Some days I want to resign from being gay

I struggle with the gay thing.

For the most part everything is fine, but then I find myself in a depressive slump because I can’t even deal with it.

I came from a pretty religious background and the indoctrination of “being gay will lead to hell” certainly pulled number on me – not helped by the fact that it is still widely preached about.

I even had like a 4 week counselling stint once upon a moon to help me with making the transition manageable and it helped but...still the same ghost is keeping me awake.

The thing that also kills off more pieces of my soul is that people would believe that I would “choose” to be gay.

Yes, I chose to be different because I was so bored that I thought – “Mmm, let’s be gay”.

I chose to put myself in a position where people bash on me for my “lifestyle”.

I chose to get that disappointing look from my mother whenever she remembers that her son is gay.

I chose to make things very difficult for myself because it was what I wanted.

Yes, I chose to feel like this.

-Sigh-  

It’s this constant othering that you have to put up with and even with the most liberal of people you can still feel at odd. You become the “gay” person, and lose your individual identity.

When people are talking about romances, it becomes this “thing” when in an ideal situation it wouldn’t be a thing. It’s this constant source of distress at times because once people latch on it then it in many ways can become their main identifier for you.

I often find myself in that “is there a switch” or the “can I just give back the gay gene” state of mind because I am just fed up with all the alienation that comes with it.

I even entertain the idea of dating a girl, which wouldn’t be a bad idea, except for the fact that I would be in a relationship with someone I don’t truly love and then also putting a lovely woman into a loveless marriage – which would not be fair because everyone deserves better than that.

I’ve heard the whole “it gets better” speech and while I don’t always find myself believing it, I still preach it because there are so many others who kill themselves just for being different. So many great young and beautiful minds are lost because of something that cannot be changed.

Others then have said, “you need to make more gay friends” and while that may be true, I still feel like a odd man out there because then it is my neurotic personality that puts me in contrast.

Things are never A + B = C.

It is rather a process of why does the “A” feel like a “A”? How did the “A” get to the point where he it felt comfortable with being “A” and who said you can add “B” to get “C”? And, what does “C” mean?

Things that can seem simple to people, are not so simple for others.

I don’t try to be difficult or feel the way I do, it is just that I feel an overwhelming amount.

Maybe it is the: Growing up as a sensitive kid + the wanting do my best + the single parent mom wanting to provide + daddy issues + the angst that came with needing to be there when things fell apart + the gay thing and all its drama = A functioning neurotic gay mess.

Being gay just happens to be the thing exhausting me today.

Hopefully there will be a time in my life when I won’t feel like it is but until that day I can just do the best that I can and soldier on.

Theo. Over and Out.

PS: I feel like I need to honestly consider therapy/counselling. I have been thinking about it over the past few months, but it seems like it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

How you doing? I don't know.

Anyone who has seen my most recent posts on social media has been bound to pick up on the fact that I am currently feeling extra emotional.

I am just not in a happy space.

There is a number of contributing factors to this, some of which I don’t really feel like I fully understand. I feel like I am at the beginning of a quarter life crisis – which is actually a legitimate thing surprisingly.

Maybe 2016 is just meant to be a more emotionally challenging year for me? I don’t know if it is true, but it certainly feels that way to me.

The older I seem to get, the more I feel like issues that I thought I had dealt with over the years are rearing their heads causing more shit for myself. Like I had just put paint over the cracks and now they are reopening.

I have no energy to list them all here because I feel like I am a broken record playing the same old depressing sob song on repeat. Woe is me *violins playing in the background*.

Basically, I am just not feeling it.

I’ve recently found myself noticing the generic “How are you doing?” question that always starts every conversation. I, of course, answer with the “Good thanks and you?” without really meaning it because often, people don’t really care how you are and they are just being polite and additionally, it also moves the conversation along.

However, with people who I care enough about, I answer the question honestly, saying: “I don’t know”.

It catches people off guard; and while it could be construed as an attention seeking ploy, that doesn’t matter to me because I am being honest.

