hey guys
i have a lot i could update you guys on but today i want to tell you guys a story about boy meets boy. it doesn't have a happy ending, but it has a silver lining in it so i want to share it anyway.

as i mentioned a few posts ago, i've moved to a new city a few months ago. i have a few classmates from medical school here, but essentially i'm brand new to the city. it was a saturday night and i was just at home not really doing anything. in fact i had just binge watched a few episodes of  'house of cards'. i wasn't really in the mood to go out because i had been doing some day drinking with some neighbors and was pretty wiped from that. but, a part of my brain told me not to waste a perfectly good night at home watching tv, so even though it was late i decided to get dressed and head to a gay bar nearby. my plan was to get a drink to check things out then head back home.

i get there and it was pretty average as far as bars go. a drag queen was hosting some random contests with bar patrons like beer chugging and blowing up condoms. this guy near me made a little joke about the silliness we were watching and we laughed as it went on. i took a second look at him and decided he was pretty good-looking. tall, maybe 6'2, dark features, nice sense of style, definitely cute. he resumed talking with his friend and eventually i went to get another drink at the bar. of course i had the typical internal debate as i waited at the bar. do i try to talk to this guy? was he just being friendly and i was reading too much into his little joke? what the heck do i say? i decided why not, nothing to lose and i went back to where we were standing so i could try to talk to this guy. my anxiety was high as i stood around awkwardly waiting to make a move. and then just as i was about to say something, of course he starts out first and introduces himself. whew, thank god. we start chatting and i tell him how i'm new in town and don't know anyone and we hit it off from there.

we were actually having a good chat when his friends want to go to another bar so he invites me to go along with them. i thought he was just being friendly, me being a friendless gay loser in the city so i go with them. as you might imagine where this is going, after we had a few more drinks together and talk more at the next bar, he ended up kissing me, making it clear i am oblivious to whether someone is just being friendly to me or trying to get into my pants. at this point in the night though, i am very happy to be kissing a handsome, exciting new stranger. i ended up staying over at his place. in fact, i ended up staying at his place the whole weekend and we went out again together the next night. we had a lot of fun; it seemed like our company together just flowed and it was like we had known each other a lot longer than 24 hours.

at this point i'm over the moon that for once in reality, it was possible to meet an attractive, nice, smart, successful guy at a gay bar -- like how people supposedly did it in the olden days before grindr, tinder, etc. it just seemed so serendipitous that i would meet this great guy on a night where i hadn't even planned to go out.

we went on a few more dates through september and things were good. it was puppy love. but then, things popped up for both of us and suddenly it was a few weeks where we hadn't seen each other. he was busy with work, i was busy with work, and our schedules just didn't align. but then i felt like there was the hint that maybe it was more than just two busy professionals trying to date. his texts became more sporadic. any suggestion by me for us to set a real date was met with an enthusiastic "yeah!" without any real follow-up. well, i've played this game before. but i couldn't help myself. i really liked this guy. (and did i mention he looked great in his underwear?)

i knew though i was setting myself up to get hurt if i kept crushing on this dream guy. after a solid 2 weeks with no word from him, i sent a followup text to say hey, we had a good time, but it seems like you're not interested -- basically a message to put the ball in his court once and for all and to give me some closure that i did all i could. of course, i get back a very sweet and charming message back from him saying the fault was his, i'm one of the best guys he's ever met but he's just so busy with work right now and maybe this isn't a good time for him to be dating and blah blah blah. my feeling upon receiving that reply was somewhere between elation, skepticism, and utter disappointment.

i'm not sure i ever really buy anyone's excuse that they're "too busy" anymore. people are never too busy for something. it's a euphemism for "i don't want to make time for this". any former resident can tell you what it's like to have way more on your plate than you think you can handle, and to have a bunch of friends in the same situation. but somehow, we always made time to spend together and stay connected. people make time for what's important to them -- they always do. so i knew this guy's story didn't quite add up if in 6 weeks he couldn't find the time to see me once. but his words were really pretty and i'll keep believing he's just too busy with other things in life.

