Living thru hell, one day at a time

Making new mates part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:06:00 +0000

It's been a while since I last blogged, been alot of stuff happening, which you'll find out about in the next blog post, so you gotta stay tuned. Making friends is always a bit of a mixed bag.

I've been hanging out some more with the guys mentioned in the previous post. I met up with J for dinner one night at Pelican on Fitzroy St. It's a nice little tapas-style, share plates restaurant.

We had a good time, and gave him a lift home. And thats where it ends for some reason. We texted a bit back and forth after that but eventually I just stopped trying. I don't know what I did or if he wasn't interested or what. I guess i'll never know.

Moving onto S. S started things of with a bang. So many things he wanted to do, make new friends, meet new people, hang out. It sounded perfect for a new gay mate. It started off well. One Friday night he decided he was having a pyjama party. He lives just up the road so why the hell not. They were watching Bridesmaids on DVD, and everyone has to make a dessert.

Mmm, when was the last time I baked something? Ages ago, and never in this oven. Time to test out a recipe. I walked over in my pyjamas, as one does. It was a smashing success, rich, decadent, chocolate brownies. Though I think I had chocolate overload that night.

Lots of chocolate, lollies, cake, wine and more wine. Got to meet some new people (funny thing, the host had met everyone there on grindr, except his fag hag). Since then things have sort of started to tail off. We've hung out a bit but more in a group setting at the Greyhound usually. I don't know what it is, we've just never managed to hang out 1 on 1 since then.

Moving onto the next guy. This will be J #2. J #2 is an American guy who moved to Oz not long ago. He hosted a friday night Shabbat dinner at his place a couple months back. Again, I had a nice time, meeting different people, the food was great and then I made my way home.

And then we have J#3. We met on grindr, chatted for a bit, ended up at his place for a few drinks one Sunday arvo. And that was basically it. We bumped into each other a few times at the railway hotel since then, but other than that, pretty much nothing. A random hi hows it going on grindr but thats pretty much it.

Lastly we have D. A guy i met at the railway, eventually said hi to and swapped numbers. We tried to meet up a few times and he always cancelled. Eventually I stopped trying...

I don't know if it's me, or its the people gay guys I tend to meet, but more often than not I end up thinking why bother in the first place :(

Making new mates, part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:05:00 +0000

As i've blogged about time and time again, i'm always looking to make new friends. You just can't have too many and these ones are all normal!

The first one i'll talk about i'll refer to as B. I woke up one Sunday morning to a message from him on grindr. Yep i'd fallen asleep with without closing it so had quite a few. He was visiting from Sydney and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up with him and his mates for a drink that arvo. I had to think twice about it, its one thing if you know one of a group, but to not know anyone, I wasn't sure. But I bit the bullet anyway and met them at Wonderland on Chapel St.

It turned out he was a really nice guy and a few of his others friends were there too and we hit it off. They loved stories of my suicide bomber friend from the night before (see here). Of course B was flying out that night so after a good few drinks he caught a taxi and went to the airport. I stuck around with the others, met some others who were there, and then suddenly B calls. His flight is cancelled due to the volcano so he's coming back to rejoin the party. And rejoin he did, i was probably there drinking for 7 hours or so, lots and lots of wine. It must have affected the other guys quite a bit as twice someone kicked the table and ended up spilling wine all over me, but it was still a fun night.

The next guy I'll call D. I met him on manhunt. We'd been chatting a bit before I left for London, but decided to make some plans once I returned. This time we met at Orange Cafe in Windsor. Again, a really nice guy, a bit interesting and quirky, turns out he was Jewish too. Had some food and glass of wine and made plans to meet again soon. A week or so later we met up for lunch near where he worked. And then he gave me a tour of his office. I won't elaborate more on that, lol. I haven't heard from him in a while and haven't attempted to make contact but it's all good.

The next ones are S and J. They're kinda intertwined in that I'd been chatting on J who I met on Manhunt but was yet to meet him in person. The I met S on grindr (as one does). Anyway we'd been chatting for a while (still talking about S here) and OMG his profile pic is amazing. Torso only but wow! Just by looking at a pic like that tells me 'chat all you want, but he's way out of your league'. But chat is fine, a little flirting here n there, a few pics, and then he says to me that he knows he's going out on a limb but would I be up for meeting socially. Would I ever! (and no I wasn't thinking befriend him first, shag him later). Well we spoke first, we have very similar senses of humour, full of little pokes and digs at each other, we got along really well.

One night he asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Now that could've been a euphamism for something that I wasn't aware of (should've checked urban dictionary before I accepted), but I agreed. Since we met on Grindr after all, I knew he lived fairly close, and he was taking his dog for a walk. I'm not a dog person in general but he has the cutest little dog you've ever seen, it almost looks like a toy. We had a good walk, about 5km, chatting about everything under the sun. Of course he's jewish too, lol (who do so many people turn out to be jewish?!?). At one point he decided to take the dog to Alma Park for a bit as we were passing. For those that don't know, Alma Park is known to be a cruising area, especially at night. At the back of my mind I was thinking what is going on over here? Are we really going to Alma Park at night? What exactly is he trying to do? Heck if he wanted to do what this place is known for, all he had to do was ask, lol. But no, he just wanted to let his dog run around about, but it was too dark so it stayed on the leash, we did a circuit and left. Eventually I dropped him off home.

I think thats a great friends score if there ever was one. Will there ever be anything more? Probably not, we're sort of sexually incompatible, lol. But a good mate is a good mate :)

I made plans to meet up with J that weekend. We decided on the Greyhound which I hadn't been to in ages. And when I say ages I mean at least a year! Back then it wasn't the greatest place, but they'd done a renovation since then so I was curious to check it out. Of course then S texts me asking if I wanna go to the greyhound. So the night turns into a 3some (no not what you're thinking). I drove there with S and we had a drink till J showed up fashioinably late. Mmm what can I say, he's a really nice guy and it was a really enjoyable night. Drinks, dancefloor, drinks on the dancefloor (you don't wanna know), sometimes 2 of us, sometimes 3 of us. J and I stayed till they closed at 3. What else is there to do when you a place like that at 3am? Get a kebab from next door of course!

Now i'm not one to get carried away, but he was a nice guy :) Fast forward to the next morning where I made my way home... and that's the end of that episode. More coming soon!

The date from hell... that wasn't

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:21:00 +0000

Just so we're clear, it wasn't a date. Now that's out of the way I can begin.

A guy messages me on gaydar, and of course we start chatting a bit. As you know i'm keen to meet new people and make new friends, so why not. He lived in the northern suburbs but one weekend he told me he was going to be near where I live, so we made plans to meet. I suggested a drink, he said how about coffee? And coffee it was to be.

We planned to meet at Chocolateria San Churro which is best described as a chain of chocolate cafes, which in addition to the usual cafe fare they have Spanish hot chocolate and churros, I've loved churros ever since I first had then in Buenos Aires. There is one on Chapel St which is close by.

