The Dark Place That Is My Mind

I've had a bit of a rubbish month since my last post. I'm struggling with so many things in my mind that I find it so easy to fall into a really dark place and get stuck there. I can get myself worked up over the smallest of things and soon it feels like the whole world is against me and all I want to do is disappear. It gets so bad sometimes that I often just lie in bed thinking about what would happen if I did just run away or worse, kill myself. Yeah, I really do feel that bad sometimes!

When I think through things rationally I feel ridiculous because for the most part I have a great life. I mean I'm not starving, homeless, disabled or terminally ill and I've never suffered abuse or anything that bad really. Thinking of people like that reminds me how petty and stupid I'm being and that just makes me feel worse. But at the same time I can't really help the way I feel. As much as I would like it to, thinking about people around the world in far worse situations than I am doesn't make me feel better about my own issues. I guess that's just because my issues are exactly that. Mine. And in the context of my life they're pretty serious.

The thing I struggle a lot with is anger. I am SO ANGRY about so many things. It's not violent sort of anger but rather the type of anger that can send me into a long and deep depression.

Where do I begin...

I'm basically just angry about how so many things in my life haven't gone right so far when they really should have. I've had countless opportunities handed to me in terms of the school and university I went to that should have set me up in terms of confidence and friends and I feel like I've wasted them all just because I've been struggling with the fact that I'm gay as well as other stupid insecurities. Pretty much everybody I know seems to be happy and successful with their lives or at least getting there, which I find so frustrating because I feel like I should be like them. I get really jealous really easily. My brother is a prime example. He's a bit older than me, has had a successful job, is coming to the end of his MBA at a top American university and has an amazing job lined up in New York for when he finishes. He's full of confidence, has hundreds of friends and doesn't struggle too much with the ladies either. Compare this with me - I have very few friends, I'm not sure what I want to do career wise, I'm not comfortable with being gay and I'm still a virgin at 24 and I have very little confidence or idea of how to change things - am I justified in being just a little bit pissed off? The same goes with so many people I know from school and university. And what's even worse is that there are even a couple of guys who have come out as gay and are doing great - what the hell is wrong with me then?!

I'm really angry with how 2010 has gone for me as well. I decided at university that when I finished I would go travelling around the world on my own. I spent the whole of university either studying really hard so that I could get a good degree or working really hard as a waiter so that I could afford to do the trip. Both helped me keep busy, which helped keep my mind off my problems while at university. I convinced myself that it didn't matter that I had close to no life at university because everything would be fine when I finished and was out in the world. That thought alone was what kept me going. 

And then the time finally came and I feel like I messed it up completely. Sure I was away for 7 months and saw some amazing places in the world but in terms of "finding myself" and getting comfortable in my skin I failed completely. If anything I've become worse! The whole trip I was stressed out about what was going to happen when I got home. How was I going to tell people I was gay? What was I going to do career wise? I was quite successful in telling some people I met on the trip that I was gay but at the same time I was really unsuccessful because there were still so many people who I didn't tell because I was scared to do so or didn't know how to. And apart from my experience in Bangkok, which I wrote about in an earlier post, I met no gay guys and got nowhere in terms of feeling comfortable as a masculine gay guy. This is despite me visiting places like LA, San Francisco and New York!! I really struggled with my insecurities while I was away, possibly because I had so much time on my own to dwell on them. I'm not unattractive, in fact many people say the opposite, but I struggle to see what they see. Instead I see so many flaws, which absolutely cripple me. 

In the end I completely unraveled and fell apart on the trip. I spent a lot of time on my own and didn't meet many people at all - I think I've become quite cynical when it comes to meeting people to a point where I judge them before even getting a chance to know them. I was supposed to stay away for a whole year but came home after 7 months. I actually came back full of optimism though because I felt it was the right thing to do. It felt very much like a case of going travelling to find something only to find that what you're looking for is actually at home. I felt like I wasn't going to make any progress while away but instead had to be at home to do so. And to an extent that has been true. I mean as soon as I got home I emailed all of my closest friends to tell them I was gay and that went well. But apart from that the last few months since I got home have been pretty awful. I've made little to no progress on the gay front and in making friends in general. A recent development was that I signed up to gaydar.co.uk - however I've yet to get into it fully and am still quite hesitant to meet guys possibly because I feel so inexperienced. I've struggled massively with getting my career off the ground mainly because of the issues I mentioned in my previous post but also because there are just very few good opportunites out there at the moment. I have started working in the past month though. I got offered an internship doing PR for a very innovative and entrepreneurial company that has quite a cool and global concept. It seems to tick a lot of boxes for me but for some reason I'm still not happy. I'm not sure if PR is what I want to do and I'm not sure if this job is really going to lead to anything better. And I've struggled with the whole gay thing at work. We're a very young team with most of my colleagues being recent university graduates like myself. This has been frustrating because it feels like I am actually back at university in that everyone is confident, has lots of friends and amazing social lives while I don't. I feel inadequate and jealous just like I did at university. And this all makes me feel nervous about the whole gay thing coming up in conversation. I want to tell them but there hasn't been a right moment so far and I'm not sure if there will ever be the right moment. And if I do tell them I hate how I don't have anything else to say about it. I mean it's not like I have a boyfriend of anything. And that's all stopping me from telling them in the first place! 

