Pillow Talk

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the universe is always unfolding as it should.

It is always difficult to see the point or the poignance of a specific experience until you see how its context influences your life.

Okay. That was a little too daydreamy.

What I really mean is; it's hard to see why life is so difficult. Why we have to experience hurt and loss and turmoil. Until we see, often later on, just how much that experience has taught us about ourselves, and how it ensures we find true happiness in the future.

It's probably important to note that Joel and myself are still together and still very happy together. This is the first time ever I feel that I am with someone with whom I not only have a shared outlook but also an unspoken loving understanding.

Unfortunately, when something in your life is going well, too well it's hard not to question how you qualify for its existence.

Why do I deserve to be happy?

It might seem a little "emo kid" but if I'm honest, that is the truth.

After all I am not a perfect person. I make mistakes. I have hurt people. I feel guilty for it.

Naturally, at times when life presents me with something so wonderful I can't help but feel a little bit like I don't deserve it.

And worse I can't help shake the feeling that it is presenting me with something I want just long enough for me to get attached to it, only to rip it away and hurt me.

That would be fair wouldn't it?

That would make us even.

At night sometimes, 'spooned' in by Joel, I just lie there awake in the dark. Feeling the warmth of his body on my back.

I can remember what it felt like to have nobody there. Truthfully that's the kind of thing that kept me awake at night way back then. It wasn't the closet. It was the mattress. That empty second pillow.

It tormented me.

Because no matter how well I learned to play the straight game. No matter how many girls I flirted with at uni or parties I went to; at the end of the night it was going to be me and that empty space.

Again.

Even with Jake; who I was in a relationship of equal length with (by this point anyway) that pillow could still get to me. The curse of the long distance was that I never had long enough to get used to his body heat before it was back to me and the pillow once more.

Joel and I live together and that pillow has not been able to get to me for just over a year and a half now. But it's still there.

Joel pins it down.

Just like every other insecurity and fear and nuance of my persona that suggests I don't deserve to be happy. I can't keep it. I won't ever be enough.

I don't think it's likely I will ever be able to communicate to Joel just how much he has saved me. From giving up. From turning cold.

I find myself understanding, grateful even, for the torment of that pillow for all those years. If it only meant I had left space to be joined.

I love this man. He loves me.

I probably don't deserve it.

But I know I earned it.


Sam In Real Life

Joel

The film ended and we started talking.

I sat on the footstool next to him as he lay on the sofa, and I laid with my head on his stomach while he lay on his back. The both of us facing the ceiling.

I had already decided where this was going, I just had to figure out how I was going to make it happen.

I started talking to Joel about a month ago, which was about a month after I broke up with Jake. It was one of those chance things. I was passing Derby on a coach as I was going into my Grindr app to delete my profile and be rid of the orange demon.

I just didn't get why I'd downloaded it again, it was just full of bad decisions waiting to happen and I was tired the same old profiles, with the same motives and forced conversation. Which of course inevitably leads to the Shakespearean classic:

"You top or bottom?"

Forget that. I was all for moving on but lets face it; I'm not 19 anymore.

As I opened the app I heard the all too familiar clicking alert.

A guy had messaged me, his personal description read

"3 things I know about you. 1. You can't touch touch your elbow with your chin. 2. You are trying it now and failing. 3. Now you're smiling =)"

Joel.

He started speaking to me and I half heartedly answered him. He was a decent looking guy and I had to admit his description was at least a little different to the normal jargon (for the record mine says "New to grindr, say hi! =)") but I just couldn't be bothered, I'd resigned myself to the notion nobody was really going to get me. So whats the point.

He persisted though. He joked about my slow responses and we talked about Family Guy and American Dad. We quickly discovered that not only do we have lots of interests in common but we also have the same sense of humour (something me and Jake did NOT share). He had interesting questions and gave interesting answers. We just talked.

