And further to my last rant on gay marriage

(Slightly outdated news but) Looks like someone in the US finally saw my point! Though he hasn't argued the demotion of marriage, he states clearly that religious establishments are only granted the ability to preform marriage by the state.

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Civil Partnership Bells?

Rony and I share respectful friendship based on mutual admiration. Ever since I’ve been out-posted to a bank in London’s financial district, the City, we’ve made a conscious effort to meet up for lunch once every month or so and catch up about all that life has thrown at us.

With my return 3 miles east to the Canary Wharf imminent, we decided to have one last City lunch yesterday. As I’ve been attempting to fast for Ramadan, it was really Rony who was lunching, with me doing more than my usual share of talking.

Our conversations are usually very general. We do not know each other that well, after all, having met through mutual friends and found common ground through the industry we work in. So I was very surprised when Rony reached into his suit pocket and produced an invitation to his wedding. Rony and Vladimir have been together for many years, and I was ecstatic that they were finally tying the knot. In my profuse congratulations I noticed that Rony was visibly nervous about the whole ordeal.

After he’d eaten, we decided to take a short walk through the Royal Exchange. He was in charge of buying the wedding rings, after all, so we started our trek at Cartier. An older, German lady stood behind the impeccable counter and eyed us inquisitively as we walked in. We were shown a rather limited selection of male wedding bands, but Rony decided there was one he wanted to try on. As he slipped the gleaming titanium onto his ring finger, I could see his eyes examine his hand with confusion, almost bewilderment.

“That looks wonderful,” she exclaimed (with the amount of exclamation one would expect from an older German lady).

Rony looked at me, still confused, and said in Arabic, “It looks a little strange, doesn’t it?”

I looked at the lady and quickly said, “Maybe something a little more matte?” Looking at Rony I could see the most endearing look on his face. A little bit of disbelief, a lot of excitement, and just a hint of lovesickness.

“The shine will wear off within a few weeks,” Frau Boring stated, “but perhaps you can return with the young lady and get her opinion as well?”

Rony looked at her, looked down again and muttered “Yes” under his breath. I suppose in his position I wouldn’t have bothered correcting the woman, but I was amazed that at this day an age in central London people are still confident in making the assumption that a man walking in to buy his wedding band would be eloping with a ‘young lady’. My Peter Tatchell moment aside, Rony had clearly lost interest in Cartier and we walked across the atrium to Tiffany’s.

The selection at Tiffany’s was wider, and the more Rony tried on rings, the more at ease he seemed with the idea of a ring. Again, the sales lady made the assumption that a ‘young lady’ would be involved, but after the third ring Rony politely stated: “Actually, it’s a civil partnership, so I will definitely bring him along tomorrow around 4.30 to see which one he prefers as well.”

The sales lady, this time American, repeated her congratulations and invited him and his partner to a private champagne shopping afternoon so that they could spend as much time deciding as they’d like. But as she rambled on I was surprised at how offended I was at the term ‘civil-partnership’.

Yes, in England gay ‘marriage’ is not technically marriage but a civil-partnership. Though most people have done away with the distinction on a social level, legally and semantically the difference remains. Sure, equal rights are afforded under both marriage and civil-partnership, and civil-partnership is open to straight couples as much as it is to gay ones, but I felt that in some way we were still being separated. And as we all know, separate is not equal.

But what defines marriage? Spain, Holland, Canada and Argentina are just some of the countries that have removed the barrier to marriage between members of the same sex, but on a practical level, what does this mean? Marriage is a term as much laden with religious stigma as it is with social expectations. So is that why Rony had to demote his big day to a ‘civil-partnership’? Is marriage an elevation of any sort?

This point has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum in far too many fora, and I’m not about to delve into it on this semi-serious online rag of mine. But on reflection I feel like I should give my 2 cents worth – why is ‘marriage’ propped up and supported by secular governments? It seems absurd that a mainly religious ceremony and religious contract (even though for the most part people leave God out of it) holds so much weight in everything from how much tax you pay to who has the right to sign your mortgage documents.