It's all a vicious cycle and I know I sound a bit crazy but that is basically what is going around me head all the time. I know I'm being stupid and I know I'm my own worst enemy but it's really hard to change. I think only people in a similar situation will appreciate that. I can honestly say that I've never been as unhappy as I am at the moment. At least in the past I always felt like there was some glimmer of hope, something to work towards (like my trip) but now I just feel lost. I'm not happy with how my career is going, I'm nowhere near happy with how my personal life is going and I have little idea how to change things for the better. I'm not even happy with where I live. It's the middle of winter here in London and it is GRIM. I'm not from England originally and I really miss living somewhere warm and sunny. The weather in London makes me feel miserable and unmotivated to do anything. It sounds like a stupid thing to get upset about (a trend is developing I think!) but it really does make a huge difference just having a blue sky to wake up to in the morning. I'm also not happy with living back at home in general. My parents are great in many ways and are cool with me being gay but I miss my independence. They've also adopted an approach that my being gay isn't an issue and so they're not going to talk about it because they don't want to make a big deal out of it. That's fine to a certain extent but there are so many times where I really do want to talk about it so that I can get all of this stuff off my chest and hopefully not descend into depression. But I find it hard to bring things up and talk to them because they just seem to have a 'get on with it' sort of attitude, which is really not helpful even if it is well intended.

I do want to change. I had dinner a couple of weeks ago with my uncle who is a really cool guy and he said something that hit home in a big way. BE YOU. It's exactly what I need to do but exactly what I'm struggling with the most because I don't even know who ME is. My biggest challenges are to stop comparing myself to others, to stop getting jealous of them and to stop being so hard on myself about what's happened in the past. I need to move on, learn from my mistakes and figure out what it is that makes me truly happy and then embrace it.

It's easier said than done but I'm really hoping that 2011 will be the year that I finally get there.

My First Gay Experience

In my opening post I said I was still a virgin. This is true. Well at least in my eyes it is. I have had one gay experience though but I don't believe it to have been sufficient enough to award it the title of the time I lost my virginity. I know that some people think of any gay experience, such as oral or mutual wanking, to be gay sex. This is probably true, but for me, it's anal (whether given or taken) that is the ultimate decider of whether you have lost your actual gay virginity.

Back to my first gay experience though.

Earlier this year I was in Bangkok as part of a larger post-university trip through Asia. I had always heard how Thailand is a mecca for gay travellers and so I was intent on taking advantage of my being on my own in a faraway foreign land to make progress in my gay life. Once there though I was very disappointed. Everywhere I went I was confronted with the sleazy image of old western men enjoying the company of young Thai boys. I don't know why this surprised me, as Thailand is renowned for this, but I guess I was hoping for a lot more young everyday backpackers like me. Maybe they were there but unfortunately I just didn't meet them.

Disheartened but not dismayed I decided to carry on with my plans of visiting a gay sauna. In the weeks leading up to my arrival in Bangkok I had been reading on the Internet about a famous sauna in the city called Babylon. It's apparently the most famous sauna in not just Thailand but the whole of Asia and from what I had read it sounded like the place to go if you were a foreign gay visitor looking for some fun.

The hotel I had booked was coincidentally within walking distance of Babylon and so after a few days of getting to grips with the city and crossing off all the tourist must-dos I set out to to cross off the gay must-do. I was naturally quite nervous but the fact that I was in a completely foreign city where I knew absolutely nobody combined with nearly 24 years of zero sexual activity meant that I was resolute in my decision and there was nothing that was going to stop me from going!

It was a characteristically humid evening as I walked along the busy road to Babylon. My heart was beating fast and I couldn't help but wonder if all the people in the cars that passed me by knew where I was going and were busy labeling me as just another dodgy sex tourist. Soon though I disappeared off the main road and into the quiet lanes that led to the sauna. The hardest part was definitely getting there, as once inside you do feel like you're in a safe haven of sorts surrounded my like-minded people.

Before I knew it I was in the locker room, stripping down, wrapping a towel around my waist and heading into the unknown. Babylon was different to how I had imagined it would be. For starters it is a lot smaller than they make it out to be. I think that as it was a weekday evening one area was closed but still, I thought it would be bigger. On the ground floor there was a small dry sauna with a tiny screen showing the same porn movie over and over again without sound. Next to it was a dark steam room, part of which was a small maze so dark you couldn't see anything, the other part just light enough to make out the people sitting next to and opposite you. Upstairs there was another maze of sorts with some private rooms and lots of men just standing around waiting for something to happen.