It is not that I am uncertain of how I am feeling, but rather I find myself uncertain of why I am feeling the way I do - trying to experience the happiness that I find in everyday life, while simultaneously, feeling a sadness weigh heavy on my heart. It is exhausting. 

Further complicating things for myself is that I am a bad liar.

I can be a great liar when I put effort into in, and use my high school drama skills, but I do not have a heart to lie. I would rather avoid telling someone something than lying to them. My face is also pretty easy to read – the emotions are very easy to read on my face.

It takes so much effort for me to fake a “don’t worry, I am fine” and it is something that I have to do when at work. Going on a story or out of the office is a lot easier to “fake” it, because you have to be professional. You are doing a job and meeting people, focusing on them so it is easy to not think about what you are feeling. 

However when you are in the office, it is a bit harder.

People will say “Don’t be miserable” and “Smile a little” which I totally understand because newsrooms can be a bit depressing. No one wants to be surrounded by miserable and grumpy people who make things difficult for other people.

I get it.

The issue for me however, is that people need to be a little more sensitive when just blurting out “Don’t be miserable” because someone might be going through something or is not at their best and by telling them to not be miserable, you are being insensitive and inconsiderate about what they are feeling.

Faking happiness can only work so long. It doesn’t always work.

There is a lot happening with me, and it sometimes I don’t always want to speak about it or tell people about it. Sometimes I just want to be and figure my shit out. I actually went for a random 30 minutes walk during my lunch hour recently and it was a walk that had no purpose but it helped me.

If you ask me how I am doing and I go - “I don’t know” - just know that I care enough about you to answer it honestly, but also don’t feel compelled to ask if you don’t want to know, or get upset by a vague non-answer.

I am just rolling with the punches.

Theo. Over and Out.

PS- Do note that if I do look like I do need a hug, I will never object or reject a hug. Hugging is awesome and has been proven to help people feel better. #TeamHugsForTheWin

My "Open Wound"

Picture: David Ritchie

I have repeatedly heard that tattoo means “open wound” in Samoan.

I am not sure if that is true or not, because I haven’t found a source reliable enough for me to trust it, but I would love to think it is true.

Regardless, there is still something very poetic and appropriate about it for me.

I had always wanted to get a tattoo, but the whole permanent aspect was a major speed bump that put me somewhat off it.

As I got older, I figured things out and learned more about myself. Over time I changed, as we all do.

Coming out was a pretty big deal for me, it permanently changed my relationship with my mother and my family. It changed how my friends saw me. It changed how I saw myself. How could it not?

That sweet wallflower, that gentle-hearted, ever-the-do-gooder boy I was died that day, and it wasn’t something I realised until writing this.

Coming out broke that boy.

To realise that the fact that I was gay (which was the one thing I was told never to be my entire life) broke the image I had of myself. I loved being the sweet and good boy, the one who made my mother proud and my family proud.

In some ways I still am that boy but it is not the same.

Seeing my mother's look of disgust, hearing her bang her head against her cupboard door, and hearing her wail “Why me?” as if I had just punished her in the worse way imaginable, had forever changed me.

A piece of me died that day, but in return I gained a stronger piece of me.

The piece of me who can stand up for himself when he wants to, a piece of me who does his own thing regardless of what others want, and who is still a kind person (or tries to be).

I gained a piece of me who recognises that I can’t be anything else but myself, even though it can be alienating. I am idiosyncratically me, and I am a better human being for it.

A year or so after coming out, I started falling in love with having a way to commemorate the day that I came out. I had forgotten the specific date that I had come out on, because there were more important things that had happened that day than for me to remember the date.

Anyway, thanks to a Facebook post, I found the date and the fateful post that came the day after I had done the bravest thing of my life.

Some time had pass and in the back of my mind, it was impossible for me to escape the idea of celebrating this act of bravery. To me, it was the scariest and bravest thing that I had ever done in my life, and I felt that I wanted to cherish that.

