My parents travelled abroad for much of my childhood, so as an adult I should be a naturally intrepid traveller: No fear of flying, an easy knack of speed-packing and a well-honed sense of adventure. But when I first set my heart on going to Italy and couldn’t find anyone to join me, the idea of going alone somehow seemed more sad than adventurous. How could I have so many friends, yet not be able to find someone to go away with? And how could I, an independent (or so I thought) gay singleton, be so intimidated by the idea of travelling solo?
According to a survey that I read somewhere, there are a quite number of adults who are currently single. The highest growth of singles is among the affluent, travel-hungry 25-34 age group, so I’m certainly not one-off, even if it does feel like everyone else is constantly being whisked off on vacation or mini-breaks by their latest love interest, or jetting away with a gaggle of friends in search of discount shopping and sunshine.
But travelling alone is actually very liberating, as I was to discover. People seek hugely different things from holidays, depending on their income, personality and lifestyle. One person’s dream break in an opulent five-star hotel is another’s idea of hell – intimidated by the staff and scared to even look at the mini-bar peanuts that cost almost as much as a meal out. Some people have a live-now-pay-later approach, while their travel buddy is scrimping and saving at every turn – a combination bound to end in tears.
My personal phobia is the kind of trip where you leave town with a couple of good friends and end up in some tourist resort in a Pinoy Big Brother – style gang, with arguments over borrowed clothes and endless discussions over what to do when.
So it was with doing exactly as I please in mind (and my heart in my throat) that I made the monumental decision to book my trip to Italy when, heading to Florence for a solo holiday.
I had a project for my trip when I was spending three weeks in Florence, one of Europe’s capitals of romance. Conscious that I might need a bit of direction in a city with so much culture on offer, and wanting to make friends, I signed up for an art history course. Next step was where to stay: I wasn’t flush – but didn’t want to go home to some empty fleapit hotel room every night, so I rented a room with an Italian family. At first, I felt very shy and could barely speak a word of Italian, but the family couldn’t have been kinder. I loved the fact that I had a key to the front door, rather than being just another anonymous tourist, and that I had a ready-made social network.
The art history was less successful. I soon realised I was never going to find a soul mate among the finishing-school types of my rather boring course, and I abandoned it in favour of just enjoying the city. Armed with tips from the family, I walked the city for days on end, planning a different route every day.
The initial pangs of loneliness and self-consciousness soon gave way to a sense of empowerment and freedom. I made a few friends. I hit the shops. I drank espressos in smoky little bars. I practised Italian on cute waiters. And wandered round museums in manner (I like to think) of a self-assured cosmopolitan gay singleton. I had fun!
I returned home with passable Italian, a real sense of achievement – and a fabulous collection of vintage mod-feel shirts.
Francis
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
War is not the Answer.
I mourn for all the Iraqis and the troops of all nations who have been wounded and killed and displaced in this unnecessary war.
War is not the answer. How do we stop the international war machine? The Peace Corps budget is being slashed while U.S. weapons sales have tripled since 2005. Stop the insanity. And I strongly believe John McCain is not the person to do it.
Curbed in Left
I was at the site of the WTC yesterday ushering families out of the pit in which their family members were murdered.
That their deaths were somehow justified is a truly disgusting argument. The same people that deride U.S actions around the world, many ending in civilian deaths, somehow, someway, see this as just deserts. And that is truly sad and hateful.
The people on that day were ripped from a world they had no intention of leaving, all because they went to work. That is wrong in the U.S, in Iraq, and throughout the world.
Shame on those that claim they, as American citizens, deserved it. No one deserves to be taken in that way. No one.
How can there ever be peace as long as the US insists on world dominance.
They will whine again when there is another attack on the mainland and they will continue to say they work for peace. Duh.
As one wise man said: Why can’t they stay home and be happy. But no they always have to have a bogey man just around the corner.
Democracy it’s not.
That their deaths were somehow justified is a truly disgusting argument. The same people that deride U.S actions around the world, many ending in civilian deaths, somehow, someway, see this as just deserts. And that is truly sad and hateful.
The people on that day were ripped from a world they had no intention of leaving, all because they went to work. That is wrong in the U.S, in Iraq, and throughout the world.
Shame on those that claim they, as American citizens, deserved it. No one deserves to be taken in that way. No one.
How can there ever be peace as long as the US insists on world dominance.
They will whine again when there is another attack on the mainland and they will continue to say they work for peace. Duh.
As one wise man said: Why can’t they stay home and be happy. But no they always have to have a bogey man just around the corner.
Democracy it’s not.
Curbed Line
Curbed Line
When I was preparing to write another blog entry, I wanted to call my friends and ask them about any recent mishaps of living a single gay life. It could be dating boohoos or snapping out of personal financial management or just about dealing with the effervescent question of ‘when are you going to get married?’ I did, but then I wanted more. I wanted to hear rich and textured accounts and not limited on paying bills and sitting by lonesome in some obnoxious cafes or pubs. My friends can talk for hours about their lives (and of other people’s lives), sometimes over the course of many years. I reckon that in as much as success contributes to the single people’s happiness, failures of varying types of other people actually contribute about a meager 20% of my friends’ happiness.
Trying to find similar anecdotes of the lives of single gay people, though, was a whole different story. There just wasn't much out there.
The same thing happened when I tried to find scholarly writings about single people. Single straight people are of interest to academics, and for the single gay people - not so much.