The thing that most disappointed me about Babylon was the lack of open action going on. I had been led to believe that it was easy to just walk around and watch other guys get it on with each other but I hardly saw anything. Perhaps this was a cultural thing? You would hear the odd murmur from a dark corner of the maze or a private room but that was about it. Another thing that disappointed me was the lack of foreign guys. That may have just been down to the time and day that I was there but as I'm not really attracted to Thai or Asian men I felt like my options were slightly limited. Foreign men are clearly the prize for many Thai guys though and so wherever I went I was generally the center of attention getting a lot of enquiring looks and the odd forward advance. This was great for the ego I guess but as I wasn't really interested in reciprocating the attention it got slightly annoying after a while and I did start to feel a bit like a piece of meat and not in a good way! The white guys that were there were generally of the older dodgy looking variety, which further added to my displeasure.

I wasn't ready to give up yet though and so I spent what was probably an hour or so moving between each of the rooms trying to see what was going on and learn how exactly things work at these sorts of places. When the heat of the sauna and steam rooms got too much I would take a seat outside watching people come and go or in the cafe where I eventually grabbed some dinner. It was here that I saw another white guy around my age although at first glance he was not really my type and so I didn't take much notice of him.

Back on the circuit though I was starting to feel a bit desperate and really didn't want to leave without having cum even if I did just have to do it by myself. Eventually I made it back to the steam room where having taken a seat on one of the benches I noticed the same guy sitting opposite me. He was getting some attention from a Thai guy next to him and had removed his towel exposing his hard cock. Having not yet seen much interesting action or attractive men this got me going fairly quickly and so I moved across and took a seat next to him. Even though I hadn't really taken much notice of him in the cafe I was more than a little turned on sitting next to him with the heat of the steam making us sweat and the sounds of groaning men in the background further adding to the atmosphere. His cock was staring up at me and so I reached out with my right hand and took over from the Thai guy. It was the first cock I have ever felt (apart from my own of course) and it was a great first one to hold, as apart from being fairly long it was also nice and fat, easily filling the grasp of my hand.

As I stroked his cock up and down he began to kiss my shoulder and neck. I didn't really enjoy this  though, as he was a very wet kisser and had an annoying goatee that rubbed against my skin. He tried to make his way to my mouth but I resisted each time. I also didn't really want to go down on him. Although my heart (and most definitely my cock) wanted me to my head kept saying no. I guess I'm still hesitant about these things, worried about HIV and STI's having been lectured about them for years at school and university. When you're in an environment like a gay sauna you can't help but wonder where else the guys around you have been and what/who they have done. I was happy for the time being just enjoying the feel of another man's cock in my hand and watching and listening to the pleasure he was getting from it. He began to reciprocate and soon I was approaching my long awaited climax. As I neared it he let his hand roam down to my balls and ass and as he did so I automatically lifted my leg over his to give him better access. He instinctively jumped up and moved down in front of me to get a better view of my hole. Probing at its opening with his finger but not quite entering it I soon brought myself to completion and at the same time felt his warm cum spray on my leg. To my slight surprise but also amusement I also felt the cum of other men, their bodies and faces up until now hidden by the darkness of the room.

It was over as quick as it had begun and soon I was out of the steam room and into the showers where I washed the remains of the past few minutes from my skin. I had achieved more or less what I wanted to achieve and so I quickly got changed and made my way back to the main road leading to my hotel.

Back in my hotel room I couldn't quite believe the evening had happend. I had made significant progress although remained slightly disappointed about the whole experience. It wasn't quite as good as I had hoped it would be and even though I hadn't really planned to go much further than what I did I was still disappointed at how I had found the whole experience. I generally have a very active and dirty mind but I had felt out of my depth there and found it sleazier than I thought it would be. Perhaps that was because I was surrounded by Thai men, to whom I'm not attracted to, and mostly old foreign men, who you automatically assume to be dodgier than normal given that you're in Bangkok. However, I was still put off and couldn't imagine myself going to a gay sauna again, wherever it may be.

A few months have passed since then though and now that I'm back in London I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should give the gay sauna experience one more go. I'm sure the venues in London are superior to those in Thailand and I presume my options here in terms of people will be more plentiful. I still have my reservations though particularly when it comes to going all the way. I feel like losing my virginity in a sauna is too fraught with risks and also too impersonal. I feel like I should wait to meet someone a bit more special, perhaps through something like gaydar, where we can take things a bit slower and do it right. But I also can't help but feel that going to a sauna in London will still be good for me, if only to get more comfortable with the idea of being naked and sexual around other guys.

And so I think I'm going to look into the idea a bit more...