Toothpaste Tears Us Apart

Before Tall Blonde Alcholic left for his internship with Colgate in New Jersey he told me how bored he was going to be in a new place and how miserable he was going to be by himself. He gave me no choice but to feel sorry for him and I tried to comfort him by telling him I would miss him with all my heart and would patiently wait in DC until he came home to me.

This was before I left for Alaska, where stormy seas and evergreen trees prevented us from communicating. When I came back after seven days, his story had changed.

The day I got back to Seattle, I called him while I was on the light rail. He told me about how great the internship was and how much fun he was having with his fellow interns and roommates. They had already gone out for several nights and there was even going to be a party in the near future. His invitation fell somewhat flat on my ears, "I guess you can come if you want." Later that night, I finally got in touch with him on AIM. Only he left after 15 or so minutes because he had to go to sleep.

And there I was, the fool feeling sorry for him. I had thought that we were both going to have a terrible time being apart, except he was having the time of his life. And it wasn't so much that it was fun, it was that the people were fun. This immediately made me wonder what set these people apart from me. What's to stop him from falling in love with them over the course of the summer? And when it's all over won't he hate leaving them, and won't he miss seeing them, and wouldn't he rather stay with them? Coming home to me at the end of it all will be nothing more than a cheap consolation prize for giving up the best experience of his life.

On Tuesday night, I left a small party to hide in the bathroom and call him. I turned on the faucet so people outside wouldn't be able to hear me. I asked him why he hadn't called recently, making snide comments about how happy he was in New Jersey and poking fun at his sudden change of heart. He said, "I thought you'd be happy for me. Aren't you glad I'm not miserable?"

And in an instant, the guilt was deflected. I stumbled on the phone, grasping desperately for words that would avoid the truth. I want to be able say that I love him enough to want nothing more than for him to be happy. But deep down I was glad when he first told me was going to be lost without me. Like anyone else, I want to feel important. To see him enjoying himself so much breaks my heart into a million icy pieces and makes me reconsider just how much I really matter to him.

And all of this is much easier for him than it is for me. I am the one stuck here living our old life. His absence changes everything for me. He is the one who gets to start anew without me. And wouldn't you know, it's still pretty damn great.

So in the end, I suppose neither of us has the upper hand in this argument. I don't love him enough to want him to be happy without me and he doesn't love me enough to be unhappy without me. And neither of us love each other as much as we thought we did before this summer came along and tore us apart.

I turned off the faucet, got off the phone, and went back to the party. Average Brown Quarter-Asian was waiting outside and said to me, "Have you heard from Tall Blonde Alcoholic recently? He can't stop talking about how much he loves New Jersey."

I could have punched her in the face.

Can I Use My Cell Phone In Alaska?

My idea of a fun vacation involves something unique and unusual. This would include, for instance, backpacking through a war-torn African country or perhaps committing a string of identity thefts and bank robberies across central Europe.

My mother ignores my suggestions and plans a seven-day family cruise to Alaska. Hell is a place on Earth and its name is The Oosterdam.

As I enjoy my "Bon Voyage Dinner" on deck nine, I experience a brief moment of deep reflection and wonder if a single potato on this ship didn't arrive pre-cooked.

To maintain my sanity and battle the effects of seasickness, I begin to meticulously judge those around me. To my left, a group of 70+ year-old passengers who can't walk, see, or hear, order a bottle of wine. They will be having more fun than me, most probably. To my right, a group of overweight passengers heap mounds of roast beef onto little plates while discussing with each other the pitfalls of overeating. Straight ahead, a group of quintessential middle-aged Asians, chew with their mouths open and talk loudly about real estate.

The ship makes several stops on land. The first of which is in Juneau. After visiting Sarah Palin's old house, I walk around downtown hoping to find a shirt that says, "Juneau You Want Me."

The next stop is in Sitka. I search high and low for spots where The Proposal was filmed, spots where Ryan Reynolds may have walked on. I would later find out that The Proposal was filmed in Massachusetts.

Victoria was fun. All the boys are cute. I am considering moving there after school.

