Sociopathic Tendencies

Well, the time is nearly upon us... The time when everything is going to come to a close. In two short months, I'll be back in the United States, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm still trying to nail down the exact date I want to come back, but June 7th seems pretty likely. I'll be sad to leave my job here, and there's a few people here I would have liked to have gotten to know better, but that's life. At this point in my personal journey in these eighty or ninety years that I've been gifted, I'm no stranger to loss or separation, and truthfully, it worries me a bit sometimes.

I think it's good to be able to handle separation in all its forms: death, moving to a new place, being laid off, breaking up, whatever mask it wants to wear. But sometimes I wonder if this comes at the price of not forming deep, meaningful relationships with people. When I look back at my life, I do think of loss as being a huge shaping factor. I'm not necessarily saying I've lost more than anyone else, but when I think back on life, it's what stands out to me: who's no longer alive, relationships and friendships that didn't become what I had envisioned them to be, dreams that no longer seem possible or even desirable. But I've learned a small secret. However, it's preventative, not curative: Do it completely, burn it up fully or completely, and leave no trace, not even its ashes.

Before coming to Colombia, my boyfriend and I broke up, and he found it upsetting how little emotion I showed over it, or at least showed him. I was upset, but I did it in private. If I'm upset around others, I feel the need to perform, and then I no longer worry about experiencing the emotion fully. I'm worried about trying to keep it together for the other person or not embarrass or bother them. But alone, I'm free to feel what I need to feel.

It reminds me of my Aunt Andrea's funeral. When I saw her body for the first time, I left the room and found a corner where I thought no one would find me, and that's where I broke down and cried over this woman who had taken care of me as if I were her own son. My mom discovered me, and I, through sobs, yelled "GO AWAY!" "Well can I at least get a hug?!" So we hugged, and then she left me to do what I had to do. The same thing happened at my step-father's, Walt's, funeral, except that funeral home had better hiding places.

But this is just another way to enact that same idea: Do it completely, burn it up, leave no trace. Feel the sadness or the loss completely so it doesn't linger, so it doesn't set into your soul, so it doesn't poison you. This way your memories can stay untainted. When they're stained by your unshed tears, they blur and distort, but if the feeling is felt completely, it burns itself up. It's like trying to purposefully forget something. You can't, you have to dive deeper and deeper until you come out the other side.

We're trained by movies, novels, and anything with a narrative format to think that endings wrap up perfectly, that unfinished business is rarely if ever left behind, that our life is like chapters in a book or levels in a video game, these complete units that have little effect on one another. But we all know this is bullshit. Here in Colombia, I've traveled a lot, I've learned a lot about teaching, and I've met new people and learned about a new culture, even if it wasn't exactly a perfect fit. I saw beautiful things and met beautiful people. I made memories, and who I am will always be marked by my year here. But the experiences were had, they were complete, and when it is time to leave, I will leave completely too.

So does this make me slightly sociopathic or well-adjusted? Does this prevent me from experiencing things meaningfully, or does this actually encourage me to experience them fully? I don't really have an answer. But it's something I think about, as my thoughts drift more and more toward what it life will be like in Indiana... Governor Pence signs the religious freedom bill

Being Gay in Cali, Colombia

I've been out of the closet since I was 13 or 14 years old, and for the first time since, I've had to inch back into it. I came out about a few minutes after making the realization that I was gay. I mean, I didn't scream it in the middle of a class, but when it came up, I told people. Or if they made an incorrect assumption, I corrected them, no more and no less than I would do if someone called me by the wrong name or thought that maybe I didn't eat asparagus. Always the same axiom: Just live life like everyone already knows.

So imagine my surprise when after the first time I was seeing a "special someone" off at the MIO station, they stuck out their hand for me to shake it. I mean, I just fucked you, but we're saying good-bye by shaking hands? A gesture that, occasionally, is meant to express a certain distance and formality (at least in US culture)? I understood immediately of course, but on the five minute walk back to my apartment, I turned the experience over and over in my head, like I was trying to solve a riddle whose answer I already knew.

Most of the time when I'm in a new place, I have a two-pronged plan of attack: 1) Find the artists and 2) find the gays. Both groups tend to be open and accepting groups because they tend to find themselves a bit on the outside of society. There's the sense that we should stick together. Up to now, this has been a pretty decent plan, but in Cali, not quite so.

First, there's no gay neighborhood to really hang out. And while there are gay bars here, you can't go out alone. I mean, you could; it's not illegal. But no one is going to want to talk to you, and no one else has gone out alone, so you're not going to find that other guy who's got the same plan you do: to go out and make a new friend. (And no, I don't mean necessarily pick someone up, you horndogs.) This ends up leaving bars feeling a bit like the cafeteria from Mean Girls. Everyone's sitting with their friends, and no...

