Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Another gay movie!
There's something so romantic about forbidden angsty love... and now that straight love is acceptable between race, religion and class... gay love is the only love you can watch in a movie about forbidden love and actually buy into. Nothing else is forbidden anymore..
Yes I know it's a good thing that things aren't forbidden... but you have to admit, the romance, the excitement, the passion in the struggle to cross forbidden barriers is something you end up missing out on!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
In defense of lying..
I just read a short story ... well it's a true short story about someone who lies - a lot.
About inconsequential things.
But she lies.
Sometimes she invents an actor boyfriend, or pretends to be a designer living in Rome, or claims she has had 4 husbands when she has actually just had two. She lies to make herself seem more glamorous, less ordinary, more interesting, more fun. She is honest in her personal life, with her friends, she doesn't bullshit people. But when it comes to inconsequential things - she lies.
It's interesting because she claims she does it out of insecurity, it's an innate need to not feel ordinary... so.. feeling ordinary drives her to make up these stories. I don't buy that. That just sounds like one of those psychobabble conclusions that helps everyone sleep at night. That kind of thinking doesn't allow for the possibility that someone who tells lies (bad bad) could possibly not have a dysfunction.
I personally think she's just trying out new identities. And why shouldn't she? She's a writer, a story teller, a performer, you either do it professionally, or you do it in your life. (or hey, you could do both, a writer needs to do research, collect material!) My point is why *should* anyone be stuck in one life, one identity. Do you really owe the truth to complete strangers in social contexts? It's much more fun to make up stories. It's not like they care whether you are telling the truth or not. Other people enjoy hearing these stories just as much as you enjoy telling them. It's an outlet for your creativity, it's a performance, it's a refusal to be put into one box and be forced to present yourself in that box, it's an opportunity to free yourselves from your "identity", your "demographic" and present yourself how you imagine yourself on the inside at that particular moment in time. Sure your life in all it's down to earth practical non-glory limits you to that one identity and one life, but why can't you expand your mind and heart and soul to create a world, a person, that clearly resides in you, and present that person, that identity, when you meet people.
I am not usually a proponent of telling lies. But I have this problem. When I meet new people and I present my true credentials it makes me squirm, because I feel a disconnect. My credentials don't feel like they represent me. It feels like I am talking about a third person that somehow came and took over my life. When I present my career, my ethnicity, my sexuality, I become... someone I am not. Because with those labels go so many assumptions about who I am.
And it makes me wonder.... Wouldn't it be more honest to present an identity that is true-er to who I am on the inside? And what would that be?
I think this calls for some experimental flights of fancy...
About inconsequential things.
But she lies.
Sometimes she invents an actor boyfriend, or pretends to be a designer living in Rome, or claims she has had 4 husbands when she has actually just had two. She lies to make herself seem more glamorous, less ordinary, more interesting, more fun. She is honest in her personal life, with her friends, she doesn't bullshit people. But when it comes to inconsequential things - she lies.
It's interesting because she claims she does it out of insecurity, it's an innate need to not feel ordinary... so.. feeling ordinary drives her to make up these stories. I don't buy that. That just sounds like one of those psychobabble conclusions that helps everyone sleep at night. That kind of thinking doesn't allow for the possibility that someone who tells lies (bad bad) could possibly not have a dysfunction.
I personally think she's just trying out new identities. And why shouldn't she? She's a writer, a story teller, a performer, you either do it professionally, or you do it in your life. (or hey, you could do both, a writer needs to do research, collect material!) My point is why *should* anyone be stuck in one life, one identity. Do you really owe the truth to complete strangers in social contexts? It's much more fun to make up stories. It's not like they care whether you are telling the truth or not. Other people enjoy hearing these stories just as much as you enjoy telling them. It's an outlet for your creativity, it's a performance, it's a refusal to be put into one box and be forced to present yourself in that box, it's an opportunity to free yourselves from your "identity", your "demographic" and present yourself how you imagine yourself on the inside at that particular moment in time. Sure your life in all it's down to earth practical non-glory limits you to that one identity and one life, but why can't you expand your mind and heart and soul to create a world, a person, that clearly resides in you, and present that person, that identity, when you meet people.