Well I got there, and the place was packed, and he was sitting on a bench nearby so we got a table outside. I had a hot chocolate, he didn't want anything. We this is going to go great I thought. He was honestly one of the rudest people i've ever met. For starters he cruised every single cute guy that walked past. Actually, make that every guy. He didn't just check them out, he literally stared at them. Literally turning his head as they walked by. I mean really?!

Things didn't get better at all. He was an Aussie but of French/Palestinian heritage and had lived both in France and Gaza for many years. He was wearing one of the Yasser Araft teatowels as a scarf, lol. I didn't tell him I was Jewish, I figured he might press the detonator.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not a racist person. I'm generally a very friendly person and get along well with most people. But this guy was just an asshole. Apparently he doesn't get on with anglos well because all they do is drink and think about where their next drink will be. He gets along more with people from a similar background to him. He also said he didn't have many friends and then told me about one of his good friends he'd planned on meeting up with but they had to cancel. Then it turned out this friend was a cousin.

One of the great quotes of the night was that he would only become friends with a) people he could have an intelligent conversation with (which is a bit overboard but whatever) and b) people that were open to his political views and beliefs. Within 15 minutes of meeting him he'd already told me his thoughts on September 11, the wars on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that Israel was killing all the Palestinians. He worked in pharmaceuticals so I'm sure he had something to do with chemical weapons R&D, lol.

I was dying to get out of there (lest he detonate, lol) it was just too awkward. Any conversation between us was started by me, otherwise we would've sat in silence. After almost an hour I figured enough was enough, and we went our separate ways. And he wonders why he has no friends....

Had it been a date, I would've called it the date from hell. Alas it was just a random stranger from gaydar who probably will never have any friends unless his social skills improve immensely. The moral of the story is to try to be more picky when it comes to meeting random people for a bevvy. Or just chat more before you decide to meet. And maybe stick to people on this side of the river :) I'm glad though in further blog posts things have improved immensely.

Jay

God save the queens

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Well the time had arrived for my next overseas jaunt. This time to London. It had come sooner than expected, only about 4 months after i'd returned from my previous trip, but when one of your best friends gets married, how can you not go? It was going to be a fairly quick trip. Quick in the that it was taking me over 24 hours to fly each way, yet I was only staying for 8 days.

I used miles for the trip and flew in business class, which was a hoot :) Nothing like actually getting some decent sleep on board, plus decent food and wines (and champagne!). The only problem is how will I ever fly in economy ever again?!

As is per usual, I packed like I was going overseas for a month, not just a week. You never know when you might need all those items of clothing, and it's London at the end of spring. It could be warm, it could be cold, it could be rainy, it could be a heatwave, it could be a blizzard. Well maybe i'm getting carried away but I think I had 6 or 7 pairs of shoes with me. Told you I overpack.

Anyway, the day had arrived. I finished work, finished packing and then it was airport time. Another reason I love travelling in business class is there's less hassle. Faster checkin, faster immigration (sometimes), faster baggage on arrival, and you can chillax in the lounge, which is exactly where I went after check in. As one does, I got a glass of wine and checked out grindr. Got chatting to a guy who was in a different lounge. I was flying to Bangkok and he to Hong Kong.

Eventually they called for boarding and off we went. A nice 4 course meal was served, and then a nice long sleep before arriving into Bangkok. I had a decent amount of connection time so I was able to check out the lounges (and have a very welcome shower) and the spa. Had an awesome neck and shoulder massage, complimentary because i'm a VIP (or maybe just I was flying in business class). The next flight was more of the same and what felt like an eternity later we finally landed in Heathrow. It actually was like an eternity because it was almost 30 hours from departure to landing.

From the time I landed I was constantly on the go. A girl at work had lived in London for 10 years so she gave me a list of places to go to (she also told me drugs were cheap in London if I was into that kind of stuff lol). I got to my hotel and told me the groom's family were waiting for me at a nearby restaurant. With the bucks party, wedding related events and meals both pre and post-wedding, meeting a long lost relative for dinner one night, time was of the essence. I toured during the day, meeting up with friends, checking out some sights. I was walking along Saville Row one afternoon and popped into the Ben Sherman store. As I walked out there was a parking inspector outside, who asked me if I owned the Bentley parked there. I wish!

I even went on a bar crawl through Soho (albeit during an afternoon). A mate of mine is a bartender there so knows his way around :) Getting pissed during the day wasn't intentional, but gladly it sort of wore off by the time I went to a dinner party that night. I also saw the show Legally Blonde at the Savoy theatre with a friend and really enjoyed it. We were going to see Lord of the Flies at the open air theatre but the only day with bad weather nixed that plan.

Unfortunately the fun had to end eventually and I left, determined to visit again someday.

Now that's over, I can stop writing posts where I did this and this and that and move onto more serious things :)

Catch ya later

We're all living in Amerika, Amerika ist wunderbar

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 14 May 2011 12:43:00 +0000

Hi,

I have no idea how many posts this will take, but it's about time I posted about my 'recent' trip to the US. It's not exactly so recent any more, but no better time like the present. Especially since i fly out on another trip in 3 days!

So where do we begin... getting on a plane in Melbourne, to fly to Sydney, to fly to San Francisco where i got felt up by the TSA. That was great. I could've gotten the same thing done to me by some guy on Manhunt and gotten paid for it! Welcome to the USA. Well the next flight was better, especially with free wifi for 5.5 hours. But really what is there to do, even with wifi? Email, facebook, grindr, facebook, grindr, email, grindr, facebook. I followed my flight tried to get some sleep to. It was actually fun using grindr because the wifi signal had me at SFO, so people would message me things like "I'm at the Hyatt SFO, where are you?" And my reply would be something like "I'm in a plane somewhere over Nebraska :)"

I had 2.5 weeks in NYC and other than a few set things i didn't make major plans. I had a friend's wedding to attend (that was the major reason for the trip), i had family to visit, friends to see from when I was living over there a year earlier. It was gonna be great!

I rented a car and drove to a friend's place in manhattan where i was crashing during my stay. Another reason I rented a car because i'd planned on spending the next day shopping at an outlet mall. And shop i did, filling up the trunk of my car! I'd gotten a sim card so my iphone would work, alas it didn't. Gotta sort this out, but have no time!

I had a JQY meeting that night, which was perfect timing, seeing all my old friends was great! Of course afterwards was the obligatory drinks at the Candlebar, and meeting up with those straight people who don't attend JQY stuff.

It was a great night but I needed to get home so I could pack a small bag as I was heading to Boston for the weekend. A friend of mine was in college up there so thought it'd be great to head up and see him. and what fun we had, i took the boltbus up, and ended up sitting next to a jewish italian chick who was freaking hilarious. At the stop she called her mum to tell her all about the gay jewish aussie she'd met :)

Boston was a blast. Dinner at the Paramount, drinks at the beehive with a bunch of his friends, back to his place at Louisberg square to sleep (yes to sleep!), brunch at the Beacon Hill Hotel, ice skating at the Frog Pond, and then back to the station for the bus ride home. And met a cool guy in Rhode Island on grindr, but that's another story.