As for the online route, there's only Grindr. I had Scruff and Hornet at first, and but I exhausted them in a few days. Everyone's on Grindr, and that makes it hard to weed out the people with bad social skills who just want to send you explicit pictures from someone with half a brain that could be interesting to have a beer with, regardless of the outcome (be it sex, friends, or just the stimulation of meeting someone new). And just like the US, the vast majority on Grindr are the former. I've been trying to use it, but it comes and goes. I have about a week where I tell myself I'm really going to try, but then I realize all it does is bring frustration and stupidity into my little bubble and it's uninstalled once more.

So in short, the gay community functions more or less like the straight community here. Groups and circles and you're not getting in unless you know someone. I acknowledge that the US tendency to be gushy and over the top in our attempt to include and welcome new people might come off as insincere, and sometimes it is, but at least the door is open for you to maybe have a chance. Here, if they don't know you, they're not interested.

So while I have a few gay acquaintances here, I don't have many gay friends. But I've talked about my loneliness and why that is ad nauseum, so if you're interested, check back a few entries and catch yourself up. But long story short, to get a Colombian to stick to a plan and show up on time is a rare thing indeed, like planets aligning, Bigfoot sightings, and winning lottery tickets. In any case, it's the first time that I haven't felt part of a group here, particularly one that included other gay people to some degree. For as much as I like to style myself as independent and like "I am the one man who is an island," I'm finding it rough, guys. Real rough.

Now combine that with having to feel like you have to, in some situations, hide who you are. For some reason, I'm asked if I have a Colombian girlfriend or if I like Colombian girls. In the past, I never thought twice about saying, "I don't date girls" or "I prefer men" or "I'm not straight." The one time I mentioned it in French class--because the teacher in the context of discussion gender roles asked me if I would date a woman who drove a taxi--was met with stares that were a swirl of interest, disbelief, and confusion. ("Did he really mean to say that? Gringos are bad with Spanish/French.") Ultimately instead of asking another version of the question, the discussion was diverted onto another topic. I wasn't embarrassed to say I preferred men in front of a group of people, but their reaction was what embarrassed me. No embarrassed laughter, no apology, no anger, no "okay" or "you're going to hell" or... anything. Just a blank look and then a complete change of subject. I was on the outs again, but this time I wasn't the outs with all the rest of society's freaks. It was just me.

Hi ho the diary-o.












The cheese stands alone.

My Job Keeps Me Sane

Here's another thing to file under, "I'd never thought this would happen in my life": I really enjoy my job.

Don't get me wrong. It has its annoying moments, but I never dread going to work, I never wish I could just leave and go home, and I never think about quitting or daydream about something else I'd rather be doing. I am pretty darn content, and when people ask me why I'm still in Colombia if I'm so annoyed by everything, it's the first thing I answer with.

As you all know, Colombia has not been an easy place for me, and the answer to that is complicated. It's been hard to find many people that I feel like are like me, which is to say gay, quasi-counter culture 20- or 30-somethings who are estranged from their families (whether that be by distance or beliefs). Then there's also this summation of my cultural frustrations: It's like when you're in highschool, trying to get to class on time, and there they are, a group of people walking five feet deep blocking the width of the hallway. There's no choice but to walk behind them, grumbling, "Well, I guess this is the speed I'm walking now..." And really I should resign myself to that, I know, but it, like most things, is easier said than done. In certain ways, I've tried to be flexible. I'm eating meat again, most notably, and it's helped, to a degree, and I'm getting better at guessing when someone is going to flake out or plans are going to fall through because things were poorly organized. There's been progress.

But work has kept me going. I never thought I'd reach a moment in my life when I enjoyed my job so much and it was the thing motivating me rather than my escape from it to something else. I love education, and I love participating in it as either student or teacher (I consider the line between the two to be a fine one). I love languages, whether it's English, Spainish, French, Japanese, Esperanto, or any other in the known universe. I love communication and exchanging ideas and seeing the personal growth each student makes. And when I see how much fun they have when I design a really good activity or discussion topic, I feel really happy to be making a difference. Perhaps the better question is what's not to like?

Well, there are a few things not to like, specifically how my job can be at times, like everything else in Colombia, poorly organized. Sometimes my classes with other professors are suddenly cancelled, students don't show up to their tutoring sessions, or teachers tell me what they would like me to prepare for a class visit less than twenty four hours in advance. In some of these situations, I can push back and say no, sorry I should have been told earlier if you wanted this to happen, and sometimes I have to suck it up and just realize where I'm at again. Oh, and I have to get up at five am to teach seven am some days. Yes, all these things, out of context, are unpleasant, but when you like your job, when you like what you do, it gets easy to look past. There's a moment of frustration, but it passes because oh it's two o'clock and it's time to go teach an advanced level conversation club full of people who want to be there.


So in writing about all of my problems so often, I thought it'd be good to remind you all why I came here, why I'm staying here, why I have no intention of leaving early, and why, if I knew then what I knew now, I'd still had chosen to come here all the same.