To all the glorious crazies on Capitol Hill and in San Francisco, to Boris Johnson who stood up at Gay Pride London and demanded that same-sex couples be allowed to marry – you’re missing the point! What should actually be taking place, what we should be fighting for, is a demotion of ‘marriage’ as an institution recognized by the law. The partnership status of a citizen under a secular government should only be considered in light of any civil union. If Joe and Jane want to have a big church wedding, let them and god bless, but in no way should that have any legal value or weight. Their agreement should be sealed in a civil partnership, and it is purely that civil agreement that should allow them next of kin rights, tax allowances, and healthcare benefits. In theory, the United States’ elusive separation of church and state should have cooked this one up a while ago. But they can’t even get the word “God” off their money.

Contrast

I’m watching my second parent’s health deteriorate, and in many ways it is an all too expected déjà vu. Even though it’s been almost 9 years now, i remember quite clearly the stages i went through as a child, watching my mother slowly lose every faculty she ever maintained. It was not easy, but I think to get through it I had to foster a sort of coldness and blandness, only so I could think past the emotion and do what was expected and what was right. I was too successful in that endeavor- now as I watch my father go through the same, I can barely muster enough sadness for a tear. I watch his deterioration, and I shut down, knowing full well what is to come. I’ve gone through the motions, and I will have to go through them again. I expect nothing less.

 

But what’s interesting, at least to me, is how going through these experiences has enhanced my life. I see diminishing abilities and weak souls and the contrast of life is ever more apparent. The colours around me are brighter, the sounds more beautiful, my youth more glorious. I dance and indulge, for life has only taught me that such pleasure and joys do not last for long, and soon heartache comes knocking.

 

We spend so much time worrying about things – love, friends, money - and never notice how much we have. Health is the most valuable of them all, and if you possess it, you will regret not enjoying it in the future.

 

I am unbelievably lucky, I have more than most people on this planet would ever dream of. In theory, there is never a reason for me to be sad. My experiences are hardly novel or unusual. But I refuse to be sucked in by grief and dismay, death highlights the mystery and beauty of life. And for such perspective I am grateful.

Ménage au... quoi?

For one reason or another, I’ve found myself in the past few months being approached by several couples in respectable parties inquiring as to whether I would be interested in a little partage. In a semi-intoxicated state, I agreed the first time around to play, but, waking up in bed that next morning on the upper-east side sandwiched between two men (and though both were gorgeous) was not an experience that I thought I wanted to repeat any time soon. The guys were clearly completely in love with one another, and I felt like an accessory or Liza Minnelli in her Sex and the City 2 cameo – fabulous but utterly superfluous.

No regrets, after all, because trying is how we learn what it is we want in life, and I’m grateful for that experience.

Last Saturday/Sunday would hold yet another challenge, this time of a somewhat different variety. It started pretty tame – just a few guys relaxing under the sun in Hyde Park - but as the evening progressed the situation grew more and more interesting. Naturally, I blame the mojitos at the Soho Hotel, which we downed with some haste before heading to the Shadow Lounge till 1am. It was then that I got a call from fabulous Roxanne (one of the city’s most infamous cougars) inviting us to her glorious demi-mansion for frolic. Since we were relatively well dressed, we agreed and made our way there.

Roxanne’s parties always have a guest-list that throws you slightly off-balance. I walked in and tried to blend into the background of designers and members of middle-eastern royal families. I recognized a designer (lets call him Max), though, and my love for his work drove me to break the unspoken rule that exists when you are in the presence of celebrities (i.e. no sucking up or any fan-like behaviour) and I went up to show him his cuff links that I happened to be wearing. Max was pleasant, but it wasn’t long before his boyfriend (Luciano) arrived at the scene and showed his utter delight at my conversation. Max did not seem to be impressed by his partner’s very obvious advances, and I was glad that was the case, because there was no way in hell I was going to have another threesome.

Luciano’s overt passes continued through the night. We moved onto party #2 at 3am, and party #3 and 5am, and more or less the same group of people was present. At some point Luciano managed to corner me on the way to the bathroom and tell me that he really wanted us to play that night. I told him that he had a boyfriend that I couldn’t possibly go through with anything of that sort. He said his boyfriend was ‘very okay’ with it and that it I should reconsider. To appease him (and to get to the bathroom), I gave him my number and said we could all get together soon for dinner or something. Clearly BS, but I was desperate to pee.