Fast forwarding a bit, a few ideas would pop up and then pass, and a new one would come along and then go but they all had my coming out involved in some shape or form.

I finally settled on an idea which excited me: why don’t I record myself saying the date I came out and then use the sound waves of that recording as a tattoo?

I thought about this idea actively for over a year and it was the one that stuck. Also it was the one that felt the most “me”.

The idea of a standard (though little generic) LGBT tattoo was cool but it felt too broad, especially for a community that I don’t entirely feel settled into. The sound waves idea appealed to me because of my love for music.

I don’t know where music became so vital to me, but it did.

When I was in primary school and part of the xylophone group performing at school events, when I did choir for a bit, when my mother and stepdad were arguing I would be in my room listening to music, when I was feeling sad, music would be there - when I was becoming depressed because the stress of keeping the gay secret had started killing out every drop of happiness – music was there.

It is why I run my music blog posts because a life without music is not a life at all, it is just an existence.

So...I had settled on it. I had figured out what I wanted and that was most of the war won.

Everyone knows how neurotic I can be and overanalyse everything, so for me to permanently mark my body in such a way, I had to get to a point where getting the tattoo felt so natural. I kept visualising what it would look like on my arm and the more I did that, the more I settled into the idea of getting one.

Picture: David Ritchie

Why the right arm? No reason other than the fact that it needed to be somewhere I could see it. 

Whenever I feel like shit or like I am not strong enough, the tattoo while be that reminded that I did the thing that scared me most. I did one of the bravest things I have ever done, and if I could do so, then I can certainly handle anything else that comes my way?

The only thing left to do was execute it.

Last week was a bit mad because I hadn’t thought out the details of getting a tattoo. I hadn’t even scouted out tattoo parlours and taken my time to settle on one. It was all fast-paced.

In all honesty, it needed to be. I would have procrastinated and maybe not gone through with it if it had been all delayed.

Wednesday - I made sure to record myself saying the date and then get that into a program which created the sound wave.

Thursday – I was off and also found out that I can’t just walk in and do a tattoo on the same day, so I would need to book an appointment. I had already been planning to see them the day before, but this only confirmed it.

Friday – I went into the place only with my design, and the rent money I usually pay my mother, and went to speak to the people at Metal Machine.

(Side-bar: I had initially planned to go to Wildfire but my friend suggested that I try Metal Machine because Wildfire is overpriced. Honestly, I did not put enough effort into finding a bargain because all that mattered to me was the tattoo.)

The very friendly tattoo covered lady at the parlour took my design, went up to one of the tattoo artists and asked him about it.

After some back and forth, he said that he can do it but the design needed to be 25% bigger.

So they made it bigger (who doesn’t like bigger? :P ) and then asked me if It was alright.

It was.

I then committed to it:

Female Trainee Tattoo Artist : “When would you like to make the appointment?”

Me: “Tomorrow if possible.”

Her: “I don’t think that will be possible as Andro has another client.”

Receptionist: “Patrick actually changed his appointment to Monday, so Andro is free tomorrow.”

Lady: “Then you can do tomorrow. We do require a 50% deposit though...”

Me: “Cool...Uhm, Can I swipe?”

Lady: “We only accept cash.”

Me: “Okay then –uses money from the rent money I pay-“

Lady: “Well then, we will see you tomorrow. –hands me a card with appointment details-”

Me: “Okay, cool.”

Picture: David Ritchie

I pretty much then freaked out that I was actually committing to getting a tattoo for the rest of the day.

Saturday- I was nervous, excited and scared, but I knew that it was something I wanted.

I had to do a few errands before, but soon enough 12 o'clock came and along with David Ritchie, a work colleague who came for moral support. I was at the tattoo parlour ready to get my tattoo on.

Filled in the indemnity form thing and then once that was all sorted, I met my tattoo artist.

He seemed super intimidating at first, but that was only because he was questioning me about the tattoo, and also he had a serious demeanour about it.

After sorting out the finer details about the tattoo, we were ready to roll.