I made some plans to meet up with a random facebook friend that night for a drink but i screwed that up. Train took longer than I planned and by the time I got there he'd gone and my phone still wasn't working so had no way to let him know. I ended up at Starbucks and chilled with a cappucino before making the ride back home.

I got home and at 2am the neighbours decided it was time to party. I know it's saturday night but really?!? I updated my facebook status "so the neighbours are having a party at 2am. Is it some dominican or puerto rican holiday or something?" Well of course it was as I was informed soon after that if they are Mexican or Hispanic origin that day was the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe. Not like i need sleep anyway.

The next day was a hectic day, shopping, meeting my jewish african american friend for dinner (mu mum loves her, lol) and then off clubbing. First Griffin, and when that finished, off with a bunch of randoms to Greenhouse. Love Sundays in NYC :) and made it back at about 6am.

The next day was a trip to Looooooooong Island to visit some family. Great to see them but it went so quick it felt like it was over before it started. Of course the rest of the week meant lots of shopping, and visiting starbucks for their wifi because my phone still wasn't working! Argh! So annoying. And of course meeting up with friends for either a coffee, or dinner. At the end of the week it was time for the bucks party (or bachelors party as american's call it) which was fun and not too crazy. I met a friend for drinks at the Stonewall Inn and went with another one to Duplex to see a show which was hilarious. I went to a friend's birthday party at Plunge at the Gansevoort Hotel which was really cool.

Of course then was the wedding which was great. It was in Jersey, and that was really the main reason for my trip, with all the parties involved with the wedding, from shabbat before, meals, kiddushim and then the wedding. Was really glad i went. Of course then my mate's wife want to hang out with me and get to know me because she has a bunch of single friends. I told him to tell the bad news that i wouldn't be interested.

I was busy being a bit of a foodie, lots of food, eating at restaurants, even some kosher ones ;) exploring the city, the obligatory visit to Splash one night, how could i not! It was Twink Tuesdays, lol. The next night was another barhop with another friend i used to hang with. Wednesday nights always began at the Phoenix, then pizza at Artichoke (can't remmber the exact name but it was good!) And ended the night at boxers for a nightcap. Didn't want too late a night as the next day was a busy day so made it back home at a bout 3am-ish.

The next night was one big party i'd planned on attending - The Jewbillee - which was a gay jewish xmas eve party being held at Slate. Well it wasn't quite on Xmas eve because that ended up being on a Friday, so the party was on a thursday which mean everyone could come :) One of my random fb friends from Oz was visiting and asked if i was attending the party. Hell yeah i was! And so was he, so we made plans to finally meet up. The party was great, met up with a bunch of other friends I hadn't seen yet, and some other facebook randoms. And then my hot Aussie friend showed up. We drank, we danced, ended up pashing on the dancefloor. I'm bad, really bad. Though another of my friends did congratulate me on sealing the deal. Umm that's not quite sealing the deal, and no I won't be elaborating on that ;)

My last few days were to be spent on Long Island with family before heading to JFK just before the big blizzard was supposed to arrive. Of course time with family means a discussion on homosexuality and being questioned about my refusal to see a psychologist who could 'fix' my 'problem'. FML.

The day of my departure it started snowing in the morning, it hadn't snowed once the entire time I was there. I was scheduled on one of the last flights out of there. Sitting onboard, listening to air traffic control (united channel 9, love it), we deiced, taxied to the runway, only for it to be closed so it could be plowed, headed back to the gate for de-icing again. But eventually with the weather getting worse they cancelled the flight and the airport shut down. Well that was great, what happens now? I went back to checkin to get rebooked. With all the cancellations the earliest I could be rebooked was for a week later. Glad travel insurance came in handy, as they covered my accomodation and meal expenses for the rest of the week.

So no more staying with friends and family, time for a hotel. Once it stopped snowing I realised i needed boots. So of course I went shopping! Found some hot blue gumboots, just what frosty the snowman ordered.
I was there for a week and could do as I pleased. I played good samaritan one night when my Aussie friend (aka pasher on the dancefloor) got locked out of the place he was staying and offered up half my bed, yes i'm a gentleman.

Of course I did more shopping, as if my suitcases weren't full enough already. I went to Bryant Park and the stalls there (the hot apple cider really hit the spot). after a few days on the east side I decided to move to Chelsea. Just because I could. And of course now I could attend all the things I was going to miss out on had I not been stuck the extra week. A great friday night dinner in Washington Heights with some friends, the obligatory brunch at Intermezzo in Chelsea, dinner at Elmo, and a post NYE party where I had to wear something that sparkles. Not having my club gear with me I decided on some glitter. It must've worked wonders as the girl in the elevator with me asked if I was also going to the Phish concert. Nope. The Party was fun, then onto Therapy for another birthday party and lots of drinking and then back home.

A good nights sleep with my last minute packing and getting upgraded to business class for the 20+ hour trip home. Life is great :)

What on earth do these people think?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:11:00 +0000

People are funny. I'm amazed what comes up in conversation with others when we're discussing the whole homosexuality thing. Things that are told to me about gay people that are supposedly facts.

I had a huge discussion with a sibling and the stuff that came out of his mouth... wow. I don't know what else to say. Besides the usual crap such as the whole point of life is to get married and have kids, i learnt all these new things about gay people, such as: Men turn gay in prison since they hang around other men too long and shag them. Gay people have thousands of sexual partners (maybe he had stumbled onto my little black book ;) ) I mean really?! That's like 3 different partners a week for your entire life! Although in the past he has informed me that gays have a life expectancy of 42 years (catholic websites are great for something), so given our lives are so short, we have to fit the thousands of sexual partners in a shorter amount of time. No wonder i'm so tired at work!

Another gem was that the norm amongst gay people is to have an open relationship. Yes, because we don't have stable relationships, we sleep around. I'm not saying open relationships don't exist, and maybe it's more prevalent in the homosexual community than the heterosexual community (and i might be totally wrong there) but thats the norm?!? Jesus fucking christ. It seems i'm wasting my breath even having a basic discussion with them on this issue because they're so ignorant. Bloody religious nuts.

And i've saved the best for last. Apparently they wanted me to meet with a homeopath, to see if this person could help with my 'problem'. What on earth made him think a homepath could change me? Well he'd been to a homeopath for some other treatment so why could a homepath try to work on this? And the kicker was, i didn't even need to tell the homopath I was gay, just to meet him and see if he could figure it out himself. I love games, but this was ridiculous!

The fact of the matter is, as far as i'm concerned anyone who claims they can 'fix' me, is nothing but a

Until next time, have a great week.
J

Well hello there stranger!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:20:00 +0000

I cannot believe it has been 2 nearly 3 months since I last posted. It hasn't been so much a planned hiatus, i've just been extremely busy, with summer holidays and work and blogging just keeps on being pushed back. Today is Valentines Day, the day where people shower with their significant other with flowers and gifts (if you're lucky). Or if you're single you get nothing, but you have to read through all the bloody facebook posts of your friends who got stuff - yeah you with the huge box of maltesers, i'm talking to you.

