Sunday 30 September 2012

The Doors are Open...

One part boy updates, one part happy reflection: this post is a totally random update.

There wasn't much to be said about the Shane situation...until today. Apparently Nate and Cara had gone to visit him yesterday and they invited me along to a few of the plans they made with him, the first being a coffee and dessert night this week at his place. I'm not getting my hopes up, but I'm glad I get another chance to try and get a feel for the guy somewhere that isn't a club. And speaking of clubs, the other plan was to head out to a gay bar again, crash at my place and then breakfast the next morning...definitely looking forward to that too. I guess I didn't give Nate enough credit...maybe he did get the clue after all. 

My sister Diana moved out of the suburbs and into the city recently, and like a good big brother, I'm her chauffeur back to her place after she comes back home to visit every weekend. The 45 minute drive back gives us some time to bond, and the during the last few times during the drive, she's mentioned a co-worker of hers that she wanted me to come hang out with. He's a casting director, pretty clean cut, funny, sweet, pretty flamboyant, and likes masculine guys but is afraid of hitting on them in case they happen to be straight. Although it seems like he ticks off a few of my boxes, he doesn't exactly sound like my type, but I'm going to chalk that up to my sister poor and vague description. And besides, I guess you never know until you meet them in person. In addition to Nate and Cara, it's nice to know that my friends and family have got my back, and I think it's really sweet what they're doing for me.

And now that I'm actually back on campus on a fairly regular basis, I've been trying to stop by our LGBTQ centre as much as I can between classes. When I was in there a few days ago, I noticed that there were sign-ups for office volunteers and space monitors, and since this has been one of those things I've wanted to do for a while, I put my name down. And that's when I noticed cute guy's name on the volunteer orientation sign-up...isn't that lucky?

In other news, last Monday would have marked the one year anniversary since I first came out to Lindsay. I'll say it again: it's really remarkable that I've made it this far. A year ago, I never would have thought I could dedicate the majority of a post listing off the guys I'm tempted to chase after. Coming out is slowly becoming a non-issue for me, I've learned where to time it right, slip it in under the appropriate topics or make a simple correction (Three simple words: "Boyfriend, you mean?") and just shrug it off. It's a good feeling not having to stress over it. I really should have done this sooner =P .

And since I'm reflecting on the past, I've realized that it's been over 6 months since I last went to counseling. I just found I wasn't really getting much out of it anymore. I noticed that I was just talking about the same old obstacles and thinking myself into inaction, and the last few times I kept coming to the same conclusion that I just needed to suck up my pride, do something and deal with the (if any) consequences later. And between going to things like the rock-climbing, coming out to more people, playing volleyball, going to Pride, learning not take life so seriously and visiting the LGBT centre, I think I've done that and it's paid off. I feel a lot more comfortable with myself and more confident, and like I've got control and direction of where things are going as opposed to feeling helpless and confused. And so I really haven't had a reason to go back. I do wish I could have thanked Liz for helping come to the conclusions that I did, because I don't know if I could have ever realized what my issues were and how to deal with them without her guidance.

So in conclusion? Life's good now that I've learned to chill out and have some fun.

Be yourselves guys.

-Matt



Wednesday 5 September 2012

Gaymers

It was vacation time this past weekend, and myself, Nate, the Twins and Brian had planned for a weekend full of debauchery, nerdiness and fun at PAX 2012 in Seattle. For those not in the know, PAX is a 3 day video gaming convention complete with discussion panels, lots of free swag, huge exhibits of the latest and greatest new games, and massive rooms of TVs and every video game console you can imagine.

Anyhoo, on our way down, we stopped at the outlet mall to do some shopping. At the end of the trip, Nate and I walked back to the car while the others stopped at one last store. While we were waiting for them, Nate opened up about some conflicts he was having about his family. Once he was finished, I figured it was a better time than any to ask him about Shane. I asked him to do me a favour and bring Shane around more often, and I explained how impressed I was with his handling of the guy at the club and his demeanor once were outside of the club in the car. Nate seemed pretty receptive and he went on to gush about what a level head Shane has, how he's a lot of fun without being too wild and just how much of a great guy he is. Like he really needed to sell me on him more, but whatever. I told Nate that it would be great to have Shane around to get to know him a bit better. Honestly though, just by the way he talked, I'm not sure if Nate really got the clue that I was interested in Shane and I wasn't exactly being subtle either. Hints like this, subtle and not-so-subtle, tend to go over Nate's head, but as long as he brings Shane along to a few more get-togethers, I can try and make a move on the guy.

Back to PAX for a second, one of my favourite parts of the convention (besides being around my friends, playing the new Tomb Raider demo and picking up free stuff) was one of the panels I attended that talked about Gaymers (they're exactly who you think they are) and the history of Gayming. It was a really good mix of sass, gamer/dorkiness, advocacy and boy-talk. One of the more interesting points that was brought up was combatting homophobia while online. Anyone whose played a first-person shooter (*ahem* CALL OF DUTY *ahem*) knows how liberally the word "faggot" and other homophobic slurs are thrown around amongst players. It's a bit of a tricky issue to tackle as well, given that you're around these people for a few minutes until the rounds are done, and poof...they're gone. It's sort of hard to do advocacy under those kind of conditions, and even if you try like a couple of the panelists mentioned, you may incite the wraith of the homophobes. But just like greater society, banding together, having a presence online and having the support of others is crucial to changing that, and that's where Gaymers come in. There's a pretty big community out there (so much so there's a convention specifically for them), which is awesome and I totally need explore more.

On a less serious note, the topic of hottest video game characters also got brought up, and it was a toss-up between Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series and mature Max Payne from Max Payne 3. I'll let you decide: