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.