Today is also National Condom Day. So just a reminder to all of you, play, but play safely. And get tested regularly because you can never be too careful. I'm sure you're expecting me to regale you with a story of how I hooked up with some random guy, and then found a bottle of pills at his place and thinking he had something and consulting Dr Google and getting all worried and getting tested and finding out I did have something minor that needed to get treated and needed some antibiotics but i was out of town for work and to find a doctor or clinic that could see me and prescribe something was hell on earth. But I won't.

So happy valentines day :)

It gets better - the gay orthodox jew version

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:37:00 +0000

Hi,

It's been a while since i've posted and i'll do a longer post soon but i wanted to post this video, starring some of my friends back in New York. It was part of the 'It Gets Better' project started by Dan Savage in response to the spate of suicides of young gay kids in the US.

For more information on The Trevor Project visit www.thetrevorproject.org

Catch ya later!

Single? Dating? Relationship? My priorities, or lack thereoff

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:35:00 +0000

For once lets talk about something serious. I'm currently single, and have been since I broke up with Mr Z over a year ago. It's been fun, but life wasn't means to be lived as a bachelor. I always thought that when the time came to get serious and actually start dating i'd want to date someone Jewish. It just made a lot of sense, someone with a similar background would quite possibly click better than someone who wasn't. It's also mean we probably shared important things, e.g. Jewish holidays or whatever.

Of course before we even get to that point some things need to change. For example my living situation. It's been good while it lasted, but now that I know i'm sticking around this city and not transferring elsewhere for work or anything, it's time to move out. Of course the question is where and with who? Gay or straight? Male or female? There was the idea of moving in with a friend whose roommate moved out, but that didn't work out, so it's time to start searching.

But getting back to the topic at hand. Dating someone jewish. It's certainly alot harder than it sounds. I know plenty of gay jews, just not many living in this city (or country for that matter). A relatively small jewish population means a relatively small gay jewish population. There are of course a bunch in the closet too. There's a jewish gay group called Aleph (and also one called young aleph) but to be honest I don't have much to do with them.

I mix with a different crowd. I tend to hang out with non jewish gay guys, and therefore I have more non jewish gay friends here than jewish ones (well thats not really hard because i barely have any jewish ones). So it only makes sense that it would lead to something more. I've held myself back from 'dating' any, and from the start i let people know i'm looking for mates but not dates, but i'm considering changing that.

Not that anyone I date will necessary be a long term proposal, and i know this sounds weird but i'd like to get some experience under my belt. And if things go well, well good for me :) I know how i'd like things to end up if I lived in an ideal world but I don't live in ideal world. I live in the real world and I think I need to make the best of the situation i find myself in.

Am I taking things a step too far? I'd love to know what you think.
J

Why I love Grindr (and no it's not what you're thinking)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:01:00 +0000

I can't believe it's been about 5 weeks since I last posted, I really need to work on this! This post is about why I love grindr, but also why sometimes I hate it.

One of the big differences i've found between living in New York and living in Melbourne is the social scene. Of course when everyone asks me how the social scene is here they mean the dating scene (i.e. girls). Been there, done that. I'm talking about friends. Straight, gay, jewish, not-jewish. I loved New York because of the amazing social scene. I had a lot of gay jewish friends. Here, not so much. Less jews = less gay jews. And the gay jews that are here, well i just don't really mix with them, which isn't really a big deal. It just meant I had to spread my wings a little. And spread my wings I did. There were alot of online introductions, through facebook, manhunt and gaydar. Yes I know that most people think of manhunt as a place to hookup and gaydar I think is more of a place to find dates but i used them, successfully, for other purposes. I was looking for friends, and anything extra was a bonus.

I went through the paces, chatting, meeting for a drink, etc. I met some really good friends on manhunt, and my social life seems to revolve around a close few friends - a couple gay guys I met on manhunt and an old straight friend from school. Well it seemed to revolve around these few, but all that is changing. One has moved overseas, one is moving overseas in the next couple of months to live and the 3rd has his visa approved ready to move overseas for a year or 2. Which means pretty soon my close social circle of 4 will become a social circle of 1.

Obviously I'd be wanting to make some new friends. Manhunt isn't bad, but i've lost count the number of times I've been chatting to someone and brought up meeting for a drink. Thats when I hear that when their profile says 'Melbourne' it means Lilydale, or Greensborough or some other outer suburb. Aka woop woop (for you non Aussies you might want to google that term). I live in the inner suburbs and travelling 45+ minutes to meet up with someone for a drink or anything else is just nuts.

And thats why I like grindr. The people you chat to are people that are nearby. They're sorted in order of distance, and they could be a s little as 50 or 100 metres away (give or take a margin of error). It's certainly known for it's 'hookup' abilities, but there's more than enough guys using it for other purposes. I've met some nice normal people on there, add them to those I meet using facebook and I suddenly have a social life again!

Of course there is a downside to it. Because of the whole instant nature of it all I think people take it less seriously. You'll make plans with someone on there, and something else comes up and they'll raincheck you. After all, you'll always be there, it was only a 'grindr meet' after all, whether that means a drink, a shag, whatever. So grindr can suck after all, or maybe it's just the people that use grindr.

J

Fucking Yikes!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:03:00 +0000

I know I just posted but I wanted to share this. I came across this while reading some blogs and the image's title was fucking yikes. I couldn't agree more! (props to rg-dulceypeligroso.blogspot.com who I stole it from)

Friends, romans, countrymen

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:52:00 +0000

Well maybe romans doesn't quite fit in there. Since i've moved back to Australia I knew I needed to make some headway regarding my gay social life. When I was living in New York I had a huge crowd of gay (and straight) friends and was never in need of finding people to hang with. Coming back though, I realised i need to make some local gay friends. And I did. Many of them were just random people. Some i met online, either using facebook or manhunt or gaydar. Yeah that's right, manhunt and gaydar too. It actually worked out quite well.

Of those i've made a few really good friends. Friends I hang out with alot, whose company I really enjoyed. Someone to talk to if I just really needed to vent with someone. One even managed to fall into the category of a good friend, which also had some added benefits to that friendship ;) . But all that seems to be coming to an end. By the end of the year I'll have 3 good friends that have all left Australia and will be living on 3 different continents. One of these has already left and the other 2 will be leaving in coming months. It has really made me realise how much work i need to do.

You really don't realise how good you have it, until you don't have it anymore...

And the winner is... Sydney!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:04:00 +0000

This is going to be a long post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

So there I was heading away for a long weekend, my first pleasure trip in almost 6 months. The idea had popped up a couple months earlier. A friend was going away himself and suggested I come with. Well I sat on it for at least a month, thinking naaaah it ain't happening. But eventually I thought why on earth not?! I need a change of scenery. So I looked into flights, accommodation, and everything else i'll need. I'd be there from the Friday to the Monday. He's be spending time with family so we'd hang out together sometime, and do our own thing sometime. Sounded perfect to me :) . I had some friends up there I wanted to hang with too. Some i'd been friends with for a while, and one was just some random guy I met on gaydar (yeah i know how that sounds, but really it's not what you think!) By the time I actually got my act together to actually book, my flights and hotel cost me a pretty penny, but it was well worth it. I had a hotel in CBD for the first night, then off to Darlinghurst for the rest and things actually turned out pretty well, even though I was told I should be staying in Darlinghurst for Friday night (thanks for the tip Mr Sydney). Once I had the hotel booked, I joined their frequent guest program, found a code to get free elite status on google, which gives free upgrades. Let's see if it works.