I am not usually a proponent of telling lies. But I have this problem. When I meet new people and I present my true credentials it makes me squirm, because I feel a disconnect. My credentials don't feel like they represent me. It feels like I am talking about a third person that somehow came and took over my life. When I present my career, my ethnicity, my sexuality, I become... someone I am not. Because with those labels go so many assumptions about who I am.
And it makes me wonder.... Wouldn't it be more honest to present an identity that is true-er to who I am on the inside? And what would that be?
I think this calls for some experimental flights of fancy...
Monday, July 7, 2008
Dating
Disclaimer: When I say dating here, I am talking about the system of asking someone you barely know out to "a drink" or "dinner" with the explicit understanding that you are measuring each-other up for relationship potential - along with all the "rules" that go with this concept of dating.
A friend of my sister's once said... that dating is just a way to make women prostitute themselves within a context that looks respectable and fools them into thinking they are doing something else. He phrased it better, and I am dragging it all over the place, but you get the point. You will think I am cynical, but honestly, I agree. If someone wants to "date" you as soon as they meet you, not knowing anything about you, then clearly what they are after is the body, not the person. And that essentially means, I pay for dinner, and you give me sex later. A socially acceptable approach to prostitution. And highly artificial and uncomfortable at that, especially if the two people have different things in mind. (You know... one wants the sex, the other wants the food.. Hmm.. I suppose that could work out.. )
But seriously, the real problem is the same as the problem with unemployment benefits. The fact that the people who don't need it unfairly cash in on it, by working the system, and the people who are sincere end up having to deal with the extra bureaucracy created to try and prevent and discourage the ones that are taking unfair advantage. Dates are supposedly a way of getting to know each other to gauge relationship potential, but instead it's become "do I have sex on the first date or the third date?"... errr...?
The sad thing is so many women go out on dates hoping for a relationship, perhaps by dragging out the sexual seduction part, when the whole setup is so not conducive to a serious honest relationship. I would absolutely love to get my hands on some statistics that tell you how many people have gone on dates that have actually lead to relationships. Women in cosmopolitan urban cities constantly complain about the dating scene in their cities. The majority of people I know in relationships did NOT meet through a date (and I am talking about hetero relationships, gay relationships have an entirely different dynamic), they met at work or volunteering or through friends or family. They met in situations where they weren't forced to have a contrived sex interview, but were actually allowed to get to know atleast something about eachother before expressing an interest.
In fact I wish I could find this website, but several months ago I was sent a link to this website which had a ranked list showing you "where to meet" men/women. This list was based on people (both men and women) selecting or submitting if it wasnt on the list, where they met their partners and the majority of the people had met "at work". "at bars" was way down the line, and random dates.. just not...
What triggered this? I went on a date and even considered giving a legitimate chance to this guy who later turned out to have a wife in a different country. I also spent all this time trying to get him to stop trying to get me into bed and arguing with a friend of mine, that I was not interested in attracting this guy by "showing more skin" and how it made me feel objectified and disgusted that he would suggest that as advice. Fortunately though I had already lost interest before I found out about his wifey and had instead been lusting after his friend for a few days.
But back to dating in theory... Fair enough, if you are going to have to spend all this time with someone to figure out relationship potential and they turn out to not measure up, go ahead get laid... And if a guy/girl really is just looking to get laid, they need to make sure that a) they are disqualified from relationship potential. b) they are still sexually attractive to the other side (so make sure you dress and smell nice etc) c) Don't act too jerky so that you are not only disqualified from relationship potential but also sex potential.
In other news... I slept next to a gorgeous naked woman the other night and essentially as my friend puts it "couldn't get it up".. the next day for lunch I met this absolutely adorable poly bi girl who was a friend of a friend for lunch and she kissed me on the cheek and *that* turned me on... my libido baffles me!