He had talked me through everything before, seeing as it was my first time (pun unintended) but he calmed me and just was a really cool guy about it.

Picture: David Ritchie

So they took the design, made a sticker thing out of it and then used that to put on my skin...which is what they do because then they trace the tattoo on your skin and still have another reference to look at the same time.

I officially have a whole new respect for tattoo artists because they make you feel at ease, explain everything and still try to be friendly and sociable even though they have a job to do. Maybe I was very lucky that I got Andro, but he was a legend.

The whole experience was perfect, it hurt but was perfect.

Picture: David Ritchie

For me my tattoo is an open wound for me.

It is a physical representation of an internalised scar that will forever be with me.

Sometimes we forget that we can leave scars on each of mentally, emotionally and psychologically. My tattoo is a scar that I want to wear on me because it is a battle scar. A battle scar I want everyone to see because I am not ashamed of what it means.

It is my symbol of bravery and strength from a battle that I made it out of.

I survived, especially in a world where many LGBT kids kill themselves because they don’t have anything to fight for. If things hadn’t turned out the way it hard, I might not be here today.

*shudder*

It is a sobering thought, isn’t it?

Theo. Over and Out.

Pictures: David Ritchie

PS: The thing that I find really funny was how in all of this, I overlooked the part that someone was going to be puncturing my skin repeatedly with a needle. It hurts people. Getting a tattoo hurts, it did hurt less than I thought it would but it hurts. Those first few manoeuvres were painful but you adjust and try not to focus on it, which is why Andro was so legend.

PPS: Also me and my mom are on good terms now. She doesn't accept the fact that I am gay but she still loves me and respects me which is really all I can ask from her.

My Brother’s Surprise...

We live in a very material world, and it’s a world where we sometimes calculate how much someone loves us by how much money they spend on us.

It’s a sad reality, but it is the truth.

Money makes the world go round.

There is someone really special to me, and he is my brother. Not in any biological connection but he is family and I would do anything for him.

I have been friends with Byron since about Grade 10, which makes it 9 years. We joke that it’s both of our longest relationships ever, but it’s true. (I can’t even get a relationship to 5 months, never mind a year... but I digress).

He has always been there for me no matter what, he was always just accepting of me regardless of whatever else was going on.

I was also so lucky that his parents were very accepting of our friendship and welcomed me into their home. I have been through a lot with his family and I am glad to have had them be there for me when things were rough.

Byron's Brother Caleb

It’s been 9 years of ups and downs, good times and bad, and stories that will last us a lifetime.

We don’t see each other often and we don’t spend as much time together when he is around, but we have a bond that will always connect us. It’s what makes him my brother.

Last year October time, I decided that I wanted to say thank you to him with a gift, but I wanted it to be something worth more than just something I bought. So I happened to receive a picture frame and suddenly I had the idea of having it filled with memories and giving it to him.

 It took a while for me to finalise the whole thing because it was just an idea and in between all that life was happening. He was living his life that side at his lodge being a game ranger, while I was living mine being a journalist.

I then roped in the help of our friend Chelsea who I am also pretty grateful for, and she was so awesome because without her help I would not have been able to making the picture frame as great as it turned out.

I had planned to have given the gift to him as a Christmas present but because his parents were travelling to Namibia, he decided he would not come down to Cape Town during his week off and so then it just gave me more time to get it sorted.

I contacted his girlfriend around Christmas asking for her help with a few pictures, which was interesting because I had never even met or spoken to the girl before sending that message, but I had heard about her often enough for her to not feel like a total stranger.

She had managed to get pictures of him, without him realising the greater purpose behind it, and sent them to me.

So all the pictures had been chosen and Chelsea was too awesome because she came through and had it finished in time for his next off week.

Then came the issue of finding the time to give it to him.

What usually happens when Byron is in Cape Town on his off week, is that he is busy because all his friends and family all want to see him in some way, but there's not enough time for him to see everyone.

I had thought it was going to happen over the weekend but he had other plans so it wasn’t going to happen then, I had message my friend Chelsea even saying that if he pops around, give it to him because he is so busy and I am barely seeing him, but please just record it and take pictures.