At this point I just liked talking to him. We talked from the early evening till 4 in the morning, easily with no forced conversations. It just flowed. I kept worrying we were going to run out of stuff to talk about but it just kept happening. More and more things in common. More and more shared histories, ideals, theories, jokes, love of steak...

There's an amazing steakhouse in Nottingham and after two weeks of this 4am madness he asked if we could go. I agreed and we decided to meet.

6pm the date commenced and it was effortlessly filled with unabridged conversation. We talked till 4am, long after both of our buses had stopped and all the bars had closed down. Both having to get taxis to get ourselves home.

I'd had an amazing time.

The next two weeks were filled with casual dates, meeting talking sharing. But no sex.

No 'frappage'

No kiss.

Just talking.

We were getting along better than I ever have with anyone I've dated. Speaking to him I felt like I'd discovered an old friend, like we were catching up.

Spending time with him didn't feel like effort, nor did I feel like I was on a date. To the point where I questioned if we were just going to be friends.

If it wasn't for the fact that I would find myself looking a little too long after him when he walked away or staring into this eyes (blue... SO BLUE!) a little too deeply I probably would have found it hard to know if I fancied him at all.

Two weeks, four dates later he invited me to his house. We'd made a list of films we both want to watch together and the first on the list is Scary Movie (we've both seen it but wanted to watch it again)

After it ended and he'd shown me more of his photos from America (he loves photography) and told me his stories of camp (he worked on an American soccer camp) in the dimmed light of the end of the film I knew that I wanted to kiss him.

He had started playing with my hair while he was talking, both of us staring upward. When my stool, due to the angle I was reclined, began to slide away from the sofa.

"Sorry I'm slipping"

I sat upright and shuffled my chair back and caught his eye in the dim blue glow from the TV.

I leaned over to him.

And we kissed.

I had worried that everything would change after that moment

That things might become different, or that our conversations would dry up or that we would discover that we should just be friends.

I definitely had nothing to worry about.

The rest of the week went amazingly, I spent the night and we went for walks, he showed me how to take pictures with his professional camera.

I unwound.

And all is good!

I mean it's really hard to keep this up to date because I'm always travelling and very rarely have my computer with me!

I think this experience has been so refereshing and has made me recognise that up until now I've just been selling myself short.

I've realised that I am allowed to have the kind of relationship that I want. That I shouldn't be settling for anything less than happiness in a relationship where I am being myself and presenting myself honestly and wholly.

I think it's time I stopped overthinking and started following my heart.

UGH sorry it's been so long!

Sam In Real Life

More Than A Kiss

The dream I'd had in my last post, had made me think about how long it has been since I spent some time with my friends. So that weekend I decided to go and see my friend Emma in Manchester.

She's bisexual and I lived with her for my final year at university. I haven't really had much time to see her but I thought we were definitely due some time together and after the dream I realised that this was probably what my subconscious needed.

We chilled, caught up (watched Bridesmaids) and by the evening we decided to go out on the Manchester gay scene. Not on the pull; just to go out. It had been so long since I did something other than work and break up with people that I was beginning to forget what having a fun was all about!

I hadn't been to Canal Street since the time I came out to Dave. So my memory of it had faded.

We approached from the train station and glanced across the bar fronts.

It was a Monday. Which essentially means the whole place was dead. It was like a bad western. We walked down the cobbled street and two businesses turned their music off and dimmed their lights.

Of course.

We went into one bar, "Boys" - the only person at the bar was an employee and the music had been cranked up to an unsociable level to make up for the fact that there was currently only one solitary customer in the whole venue, who incidentally was so wasted he'd taken up watching himself swaying to the music, alone, in front of a funhouse mirror embedded in the wall.

Leave.

Back out on the street I noticed two guys about turned on their heels in front of the entrance to "Boys" obviously taking our exit as a sign the venue was empty.

They mutter something about going back to where they already been and I chirped in

"Excuse me did you say you'd been somewhere busy?"

The two guys were called Damien and Michael. Damien told us about G-A-Y - that it was open and that he would show us where it was.

