What now?
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
As of midnight, I guess I abandoned my Christian faith. I was a Christian for 6 years. At first it helped me out of a tough time I was going through. I turned to Jesus to cope with the (admittedly undiagnosed) depression I was going through. If it wasn’t for the hope offered by Christianity, I would have been stopped by the hopelessness of what I was going through, and because of the suicidal frame of mind I was in at the time I gave my life to Christ, I’m sure I would have done “something stupid”.
Even though things started of really well, they soon got worse. As I was going through puberty I started getting really strong feelings for the same sex. And while this was going on, I was ALSO being told by the different Christian events/churches I was attending that such feelings were wrong. Abominations. Abhorrent to God.
So I hid.
I became the nastiest, most bigotted fundamentalist homophobe it’s possible to get outside of the Bible Belt of America.
I distanced myself from my (slowly emerging) gay friends because of how deep my convictions were that being gay was wrong.
While all of this was going on, I was hiding MY gay side from everyone, including myself. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real.
Then, back in February this year, I FINALLY realised that no matter what, my sexual orientation was NEVER going to change just because Christianity didn’t like it. I became more comfortable with my sexuality and came out in July.
But Christianity has a MAJOR problem with gays. That’s what the churches I’ve been to have said. That’s what the Bible says. I can’t choose to just ignore parts of the Bible and follow others. I either follow it all, like any Christian should, or none of it at all.
So I’ve decided, temporarily at least, to “put my faith on the hook” as it were. Yes, I accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God. But I’m afraid I can’t follow Christian teachings. I don’t know what to do any more. I can’t “convert” to a new faith while I believe Jesus to be who He is. But equally, I can’t follow a religion that says that being gay is wrong. It’s taken me 19 years to accept myself for who I am and I’m not about to pretend to be straight just “because”.
The Official “I Love My New Boyfriend” Blog Post
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
Wow! Has it really been 2 whole weeks since my last blog post? Someone ought to give me a slap to remind me to write more often. Someone who is quite close to me, perhaps? Someone like my new boyfriend!
Yep, you read that right. I have a wonderful new boyfriend, and he literally means the world to me. I’ve tried the whole “trying to take things emotionally slow” thing, but I couldn’t help but fall deeply in love with him. Every time I’m with him, my world is complete. He is (even though he often tells me otherwise) absolutely perfect. He’s funny, smart, sexy, cute… the list of what makes him perfect is endless.
If you read an earlier blog post I’d made about how I had never found the “right” hugs, well, Aiden gives them. His hugs are just so warm and comforting and literally EVERYTHING that I look for in a nice hug. And snuggling with him in bed is nice too… 
I hope to be even half as good as a boyfriend to him as he is to me. I love him with all my heart, and I want every second I’m with him to show that.
They shall not grow old as we that are left to grow old
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My family is full of servicemen, both retired and current. One uncle is an ex-Army instructor, another is an ex-Naval officer, a cousin’s husband is a current officer in the Army (he served in Iraq, but doesn’t like to talk about it), an uncle s a retired firefighter and another tests aircraft engines for the RAF.
I look at them, my relatives who devote their lives to protecting those of other people, and I feel insignificant.
Their working lives involve(d) taking risks which I would never be willing to take.
They put their lives on the line, for Queen and Country.
I, on the other hand, rarely take even the smallest risks even for my own benefit. I could never do what they do.
With Remembrance Day coming up, I think it’s only right and proper that we spare a moment’s thought for the people who do what the majority of us civilians could never do: risk their lives on a daily basis because they value other people’s lives so much.
I know if the Queen even personally asked me to do what they do, my answer wouldn’t be very polite… More like “Take a hike, love.”
Your change, Sir
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
When I look at my life, I can see a LOT of changes that have happened over the years. I’ve grown taller. I’ve “matured”. Family changes, personality changes, etc. etc. have all been on the cards.
But every single change that I’ve encountered in the way I act has been predictable. People know me too well. When I came out, pretty much the only reaction I got from friends and family was “about time too”. Coming out was inevitable. Something I needed to do, and something which some people had been patiently waiting for me to do for over 5 years.
Whilst I don’t regret coming out one bit (despite the spot of grief I’ve gotten because of it) the one thing that annoys me is the fact that it was such an anti-climax. I got myself worked up over nothing. I expected to get really bad reactions, but got nothing other than a “So what?”
I am predictable. People know me too well.
My life runs like clockwork. You can always judge what I’ll do because I’ve set things up over the years for people to expect these sorts of thing from me. I’m as spontaneous as a rock. I do nothing that’s “out of the ordinary” or that doesn’t “fit” with the way people expect me to act.