On board the ship there is a magic show where the magician somehow incorporates the theme of gay marriage into his stand-up routine. "Straight people have been married for years, gay people deserve that misery too." My marriage is going to be utopia with a white picket fence. That's what I deserve. Asshole.

Over the course of the week I meet several new people on the ship. One woman makes a living singing The Way We Were twice a night, every night. One group of tweens has adopted a new motto, "Don't abuse alcohol. Let alcohol abuse you." And just about everyone else on the ship either has a rich grandfather or is a rich grandfather or is a really really cute guy with really really long, dark, and conspicuous eyebrows who doesn't pay any attention to you whatsoever even though you attend all the same events and somehow manage to sit at the table next to him almost every night at dinner.

Towards the end, this trip becomes bearable. Because, let's face it, this is ten million times better than work where you hate everyone and everyone hates you. Also, happy hour is between 3:30 and 4:30 pm. Also, you got to see a whale and a seal and a dolphin. Also, all the fat people make you look skinny.

My one lingering regret is being torn away from Tall Blonde Alcoholic as he begins his summer internship in New Jersey. When the ship docks I call him as soon as I get the chance. He misses my call and returns it a few minutes later. He says he's at Target and sounds distracted. He tells me over the phone about his cool, funny, roommate from Miami as if I'm not cool (I am) or funny (I am) or from an exotic locale (Taiwan). He must have known that I would frantically stalk this new variable on Facebook as soon as I got the chance. He is cute and skinny (absolutely, not relatively) and definitely gay (absolutely and relatively). Inwardly, I have a terrible feeling about this. Realistically, there is nothing I can do. As I disembark, my stomach is filled with salmon and my heart is filled with terror.

And while I look outside my cab window and watch the rain fall in Seattle, I try to come to terms with the fact that things change and people move on while you are gone. I wonder what the weather is like in New Jersey and if I'll even recognize my life when I finally find my way home.

Copyright 2010

Apparently a quiet war is being raged against me by impostors on the internet.

On Somebody's blog, Somebody writes:

Thank you to Hugo Boss for your present as well... was very sweet of you. Oh... and Happy 17th Birthday to you. Only one more year before you are of legal age in the US... :-P
Love ya so much

I try to be cute and funny and ironic and I write:

are you two doing it. that would be illegal. right?

Somebody writes:

wait... what?
How would it be illegal for me and Donna Karan to sleep together?
Last time I checked straight sex between two consenting adults is still legal in ALL 50 states :-P

(At this point, he misunderstands who I am talking about. Things remain civil.)

Then, Impostor, posing as me, writes:

Straight sex is legal, and a boy and a girl is considered straight sex in all 50 states. It's also considered pedophilia when the girl is only 7! On my investigations Becky is not even in her teens yet. THAT'S WHY ITS ILLEGAL!

(Not really sure why Impostor had the urge to write this. I believe it should say, "a boy doing a girl," and not, "a boy and a girl." Not really sure what "on my investigations" means. Missed an apostrophe. This sounds nothing like me.)

Alas, Somebody says:

wtf?
Dude... where the hell do you get that from? Donna Karan is the same age as me... she is in college...
I cant believe I am even explaining this... I really hope you are joking around... but even so its not a cool thing to joke about.

I am stupified

Not to be pedantic, but stupefied is spelled incorrectly.

If this person wanted to pose a maniacal argument, he/she could have just written an anonymous comment. Clearly there's a personal vendetta there. I'm just not sure what's causing it. It's probably because I think Meryl Streep should have won the Oscar over Sandra Bullock. I've made a lot of enemies because of my stance on this hot button issue.

So all this makes me sound belligerent as well as retarded and a little bit insane. As if I wasn't already good at making people hate me through mean comments, this will certainly put me over the edge. The follow up post to this is called, "People Are Morons," and the comments section is devoted to discussing how weird and dumb I am. I guess the impostor got what they wanted. But just for future reference, a comment is only from me if it is bitchy AND grammatically correct. Not one or the other.

