Let’s help stop bullying

What can we do to help stop bullying? Looking for advice and a small team to help.

I would like to create a website to help kids receive the help/support/community they need to deal with bullying. I’m wondering if any of you have a desire to help make this a reality. My initial thoughts on the goals of this site would be to:

1) Create a community for these kids to support each other
2) Develop a mentorship program for volunteers (like me or you) can support and provide guidance
3) Provide access to resources online or in their community
4) Loop back to schools/communities to help stop the problems (potentially in a semi-anonymous way?)

Looking for programmers, designers, child psychologists, and people who know about all the other aspects of making something like this actually work. Post your thoughts on here, share this, or message me privately if interested in helping.

Gays – Sick, perverted, miserable and immoral people

When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be gay.  My perception of the gay world was that they were sick, perverted, miserable and immoral people; and I didn’t want to become all of that.  It wasn’t until I was 23 when I finally met someone that I actually new was gay.  As simple as it now sounds, it was a huge eye opener to realize that the gay guys I started meeting were just regular people trying to be happy like everyone else.

Now there are a lot of perceptions about gays; and the gay community often amplifies these perceptions through films, during gay prides or in the clubs.  I like that this video clip presents the heart of what gays really want.  For most… It’s not about sex; not about rights; not about partying; not about proving a point.  It’s about love; and it’s about happiness.

I’m in love… yet again!

An old, wrinkly couple – probably in their late 60′s or early 70′s – walked by me as I relaxed on a Hawaiian beach of Kauai. As they passed, the man turned around and started making out with his “girl.” As disturbing as it was to watch such an old couple giving tongue, I actually teared up imagining the life this couple must have spent together and the love they must have worked to accrue.

This love is very different than the love we see in the movies, hear on the radio or, perhaps secretly, read about in those novels with the cover of a dark, wavy haired girl (whose legs are tangled in the 230 pounds of muscle topped with a blonde ponytail).  This love is bound by the years of tears, stress, success, heartache, sickness, loss, miserable days, wonderful days, mundane days, promotions, set-backs, days where you break down, and the days where you build yourself back up… but all of this being days that brought you and your partner closer together.

Sacrifice means…

the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.

I believe sacrifice is an essential part of a lasting relationship; the more you put into your relationship, the more you will get out in abundance.  Now, the way you’re probably thinking of sacrifice, you might wholeheartedly disagree… but let me try to explain with a related example that I think we can all agree with: children.

Now why on earth would someone want to have a child!! 

For the woman, it’s 9 months of pain.  For the man, it’s goodbye to your boat, your peaceful or romantic vacations and to your golf clubs (I know, if you’re reading this blog… you probably don’t have a wife, but bare with me).  For both of them, it’s hello to a litter of kids who first cry all the time; then begin to color our walls; next, need help with their pre-algebra; finally start to disrespect you, cause you stress, empty your bank account and eventually move out – leaving you exhausted with your 30s, 40s and half of your 50s gone.  Having children really is a huge sacrifice.  Yet, for most people I have talked to it has enriched their lives tremendously!

As gays, we love to jump into a relationship

…and then quickly spring into a new one.  We meet a guy and 2 hours later we’ve fallen in the hormone-pumping experience we call love.  This euphoria might last as a couple hours, a couple weeks or a couple years.  Soon enough, however, this hormonic euphoria eventually goes away – and we call this “falling out of love!”  In this case, I don’t think that the love that “fell” was true love at all.  Rather, love is something that’s built: a product of hard work, sacrifice and time together.

When the euphoria goes away we are left with two choices

1) Find something new that can stimulate our falling-in-love hormone.  This usually means leaving our partner in search for something new, but also might mean opening up the relationship to other sex partners to add new excitement to what seems to have become a somewhat mundane lifestyle.

2) We can recognize that relationships are work and no matter how many times we start over, we’re always going to be back in this situation a few years later.

Then, when you and your partner decide to keep on going, you are on your way to building that true, deep and abiding love; and maybe you will end up grossing someone out while your wrinkled, old face is macking down on your lover at a beach in Kauai.

Nobody likes a liar

So I did some digging.  I went to an online gay profile site to see just how important certain qualities were to the gay community.  Here are the number of times the following words showed up in their profiles:

• Fun – 13292
• Honest – 4421
• Funny – 2837
• Happy – 2471
• Smart – 2237
• Caring – 2117
• Outgoing – 2075
• Intelligent – 1929

I’m not surprised that fun came up so often, since 47,763 profiles mentioned something about a hookup (although 67,510 want a relationship).  It’s interesting though that out of the words someone would generally use to describe themselves or others, honesty came up pretty high.

What is it about being honest that is so important?  And why is it so hard a thing to do?  I think answering the second question will help us better understand the first.

Why is it so hard to be honest?

There are a number of reasons why we lie, such as:

1. We did something stupid, and we’re trying to cover it up
2. We want to get out of something we really don’t want to do
3. We don’t want to make someone feel bad
4. We want to make ourselves look better; some sort of personal gain
5. We want to hurt someone

I ordered them in what I think occur most frequently.  Ultimately, I think that we lie in attempt to live in an alternate reality that is easier for us to deal with.  It’s hard work to face reality.  If we make a mistake, it’s easy to just lie; it’s hard to admit failure and realize we need to change.  Just as we often don’t want others to know the truth about us, we know it’s hard for others to hear the truth about themselves; and so we lie to them too.  Generally, I would say that lying is the lazy way out.

Why do we care so much about honesty?

