Showing posts with label blah blah blah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blah blah blah. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Out and About



“not-out” phobia in today’s gay community

I had somewhat of an epiphany tonight, ironically, while I was browsing Adam4Adam (this is a gay dating/hookup site – yes, there is dating if that is what you are looking for) . I got a message from a guy – seemed nice enough, we chatted a bit, he’s cute, on and on. It eventually comes out that he isn’t out of the closet. He’s 23 years old, almost done with college. It seemed so foreign to me – and I remembered my typical (and rather callous) line “Well, I don’t date guys who aren’t out – I had my identity crisis, I don’t need someone else’s”.



I came out of the closet at 16 years old, then I took that shit and ran with it. Before I came out of the closet, I was pretty much your stereotypical picked-on kid – socially awkward, short tempered, fat (200 lbs at 13), and friendless. After I came out of the closet, my life did an almost complete 180 – I lost 50 pounds, had all kinds of friends, and juggled about 3 different guys off and on for my entire junior year.  It was, by far, the best thing that happened in my entire life – even if the rest of my life is a total disaster.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Oh boy. Here we go.



Hey all,
Thanks for coming by. There is some older content on here, this is actually my old blog kind of “re-branded”. Ever since my release from prison, writing has been an outlet for me, but occasionally, I need more than 500 words for it, so that, with my combined passion for making incredibly complex, time consuming web pages, brought this out. This isn’t going to center on one particular topic, but over the next week, I’ll be speaking out regarding some important things. Anything I post is public – you’re welcome to participate. You don’t have to register for Blogger – I spent 3.5 hours getting that “Facebook Comments” thing to work, so utilize it, it’s pretty cool. I’ll write something later today, or tonight. Until then…
Check out the About Me page, which kind of has “a story so far”.
And I’d love for you to read one of my previous posts from a few months ago if you get a chance…
I'm Coming Out (Again)
Some may have read it already, if so, that’s great. Here’s a clip:
With that being said, the whole experience of being locked up in a prison is very much walking on eggshells--if you mess up it could be very bad for you, so you have to be alert at all times. Prison is by far the most polite place I have ever been to -- excuse me, thank you, sorry, was almost required if you didn't want to piss someone off. I got off lucky because I've generally been a polite person my whole life. I was never involved or even came close to being involved in any type of altercation -- generally, I found that if you minded your own business, didn't borrow from a person and run up a bill, and stayed polite, you will most likely not have any problems. 95% of the people in a prison are there to do their time and go.
With that being said, it was a difficult adjustment. My general life experience has not been with a group like this, and I had never even been arrested before this charge. I found it difficult to relate, and will probably always. Convicts and felons live in an entirely different world that non-offenders, down to the places they stay, things they prioritize, relationships, upbringing, and language. In order to really "get along" in prison, your entire paradigm on life has to change. I heard things I never thought I would hear. Generally, almost every single person is in there because of something drugs drove them to do -- even if it's assault, forgery, ID theft, etc, so that's generally the back story. Most of these guys are not bad people at all -- in fact, after my release, I find some to be some of the more real and helpful people I've ever met -- and they are extremely loyal to the people that are close to them. When convicts are released, 95% of the time they have no intention of re-offending, they want to stay sober, but the problem is that because all they have done for the last X amount of years is spend time with other felons, it's extremely hard to go back into a world of people who aren't.
 
Anyway – thanks for checking me (it/this?) out.