Just say the word "single" and your listeners will probably make a quick mental leap to "single men and women." These are career and style obsessed individuals that leave much whole to gape at for the smug world that one day and someday, they will settle down and perpetuate the same smug world. When I told my BFF Jackie about my blog entry, she said that I was trying to write an article that was trying to appeal to a market of single gay people who are a diverse population of individuals. But I just love her, she knows that there’s not much written on gay people and that definitely it would be a breeze to read through.
Before I started typing non-stop on my laptop, I asked my friends who they thought had it harder when it came to living single in a society so preoccupied with couples. In chorus, everyone said it was the gay people. Their reasoning made a lot of sense. The single straight people, were always appreciated at social events, whereas the single gay people were as seen as entertainers or as incriminating well of self-loathing jokes on why single gay people are single. Minus the fun, they meant as nuisance. The single straight people would point to all the wedding fantasies peddled to them from their babyhoods (filled with stories about smugness) to their adulthoods (dotted with sparkly bridal magazines and syrupy "reality" TV shows such as The Bachelor and again – with all its smugness!).
I now think that there are differences in the particular ways that single straight people and single gay people are derogated, but the different myths translate into roughly disparate doses of condescension and dismissiveness.
Perceptions of single gay people (the stereotypes) aren't everything. What about evidence of discrimination? There's plenty of that, too (though singlism is vicious as it is already, you add the viciousness of homosexuality to that). In one important domain, there are clear indications of greater discrimination against single gay people than single straight people: Single gay people are almost always excluded to the chances of getting mainstream in the smug world, even when their financial and emotional capacities are the same.
Now here's what's truly remarkable: Despite all the stereotyping and discrimination, most single gay people are doing just fine. Take happiness, for example. The fun and excitement level that single gay people could be an indication that they are loving life. Although, beneath this might cover an intense feeling of loneliness, and yet, are gifted with the enormous capacity to find joy in the middle of a gaping hole of dealing with singlism and homosexuality. I still think that the average happiness level of single gay people is solidly on the happy end of the scale. And my stark realization is that, single gay people, would not become even happier, in any lasting way, if only they were straight and married.
Of course, I'm not saying that every last single gay person is happy. There are a big lot of single gay people, so some of them are going to be unhappy. But again, I reiterate that they would not become any happier if they did marry or were straight.
So here's the puzzle: Why is there such a disconnection between the negative perceptions of single gay men (in particular) and the actual life experiences of those men? I'll take that on in a future post.
Francis
When I was preparing to write another blog entry, I wanted to call my friends and ask them about any recent mishaps of living a single gay life. It could be dating boohoos or snapping out of personal financial management or just about dealing with the effervescent question of ‘when are you going to get married?’ I did, but then I wanted more. I wanted to hear rich and textured accounts and not limited on paying bills and sitting by lonesome in some obnoxious cafes or pubs. My friends can talk for hours about their lives (and of other people’s lives), sometimes over the course of many years. I reckon that in as much as success contributes to the single people’s happiness, failures of varying types of other people actually contribute about a meager 20% of my friends’ happiness.
Trying to find similar anecdotes of the lives of single gay people, though, was a whole different story. There just wasn't much out there.
The same thing happened when I tried to find scholarly writings about single people. Single straight people are of interest to academics, and for the single gay people - not so much.
Just say the word "single" and your listeners will probably make a quick mental leap to "single men and women." These are career and style obsessed individuals that leave much whole to gape at for the smug world that one day and someday, they will settle down and perpetuate the same smug world. When I told my BFF Jackie about my blog entry, she said that I was trying to write an article that was trying to appeal to a market of single gay people who are a diverse population of individuals. But I just love her, she knows that there’s not much written on gay people and that definitely it would be a breeze to read through.
Before I started typing non-stop on my laptop, I asked my friends who they thought had it harder when it came to living single in a society so preoccupied with couples. In chorus, everyone said it was the gay people. Their reasoning made a lot of sense. The single straight people, were always appreciated at social events, whereas the single gay people were as seen as entertainers or as incriminating well of self-loathing jokes on why single gay people are single. Minus the fun, they meant as nuisance. The single straight people would point to all the wedding fantasies peddled to them from their babyhoods (filled with stories about smugness) to their adulthoods (dotted with sparkly bridal magazines and syrupy "reality" TV shows such as The Bachelor and again – with all its smugness!).
I now think that there are differences in the particular ways that single straight people and single gay people are derogated, but the different myths translate into roughly disparate doses of condescension and dismissiveness.
Perceptions of single gay people (the stereotypes) aren't everything. What about evidence of discrimination? There's plenty of that, too (though singlism is vicious as it is already, you add the viciousness of homosexuality to that). In one important domain, there are clear indications of greater discrimination against single gay people than single straight people: Single gay people are almost always excluded to the chances of getting mainstream in the smug world, even when their financial and emotional capacities are the same.
Now here's what's truly remarkable: Despite all the stereotyping and discrimination, most single gay people are doing just fine. Take happiness, for example. The fun and excitement level that single gay people could be an indication that they are loving life. Although, beneath this might cover an intense feeling of loneliness, and yet, are gifted with the enormous capacity to find joy in the middle of a gaping hole of dealing with singlism and homosexuality. I still think that the average happiness level of single gay people is solidly on the happy end of the scale. And my stark realization is that, single gay people, would not become even happier, in any lasting way, if only they were straight and married.
Of course, I'm not saying that every last single gay person is happy. There are a big lot of single gay people, so some of them are going to be unhappy. But again, I reiterate that they would not become any happier if they did marry or were straight.
So here's the puzzle: Why is there such a disconnection between the negative perceptions of single gay men (in particular) and the actual life experiences of those men? I'll take that on in a future post.
Francis
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