Hello Summer, Nice To Meet You

The night before my advanced accounting exam, I pace back and forth in the study lounge. I am unprepared. As I read about double entry book-keeping, I think about how much more I would prefer some double entry ass-fucking. Tears well up in my eyes and I feel like I am going to throw up. I have hit the bottom. My former roommate who I used to hook up with before we ended things on bad terms walks by outside and sees me through the window. He knocks on the glass and waves. It is 5:00 am and this is a new, unfamiliar low.

At 7:00 am, the anxiety gives way to feelings of calm resignation. I pack my things up and walk upstairs to my room where I plan to crawl under the sheets and suffocate myself on a tube sock. Failure in advanced accounting is inevitable. And then we die. And then we are reborn as impala on the African plains. It is the circle of life.

At 8:00 am, the exam begins and I don't know how to answer the first question. Instead, I daydream about the season finale of Desperate Housewives. I can't believe Paul Young is back. Angie was so smart to put the bomb IN THE DETONATOR.

At 10:00 am, I text my bf, "Yay over."

For the next four days I complain very publicly about how badly I did and how I'm going to get my first B and that my life is over. But grades came out yesterday and I got on A. Yay.

When I come home from school, I want to tell my mother the good news. It feels strange that I want to do this because she has always criticized everything I've ever done and for years I've tried to convince myself that I don't need her approval. I realize I do this because deep down I still want to make her proud and redeem myself for my consummate failure: being a gay son.

Before I can get a word out she looks at me and says, "You look too fat." This would have been fine if she hadn't said "too." Because "too" implies that I am fat in both absolute and relative terms. I lie to her about having eaten lunch already. Today I've had one cup of diet coke and two cough drops. She knows nothing about the A.

I am going to the beach tomorrow with my bf. I don't know what he's said to his parents about the trip but I am lying and telling my parents that I am going with four guys. Four guys in one hotel room with one king size bed doesn't arouse as much suspicion as two guys in the same situation. He will probably make me watch the Lost finale. Maybe after that we can sell beer to teenagers and have gay sex in the sand. We are a couple of renegade summer tourists.

I am probably too fat for the beach. I have a crippling fear of little children mistaking me for a beached whale and trying to haul me off to sea. I am probably going to sit, fully-clothed, under an umbrella and read Laura Bush's autobiography.

You Again

In my first post ever, I briefly talked about my best friend in middle school who unknowingly helped me realize I was gay when I found myself staring at his crotch with more than just competitive inquisition.

Once he started becoming the subject of my pubescent fantasies, I began to act differently around him. I would casually insult his clothes or make fun of the things he said because the only way I knew how to show love was how my parents did it, through intense and unfiltered criticism.

I never really considered telling him how I felt because I was afraid of his reaction and how news might spread among our group of friends. Eventually, I just pushed him away, using a small incident involving a relay race, a baton, and the word "penis" as a reason to end the friendship. I began telling everyone how much I disliked him because I found it much easier to channel my emotions through hatred than unreciprocated love. Deep down I had hoped that he would chase after me to try and reconcile everything, but he didn't. And even after we went on to different high schools, I wondered for a long time if he thought about me and what happened between us. Eventually I realized we would probably never see each other ever again so I just let it go.

Anyway, eight years later, turns out we are not only at the same university, we are in the same major. And wouldn't you know, he is randomly assigned to a semester-long group project with me. In cases like these, I like to ask myself, "What are the odds?" But this has nothing to do with chance. This is the work of God and his sick sense of humor.

And this is extra fun because there are only three people in this group. So when the third member invariably ditches meetings because of some stupid grandmother on life-support, I am stuck with him in quite possibly the most awkward situation on the entire planet.

Me: Can we meet at _:__ in _____ to work on the _____?
Him: You sure you don't want to just do it at my place?
Me: ...
Him: All my roommates are gone and it'll be more comfortable

...More comfortable than what.

When I get to his apartment it is indeed, empty. And he still has the careless hair and big brown eyes of the first boy I ever fell in love with. Could this be what I've waited eight years for? Am I finally going to get to see what is under his basketball shorts? He starts talking about the project, and then his girlfriend. I try to act normal. He laughs at my stupid jokes and mannerisms, which apparently he still finds funny. I consider standing up and shouting, "Why didn't you chase after me?! Couldn't you tell I was going through something?! Couldn't you tell I was drowning?!"