She was like, “No way am I giving him this thing without you being here, fool.”

So she messaged him, and said something along the lines of “there is no way we are hanging out without Theo”, or something a little more tactful, but in any case she got it done. Haha. If there is anything I learned from this, it was that don’t underestimate the power of Chelsea.

So then along came Monday, got home from work, he called, picked me up and off to Chelsea we went to hang out.

Chelsea got us in, and showed me where it was without Byron realising. I had brought along a bow and wanted to stick onto the frame. I had to fake going to the bathroom just so I could get into her room to attach the bow.

After that, I walked out of her room with the frame in my hand anxiously waiting to give it to him. Byron was playing a game on my phone, and when I was standing there awkwardly waiting for his attention, he was all “Wait, I am playing this game”.

I just rolled my eyes and started talking:



I must say that the reaction I got from him was more than what I had hoped. It made me sooo damn happy seeing how much the gift meant to him. As rewarding as it is giving someone something, that tight arm crushing hug, and the total surprise had told me that I had done the right thing.

He loved it.

What I love about our friendship is that we say “I love you” to each other... and we do. I love him because he is family to me. No matter what, he will always be family. He is my brother.

We have both changed so much over the years and become such different people, each living our own lives. He has a life of his own away from me, and as much as I miss him, it makes me happy knowing that he is doing his own thing and enjoying it.

All I want for him is to be happy, and he is.

Also, if I got started on how awesome our friend Chelsea is then I would not end but I just wanted to give her a shout-out for her helping me and being a radically cool person.

The night I gave him the gift, we had spent the rest of the time in Chelsea’s home just hanging out and spending time. It is such moments with friends I will always cherish.

Earlier last week, after him having been without wifi and signal, he finally got back in contact with us, and I got around to asking him if he had hung up the picture frame.

Of course, I received a snarky response from him, but he showed me that it did go up.

It is hung

To my brother Byron - I hope that if you are reading this (you better be), you realise that I do really love you. I am so lucky to have someone like you in my life...you fool.

Stay awesome.

Theo. Over and Out.

PS - Your squeamishness whenever I bring up something sexually gay will forever amuse me. *chuckles*

It hurts, but it's okay...

I had a bit of rough day yesterday...

It was one of those days when you feel overwhelmed by life. I have a laundry list of things that needs to be done but it feels like I don’t have enough time to get it done. Also it doesn’t help that I put pressure on myself to do all the things that I set out.

I have constantly felt like I haven’t worked hard enough to achieve all the things that I should. I looked around at those my age who have achieved so much and I can't help but feel like I could be doing more, working harder, trying to get to that next stage of my life.

I have to sort out my driver’s this year, possibly find a new permanent job (which can afford me the luxury of moving out) if my current employment can't keep me on –which would suck because I like where I work – but all that aside, there is also the creative person in me who has written three novels and wants to see one of them become published in my lifetime.

My life has followed my loose plan (if I can even call it a plan) thus far and I am so scared of easing up on pursuing my plans because then as soon as I give in it mind lead me to feeling stagnant.

All of these feelings have been compounded by the fact that it never feels like I have enough time to accomplish what I set out.

It leaves me feeling overwhelmed because time flies by and I don’t want to wake up one day feeling like I never made the best of my life. I want to travel, and to take my mother with me because it is something we have never experienced but only dreamed of.

When most your friends have travelled and been able to experience a new countries and cultures, but all you have are pictures, ideas and fantasies of these places, it leaves this gaping feeling like I’m missing out on this educational and changing experience...but the thing is I don’t want to do it because I have fomo (fear of missing out), I want to do it because it is has been this life long goal.

Not only that, it is something that my mother and my entire family has dreamed of for me. The joy I see in their face because they are proud of me makes me happy. The pressure does feel overwhelming, but when all these people have had such faith in you – more than what you might have in yourself - the last thing you want to do is let them down.