AND I AM FED UP WITH IT
I’m fed up with people always predicting the way I’m going to act. I’m fed up with being an open book.
Some day, some day soon, I am going to prove to myself and the world that I’m not quite as simple as people think I am. I’m going to become less predictable. I’m going to take a walk on the wild side and embrace whatever comes my way. I’m fed up with being “boring predictable “just Dan” who works in the local shop, and who everyone knows is the most benign person you could meet.”
Seems I’m in a sticky situation
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
Well, the neighbourhood chavs haven’t been any less obnoxious about my sexuality lately. They’re still asking me to do all sorts of “naughty little things” to them. All of them still calling me a paedophile for even laughing off their attempts at asking if I love them. All of them still doing their various tauntings while I’m “held captive” at work so can’t escape from them.
I’ve been told at work that all I have to do is name names and something can be done about banning them from the shop or at least not being allowed in while I’m working.
The only thing is, I don’t know if this would help much, or would just make things worse.
Sure, it would make my shifts a little more peaceful.
But there’s nothing to stop them doing what they sometimes do already and stand just outside the door and shout, meaning more people hear what they say. And when I come out of work? When I’m in the street? It would make things much much worse.
Then they wouldn’t just have the “gay” reason to have a go at me, but also about how I’d be the reason they won’t be allowed in the shop.
Damned if I do tell on them. Damned if I don’t.
I’m half tempted to go fabulously camp on them, going out of my way to “show” that I’m gay, to prove that they’ve not won.
But only time will really tell how badly this is going to work out 
Of Hugs and Such
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
If there’s one thing in this world that I’ve been craving so badly for, and for far too long, it’s a “good hug”. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had lots (well, a few) hugs in my time. But none of them have felt like the “right” sort of hug that I’ve been looking for.
I want the warm, snuggly, “everything will be OK” and “nothing else matters apart from this hug” type hug.
I know, I don’t ask for much, do I?
All jokes aside, I’m beginning to think that with hugs and with so much else in life, I’m not being “real” enough.
My expectations are all out of sync with what they should be.
I’ve no idea if I’ll ever find someone who will give me just the right hugs that I think I need. Similarly, I don’t know if I’ll ever totally work out LIFE the way I want to be able to.
I’m a 19 year old stuck in a bubble of his own idealism. Unfortunately, that bubble is slowly suffocating me. I’m never happy with what I have, always wanting better. And always beating myself up because I’m not able to get the better stuff.
Funny how things have worked out…
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
When I first realised that the attraction I felt towards guys was more than a simple phase of adolescent development, I was scared. Being in the position I was in made the feelings I had seem somewhat “wrong”. I went to an all-boys school which meant even though most of the guys pretended to be gay, the second anyone started being serious about homosexual or bisexual tendencies, they were extremely looked down upon.
Also, being brought up in the Church of England, well known for having mixed views of homosexuality, made the way I was feeling seem very wrong indeed.
So what did I do?
I went anti-gay. I decided I hated gays. The last thing I ever wanted to become was anything even remotely like a “stereotypical gay man”. Think of Catherine Tate’s “Only Gay in he Village”.
That ended up in me closing out all of my gay friends who were slowly coming out. I admit, I shunned and renounced them.
Everything about the gay community which I’d witnessed (actually not that much besides what I’d seen on TV) I seemed to hate with a passion.
———
Now, some 4 years on, how things have changed. I’m beginning to really embrace my sexuality with open arms. I’m getting more comfortable being “me” every day.
I guess I never really was “straight acting”. I used to laugh at my inability to act butch. DIY isn’t something I can do without hurting myself. I used to do everything I could to “cover up” the very little things that might give away the fact that I was gay.
Lately, however, going through the daily “I’m a Straight man grr” thing isn’t important. I’m just “letting go” of the restraints I had on myself.
As a result, somehow, my walk has become a little… umm… “less like a march”. My arms which used to deliberately be pinned to my sides are now waving about. And between you and me, dear blog reader, my voice has started to involuntarily break a second time.
It’s important to add that I can’t help these “changes”. They’re happening naturally at their own pace, and most certainly aren’t a “deliberate act”. I’m saying that I’m *noticing* them, not that I’m forcing them to happen.
To think that I used to think of this as some big act that gay men put on to show the world that they were gay because they like to annoy people. And here I am totally proving myself wrong.
Excuse me while I post a rainbow:
There we go. A pride flag. Gay Pride. Because I’m gay and proud of the fact that I am myself. Proud of the fact that I don’t need to put on any acts. Proud of the fact that I am who and what I am.
Oh boy… when I first decided back in February that “yes, I am in fact actually gay and nothing’s gonna change that” I thought that finally coming to terms with my sexuality would be “it”.