The thing with Mr Sydney was, well complicated. That is if you'd understood what on earth i'd been blabbering about in my last few posts. I didn't actually tell him I was coming for a visit. After everything that happened, I wasn't sure I even wanted to see him. It wasn't that i was intentionally keeping it a secret from him i just didn't tell him. Or maybe I was, subconsciously. Anyway, back on topic, i posted a status update that I was counting down. Of course I was asked counting to what and i reply i'm heading away for the long weekend. Well of course then Mr Sydney, who's my friend on facebook, asked where I was going. Well of course his ex is also my friend on there, replied matter of factly "Sydney of course, where else do you go for a long weekend!" Well of course Mr. Sydney comes back with "is he really? funny that he didnt tell me????" Well we got chatting, he was going away on the Saturday and invited me to pop by Friday night. I had plans, but i told him i'd see. He was heading away from the Saturday morning so it was Friday night or never.

Packing for a weekend away is almost impossible. I probably packed enough for an entire week, if not more. But better too much than not enough :) It was always a matter of should I wear this or that? And once I decide, should I wear this belt or that belt and this pair of shoes or that one? Maybe i'm a bit of a clothes freak, but it was good to have someone around to advise me. "Wear this, it'd look great on you. No wait, this would look amaaaaazing." lol.

The day arrived, I was going to head straight to the airport from work. I had made plans to hang out with someone that night, so it looked like I was gonna be a busy boy over there. As far as anyone was aware I was leaving work midday in order to arrive before the sabbath. Um yeah like that was gonna happen. I left work a couple hours early and headed to the airport. Traffic was horrendous on the way in and I was concerned about missing my flight. Of course i made it, and sat down at the gate waiting for boarding. They announced boarding, and everyone got in line. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. Periodically they would say the pilot was just finishing up checks and we'd be boarding in a few minutes. At one point there was an announcement throughout the terminal of a gate change for a flight to Brisbane. Their new gate was gate 3. Which is where we were all waiting to board. They better not be stealing our plane, I thought. But in a few minutes, well whad'ya know. they announced our flight was cancelled. Fuck. There goes my carefully made plans. Then they announced that everyone should go to baggage claim to collect their bags and back to to checkin to get rebooked. Double fuck for those who checked bags, but I didn't. I went straight up to the desk and asked if I could get on the next flight. I'd never seen someone type that fast on a keyboard, seriously, it was like someone typing and then pressing fast forward. Within a minute I was rebooked on a flight leaving an hour after my original departure. As I left the gate area I noticed a line of people behind me, obviously thinking the same thing I was but just weren't as quick. An announcement was heard telling them it'd be quicker just to go back to checkin than to wait in line. Thank goodness for good ideas and speed :)

I went to the gate of my next flight and sat down to wait. Then someone else from my original flight arrived too. She looked so familiar, but I wasn't sure where I recognised her from. It turned out she was Janelle Bloom of Ready Steady Cook fame. We were joined by another couple of women, and just sat there talking. Ms Bloom had been at the airport for hours, one flight after another got delayed or cancelled. But she's putting out a new cookbook in time for Xmas. But back to the story at hand, we finally boarded, took off, landed, and got my shuttle to my hotel.

At checkin I was offered an upgrade for X amount of dollars. "But aren't I supposed to get a free upgrade with my elite hotel status?" Why yes you are. Haha, score :) I got in touch with the guy I was gonna hang out with, he was at work drinks in the city, so being in the CBD was perfect. I showered, changed and met him in the lobby and we started walking. I don't know where were going, but we just started walking. I texted Mr Sydney that i had plans and wouldn't be making it, and another friend too. We picked a Japanese place for dinner, and the world cup opening ceremony was on the TV in the corner there was an interesting mix of background music. Anyway, after a teriyaki salmon bento box it was off to the Columbian.

Now don't get me wrong, I had fun there, the music just reminded me of an 80's night somewhere. Anyway the company was good, and with a few beers who was even thinking about the music? A mate of his joined us later in the night, and he seemed like he'd had quite a few to drink. From there the next place we hit was the Palms, where his mate wasn't allowed in, lol.. It may have looked a bit cheesy but that was my kind of music, drinks, dancing, eventually he called it a night and I was left alone. It wasn't long until people tried to make a move on me, and I realised yeah that's why I don't like going out alone.

I left and walked back to my hotel at about 3-ish and was really looking forward to a nice comfy sleep. Rise and shine, the hotel was fully booked that night so I couldn't get a full extended late checkout that I was entitled to thanks to my elite status, but i got an extra couple of hours which was more than enough. I didn't have firm plans for the day, i had a few possibilities including one i'd texted the previous night. He was at yoga, but we organised to go have brunch somewhere. I got my shit together and checked out. All the flight attendants from Virgin Atlantic were checking out and heading to the airport for their flight to Hong Kong and London. Their was a cute one, too bad I didn't know he was in the hotel till he checked out ;) It was a beautiful saturday morning, the sun was out, it was fairly warm (at least compared to Melbourne on a wintery June day).

He picked me up and we went to a sushi place he'd discovered. And I must say, it was really good sushi! From there we stopped at his place, picked up another friend of his and it was off to the Museum of Contemporary Art. What a nice way to spend a saturday afternoon, some fairly interesting artwork, some were interesting as in cool, others were interesting as in WTF?! Walking along Circular Quay, we got some gelati and then went to one of his fave places to have a coffee and a shmooze. And shmooze we did until it was time to meet one of my other mates at the hotel in Darlinghurst where i'd be staying for the rest of my trip. Once there we made plans to meet up with some of his friends. There was just enough time to chill out abit, have some fun, and shower and change.

We met at the Green Park Hotel, which has lost its beer garden area out the back thanks the expansion at St Vincents Hospital. Well it seems they own the area so they can do what they bloody well want. Shame though. We I met some of his good mates, we had a drink, then went around the corner to Fish Face for dinner, great food, a nice bottle of wine. And funnily enough popped back into the Green Park Hotel for another drink afterwards. It was then back to the hotel (the Medusa btw). At one point I was told by my friend that his friends were looking at getting some 'stuff' for the events of the next day. They didn't want to ask me directly but would I be interested? I've experimented with a few different things in my time, so why the hell not? Some went for some 'biscuits' - ecstasy, but most just went for some GHB, or as they called them 'fish'. I'd been a good boy my whole life, never really did drugs at all, never bought the stuff ever. I had no idea how much this was going to be, or what it was going to be like. But i was game. Then it was ready for a good nights sleep.