I got home at around 7am and crashed for a few hours. When I got up, naturally I felt like doing nothing but ordering food and watching a movie. Ironically, A Good Woman was playing on BBC iPlayer that day, and I watched Helen Hunt thrive as Mrs Erlynne, the home-wrecking leech mistress to the rich and famous.

Half-way through the movie I got a call from an unknown number. The country code was French, so I picked up. It was Luciano.

“I’m in Paris, had to leave after the party, how are you?” He began. I said I was fine, and thanked him for his hospitality that morning (party #3 was at his loft). He said I was welcome and that he would really like to see me when he got back from his trip. I had no energy to rebut him, so I said we would speak when he returned from Paris. He was pleased I was at least giving it some thought, and I was pleased that I could get back to my movie without event.

He’s not asking for a threesome, and Max is not a friend of mine, but that’s not why I have no desire for this. Luciano is attractive, but I cannot be approached or viewed as the “mistress” as it were. People will start hiding their husbands around me, and just like Mrs Erlynne was cast out from New York I would say good-bye to the portion of my social life that involves decent individuals. Not only that, I am actually trying to start going on regular, human dates that have real prospects.

I am tired of wasting myself away at this crap.

Change

One of the most memorable scenes from one of the most amazing television series ever made, Angels in America, is when the delusional Mormon girl Harper sits in front of a the plastic figure of the Mormon Mother, and asks her:

“In your experience of the world, how do people change?”

The Mormon Mother comes to life and responds: “Well it has something to do with God, so it's not very nice… God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching."

Harper: “And then up you get. And walk around.”

Mormon Mother: “Just mangled guts pretending.”

Harper: “That's how people change."

Is that how people change? It must be, because in my experience, people rarely do change. If they do, it is because something terrible, something unspeakable has ‘mangled’ their insides.

It terrifies me to think of this, every time I say to myself I need to make a fundamental change in my life. The truth is, there are a lot of things I’d like to change. I’d like to be less dependent on alcohol et al, I’d like to stop wanting to control everything and everyone around me, I want to be more appreciative of simplicity, and cut out from my life everyone who only robs me of positive energy.

Yes, there are a lot of things that I want, but do I have the willpower to go through a process that will inevitably be excruciating and whose results are unforeseeable? It is very comfortable staying in this bubble of mine, but something is pushing for more- more value out of every-day life, less dependency. But what does heeding this call mean? How/where do I start?

I’ve tried getting out of the country for a while, to see if I can get into a good swing of things and return on a positive note (eat well, sleep well, exercise, avoid human contact beyond family). That didn’t work for very long. Back from NY, Saturday I ended up going to some the most pretentious, obnoxious and indulgent cocktail parties I’ve ever been to, in a row. Newtonian physics had their way again: my attempt to rid myself of something bounced back at me with equal force in the opposite direction.

Escaping the country does not solve any problems because that in of itself is a bubble. The battle needs to be fought at the frontier, London. But what do I do? Stop speaking to my ‘friends’? Try and make new ones? Both very difficult propositions, and no guarantee that I won’t just attract the same kind of people again.

Then I thought, maybe I need a boyfriend… The truth is, I really don’t want one, but it may be the case that having someone demand so much of my attention on a weekly basis could ground me more, give me something to focus on. But it’s hard, because my heart/mind are just not there yet. I’ve tried, I’ve been on a lot of dates, but not one has made a lasting impression. Where do you go from here?

Then, of course, there’s the obvious option that I’ve also exhausted a few times. A therapist. But why would it work this time?

Frustrated,

M

Notes

Notes scribbled on yellow post-its. If he dies tomorrow, he knows those will be the most valuable traces he has left of his life on this earth. Simple, honest, joyous expressions of love, jotted on transient pieces of paper. He usually used a black pen, but sometimes it was blue. His handwriting was bold, with long curves and playful strokes for all his capital letters, their lower-cased counterparts stitched together in eager cursive. Sometimes it was one word, his lover’s name with an exclamation point, as if through the post-it his lover could experience how his heart had called out for him at that moment. Sometimes it was a small phrase, or even just a doodle. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t what was on those post-its that mattered.