We of course ended up sticking with them all night. I was talking to Damien at the bar for a while about music. The type of music he likes and the genres that I listen to. He was interesting, and funny. The conversation, although a little loaded, was really entertaining and talking to someone new was so refreshing. 

It was weird.

Somehow, despite telling myself I wouldn't, by the end of the night I ended up kissing him. A lot.

I'd forgotten how much I liked kissing.

Jake had always hated it. To be honest he'd never been very good at it and I think he knew and so he never wanted to kiss for a long time.

Damien was good at it!

As simple as it sounds it was exactly what I needed.

A kiss.

The next day we met up for a chill, but I wasn't really interested in pursuing a relationship and after talking to him I realised that aside from music we had very little in common anyway - So I think friendsville is the best residence for that 'relationship'.

He wasn't my vibe.

When I got back home though I started musing about the experience. After ending things with Jake, even though I was sure about my decision, I have to admit that I was filled with a feeling direction lacking.

I was sure I didn't want to be with Jake, but I had started to remember how long it had taken me to find him. How many mismatched, poorly executed, incredibly lame dates I had to slog my way through before eventually finding Jake, and that meeting wasn't even within my control!

I was worried.

What if Jake was as good as it gets?

I mean aside from the few really close friends that I have (Sam, Zion (used to be Andrea) and Emma) I feel like there are very few people that really 'get' me. This is entirely my own doing because I don't really let the wall down (as previously covered). But I don't want to go back to how things were before, I want more than random hook-ups and lustful kisses with people I hardly know for the sake of physical relief.

Even when I'd been with Jake 18 months I got shut out to the point of feeling like physical relief was all I could offer him. Intellectually we were from two different planets.

I was getting more and more worried that in terms of meeting ANY men who were like minded I was hoping to find a needle in a haystack.

And then, less than two weeks ago,

Along came Joel...



Sam In Real Life

Closing the Case

You have to pack.

Not so much urgently; but you just know that it's time. It's time to pack-up.

The morning sun spills in through the grand windows and onto the freshly made bedspread. You take your red suitcase off the Hotel room floor and hoist it onto the bed. You realise mid-flight that it's unzipped; so the flap on the front of it bounces a little as you bring it down clumsily onto the mattress, knocking a few clothes out onto the duvet.

You try to pack up all of your things into it, gathering any extra items from strewn locations around the room. Once you pack the last of everything in, you can't seem to close it. 

You repack, taking the top layer of stuff out, this time a little more frantically, and place them back in again. 

Still won't close.

You unpack again, taking every last thing out and laying it on the bed - this time you notice two small picture frames holding pictures of you and Jake lying at the bottom of the case. You take them out.

When you re-pack everything fits perfectly, which is just as well, because it is definitely time for you to check-out.

You lift the suitcase; now significantly lighter, place it on the floor and wheel it out to the door.

You glance back momentarily at the room. Taking it in one last time - after being here so long, its hard to believe you aren't coming back. You feel a hum of nervous hopeful excitement

You take a deep breath and you leave, glancing at the at the silver chrome numbers on the door as you close it.

"21"

-------------------

SO most of the time when I have a dream this weird I look up what it means (circa my old blog when I had that dream about Ben). Some people mock this kind of thing, but I normally find it rings true for me especially when they are this vivid. Anyway here's what THIS dream apparently meant....

Hotel 
To see a hotel in your dream signifies a new state of mind or a shift in personal identity. You are undergoing some sort of transition and need to move away from your old habits and old way of thinking. You need to temporarily escape from your daily life.

Red 
Red is an indication of raw energy, force, vigor, intense passion, aggression, power, courage, impulsiveness and passion. The color red has deep emotional and spiritual connotations. Consider the phrase "seeing red" to denote anger. Alternatively, the color red in your dream indicates a lack of energy. You are feeling tired or lethargic.

Suitcase 
To see a suitcase in your dream indicates that you are a very composed, together person. You keep your attitudes and behavior in check.