Up at a normal hour the next day it was time for brunch. We had decided on Petrol the night before, so that's where we met to eat and plan the rest of the day. The sun was out, it was a beautiful warm day. Lots of things to admire in the street. Some good food and then shopping on Oxford St through Paddington. Lots of walking and browsing before we decided to head back. Now I discovered the reason they were called 'fish' was because it was in liquid form and the way they would be transported would be in those little soy sauce bottles in the shape of a fish that you get with sushi. So it was off to find some fish, i.e. a place that sold sushi. We stopped at a number of places, but no luck. It was back to the hotel, where I thought i'd relax before we went to Fierce Angel later that afternoon, my mate met up with some friends of his for lunch. He returned with some sushi, and some fish. Forget the fish, the sushi was spectacular. The best sushi i've ever had!

Fierce Angel was an afternoon party, dunno what was up with that, but it was supposed to go from 2pm till 10pm. There was no way were going that early. We were aiming for a 4-5pm arrival. Enough time to get changed and pick up the stuff. I must say it was much cheaper than i thought it would be. And my inexperience shone through when I needed instructions on what I was supposed to do with the stuff. No alcohol, and it's bitter so empty the fish into a bit of juice and swallow. Easy enough. I had 2 of them with me, and each was supposed to last a couple hours or so.

And off we went. We got in and it was fairly empty. I know it was still light outside, but why on earth would they start at 2pm if no-one would show up? Well we sat down and just hung out. Checked out the scene, the guys. Other than a couple cute boys (i called dibs on #12 and i don't care that he was with his bf. #9 was a close second!). The one thing that would've made it better would've been alcohol. Only I couldn't have any bloody alcohol with the fish. FML. But i wasn't taking any fish yet either. So what do you do to pass the time? You have a non alcoholic drink. You go outside for some food. Pie Face anyone? But there's only so many time you can do that. Eventually people started arriving, it began filling up. I found a few friends that had arrived and it started turning into somewhat of a party. Music was going eventually it was time to try a fish. Got a bit of OJ, headed to the bathroom as there was security around. Pulled out my fish, emptied it into the glass and swallowed. Tasted really bitter, but it come with the territory. Lets see what happens. Waited and waited and waited for something to hit me. And it never arrived. WTF? I did not just abstain from alcohol these past few hours for some shit that doesn't work did I?

At one point I texted a mate of mine, who was a party animal btw, and told him I'd taken some G. His response was something like "You've had some G?!?!? I've just fallen off my chair!" He then turned into my drug advisor. You haven't had any alcohol, right? Right, but it didn't do anything! Did you take enough? I dunno, i took a fish. Well you're a big guy, maybe it wasn't full and you need more. Nah it was full. How did you take it? With a bit of OJ. Well of course it sucked! OJ is the mother of all fuckups when it comes to drugs. Maybe I should been asking him for advice the entire time. So what should I take it with? Just a bit of gatorade. Well this is a bar, they don't have gatorade. Red Bull? Now that they had. Well at least now I knew what to do, and I still had some left. A while later at about 8:50, when the effects we supposed to have worn off, i decided to take my second lot. I got some red bull, did the same thing and went back on to the dancefloor and danced while waiting for the magic. Now this was better!

At 9pm the DJ thanked everyone for coming and said their was an afterparty across the street at 10pm. What? It's over? It was supposed to go till 10pm! and I just had my fish! Jesus! Well that was shithouse. I effectively wasted both my fish. What can I see it was a fun walk back to the hotel. My friends were going to Matinee later on, but i had other plans (i know i can't believe I didn't go to Matinee either!) I'd made plans to meet some a couple of friends later down Oxford St. Well not exactly my friends, they were friends of Mr Sydney that i'd sort of become friends with, had never met but wanted to. Until then we all hung back at the hotel, me on the freaking G, what a waste.

We all headed off to wherever we were going, I was stone cold sober at this point and was hoping the rest of the night would turn out better. I was supposed to meet them at the Palms. I had a bite to eat first and then got to the Palms where there was a queue. Oh well, a queue is a queue. About 20 minutes later I was in, but i couldn't find them. I got a drink and sent a text. "Oh the queue was too long, so we just went to the Stonewall". Great, it seemed nothing tonight was going according to plan.

I headed over to the Stonewall, of the 2 guys only 1 was there yet. He was with some other friends too. It turns out that the 2 guys were going to some party that was sold out, so it was suggested that I go with the other guys to a thing called Gaybash (bash as in party not bash as in i'm gonna bash the shit outta you). And since it'd take us some time to get in, friend #2 was on his way and they'd pop by to say hi. Well what do you know, they never showed, so I ended up going to Gaybash with these 3 guys i'd never met before. And it wasn't that great, there were a couple levels, the music sucked on one, was ok on the other, and the line at the bar was like five people deep the entire length of the bar. All in all, after a while I just gave up and went home. Hanging out with friends is one thing, but friends of friends? I'll try to remember next time to pass on that.

Back at the hotel I just watched some shitty late night TV while waiting for the arrival of my 'roommate'. He quite enjoyed Matinee, and I'm sure I would've too. The next day was our last day in town. We all met up at some place for breakfast after checking out. There were so many good little cafes around it was great! A hearty breakfast was followed by a walk through Kings Cross to Elizabeth Bay House. Nice gardens, great view of the harbour. And we just chilled there for a while. As the sun dipped behind some buildings and it cooled down we decided to head off. One of us was hungry, so we stopped by another cafe-ish place. One had a wine, one a tea and a beer for myself, just taking in the last of the Sydney air i'll be enjoying for a while. From there the 4 of us split up. One was heading to the airport but my flight wasn't till later that evening so I just decided to roam the streets a bit. Of course i updated my status to see if anyone was around, and popped into that sushi place for some delectable fish, rice and seaweed to have a bit later.

It was still a bit early, but with nothing doing, I thought i'd head to the airport, maybe get on an earlier flight. Well at checkin, guess who is standing in front of me with his boyfriend? It's funny enough bumping into shag buddies on the train to work, but at the airport in another city? Bloody hell! Of course I didn't say a word because I didn't want to get him into trouble. Had the flights not been full I would've got on an earlier flight, but to no avail that night. Looks like I had time to hang out in the gate lounge enjoying my sushi. And it was divine :) Arriving back in Melbourne it was a chilly 5 degrees. I already wanted to be back in Sydney.

stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:15:00 +0000

You may remember a person I blogged about last year. Someone that discovered who I was yet refused to tell me his identity.I guess that's what happens when you assume things about someone. He was just some random jewish guy who'd found my blog and we chatted a bit. I told him some things about me that would probably mean nothing to most people. I assumed he was American (well it probably has the most english speaking jews in the world). But as it turned out he wasn't. He actually lived near my home back in Australia. So i told him a few things that would mean nothing to most people. Only with a bit of investigating he was able to solve it.

Fast forward a few months and i'm back home. And what do you know, 2 can play at that game. Well i figured out who he was, so we're on a level playing field, lol. But i was over the whole thing, well not over it, but over being pissed off about it. I started bumping into him in shule every now and them. Eventually it was time to actually meet up. He picked a place, a cafe that was pretty outta the way (outta the way in that it wasn't in jewcentral), where we met one Sunday morning for coffee. We just sat and talked, about anything and everything. Before you knew about 3 hours had passed. This weekend is gonna be part 2. He wants to write a post in my blog. Lets see what he comes up with.