It was hard for me when I came out as gay because, while it was freeing to finally acknowledge this intrinsic part of me that I could no longer deny, the look of disappointment from my family hurt because when you only have showed them the best of you, seeing that disappointment at what they think is the worst of you kills a part you.

I think in some ways it has contributed towards being this driving force for me in wanting that domestic bliss with the picket fence, the husband, the children and dogs I want to show them that living this “lifestyle” is not going to lead me down some depraved road but instead can lead me to one of my biggest success of my life.

I struggle with being gay still, I hide it well between jokes and innuendos and etc but it is not something that I always feel comfortable with because it was one of the things that drove me from Christianity, I also haven’t found that community that I feel entirely a part of and so I just drift along.

The gay friends I have are those I knew before they came out of picked up one or two others from other friends but in my group of friends I am that gay one. That is my title. Typically the only other gay people I usually make friends with are the ones I date.

I have been feeling so frustrated about this being single but a part of me feels that it is for that very reason why I need to be single. Being in a relationship for the sake of it or because a person feels lonely only does more harm than good in the long term.

I had spoken to my friend about this and she aptly captured how I was feeling because she could relate to it:

“It is difficult being in a situation where you want something but the wanting that something becomes the reason why you can’t have it. It’s the stupidest little conundrum. The lesson though is probably that you need to become content with your life as it is to be in the best place to share it with someone...”

It is a frustrating circular situation to be in because you could very well be self-sabotaging yourself.

Also there is this fact that I never feel like I have enough time for my friends and it sucks because they have always been there for me but I barely have had the time (or energy) to write this blog post but I had to commit. Hopefully I will find a way to do better.

So much of what I feel can be so exhausting and I try to not overthink things because it only makes me depressed. I try to be the relaxed and level headed Theo who smiles a lot and wants to make people smile because life can already be depressing enough but I don’t always win that battle.

It is why I am grateful for work, books and series that entertain me because it all forces me to focus on a task and not get too far into my own head. Sometimes you can be your own worst enemy...

I had thought this was going to be a blog post that followed smoothly but my mind had other things in mind so I apologise for the sometimes muddle train of thought this post went on. As I said, yesterday was a rough day.

Hopefully things will feel better.


Theo. Over and Out.

Things said in Anger...

Time

You’re seething with anger, and you aren’t thinking clearly, so there you go and say something so cruel you don’t even recognise yourself...

It happens, and it is something that you have to learn to deal with – no matter what side of the argument you find yourself on.

I became very interested in this “Things said in Anger” topic following a big argument that I had with my mother.

I won’t get into the details but following the argument, my mother then not only launched the dustpan, but she also aimed and threw her ceramic bowl, which had been half-filled with cereal, at me.

It didn't hit me, but the point was to intimidate me.

I left shortly thereafter to go to work, but needless to say that it was a day that I don’t want to experience again.

The whole day I felt this knot in my stomach, and I had also gotten stuck on this notion of things said in anger.

Some people get aggressive when angry, not just physically but verbally too.

Swear words are quickly thrown at you, and things are said with the intent to hurt you.

What I found interesting about it, well interesting is bad word but it was something that caught my attention, was how issues from years ago suddenly reared its head.

Things that you thought had been dealt with were once again laid bare, all with the intent to cause guilt and hurt.

It just goes show that sometimes we say we’re past an issue, but sometimes that is a lie.

I never get angry, and a large part is that I am scared of what I might do or say...

I have this huge fear of getting violent, but more so of hurting someone with words – of saying something so full of vitriol and malice that you just want hurt this other person's feelings as much as you can.

It is frightening, and people sometimes underestimate just how much damaged can be done with words.

Sure, you can argue that things said in anger are not thoughts of a sober mind, but they are things that you feel without any filtering or editing because they are purely instinctive.

Some can forgive, but if you are someone like me, you will always be aware of those things somewhere in your mind. Even if things were said in anger, they came from a place within the person where they thought or felt like that at a particular point.

However not all things said in anger can be a bad thing...