we still send a message to each other every once in awhile but i know not to put much stock in it. yes, i still feel like a little schoolgirl when i see his name pop up, but i know to keep my expectations low. will i ever actually see him again? who knows.

the point of telling this story though was to focus on that initial honeymoon period when we first met. that inexplicable, joyful feeling of making a real connection with another guy. the feeling that you just got incredibly lucky and life has opened up and given you everything you had ever hoped for. that's how i felt with this new guy. it was amazing while it lasted, and while i'm disappointed it didn't work out, i'm invigorated by the hope that it can happen again, and next time it will last.

hey guys,
owe you guys a bigger update (it's a work in progress) but wanted to share this article i read. i can't imagine how hard it must be to come out as a young college kid, and an athlete no less. i really enjoyed it. maybe this is a sign it's easier for the younger generation to accept themselves?

http://www.outsports.com/2014/10/29/7091159/gay-baseball-ben-larison-mark-kroll-coe-college

on a related note, go royals!

where i've been...an update.

1. i graduated residency and now a full-grown doc! crazy how fast the 3 years went. the last few months of residency just flew by and i wanted to pull the e-brake on life in june cuz things were moving just too fast. one of the weird things about doing all this extra school and training is every few years you have to pick up your life and move somewhere new and you realize what a life you've built up in just 3-4 years. definitely gonna miss my friends and the city that i did residency in. and it's crazy that i started this blog when i was still a medical student!

2. i moved to a new city for my new job. it's a city i've always wanted to live in so i'm very excited to start a new life here. not sure if it's gonna be permanent guess we'll see how the test drive goes first. ummm one day i might tell yall where i am but for now i'll keep you guys guessing. i don't know, is it better to imagine an anonymous blogger could be your next door neighbor or is it nicer to have things more grounded in a reality?

3. i told a bunch of people i'm a big homo the last few months. and every time you know what? it was NBD. one instance in particular: st. patrick's day i was out having a few jamesons with some co-residents. two husbands/significant others were there these were guys i had gotten to know well the last few years and were in our circle of guys that we do 'guy things' with. also the guys i most worried about how they'd react because they just seeemed like...guy's guys you know. but fueled by jameson, i made a comment that dropped the news that i like guys and their booze-addled brains took a few moments to process. then it really dawned on them what i had just said, which is always an equal parts entertaining and terrifying moment. but it turned out well. in the process, i found out one of the guys had his own big gay brother back home and his experience with that. something i never knew about his personal life and came as an unexpected surprise that it was closer to him than i thought when all along i was afraid of deep-rooted homophobia in him. in the end, no fucks were given. something that makes me happy and courage to get over myself and be who i am without fear.

4. nothing too new on the guy frontier. i'd like to start seriously dating and see what's out there. after all the confusion and questions i had about who i was, who i wanted to have sex with and who i wanted to fall in love with the last few years, i think i'm figuring it out.

it was my birthday a few weeks ago (i'm a gemini in case you want to know how compatible we are) and i was thinking back to last year on my birthday. M (the guy i was dating at the time) had thrown a party for me at his place, and then later we went to dinner just us two and fell asleep on the couch together after with the national playing. and thinking back on that  it was just nice to have someone to spend the day with who cared about me. i miss that. at this point i'm seeing how you can have everything else going right in life as far as career and comfort etc, but it doesn't mean as much if there's no one there to enjoy it with. and as i get a little older i can see how that's true. i mean it's nice to get facebook birthday posts from that one chick you went to high school with, but at the end of the day you need to have someone in your corner and in your bed for you, and fuck all the superficial bullshit that makes up so much of the day. i'm done being superficial..i'm ready to meet the man who will want to have a deep, meaningful, lifelong relationship with me

5. i'll try to get back on the blogging bandwagon. a lot of the blogs i used to follow have become inactive over the last few months so if there are any new writers out there point me in their direction. anyone know what happened to http://secretsofanallamerican.blogspot.com/? his blog became private so i hope he's doing all right.

ok that's it for now, til next time!.

hey guys
i'm still alive! sorry i've been on hiatus for so long. i'll try to get back with a real update soon. hope you have a happy and safe 4th of july holiday. have a good one!