Jay
P.S. next post is about my trip to sydney, you don't wanna miss this!

I like you. I hate you. I like you... I guess I hate you

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:11:00 +0000

A slightly edited letter I sent to him way back...

Well i don't know where to begin, this would've been so much better said in person months ago, but better now than never. I've tried phoning to talk but i'm a complete wuss. I've had this going through my head since then, i can't explain why it's taken this long. It's about sydney, and it may bring up things that you aren't interested in hearing, but i need to clear it up once and for all, for me. I hope you get through to the end without pressing delete.

For the record i wasn't pissed off at you that you cancelled on me again that night in sydney. Ok i wasn't as pissed off about that as i was about something else. In fact if you hadn't cancelled on me that night i would've been asking what the fuck was wrong with you? Yeah we had plans but this is your _____ we're talking about, ______ was in hospital and needed you and there was no way i expected you to put me before _____. It was more the way you did it. After what happened in NY i was kind of hoping for something more. Yeah NY was a screwup, but again what made it worse was the way it happened. You were going nuts about losing your phones, but even had you not lost them i have my doubts whether i would've gotten to see you. We had plans, but first you were going to visit X & Y. which turned into dinner with X & Y, which turned into drinks with X & Y. It was like I was nothing more than your backup plan, if you had nothing to do, then you get me, otherwise if something better comes along, well forget about me. That's what bothered me the most.

Clearly i'm too sensitive about these things, but i brushed it all off. Shit happens, there'll be another time. And there was. It was really great to see you in down here. And then when sydney came up i jumped at the chance. Only it didn't turn out as i'd hoped. I mean for one thing that night did you have to cancel via sms? After all those messages that you're looking forward, and then you were leaving work, and then you have to cancel? A call would've been nice. And even doing it by sms, did you even think what you were writing? Instead of telling me that you HAVE to help ____ out and you HAVE to _______ and i HAVE to understand (i did understand, i'm not a prick) how about something like i'm sorry that i have to cancel on you again. It would've gone a heck of a lot further. An 'i wish we could've caught up' would've done the trick too.

Maybe i'm just asking for too much, but all i wanted was some kind of indication that you actually had an interest in hanging out, rather than you were only doing it because almost every other time we'd made plans i'd gotten stuffed around, or because you knew i wanted to see you and had made the trip up to sydney. And i never really got it. You weren't the sole reason for my trip, but you were part of it. I was going to make the trip over xmas/New Years when i had friends off from work. Then i thought what the fuck was the point of going to sydney if you were overseas?

Ok getting back to the point. Maybe i pay too much attention to things you tell me, and you did say you'd have more time for me over the weekend than during the week, so i let all slide, thinking eventually i'd hear from you. One day passed, 2 days passed, 3 days pass, and nothing. I have people people asking me if i saw you, if i'd been hanging out with you, if i'd heard back from you yet. Heck, even my mother asked if hung out with you when i got back. But eventually i practically gave up, and went out. I updated my status that I was in ________. And thats when i hear from you. Sometimes i wonder if you hadn't seen that i was around there, if you would've actually bothered to get in touch. And thats when i let you have it. I'm sorry i went nuts at you then but i was seriously pissed.

The fact is i'm a suck, and i like you, and wish this whole thing never happened and we were still friends. You're not interested in dealing with any drama and i get that. I'm not sure what i expect with this, i needed to vent, it was 2 long fucking months with this shit flying around in my head. What you do with it is up to you, if you reply or if you choose never to get in touch again, so be it. I'm glad things are working out with you and the bf and your family and work. I really am, and i'm sorry you have to deal with all my drama.

Have a good night, and i leave the ball in your court.

That was it. I never did get a response. I just don't understand him. And i'm completely over it. I think

Well of course there's always a postscript. A few months later and funnily enough we're still in touch. On one hand occasionally he's been just as much of a prick as in the past. On the other he still tries to keep in touch. I was in Sydney recently (more on that in another post) and he invited me over (and more on that in another post). He sent me a birthday card, the only one i got! It's just weird. Now that he got me to the point where I was all riled up and mad off at him, suddenly he starts acting like I wish he'd acted all along.

I just don't know what to do any more...
J

He bites!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:39:00 +0000

I wrote this months ago but never posted it, but given my current topic i thought it definitely deserves to be read :) Hope it still flows well.

What a night! I'm sure i've said that before, but this was way different. In the past it was probably about clubbing or going out or even getting laid or something like that. This night involved none of those but it was incredible. Of course you all remember what happened in NY. If i'm going to blog about him I need a name... i'm sure i will come up with something. Or maybe i shouldn't be blogging about him. Maybe i should keep some things to myself, or between us. At the very least i'm writing this for posterity. I'm going to call him sabra (the hebrew word for a prickly pear)- because he can be a prick on the outside, but he's really sweet on the inside.

Things were not looking good, after last Thursday's experience, and getting caught out in a lie. I had another friend who was in town for the weekend. Straight, married. I told my parents I was going to be out with him. Who is he? A friend. Religious? Yes. What's his name? _____. Well what kind of jewish name is that?! Then the weather turned ugly. He was here for a weekend and ever since he arrived it had been raining nonstop. So much for summer. Really i just wanted to hang out with him, and if we'd be forced to spend the day in his hotel room I wouldn't have minded (put away all your naughty thoughts please, this is not one of those posts).

Anyway, I drove to meet him, and went up to his hotel room. I don't know why I was so nervous. True I'd never met him before, but I felt like I knew him. We'd been chatting and texting and emailing for months, and speaking on the phone. With trepidation (unwarranted of course) I knocked on the door. He answered it without a shirt on, damn he's cute :) . He invited me in and he finished getting dressed as we chit chatted about stuff. Before we left, he sat on my lap and kissed me. Not like a smooch, but a real kiss. What? Now I want to stay! Ok, fine, let's go. But what to do?

There were a few options but it was early to go clubbing or something like that. So instead we went out for a walk, along the river, into the city. Just talking, walking aimlessly, with no set destination, making turns randomly, just talking about life. At one point he was about to take me into a store. I know he didn't like my shoes, but he claimed to like everything else I was wearing. Claimed being the operative word. Now i'm all for receiving presents, but on a first date?! Seriously, kidding. Good he was comfortable enough to be straight up with me.

Eventually we made it back and thought we'd head in the general direction of the club that someone had recommended to me. It was early so we thought maybe a bar would be a good idea first. We went to the closest gay one but it didn't seem open. Or happening. So he called a friend of his instead. A drag queen, who recommended a couple of places in the area. We hit the first one, it was a nice hangout. We had a couple of drinks, I sat on a stool so we could see eye to eye. Yeah he was shorter than me, not that I minded, just something I noticed. Actually he noticed it too while walking. Well we got closer as the night went on. There was lots of playing, necking, kissing, biting (more on that later) more kissing. It seems once we started there was no stopping us. He did notice what looked like a hickie on the side of my neck and got a bit concerned. But there was nothing that could be done about that.

