2011: So Far So Good

It has been a really busy start to the year for me at work, which means not too much progress has been made on the gay front. I really do need to figure out how to strike that balance. To be fair though I have actually also had a few dental issues of late (with a couple of painful visits to the dentist's chair already under my belt) so that has sort of put a temporary halt to any thoughts of romantic encounters! But apart from that things are going, dare I say it, fairly well for me so far this year :-) 

The thing I'm most happy about is how positive I'm being. I almost can't believe it! I really think that having that mental mind-shift at the beginning of the year with regards to moving on from the past and treating this year as a completely fresh start has made a massive difference. There have been a couple of not so great things that have happened, which in the past would have probably set me off on a bit of a downward decline but instead I've been taking them in my stride.

Work is an ongoing issue as always. It's going well in that I've been given more responsibility, which is exciting and I still like the idea behind the whole company. It's a massive global concept, which if it works will hopefully be known about all over the world by the end of the year (I'm doing the marketing and PR for it so I for one hope it will be!) But it's a very entrepreneurial company (read unstructured with things changing all the time) and the CEO can be a bit of an idiot. There are a lot of cracks appearing mostly as a result of poor management and it's all starting to unnerve me a bit. I don't particularly want to hang around and have my name linked to a total disaster! I've also heard he offers rubbish salaries after the internship is finished so I also don't particularly want to hang around and be exploited. I think I'm going to sit it out for a bit longer though to try and get a better idea of what will happen but I reckon I need to start looking for other stuff on the side. Job searching has to be one of the most soul destroying things on this Earth though so I'm not looking forward to it. BUT perhaps something amazing will pop up so I guess it's worth a try - see positive thinking! :-)

The worst thing about work so far this year has been the whole gay thing. I still haven't told anybody in the office I'm gay and it pisses me off so much. I know I don't have to, especially at work, but like I've said before I just want everybody to know. Life would be so much simpler. Instead I've got the same old scenario where I'm always waiting for the conversation to turn into something where I can easily slot it in there, which it never does really. And so much time has passed that its become that much harder to do. What definitely makes it worse is that most of my colleagues are around the same age as me and so talk a lot about parties/clubs they've been going to and all the usual boring straight boyfriend/girlfriend drama that follows. So I feel a little bit on the outside as I know I'm definitely the only gay guy (or girl) there. Grrrr it's all very frustrating - with work being such a big part of my life at the moment it would be nice if I could just be completely open there and not feel like I'm back at university all over again. The worst thing is that it shouldn't matter that I'm gay and it probably wouldn't (I'm living in London for crying out loud) but I still have that mindset where I'm just never sure whether it's the right situation or not. Some people who know can be quite awkward about it as well because they have this stereotype in their head and don't really know how to deal with a masculine gay guy, which doesn't really help put me at ease either!

Outside of work though things have been pretty good. I've been seeing quite a bit of my small but close group of friends and it feels like we're getting closer every time we see each other. We've been going out to nice restaurants and pubs and just generally doing fun big city London sort of stuff. I sometimes think I don't really need a massive group of friends as long as I have a few great ones although I do still want to expand my circle if only to throw some gay friends into the mix. I've also started doing yoga again once a week, which I absolutely love! When I was in India last year I spent a couple of weeks learning it at an ashram and I got really good at it but it sort of fell by the wayside towards the end of 2010. I'm going to try keep it up especially as I go to a great class on a Sunday afternoon - I don't think there is a much better way to end off one week and start off another than with a spot of yoga! I've also been eating really healthily and doing lots of other exercise so I'm generally just feeling great and have a little bit of a spring in my step :-) Which is saying a lot given how rubbish the weather in London is at the moment!

One sort of bad thing that happened in my social life recently happened last Friday. I had been invited to the birthday of a friend from university and was initially quite keen, as I saw it as maybe a good opportunity to meet some new people. Seeing the guest list on Facebook made me change my mind though and in the end I decided not to go, which is a decision that bothers me a bit. Everybody on the guest list was from my university and while I didn't know most of them I still got the impression that it was going to be just like one of the university parties that I used to feel so awkward at. It annoys me that I feel that way because I really shouldn't care and I probably wouldn't if people there knew I was gay but none of them do including the birthday girl. She's the one I wrote about in an earlier post when I was struggling to tell her to her face (I really should start some sort of name system here). Well I still haven't told her and while I'm 90% sure she's heard about it from other people it's still awkward until it's actually said and I don't think her birthday party at a club is the best place to bring it up. So that all annoyed me a lot, as it felt like a massive step back for me. But then I thought that maybe it's for the best. I mean I'm trying to move on from all that university stuff anyway so I don't see why I should throw myself back into it unless it feels completely right. I'm big on trusting my gut instinct and while it's not always right and can sometimes fool you I think for the most part it's there for a reason.

Anyway, for the most part 2011 has been good so far so that is all that matters. The best thing is that I feel readier than ever to get this gay show on the road so hopefully once work calms down a bit and I feel a bit more sorted in life in general I'll have some positive results to report back.