hey guys
it's been a busy march. i've been on an outpatient month and i had some vacation time so just about every weekend i had some plans. this past weekend was the first time i had some time at home to just relax and have some homebody time. anyway it was an interesting month and i've had a lot of good shit to blog about but of course not the time. i'll try to get you guys into my mind over the next few weeks.

i finally finished 'the velvet rage' book a few weeks ago. i know i keep talking about it, but i actually hadn't finished it til earlier this month. it closes with a few 'lessons' some of which i thought were pretty good.

lesson #1 was "don't let your sexual tastes be the filter for allowing people into your life".
and when i read that i thought, damn, isn't that so true of so many of us? i mean when you're on grindr or whatever, even if you say you're looking 'for friends', don't you basically judge whether you'll keep talking to someone on whether you think they're attractive? level of attractiveness is like the #1 filter gay men use when they're looking for friends. but in reality, how many of our normal friends are all 8s or higher on the looks scale? i can tell you my best (straight) friend is not the most handsome guy but he cracks me up and is incredibly smart and witty. so what if he may not turn heads at a bar or have a perfect men's health body? so why is that so many gay men use that as their major criterion for making new friends? i'll be honest, i've filtered guys based on whether i think they're cute, and have i missed out on making some awesome friends? probably. the interesting thing about having this blog is i've gotten to know a few different guys who i bet if we just happened to see each other on the street we wouldn't give a fuck, but because we actually get to know the real man behind the looks first, are actually pretty cool. i guess it comes with the fucked up territory of using these apps and shit that parcel us into little packages of sex appeal.

which segues into lesson #8 "actively practice accepting your body as it is right now".
i know i've been dreaming about having a perfect toned chest and 6-pack abs for as long as i've realized i like sucking dick. i hate my body. i don't fit into that perfect mold of ripped muscle boy that seems to be the gay nirvana of sex appeal. and as much as i keep telling myself i don't need to and probably will never achieve that fitness level, something keeps nagging me that i must work towards it. i've had plenty of guys tell me they love my body the way it is and i keep telling them they are crazy what is wrong with them. but then on the other hand i have been with the guys with the perfect bodies. and while it is a nice thrill to see them take their shirt off, at the end of the day it's still the chemistry between us that matters most, not whether i can see the lines in his abs (although those are nice to look at).

i think the fear in the back of my mind is that i'm gonna miss out on my perfect guy because my body type isn't in that range of "AWESOME" and i don't have my chest and abs ready to flaunt. so i know it's important to accept myself as i am right now, but maybe still work towards that unachievable goal at the same time. it's just so hard when gay media is telling us we need to have perfect bodies. one guy i was with said he didn't have any self-esteem to talk to guys until he lost a lot of weight, which i thought was kind of sad, but admirable. sad that he felt that way, because it's true of how much more judgmental homos are on other guys, but admirable that he achieved his goal and finally gained some self-esteem to approach the guys he was interested in. it's a fucking crazy paradox.

i guess my theme on writing about these things is to challenge you to be more open about the way you look at others. we close ourselves off to a lot of possibilities because of the impossible expectations we set for what we want. not that having standards isn't important, but i think the more we're able to look at each other without filters, the better.

let's just agree colby keller is a stud.

you might have already seen this video but check it out if you haven't i really like it. (even though i'm pretty over the 'same love' song haha) i feel like i'm somewhere in the first half of the vid but keeping hope i'll make it to the second half.


marry me from elvisdifazio on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/88060788

alcohol has always been my substance use of choice. granted i haven't really tried any of the harder stuff, but i never felt the need to. i've always been perfectly happy throwing a few drinks back and getting wasteyface. i would call my drinking habits through college and med school not much different than the typical binge-drinking young adult, but i did have a reputation at least for always being down for a drink.

some people might have judged my previous drinking habits as harmful but i never thought i had a problem. then one night i was out with classmates per usual and in the conversation one guy brought up his gay uncle and his problems with alcohol. then there was the casual follow up comment that 'oh yea, it's very common for gay men to have alcohol or drug problems'. and i remember thinking at the time, 'hey that's kind of a sweeping generalization'. but then there i was, a closet case with a drink in my hand planning on getting much more trashed before the night was done. and then i wondered, 'is there any truth to what he's saying?'

