vulnerable state that caused me to overlook it.

Aside from conversational dynamics she seemed perfect in so many ways and I began to wonder if maybe way down the road this might not be the foundation for something more.

The day of our date came and I left work early to maximize our time together. She responded to a message of mine to say she was running late. Tardiness is a huge annoyance of mine because it makes me think that people don’t care enough about me to be on time. How bad did she really want to meet if she was late for a first date? I started to get a sinking feeling that I was going to get stood-up. Still, maybe she really was just running late.

Alas, that was the last I heard from her. I sent a text that went unanswered and when I called, her phone was off. My suspicion had become a reality, I was someone’s amusement and I was crushed. My desires, my emotions and my life are not a fucking game. Yet the results told a different story. I retreated to a corner of my apartment to cry profusely, for the first time ever my tears formed an appropriately sized puddle of sorrow on the bathroom floor. With blurred vision I opened the text messaging on my phone and began composing this:

Continue reading “A Letter to the Catfish Who Hurt Me: The one that didn’t get away (video)” →