I knew that I was gay since the age of seven. I also understood from early on that it was not acceptable or embraced by our society. For this reason, I never entertained the idea of marriage. Inextricably, I knew that I had a hard road ahead of me and the notion of gay marriage was not even a subject of conversation in suburbia in the 1970's. I also thought that love probably was not a thing that would ever exist for me. I used to pray that I could be a girl not because I felt like one or even really wanted to be one, but because I knew that it would be way easier to find a man to love if I was female.
Then I met Matt. It was so different with him than it had ever been before. It was easy and nice and there was no insecurity or drama. Up until that point I thought all the stress and drama of previous relationships was love. Then I realized that all those feelings were there because love was lacking. After being with Matt for about 1.5 years I started completely rethinking my opinions on marriage. I thought that he was someone that I could and wanted to spend my whole life with. It was a subtle shift inside and I started to understand why people were wont to walk down the isle.
I didn't really think that I would feel much different after we got engaged but I truly did. There was deeper level of commitment and I felt like we were unbreakable. I felt so proud and happy to have that ring on my finger - the ceremony of it all made more sense to me now. Unfortunately, that did not last long and I was wrong about the unbreakable part. We split up after less than four months of being engaged. I wish we hadn't gone through the whole affair of the engagement but I think we both thought it would make things right. I was serious about the commitment, but the reality was that for the past year I hadn't been happy. I thought that I was compromising like people do when they are together, but I realized that the things I was compromising were not up for negotiation. After 4.5 years it's super sad to have something end and to lose the constant companionship but it's worse to stay together and make each other miserable.
Neither one of us could ever decide what we wanted to do for our wedding. All the coolest weddings I've been to are ones that really represent that couple. We could never figure out what that would be. Maybe, it's because it wasn't meant to be and deep down we both knew that. Now, again, I really, truly do not know how I feel about this subject. I mean, I love getting dressed up and I love a fun party, but maybe it's just not for me. I never wanted kids, that's a big reason for marriage. I'd be a great dad, but it's not something I've ever wanted. In fact, I've always believed that one of the spiritual reason for homosexuality is to not increase the population.
Right now, I don't even believe that true love exists. Get back to me over the summer and my opinion may have changed but who knows?! People love to say "the man of your dreams is out there" when you're going through a break up, but that's mighty presumptuous. A lot of people in the world never experience that. Being complete on your own is the key to everything, finding joy and happiness every day has nothing to do with being in a relationship. I guess now its time to work on my relationship with myself.
Sorry G
ReplyDeleteSince I met you at LA Ink and been friends with you on Facebook for the last 5 years. I think your a pretty cool dude. You will find the man of your dreams one day and you will be glad you didn't get married to someone who was not your real soul mate.
Paul,
People say a lot of things, a lot of conversational fillers, fibs, emotionally-charged quips with no logical basis. So don't take this too seriously. What you need will come to you in due course if you are open to growing...and it wasn't by random chance that you had these experiences. For one thing, you'll never get anywhere if you don't take risks. I'm not sure I'd say that homosexuality not increasing the population is necessarily "spiritual" - but on that note, I believe that sustaining the population is the major basis of historical marriage laws and religious mandates, alongside allowances for polygamy. I would say largely political.
ReplyDeleteLastly, people really get distracted by these arbitrary labels like "true love" and "soul mate". It makes it sound like it's a box you can check, a goal that everyone has an equal chance of achieving. But it's not like that at all, people have different personalities, different goals, different problems, different beliefs and I, at least, believe there must be countless different forms of love. Each with different experiences, pros and cons. Sorry to hear you are going through this, but becoming a stronger, wiser person is usually quite good.