Packing 
To dream that you are packing signifies big changes ahead for you. You are putting past issues to rest or past relationships behind you. Alternatively, it represents the burdens that you carry.
To dream that you are packing, unpacking and packing and unpacking again represents chaos in your life. You are feeling overwhelmed with the various things you are juggling in your life. You are carrying around too many burdens and need to let go. Consider what unfinished business you have to tend to. Try to resolve these issues so they can finally be put to rest.

Twenty-One 
The number twenty-one represents a turning point in your life and your full transition into adulthood. It is also associated with the responsibilities that you need to own up to.

Source- www.dreammoods.com

I don't know why but I feel like this is great news?!

The definitions certainly sum up how I felt when I woke up this morning! I feel like I'm just starting a new, more mature chapter.
I felt like the past few months I've been feeling a pressure to pull my life together, (much like packing in the hotel room). Before the break-up I was desperately trying to make my life work, with Jake in it. Even though he was taking up so much of my 'space' I persisted in rejumbling my life around him - which kept causing me more frustration.

It wasn't until I took him out that I feel like I finally have room for everything else and now my 'case' feels so much easier to carry around. On some level I think I've realised that not only was it what I wanted, but it is what I needed to continue to develop.

What's weird is that after this dream I feel so much more ...balanced? (cue the gong)

It's refreshing!

I also had a dream where I was in a coffee shop trying to give my number to the girl who worked there but when I'd finish writing; it would be unreadable.

Apparently this meant I need to catch up with my old friends to help me feel more grounded in my current situation... So I've decided that on Sunday I'm heading back to my hometown for some TLC from my mates! :)

Let's face it; my unconscious seems to be more clued in on what I need than I am?!


Sam

(I promise the next one will be less cryptic ;)

Ending Understanding

SO this is how the story goes...

I feel like during the time that I've been writing the two blogs I have proven time and time again that I am a drastic over-thinker. Sometimes to the detriment of my emotional wellbeing!

I think I should start this by saying that the relationship I've had with Jake over the past 18 months has been, by far the best and most healthy relationship I've ever had. Certainly for the first 13 of them I can wholeheartedly say that it has brought me into a healthy headspace.

It's allowed me to share myself with my family and having someone who can support me during the madness of the music progress at the moment has been wonderful. I've learned to let down the wall and seen the benefit of having a 'boyfriend', sharing your intimate moments with someone (which probably why i didn't need the blog as much). I love it.

Loved it.

Jake has ALWAYS been a busy guy. Between running the SCUBA club at uni and Medical School and the long distance relationship (in Feb we lived 7 hours apart on the coach!) slotting his life together was like playing a game of Tetris.

The problem was Jake is the kind of person that cannot multitask and when something is on his mind it is IMPOSSIBLE for him to focus on ANYTHING else. Which meant our Skype conversations, which eventually decreased until we were speaking for 5 mins each day (which again was fine) but during which he would be emailing, answering calls. He just couldn't give the time.

But I understood.

By March it was unbearable, he was irritable, even innocent suggestions like; 

'Why don't you go for a walk for a bit to refresh your head' 

met with snappy responses like 

'Whatever... I haven't got time'.

Mid March I snapped.

"You need to find a way to better handle your stress! Your way doesn't work. If things don't change I don't think I will be able to take this anymore."

He apologised. He changed his behaviour for a week or two. Still short Skype conversations but at least undivided attention.

but by week 3, a fortnight before his dissertation was due to be handed in, it had gone back to how it was.

But I understood.

His stress was building. I offered to leave him alone a few days so he could just have his own headspace (and give me some freedom from the firing line) but he declined. He didn't say but deep down I knew he needed a sounding board. Otherwise he'd break down.

April I moved to Birmingham. 2 hours away. Made time to go and see him for a few days, a lot of waiting around while he had dive meetings and so on, but we had fun.