Except it doesn't. If it's not drunken crazy sex, then it needs to be real intimate honest sex. This girl may have been physically gorgeous, but she was so emotionally closed off... I wasn't drunk enough to care more about sex than the person I'm having it with. It felt f-ed up.
A friend of my sister's once said... that dating is just a way to make women prostitute themselves within a context that looks respectable and fools them into thinking they are doing something else. He phrased it better, and I am dragging it all over the place, but you get the point. You will think I am cynical, but honestly, I agree. If someone wants to "date" you as soon as they meet you, not knowing anything about you, then clearly what they are after is the body, not the person. And that essentially means, I pay for dinner, and you give me sex later. A socially acceptable approach to prostitution. And highly artificial and uncomfortable at that, especially if the two people have different things in mind. (You know... one wants the sex, the other wants the food.. Hmm.. I suppose that could work out.. )
But seriously, the real problem is the same as the problem with unemployment benefits. The fact that the people who don't need it unfairly cash in on it, by working the system, and the people who are sincere end up having to deal with the extra bureaucracy created to try and prevent and discourage the ones that are taking unfair advantage. Dates are supposedly a way of getting to know each other to gauge relationship potential, but instead it's become "do I have sex on the first date or the third date?"... errr...?
The sad thing is so many women go out on dates hoping for a relationship, perhaps by dragging out the sexual seduction part, when the whole setup is so not conducive to a serious honest relationship. I would absolutely love to get my hands on some statistics that tell you how many people have gone on dates that have actually lead to relationships. Women in cosmopolitan urban cities constantly complain about the dating scene in their cities. The majority of people I know in relationships did NOT meet through a date (and I am talking about hetero relationships, gay relationships have an entirely different dynamic), they met at work or volunteering or through friends or family. They met in situations where they weren't forced to have a contrived sex interview, but were actually allowed to get to know atleast something about eachother before expressing an interest.
In fact I wish I could find this website, but several months ago I was sent a link to this website which had a ranked list showing you "where to meet" men/women. This list was based on people (both men and women) selecting or submitting if it wasnt on the list, where they met their partners and the majority of the people had met "at work". "at bars" was way down the line, and random dates.. just not...
What triggered this? I went on a date and even considered giving a legitimate chance to this guy who later turned out to have a wife in a different country. I also spent all this time trying to get him to stop trying to get me into bed and arguing with a friend of mine, that I was not interested in attracting this guy by "showing more skin" and how it made me feel objectified and disgusted that he would suggest that as advice. Fortunately though I had already lost interest before I found out about his wifey and had instead been lusting after his friend for a few days.
But back to dating in theory... Fair enough, if you are going to have to spend all this time with someone to figure out relationship potential and they turn out to not measure up, go ahead get laid... And if a guy/girl really is just looking to get laid, they need to make sure that a) they are disqualified from relationship potential. b) they are still sexually attractive to the other side (so make sure you dress and smell nice etc) c) Don't act too jerky so that you are not only disqualified from relationship potential but also sex potential.
In other news... I slept next to a gorgeous naked woman the other night and essentially as my friend puts it "couldn't get it up".. the next day for lunch I met this absolutely adorable poly bi girl who was a friend of a friend for lunch and she kissed me on the cheek and *that* turned me on... my libido baffles me!
Except it doesn't. If it's not drunken crazy sex, then it needs to be real intimate honest sex. This girl may have been physically gorgeous, but she was so emotionally closed off... I wasn't drunk enough to care more about sex than the person I'm having it with. It felt f-ed up.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I spoke too soon. I had no idea the summers in this place actually made it impossible to escape from people. Oh isolation how I miss thee! Except I can completely tell that as soon as I have time on my own, I will feel sad and depressed and scared.
Well I know why.. it's because I want solace in company.. not social exciting company. I want the kind of company where you can sit on your balcony and smoke and no words are spoken, no looks exchanged. The person is just there to share the view.
Well I know why.. it's because I want solace in company.. not social exciting company. I want the kind of company where you can sit on your balcony and smoke and no words are spoken, no looks exchanged. The person is just there to share the view.
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