Ambivalence and Other Thoughts

Greetings. I am going to warn you that this will be a very long post. I have all of these blog ideas welling up inside of me, most likely because I am banned from blogging at work and it makes me think about it all the time.

Let me start with something trivial. I love Goldfish (the snack cracker)! I buy them all the time. However, for the past six months I have had a problem. You see, they introduced these whole grain Goldfish and being the yuppie I am, I decided I must buy them to be "healthy". Anyway, they taste different than the non-whole grain kind and I am always thrown off by the taste. I tell myself that I will not buy them again. When I go to the store the next time I switch back to the regular kind, only to realize that they taste funny since my taste buds have adjusted to the whole-grain kind. It's a vicious cycle. Goldfish never taste right!

Last night my roommate and I had a 3-4 hour chat about life, faith, God, etc. It was excellent. However, we came away with no answers. We both still believe in God, but have some major questions and serious concerns with some stuff in the bible. He had mentioned he was concerned about the never ending translation of it and the fact that you can read so many different versions that can seem to have very different meanings of the same passages. I mentioned that everyone seems to think the bible fell down from Heaven, when in fact it was written by human beings. He thinks there should have been a preface to the bible or at least an "about the author" section written to clear up all the confusion. Haha, it was an amazing conversation. I will post more about faith and things in the near future, I suppose.

Theology is one HIDEOUSLY complex field. I did not realize how many viewspoints/ideas there are about EVERYTHING when it comes to faith. It's a freakin' buffet! Maybe I will just convert to Kabbalah, it combines the fun parts of Judiasm with magic! Haha, that's definitely a paraphrase from 30 Rock.

Also FYI, the Bible and I have had a falling out recently. We are taking some time apart. I have been reading diligently for the past 3 months, but stopped last week. I was becoming too overwhelmed. I find reading the Bible is one of the most dangerous things a Christian can do who wants to maintain his faith (tongue-in-cheek). Also, I have to confess that I am still floating on an ocean of doubt. My faith in its current state is terribly heretical, and a part of me wonders if my salvation is at stake. Of course, that is a very long story for another day.

What I wanted to talk about today was where I stand on homosexuality at this point in time. A part of me almost wishes I was still battling it, for I would not have opened this Pandora's box of doubt otherwise.

Let me start by saying that I have never really viewed homosexuality as immoral. Of course, this is because I knew I was attracted to guys for a very long time and was therefore biased.

Something that has bothered me for a long time is the question of why? At one point I thought that this was some punishment from God because if I was straight, my life would be perfect. I thought God was not going to allow me to "have my cake and eat it too". As you hopefully observe, I have grown up tremendously since then. What bothered me is that I have a great relationship with my parents, was never abused, and didn't choose the orientation. Growing up in a conservative Christian home, I was obviously told these were the reasons people were gay. I even told someone a couple of years ago that I thought I was gay, but couldn't be because I didn't have these factors. My parents have always been amazing. My father and mother both played a major role in raising me, and I don't feel like my father was absent in my "formative years". In fact, we were always all involved in church functions and my dad was a leader in Royal Rangers. Also, my mom stayed at home, but was certainly not over-bearing. We do get along splendidly, but I don't consider myself a "Momma's Boy" in the negative sense of the word. Plus, I know a lot of "Momma's Boys" who are most definitely straight, so that theory was thrown out the window. Sexual abuse also never played a role in my life. I am very thankful for this. I do know others who have been abused and I am amazed at their strength. I then thought that I must have just not related well to other boys or must have had some traumatizing event with a girl that made me this way. Thinking back I had best friends that were guys until middle school. I also had really great friends that were girls. I did go through a rough "break-up" with Kelly in the 6th grade, but I don't think that traumatized me. In fact, I also remember having a bit of a crush on a male classmate in 6th grade. Middle school was definitely rough, but it's rough for everyone. I was teased, but never bullied or physically harmed in anyway. I did not have any guy friends in middle school, but my class also had 5 guys total (7th and 8th grade). This did not really afford an opportunity for guy friends. My church youth group also lacked males that were qualified candidates for friends. In high school I really "blossomed". I was very popular (in the good kids group). I got three senior superlatives, was in a ton of clubs, and ended up yearbook editor. Most of my friends continued to be girls, but I also had some guy friends and quite a few Halo LAN parties at the house. Good times indeed.

I will break this into two paragraphs to ease the reading. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't know why I am attracted to guys. I don't feel effeminate, and I don't feel emasculated around other guys. I will acknowledge that I don't get along as well with most "jock" type guys as I do others, but that is because we have very little in common. I don't really care to talk about sex, sports, and drinking. However, I can definitely hold a conversation about videogames and tech stuff. Overall, I do feel different from some guys, but I still feel masculine. I am very proud of my personality and am happy with myself (it's taken some time to get to this point). I must add that I pretty much LOATHE sports. Feigning interest in sports talk is the bane of my existence (besides ironing my work clothes).

Wow, sorry for all of this word vomit. I just want to conclude that I am currently ambivalent about my "gayness". There are definitely still times when I try to convince myself I could fall for a girl, but then a cute guy walks by and screws up the self-delusion. Still, it's not a big deal anymore. I have given up thinking it is some cosmic injustice. I was just perceiving it as such because it was an "injustice" that negatively impacted me. I cared little about the injustice of my money*, job, intelligence, family, and opportunity.

I have so, so much more to say about so many things. Alas, this post is entirely too long and I have a ton of stuff to accomplish tonight.

*Just so you know, I currently have a severely negative net worth. I said "money" to refer to the relative wealth I possess compared to the overwhelming majority of the world's population.