It was where and when they were found that made all the difference. In the beginning, he would hide them all over his lover’s apartment, in places he knew he would see them, but only eventually, after they’d parted for the week on Monday. Sometimes he would leave one under a pillow, to say goodnight. Sometimes in a shoe, to wish him a beautiful day. Notes scribbled on yellow post-its turned into a way of managing long-distance affection and yearning.

But alas, the years went by, and one day they parted ways for good. It isn’t sad. Their friendship, the most important part of their relationship, remained. But now and again a folder would come loose, or the contents of a drawer would shift a certain way, and one of those yellow post-its would suddenly surface, like a relic from another age. He would pick up it up, fold it neatly and file it with all the photos and all the cards, and the hundreds of yellow post-it notes in his wardrobe.

The Test

When I was a fifth-grader, I sat in Ms Jill’s science class laughing hysterically one day. She had just brought up a topic I’d never even heard of before. HIV. What a silly disease it sounded like when I was 10. I laughed at the idea of people sharing dirty syringes at hospitals, or being stupid enough to put two open wounds in contact. HIV was for idiots, I thought. And it wasn’t just me, all of us little know-it-all fifth-graders walked out of our science class joking about how so and so was HIV+ for scraping their knee playing basketball and using the someone else’s shower.

Of course, at the time, Ms Jill wasn’t at liberty to say that people could get it by loving one another.

That information came later on, from multiple sources. I remember, when I lived in Egypt, how I thought it was a foreign disease, affecting those poor African people south of the Sahara, and those reckless homosexuals in Europe and North America.

Boy was I wrong. By the age of 18 I’d already had two near misses. One Egyptian guy, and one Lebanese. With the former, I’d taken him and his friend home with me one night after a long party, and the three of us fucked like rabbits till 9am. I’d run out rubber, but that wasn’t going to stop the mad teenager within. With the latter, I’d dated him for 3 months, and we’d only fucked without a condom once. In both cases I was extremely lucky (if you can call yourself that for sleeping with someone who’s HIV+ without a condom) – they contacted me roughly 3 months after we’d done the deed and told me they were positive. I was lucky in the sense that they told me after any incubation period for the virus (6 weeks) had lapsed, which meant I could go get an HIV test right away and the results would cover the period when we’d slept together. Had they told me any sooner I would have been in the horrible situation of having to wait for my sentencing until the 6 weeks were over. I was lucky in another sense – in both cases I came out negative.

Since then I’ve been getting regular check ups, roughly every 6 months. It is probably one of the most terrifying things on my bi-annual calendar. Your mind races through the faces, the bodies, the nights you’ve spent, the mistakes you’ve made. You wonder why God punishes man’s most basic and primal instinct. In your mind you see all the faces of all those children in sub-Saharan Africa who were born with it, and you wonder if you will have something in common with them after all. But worst of all you think about those people you know who have it, and what their lives have become. Drug addiction, recklessness, super-infection. A fist-full of pills every morning, a face both tired and pulled from the medication. Wandering eyes looking around at all the forbidden fruit. Self-loathing.

Of course, not everyone reacts to it that way. There have been people who have refused to let it dominate their life, their identity and have been leading extraordinary and fulfilling lives. But that takes strength of character, and you don’t get that very often in gay men.

So when my sexual health clinic texted me my blood report this morning with an all-clear, I said a silent prayer for all those that haven’t been so lucky, may the Creator be with them in every step and comfort their broken hearts.

How to get the partner of your dreams (but only if you care to look)

What makes irony so amusing is the symmetry it produces. We see something as ironic when we realize that, in its subtleties, the truth has somehow reflected itself to produce 2 sides of the same coin.

 

Take, for instance, modern individualism. Today it’s all about me. And you. And him, and her. Separate islands with few bridges. We have literally fought wars and sprung revolutions for the sake of individuality and personal liberty. Yet, when you look at the entirety of our civilizations as they stand today, no fact is more apparent than our helpless Dependency. On finding the right person, on the ideology that without such person life is meaningless or unfulfilled.