But now, I really truly am beginning to embrace it. It is me. Who I am. I’m not “coming to terms with it” any more. But beginning to ACCEPT it.
Yay me!
Daydream Believer
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve often been accused of daydreaming, letting my mind wonder during the day. But truth is, I have some pretty extreme night time dreams too. For the last year or so, I’ve been having 2 main types of dreams: nightmares featuring my ex-step Dad… and good dreams featuring an (as yet) anonymous lover.
The nightmares featuring my ex-step Dad have him up to his “typical behaviour”. Holding me up to walls by my throat, whilst yelling into my face from less than a centimetre away, covering me in nicotine-smelling spit. Kicking me across floors. Hitting me. The things he did quite a lot when he lived with us.
These nightmares have been haunting me a little bit during the day as well, trying to work out how I keep dreaming the same things. Trying to figure out what’s making me dream them. I guess it’s why my sleep pattern always gets messed up when I have a “batch” of these sorts of dreams.
———-
The other dreams I’ve been having are worlds different from the abusive ones.
They feature the same man. I never get a chance to look at his face, or even know his name, but I can *tell* that they are all instances of the same man.
We’ll be going for a late evening walk through a park, where we sit down and fall asleep holding one another. We’ll sit on a cliff edge, holding hands and dangling our legs off the edge. We’ll wake up (in the dream, of course) in the same bed, cuddling.
I even had one dream where we were on the Titanic as it was sinking. I was running down the corridors, looking for “him” and calling his name (even though I don’t know it, and can’t even remember if he had a “real name” or just that I imagined myself calling his name). I kept seeing him run around distant corners because he was looking for me but didn’t hear me calling so was running in the opposite direction. Eventually we find one another and float off together on a wardrobe from a cabin…
———-
There we go, I just told you about some of my dreams, dear blog reader. You should feel privileged 
Just me, moaning again
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
The last few days especially, I’ve been going through a miniature faith crisis. Not that I’ve lost faith or anything, but more like I’ve come to a massive hurdle which I can’t get round easily. I believe in God, Jesus, all that stuff. But how does that “fit” with who I am?
We’re talking about the God who destroyed a city complete with its population because a few of them were gay.
The same God who says that being gay is equivalent to abandoning Him.
And the same God who calls gays “abominations”.
He’s meant to love us unconditionally. Loving the sinner but not the sin. But how is falling is love with men because you’re attracted to them and never in a million years would be attracted to women a sin? And how could a loving God (a) Hate - with a capital H - gays for being gay and (b) destroy a city or two because of a few gays living there?
Why call us abominations, surely if “all sin is equal in the Eyes of God” as the Bible says it is, then being gay is no worse than telling a small lie. And yet we’re “unnatural” and “abominations”?
I’ve not been to Church for 2 weeks. My excuses? The first time was because I worked a late night shift (I got in around quarter to 1 in the morning) and so didn’t feel up to going out at 9.30am to go to Church. The second time? I don’t even have an excuse.
But enough of excuses. You want to know the real reason I’ve not been to Church?
Because every week they offer prayers “for those of the congregation who are encountering sexual deviations in their lives right now”. When they “announce” this sort of prayer during prayer time, I feel the pastor’s eyes staring directly at me, singling me out from the rest of the 400 people there. Even though he doesn’t single me out, or hasn’t even approached me about my sexuality, I feel somehow like I’m being “picked on”.
I would go back to my old Church, but things there will always be difficult. I can’t even bear to show my face because of all the questions that will be asked. As someone who was working full time on their Youth Work team for 9 months, I feel like I’ve failed them in a big way. For being gay which is against their religion, and for not following the Youth Work path afer leaving them.
So here I am. A Christian who doesn’t agree with some small but crucial bits of God’s ideas of right and wrong. A Christian who doesn’t feel welcome at Church.
Who am I?
Posted by Dan | Filed under Uncategorized
Some of the greatest philosophers have tried to solve the riddle of who we are. Some say we are a result of all that’s ever happened to us. Others say we are what we make ourselves. Some say we are merely bits of genetic material carrying out chemical reactions.
Well, I came to have a rather interesting answer to that riddle myself yesterday.
Who am I?
I am me.
Why worry about what makes us who we are? We ARE who we are, and should just learn to live with it.
It doesn’t matter if we are the way we are bacause of something that happened in our past. Sure, what we do now can affect what happens to us in the future.
But for now, we have to live in the skin we’re in.
Who are we?
We are who we are.
No more, no less.
We shouldn’t let others put us down, because the instant we do we start to believe the things we hear them say. Seeing as We are Who We Are, why let other people try to make us what they think we ought to be?
I’ll let you have that to think about.
Bye for now, Dan.