Sometimes things said in anger reveal a hidden part of ourselves that we didn’t want to deal with. By revealing that hidden part, it may lead us to processing things that we weren’t aware of.

Not all anger is a bad thing, because sometimes anger gives us courage to say the things we may be afraid to say.

Things said in anger sometimes reveal more than what we would like to. It puts us at our most vulnerable but also at our most volatile.

It reveals all the baggage that we carry with us, moments and experiences we've collected - all of which have left an indelible mark on us - and then depending on which person we are angry at, these moments and experiences come bubbling up. Sometimes when they do come up, we may choose to use it as a weapon.

Weaponised aggression.

Anger is a valid emotion, but it a dangerous one. People have committed murders in anger because they were consumed by the emotion.

You have every right to feel angry, because it is a natural human emotion that you will feel at some point, but you have to be careful of what you do with that anger. The words you say when angry may cause irreparable harm, and the physical manifestations of that anger present a greater hazard.

There is no tried and tested method to deal with anger but we all have to find our own quirks because if we don’t that very anger may just consume you from the inside out.

Schindlers List

Theo. Over and Out.


PS - What the whole experience with my mother had also revealed to me about myself was that all I wanted to do was speak to one specific person, but it was someone who I couldn’t speak to. It proved to be an informative experience of how to do deal with a matter when you can’t speak to the person you would like to.

Fuck your masculinity - I will cry when I want

I don't like crying....

But not for the usual reasons.

The reason I dislike crying is not because it makes me look weak, but because of the way I feel when I cry.
Everything seems to hit me from every direction and I feel overwhelmed, alone and like i'm in a dark pool which no one but me understands.

Recently however, I have been feeling particularly emotional given how life decided to just wallop me with situations that have struck a cord with me.

I am the type of person who speaks freely about emotions and crying because to me, it's natural.

I don't feel ashamed about my feelings because  feelings are what makes me human, and sometimes it's only natural to cry.

Recently however when I mentioned to someone that something was making me a bit emotional, and that I almost cried, they looked at me like I was stupid and like I was not a proper man because of it.

I  didn't care about it in the moment, but in retrospect it made me somewhat angry.

It made me angry because we live in a society where gender roles cause more harm than good, and the idiotic notion of a "real man" (which is the notion of what a man is supposed to be) creates unrealistic expectations and beliefs of what a man should be.

In reality, a man should be who the fuck he wants to be.

I am not here to fill someone's stereotype and role of what you believe a man should be. I am me, I will not be apologetic for admitting that things make me sad. I will not feel bad about crying over stuff when I feel like shit because sometimes crying is necessary and it actually makes you feel better afterwards.

Fuck your masculinity.

It's these societal ideals of "real men" or some crap about how guys are not meant to cry (because it is a sign of weakness) that ends up doing so much damage because people become scared to express how they really feel.

How narrow-minded is your notion of masculinity that crying is seen as weak??

Crying is natural. It's society that tells us it's not.

 It is done to express feelings of happiness, sadness. frustration and anger but men seem to be taught that crying makes you weak. It has become this sign of weakness that people will manipulate and try to use against you.

If the society we live in wants to continue to spread this notion of some fucked up rules of masculinity that stops people from truly expressing their feelings without being shamed for it, then it is a society that I want nothing to do with.

I will cry when I want. Your notion of masculinity and "real men" be damned.

I repeat - Fuck your masculinity.



Theolin. Over and Out


PS- Here is a really cool photo series that shows soldiers crying.

Neringa Rekasiute and Beata Tiskevic-Hasanova’s photo project They Won the Lottery is a reaction to the new law (in which Lithuanian government reintroduced military conscription) ; it depicts young men in military uniform, crying, alongside their comments about masculinity. (see more here)

“We wanted to show how dangerous gender expectations are: A man is expected to be rational, emotionless and aggressive. It is very important that we, as a society, allow men to express their emotions and not force a stereotypical archaic role onto them.” 
– Neringa Rekasiute

So powerful