I think this is an interesting question.  I mean, who cares if someone lies?  Now, sometimes their lies affect you directly.  Say someone stands you up, lies about you to hurt you, promise you something they never intend to give; these things can negatively affect your life.

But what if they lie about their job, their weight, their age or what they’re up to tonight?  As soon as we find out they’re lying, it usually bothers us.  Even when it doesn’t impact us, we still hate a liar.  I think this has something to do with what the 67 thousand gays were looking for: a relationship!!

I – and I’m pretty sure everyone and their little poodle-dog — think that trust is the single most important thing in a relationship.  Even with extreme love, if you can’t trust your partner, the relationship is bound to go sour.  This doesn’t just apply to partners, but even with your relationship with your friends.

Your relationship with someone is only as strong as your ability to trust them.  The more you trust, the closer you become, the more you rely on them and they on you.  I like to relate trust to an Internet cable.  Why?  Because I’m a geek.  The better the cable, the better your Internet bandwidth and the better you can upload or download data.  Similarly, the more your trust someone, the better you can communicate, and the stronger your relationship becomes.  Just as having Internet off of a 56k modem sucks, so does having a boyfriend who’s a liar!!

So how do we become more honest?

Becoming honest is not just making a resolve to tell the truth; although that’s probably the first step.  The problem comes once we start to be honest… then all of a sudden we have to face reality.  The truth is, we don’t, and never will want other people to see just how messed up, how shallow, or how incapable we really are.  So a part of becoming honest is facing those things, and working to overcome them.  It’s easier to be honest, when you have nothing to hide.  It’s also easier to admit fault or weakness, when you know it’s your desire to change.  It’s hard to admit your issues, when you don’t intend to do anything about it.

I can see right through you, and it’s great!

You know how mormon missionaries always travel in pairs.  Well, what

happens is they pair you with another guy and, somewhere between 6 weeks and 6 months later, you’ll get a

call telling you they want you to move to a new city and be paired with a new guy.

One day as a missionary I got such a call.  I started asking other missionaries if they’d heard of this new guy I’d be with.  People told me he was weird and grew up “in a bubble” (which is to say very ignorant: or nicely put, innocent).

When I met the guy, I realized it was quite true how he had been described.  What I didn’t expect, however, is that I would like it!  Despite his awkwardness, he had a quality I had never quite seen in someone so strongly: he was completely transparent.  In other words, he was an open book.

I think a lot of people look at that as a weakness.  If you’re transparent people can take advantage of you.  You can’t hide your emotions; people will know when you’re happy, and they’ll know when you’re sad.  In fact, it’s hard to keep secrets, and people could use that against you.

Meeting him, however, changed my perspective.  I felt like I had lived my whole life kind of putting on a show for everyone.  I remember in high school talking about girls like I was the horniest little straight boy around.  Looking back, I think I must have felt that if people had known the real me, they wouldn’t have liked me.  At the time, and where I was growing up, that might have actually been true.  But on the other hand, if I’m putting on a show, then even if they do like me, I’ll never really feel like they’re liking the real me.

I decided then that I wanted to become transparent too.  I wanted people to see the real me.  I didn’t want to keep secrets; I didn’t want to lie.  My hope was that someone could meet me, look me in the eyes, and know the kind of guy I was; feel instantly that I was an honest man and someone they could trust.

I’ve found that as I’ve worked to become more transparent, my ability to have real and lasting friendships and relationships have increased.  People actually prefer to be around someone who isn’t trying to prove anything, who isn’t acting like someone he’s not.

Marcel, you are a flaming homo!

After 11 years of not once admitting to myself that I was gay… sure the first “porn” I looked at was the statue of David in the Encyclopedia; I would feel highschool-girl butterflies when a cute boy accidentally brushed up against me; and I would just melt at the thought of being wrapped in the arms of a man who loved me… but no, not until over a decade after my late nights with Michelangelo’s masterpiece did I finally sit myself down and say “Marcel… you are a flaming homo!! Now deal with it.”

Now this blog is not a coming-out story. It is also not my diary… that I have under lock and key beneath my scrapbook! This is my attempt to write, ponder, explore and hopefully receive feedback about life – and particularly life as a homo. This is also where I will be acting out my severe fetish of using ellipsis (…)… the greatest punctuation in the english language.

Now, a couple things about me (in case I haven’t already embarrassed myself). My name is NOT Marcel, although that is what I’ll call myself until (or if) I decide to actually make myself known: not sure I want future employers reading this blog just yet. I lived as a Mormon for 25 years; until about the time that I got kicked out of a religious university for homosexual activity. Since then I have been in a number of relationships and have learned a little about myself, relationships, love, etc., etc., etc.

It is this “learning” that has motivated me to start writing. For, the more I learn, the more I realize just how little I know (didn’t Socrates say something like that).  This is my attempt to figure out the truth about us gays, and they way we should be living our lives.  From the people who believe that gays will literally crush all decent men, women and children who get in its way; to a guy who, like the Beatles sing, just wants somebody to love; to the open relationships; to the search for happiness; to the search for love; to obtaining love and then watching it slip away.

I am on a quest for truth. I am on a quest for happiness. How do we obtain it? How do we hold on to it? What are the principles, morals and values that we need in order to find it. Are they the same for everyone? This is the purpose of my blog. I am asking you to join me; to teach me; to learn from my experiences; and to share your own. Add a comment, or if too private, send me an email.

I look forward to meeting new acquaintances and sharing a part of my life with you. To all you other flaming homos… welcome to my blog!