But even AFTER the dissertation was finished he booked up all his free time with dive club and scheduled two days to come and see me smack bang in the middle. The first time he had made time to come up to see me since January.

Of course he had to bring work with him. But he was so wrapped up in it he was one word answering me to any questions I had about what he was doing or how he was feeling and to top it all over seven days had passed since he last asked me how I was (I had been counting).

We had sex, but not like normal. Before it would be intimate, but this kind of felt like 'stress-sex'. He would only stop typing on the laptop long enough to let off some 'steam' and within seconds of it being over would get his phone out and check what emails he had missed in the brief moments he had been 'off the clock'.

But I understood.

I suggested going out to eat to get him away from the laptop and he reluctantly agreed, taking his registration forms for the divers out with him "incase they ring so I can tick them off". But even when sat outside the pub in the sun, he couldn't relax. He didn't ask me how I was and secretly I think it was because he was scared of what I might say. Either that or he was genuinely oblivious to how I felt. Which is much worse.

We went to eat and we talked a little, again about his work and my family logistics (my parents are going through divorce). After finishing the meal he turned to me and looked at my t-shirt. It's white and has the phrase "BLAH BLAH BLAH I'm just here for the ride" written across an image of a pier at sunset.

"What do you think about what it says on your t-shirt?"

I look down. I look up, I'm relieved to be talking about something other than work, but still I'm a little confused.

"Erm... I dunno. I think its the kind of mentality that I wish I had. Sometimes I think I obsess about where everything is going all the time, when I should probably enjoy the journey more"

"Hmm.. okay"

Why?

"What do you think?"

"I just think THAT mentality is the reason why there is so many people on jobseekers."

He looks off to the right of me into the ether of the restaurant bustle.

This time I didn't understand.

I put in all my logical energy and arguments to explain to him why and how people ended up on jobseekers allowance (its a benefit given by the government to people out of employment that are searching for a job. It's usually about £50 a week. Not enough to live on, but could probably keep someone going for a bit in a desperate hitch). But he wouldn't budge.

He refused to accept that anyone on jobseekers could be respected, regardless of time on JSA, and claimed that the majority of people on it were just being lazy and 'sponging off the government'.

Which led onto a discussion about benefits in general.

"What about child benefit?"

"What about it? I say if you cant't finically support your own children either learn how to use contraception or abort."

It was shocking me. Worse it was hurting me.

How had I managed to be dating someone so close mindedly conservative. Without any evidence or experience of what he was hammering on about?! Was he aware that he was slagging off decent people? People who were down on their luck, or just needed a little extra help.

How could a gay student be SO closed minded?!

How was I only just discovering this is how he felt?!

In that moment I flashed back through all of the similar, less alarming conversations that we had in the past. Deep down. I'd known this about him. I had just ignored it.

The worst thing was realising that it all made sense. I understood how he got there.

I just wasn't okay with it.

And recognising I wasn't okay with that made me more aware of what else I wasn't okay with.

I wasn't okay with being neglected, I wasn't okay with being some submissive, house bunny, waiting to hear about his day and not getting asked about my own. I wasn't okay with the bottom shelf.

I wasn't okay.

I took a week to reach my decision. I thought about it hard. But I'd realised that this, much like his view of the world, was something that wasn't going to change. It was part of his nature.

If he can't change and I don't like it. Somebody's going to end up unhappy.

and so, on the 5th of June. I decided to end it.

I braced myself, and told him over Skype (not ideal, but I couldn't afford to go down and it took me all day just to convince him to give me time enough for a Skypecall!)

I knew he was going to be shocked. He was going to take it badly. He was going to be angry. He was going to be sad. He was probably going to want to bargain with me, ask which hoop to jump through. 

He was probably going to hate me.

But I understood.

On reflection we've had great relationship. All things considered it's been great for us both. But this is exactly why I didn't want to end up dragging it through the dirt to point we would hate each other. I think he kind of gets that now. I'm beginning to feel lighter and better each day!