 

Consider the countless books, poems, blogs (like this one), movies, songs ad infinitum all geared to play on your Dependency. Billboards and banners surround us in every direction designed to speak only to your genitalia, and you can’t even buy a coffee maker without George Clooney’s face beaming at you from behind it. Despite our delusions of self-grandeur and our millennia of philosophy and civilization, we are predictable and dull creatures.

 

As much as I struggle with the thought, and despite many an attempt by a bed-mate to convince me otherwise, I am human. I am, therefore, by default, predictable and dull. I want to find the right partner, but lately I feel like this is more what I am expected to want than the reality. Nevertheless, with this apathy I’ve gained perspective, and my experience and beliefs have provided me with a lesson that I might as well try and share:

 

How to find Mr/Ms Right

1. Know what you want

 

Nothing is more tragic then seeing people running around like headless chickens latching on to the first half-decent thing that gets thrown their way. I’ve had my fair share of  relationship “hunter-gatherer” days, scavenging bars, dating websites, and even the occasional cooking class for Prince Charming. Not my most glorious moments.

 

If you remember from your history books, hunter-gatherers ended their volatile, nomadic lifestyle with the agricultural revolution. Instead of scavenging like a pack of hyenas, man (having discovered the purpose of a seed) began to settle down and decide on what it was they wished to grow. Their land brought many returns and the fruit was always bountiful. Subsistence farming cradles all human civilization. So what can we learn from that?

 

Like the first farmers, the first step is always knowing what it is you want. No, don’t pull out that pencil and paper and make a checklist for your perfect man. (“Dear Diary, My Prince Charming will be blonde, 6ft 3, with a French accent and a flower tattooed on his right butt-cheek”) You are limiting your world that way and setting yourself up for failure. Instead, as you fall asleep one night, close your eyes and imagine what it is that you may look for in someone that will make you feel secure, loved, and wanting to be the best version of your own self for them. Make a mental note of that feeling, of that desire, and of the kind of person that is going to share with you all that.

 

Dating without knowing what it is you want is like trying to buy a bottle of “red wine” in Napa. Sure, you will derive random and inconsistent benefits from winging it and just picking the first winery on the hill, but if you know before hand that nothing enlivens your taste-buds like a Cabernet-Merlot from Clos Pegase then that’s where true satisfaction lies.

 

Once you know what it is you are looking for, and believe  you me it is harder than you think , you will be ready for (the final) stage:

 

2. Know that you will get what you want

This is the most difficult, yet in some ways the most obvious. Man’s biggest error is in thinking that his circumstances are beyond his control. “Oh if only I was thinner/smarter/richer/hotter, I would get what I want sooo easily,” wistfully sighs the single being.  What’s wrong with this sentence? One thing – doubt. For example:

 

A) If you aspire to be thinner/smarter/richer/hotter, then you have to realize that what separates you from achieving your goal is the doubt that you ever will get there. On some level you doubt your ability to succeed, to make the right sacrifices, to push forward and have what you want. For if you know and, and I mean you really are certain, that you will be thinner/smarter/richer/hotter, almost as if it is your god-given right, then your energy will align itself and your ambition will match what it is that your subconscious mind has planted into the world.

 

B) No amount of fat, stupidity, nor poverty at this point in time can stop you from meeting the “right person” that you have imagined. If you doubt this for a second think of all the times you’ve run into the most bizarre creatures, only to discover they are dating someone that can slow down the pace of time with one bat from their irresistible eye-lashes. What has this bizarre creature done to deserve this fountain of beauty? I’m sure there are multiple layers to any such relationship, but fundamentally, he or she has inner confidence and strength, certainty in their ability to succeed and thinking of “happily ever after” as a question of “when” not “if”.

 

***

I am aware that all the above takes quite a bit of philosophical fortitude. The lesson above needs to be internalized, not just read. If you believe in the lesson, then you will believe in the outcomes it promises. Did I ever mention that “M” stands for Moses?

 

Well, Moses can’t get past level 1 at the moment. His experience with relationships and lovers has confused him– what is he looking for in someone? But just because Moses is lagging behind doesn’t mean you have to, too. Run ahead, my younglings, and carpe diem.

 

Happy farming.

 

M