in the velvet rage, the author touches on gay men using substances and other activities to deal with the internalized shame of being gay, in what is otherwise known as a "process addiction". this includes things like alcohol, drugs, sex, and gambling, to name a few things, but any coping mechanism turned unhealthy could become one's "process". the process then becomes a way to manage unwanted emotion or regulate one's mood until one can't live without it or at least the pursuit of it.

i didn't realize it, but my binge drinking was just a way to push the unwanted feelings of my attraction to men aside. at the same time though, it acted as a gateway to my sexuality. when i drank, i could be free of all the crazy fucked up thoughts and worries i had about being drawn to other men that i had when i was sober. and better yet, when i was sufficiently drunk, my inhibitions were lowered enough where i could feel free to pursue what i really wanted. when i was drunk, i felt free to hit up a fuck buddy for a blowjob or stumble into a gay bar and make eyes at another horny man to take me home to fuck. alcohol was my emotional viagra, and i used it to get up and release my sexual desire for men.

of course, in my sober hours i still had my hookup addiction that i've written about before, but alcohol just made it that much easier. i could throw back drinks with my classmates and pretend that everything was fine, and then once the bars were closing and everyone had gone their own ways, i could go and feed my lust for men in my drunken stupor. what i thought was just normal 20-something year old binge drinking was really a sign of a deeper problem i had with accepting myself.

as i've become more open with my sexuality and not being ashamed of who i am, i've noticed my desire to get flat out wasted has declined. that urge to go and get completely shitfaced just isn't there anymore. yes, i've gotten older, and here in residency my circle of friends have changed, but something else inside has shifted that i don't feel the need to get wasted to get what i want. i don't need alcohol to release that part of me i was scared of for so long. i'm not using it to hide who i am or to let down the walls i used to be afraid of.

it's taken me a long time to get to this point and come to this realization. i wonder how many other gay or closeted men have had similar paths with "process addictions". i suspect a fair number. it's really sort of an insidious thing and you either don't realize it/are in denial or know what you're doing but can't help it. it sucks.

don't get me wrong, i still very much enjoy throwing back a few drinks and getting a good buzz, but the level of self-destructive behavior i was shooting for before with my drinking is (i think) now gone. i feel liberated that i no longer feel trapped by the behaviors and processes i was using to hide from myself.

thanks to yall who showed up to the group chat the other night. (even the ones who showed up for a second then left haha) it was a different experience and it was fun talking with some of you readers. i saw a brief appearance by 'closet med' (i think) before the official chat started so i wanted to say to him if he's reading he should go back and update us! also a shout out again to my international readers especially the ones in brasil. not planning another chat anytime soon but we shall see...

anyway as you might remember, i was obsessed with the 2012 london olympics. i think i watched it every night. i've never been a big fan of the winter olympics (too many layers, not enough skin) but this year i'm into it. so i will be keeping an eye out for those hot olympic athletes to watch.

so far i have a crush on john daly. he is just so damn cute. he and steve langton (his training partner, in the last pic and far left in the 2nd pic) make a cute couple.

also had to do a double take at how good shaun white is looking now. i always remember him as this goofy kid with crazy hair, but the way he's doing his hair these days he's looking damn sharp.

if you've had your eye on any sochi athletes let me know who to look out for.

hey guys
live chat today will be at 9.30 eastern time. i set up the chat room and i will just have it hanging around til go time. check back if the link doesn't seem to be working or if we get kicked off in the middle of the chat. looking forward to talking with some of you guys.

http://tinychat.com/a5nflq

hey guys
i thought i'd try something new and i'm gonna host a live chat next week. i'll have some questions that i've thought of reading the velvet rage book to get the chat going and we'll just see how it goes from there.

chat time will be THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6TH 9.30PM EASTERN TIME. i figured that would be the best time to not be too late for east coast and too early for west coast.