Of course I have a lot of residual emotion to deal with; but hey...

What are blogs for? ;)

Sam In Real Life.

The Latest Beginning

"Ending a relationship is hard"

Boy ain't that the truth.

But without dwelling on the ins and outs (just yet) I'd rather just focus on starting afresh for now.

I'll divulge the main story to you when I've got a little more time!

But at the moment I am just letting my head clear out.

I've missed the blogging world!

There's so much to update on but I guess that I will have to drop bits in as I go-on. (else it would be a legendarily long post... even for me!)

But Hi, I'm Sam.

I'm 22. Male. Single. Out. - The rest indefinitely changes ;)

(Sorry it's been so long)


Sam In Real Life

The L Word

There's nothing quite like a drunken phone call.

We were 2 months into our relationship when Jake started calling me on the walk home from his SCUBA socials. Wednesday nights at 2 am, listening to him attempt to engage in regular conversation with me on the stumble home from the pub.

I was laughing at him slur through the details of his evening.

This was the type of conversation I generally didn't mind being woken up for; partly because he is his most cute when catastrophically drunken and partly because it meant I had ammunition for the next time I was mocked for being in a similar state.

"Well, I'd better go... Yeah I better go cos I think I'm starting to sound.... drunk"

I laughed.

"Yeah... okay!"

"I'm so sorry...Love you though"

"That's fine haha, I'll speak to you tomorrow!"

"(stumbles through door) Okay, Niiiiiiight"

It takes until I have put my phone back on to charge before I realised what he said.

Was that serious?

Probably not.

A few days later and he's out for his friends birthday. He rings me from the takeaway.

This time I was actually asleep.

"Jake it's 4 in the morning!"

"Shit; sorry! night Sam Sam Sammy Sam Saaaam... Love you *mwah*"

"Okay night *mwah* I'll ring you tomorrow okay?; enjoy your takeaway"

There it was again?

I should probably explain myself a little here.

In my past relationships I have always said it first. When I felt it of course. I make a point of saying it; letting them know how I feel. I lay it out plain and simple "I think I love you".

No confusion. No misinterpretation.

Blunt.

What was confusing me about Jake was that he was so casually dropping it in to conversation. Like it wasn't really that big a deal.

Maybe he didn't mean it in the serious way; perhaps it was more "I have love for you" than "I'm IN love with you"?

(When did I get so much oestrogen? Jeez!)

The following Wednesday and he was out on the SCUBA social.

I got the drunken call again. This time he was acting funny.

The conversation was stinted and he was all grumpy. Not rude, just moody for some reason.

"So did you have a good time?!"

"Yeah it was fun, we played some games."

"Are you reeeally battered?!"

"Nah, to be fair I was a little tired."

I'm not very good at ignoring it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing"

"What. Is. Wrong?"

He pauses.

"Well, If we were on the wavelength I thought we were I thought you would know..."

Of course I know. I'm a dickhead.

"Is this about the conversation we had the other day?"

"...mmm"

"Is it about the Love you thing?"

Silence.

"I'm sorry I didn't realise you were serious... I just thought you were being casual, like joking or ...."

I ramble on.

As I continue I can hear how ridiculous I sound. I mean what did I expect from him? To get down on one knee and have it written in the sky?

He said it didn't he?

I was thinking about it.

"...I'm sorry.... I do love you too."

Oh shit. There it was. I'm surprised how easy it sounded. I hadn't really thought about how I felt about him properly; but there it was.

I was getting a little nervous at the thought;

"Hallelujah! He finally says it!"

I laugh.

I've said before; I always hold men at arms length. It doesn't surprise me that its taken this long to get comfortable with a guy; I've never given them a chance.

I always come up with excuses to not be vulnerable and in a way perhaps its why I like to see it in the people I date; it assures me they aren't infallible.

Insecurity is a treacherous thing.

But I've done it now. I'm open to care. I'm open to attack.

Now to stay sane...


Sam