Maybe all this time he was blithely unaware of the teenage psychodrama that I had convinced myself ruined the relationship. Maybe he is aware but is just as happy to pick up right where we left off. Does it really matter after all this time? When I look at him now, all I can do is laugh about how strangely life unfolds. I'm not in love with him anymore. Perhaps we can finally just be friends now.

It's getting late and I tell him my head hurts. He brings me an Advil with a cup of cold water.

Pride and Prejudice

At a recent party that I attended because somebody tipped me off that there was an 18 year-old boy there that looked like Taye Diggs, I overheard a conversation between LeeLee Sobieski and a foreign exchange student from Austria.

Austria: I do not think gay people should have children.
LeeLee: What? Why not?
Austria: Parents should be man and woman. It is not natural.

He failed to notice that the real deviation from nature in the room was his hair, obviously, a European import.

Anyway, this is where I chime in and try to be cute and say, "I thought most Europeans were supposed to be more liberal than Americans. [giggle]."

Austria: No you guys are much more liberal than we are.

I found this to be shocking. I thought Americans were the champions of bigotry and discrimination. And we kind of like to breed the idea here that all of Europe is pretty much like Berlin or Paris, (run by gay people), and that Eastern Europe is a nether-land that exists only to produce great gymnasts.

But that must be an incorrect generalization. Kind of like the time I wrongly convinced myself that all black people were like my black roommate: selfish, messy, and like to cut all their friends' hair in the common room every Thursday afternoon. (But then I met Taye Diggs. Who was cuter than a little black button. [giggle].)

Europe was supposed to be the homosexual promised land that I could always run away to if I ever became dissatisfied with the unalienable freedoms being taken away from me at home. And Europeans were supposed to be fun, skinny people that were either gay or wished they were gay. But the fat, ugly Austrian proved all this wrong.

For every LeeLee that generously takes the gay agenda into her own hands, there is an Austrian steadfastly climbing the Alps to spread the word that all gay boys should be childless lest we teach the next generation to be as gay as we are. I had hoped that the only people who truly hated gays were 40+ and when they died we would be free at last. But sadly, gay haters are being born every day, everywhere. And if they are so unwilling to change their minds, I wonder how long it will take for the world to just accept us and let us have babies.


At the very least, we'll always have Paris.

Farewell, Ugly Betty

Tralala I went home for the weekend and my boyfriend won't respond my texts. He did a power hour and then went to a concert with a crazy girl who is in love with him. I'm ok with it. I'm doing homework and watching Buffy. Ok, I lied. I'm not doing homework.

I wonder if he's having sex with the crazy girl. I wonder if he's having sex with some guy he met at the concert. I wonder if he's having sex with both of them. I wonder if he ordered Chinese takeout without me. Growl.

Sometimes I tell him about my irrational fears and ask him if he would ever cheat on me. This might seem like an unusual thing to bring up in the middle of dinner but ever since my home girl Sandra took that fall, nobody can be too careful. Usually he pats me on my head and tells me I am crazy. He never says anything like, "I couldn't even imagine," or "You're the only one that I want." He just tells me I am crazy. Which I already know.

All of this is probably caused by a deep rooted suspicion that he doesn't find me attractive. And that feeling is probably caused by the fact that I don't find myself attractive. And that is probably because I didn't grow up in Asia where everyone looks worse, the same, or only slightly better than me. Instead, I grew up in America, where I am surrounded by young bucks romping shirtless around the quad with their blue eyes, effortless muscles, and curly blonde hair. And also, I am fat.

I can name a few things about him that I find very sexy. But I don't think any part of me drives him wild with desire. And I think that hurts our relationship. Though it's hard to deny that my glittering personality couldn't make somebody fall in love with me, I sometimes feel like we are together because we are just two lonely gay boys that have nobody else. Which begs the question: can a man truly fall in love with somebody he doesn't find attractive?

I can't really believe Ugly Betty was canceled. I'm going to miss it.