i'm looking for options on how to set up a free chatroom that will be easy for users to jump in. i've found a few sites that let you set up a chat room pretty easily but i dunno if i can keep the room going that long in advance. so i will plan to post the final link to the chat room on thursday at least about an hour or so before go time if not earlier. expect technical problems though haha. hope to see a few of yall there!

i'm addicted to reading internet comments following news articles. most of them are stupid, nasty, or irrelevant, but i like the opportunity to peer into the minds of people reading the same stuff as me. several months ago i read one user comment that recommended that every gay man read The Velvet Rage. there was no explanation why, but i figured hey, i'm gay too, and i put it on my note list.

flash forward to january 2014. i'm trying to clean up my list of things to do and here is this random book, the full title of which is The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World. i look it up on amazon and check out the intro which is available to preview. ok, sounds like typical melodramatic gay sexuality stuff until the author writes:

"Very few of us feel the shame, but almost all of us struggle with the private belief that 'if you really knew the whole, unvarnished truth about me, you would know that I am unlovable.'"

yikes. bingo, that's me. time to order this book.

the book arrives last night. i read the first 30 pages and nothing too strongly connects. yes some of it perhaps fits for me the way a pisces' horoscope fits me on any given day. (i'm a gemini) the author starts by writing in broad generalizations about the experience of "growing up gay", which honestly some of the strokes i felt were borderline offensive and i'm less convinced this is going to be a worthwhile read.

tonight though i got to the meat of the book. (fortunately it's an easy read) here i realized the author in his experience treating gay men in various stages of life and coming out is on to something. i haven't finished the book, but many of the stories and points the author makes reflects a lot of what i have read from other bloggers and experienced with the different men in my life.

bottom line is, i think that whatever you identify yourself as, if you are a man and have ever found yourself romantically or sexually interested in another man, you should read this book. something will hit home for you. i haven't read the entire thing to determine whether this will be radically life-changing, but hey why not.

i've included pictures of the first few pages of the chapter that really started to make sense to me. i didn't post the entire chapter but this will give you a taste for what this book is about. apologies if this is some sort of copyright infringement, but i wanted to get this out there for some men who might be too afraid to seek this out on their own. tell me what you think.

i am a serial grindr checker. not that i have much going on on that app or any similar app, but i love the thrill of checking out who's on when i'm in different areas and even if i'm at home hoping that some fresh meat will stumble into my range and start something up. most of the time though i'm just admiring the slew of hard pecs and 6-pack abs that are on there. occasionally there will be a guy that really catches my attention though and even better he'll have a link to his social media.

i was being my usual creeper self and stalking one such hot guy who linked up to his instagram which in turn was linked up to his facebook. now i don't know if i'm the only person to whom this has happened, but following this guy turned into a rabbit hole of checking out countless more hot, hard-bodied gay men whose cocks i would have in my mouth in an instant if i could.

this brought up a few points to me: 1. why is it that hot guys are always friends with other hot guys but 2. after looking through this initial guy's pictures, i deduced that he was in a relationship with a guy not unlike myself. they had several cute pictures together doing various couple-type things and on quite a few vacations. and this guy, whom i was clearly diligently digitally stalking at this point, was definitely my type in every way.

which led me to wonder, why the heck was i not the boyfriend he was posing with in selfies? knowing nothing about this guy other than i would love to jump in bed with him, i still felt a strange mix of envy and anxiety and sadness. here was this hot guy with his hot boyfriend living what looks to be a fabulous life. and both of whom could be my peers as far as age, and here i am at home being a slob in front of the tv watching amy poehler and tina fey on the golden globes drooling over these guys i'll never meet. good lord what a sad existence!

maybe these are emotions single people usually feel when they have time to think and fester and be lonely, but honestly i'm usually so busy i'm not thinking about that. but at the end of the day, i am pretty domestic and despite my previous high-slutting ways, i'd love nothing more than to settle down with one man and make him happy.

the interesting thing about having this blog is getting to realize there are a whole bunch of normal guys out there who happen to like guys too. but lacking venues to really meet similar men in real life, we resort to these online sites and apps where each guy is a disposable trading card to the next. real chemistry though, much harder to find.