We went back to my car and onto the next place suggested. There was some reggae music on, pretty empty though. Lots of places to take advantage of me, and that he did. In the car, out of the car, in the bar. Ouch he can bite though. I'll have to be careful with him. After a drink we stopped in the city. Some colleagues of his were out for a drink so we joined them. A fun group of people, but the night was getting late and my boy was getting tired. So after some more beer and a bunch of laughs we bid them farewell and back to my car. Of course before we got to my car there was some passion on the street :)

It was time to call it a night, and I dropped him off at his hotel. I got a goodnight kiss (well more than 1) and said goodbye. It was sad to see him go, but I knew i'd see him again. I had to. Lots of thoughts were running through my head. This is what it feels like to really like a guy. I remember when he said something once way back when we were chatting. He told me he was ready to settle down and find a husband and I was at the top of his list. I don't know if he was serious or kidding, but I knew I liked him, not that i'd actually met him at the time, but this comment had always stuck in my mind.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't ready for anything serious, nor was I looking for it. But it was nice to know that somewhere down the track being more than friends might be a possibility. I realised things would need to change. Not for him, but for me. I'd been busy enjoying life the past 12 months but I missed companionship. I hadn't really had a serious relationship. Ever. Mr Z didn't count - that was training wheels (hope he's not reading this). Things would really need to change. There's no way I could even try to sustain a relationship in the situation i'm in. I need to move on in life. I've graduated university, time to find a proper job, time to move out, and hopefully time to come out. The fact that he lives in another city just creates another hurdle. And I know i'm looking very far ahead right now and shouldn't be. What I do know is I have another great friend I'd like to see more of. If something develops, then good. If not, i have another friend for life :) Oh, and and one more thing. He asked if I needed him to pay for my plane tickets to come visit. Now i'm all for sugar daddies and people buying me things (i think i mentioned that once already, haha) and yes i'm looking for work while he's gainfully employed. But this is something I need to do for myself. I can't be going into this relying on other people for everything.

Oh and one more thing. I came home, it wasn't too late and my parents were still up. What are those marks on the back of your neck? It looks like you've been clawed! exclaimed my mother. I couldn't say anything but "i dunno what you're talking about". I then went to my room and took a photo of the offending marks. I don't even know whether they were hickies or bite marks. I could see the one on the side and why he was worried, but i don't know how he missed the one on the back. It seriously looked like i'd been attacked by something.

Well actually, i had, by someone, and i loved it :)

So that's the story... morning glory.

I'm totally non-confrontational. That's my problem!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 16 May 2010 11:56:00 +0000

Well let me rephrase that. I'm very non-confrontational in person. Yet for some reason if i'm really pissed off at someone i'll usually let it simmer for a while (or more accurately boil inside) and then i'll do something stupid like send that person an email or text letting it all out. A word to the wise... don't. It's stupid. All it will do is piss of the other person and you probably won't even get your point across which is what you were trying to do in the first place.

Well you probably know about the whole new york debacle. I blogged about it before but now i'm heading back there because there's a continuation to the story. The following is a message I got from him after the whole thing followed by my reply I sent him once i'd sort of calmed down. It's edited slightly.

OMG!!!!!!! U can not possibly imagine what has happened to me overnite. I lost both phones, the one u got me and my blackberry, after dinner in the city we went to some bar and i left it there by mistake.

I can not apologise to u over and over again last nite, without the phones i had no way of connecting with u. My laptop internet went down and only now have i been able to log on and message. YOU!

I am again so sorry but to be honest i was more stressed that i had lost the phone and then the nitemare wouldve begun! I will get the phone back in an hour or so and so then we can chat and i can make up for last nite.

anyway, welcome to my world where there are dramas all around the corner!

call u when i get the phone

Well that was it. He called me a few hours after but I really wasn't interested in talking. I didn't so much as hang up on him, rather i told him I didn't want to speak to him then. Later that night he was busy with work but he said he'd call me when he was done. For a while i didn't think he'd actually call, but he did, it was around 11 or 12 and I was in bed already.

"So when are we hanging out?" he asked.
"Well we're not. I head to JFK tomorrow at about midday." We did have a bit of a chat but that was it. I found it hard to be mad at him. But i was. I left the next day and a couple days after arriving home I sat down to send him a message.

I'm sorry if parts of this will sound harsh, but it is what it is, and i hope you understand why i'm so upset. This was something i'd been looking forward to for months. We'd been chatting online for ages, spoken on the phone. It was my last weekend in NY. I kept my sunday pretty free because we were supposed to be hanging out (yes I actually did have to say no to people who wanted to hang out before I left). I'd planned on coming out to my sister before i left (which i did btw), so really hanging out with you was pretty much the last thing I had to look forward to before I left. First you were gonna visit some friends of yours and that turned into dinner with them. I got home at like 9.30 ish, thinking ok you're out to dinner. I called you at 10, to see what you were up to and to let you know I was home and ready whenever. I stayed there, getting bored, watching tv, waiting for your phone call. I called u again at 12. By 1 I gave up and went to bed, really pissed off. I woke up, no missed calls, no texts, i think i called u at 2, again no answer. I just thought well fuck you. I met with a friend for coffee in Soho, and i pretty much let it all out on him. Anyway, i know its not your fault, and shit happens, but all that time I was just so mad i got my hopes up of meeting you because clearly you had better plans.

Maybe we had diferent ideas of what was actually going to happen, or what we wanted to happen, but NY is gone. A missed opportunity. And you deciding to come to visit me doesn't quite come close to what could've happened in NY. In new york i had as much freedom as i wanted, and here i'm still learning how far i can push the boundaries. Sydney would be an option, and maybe had we met in new york i'd be making plans to head to sydney soon. But we didn't, so who knows if/when i'll be seeing you :(

Sorry for turning it into a rant but it's how i feel/felt. Even if it sounds all drama queenish. I wrote it in stages and probably forgot half the things i wanted to say, but i needed to get it off my chest.

That was it. I never got a response.

I'll leave you with a thought. It's one thing to say you're sorry. It's another to act like you mean it.

Brisvegas or Brisneyland? How about neither?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:57:00 +0000

I'm back from my most recent trip to Brisbane, and what a difference it was from my previous trip a few months ago. Back then I spent some time checking out the city, the nightlife, the gay scene. All that kind of stuff.

To be honest, it left a lot to be desired. I checked out a place called the Sportsmans Hotel. There were a bunch of guys playing pool. A few old guys, a few young guys. Not really my crowd. I sat down at the bar and had a beer, and got hit on by a senior citizen. I tried the Wickham Hotel next. It was actually alot better. Not great, but there was a decent crowd of people. I had some beers with a few guys I met there. Of course they told me I needed to be in town on the weekend if I wanted to experience what Brisbane had to offer, but that wasn't an option for me. One actually told me he'd be at Sporties (as the Sportsman Hotel is known) the next day for some karaoke if I wanted to join him. Sounded like a bit of fun, so I figured i'd see how my day went.

They headed off but the night was still young, so I checked out Megabeat. Its a nightclub but I guess I was too early for the 2am crowd, because other than the bartender I was 1 of about 2 guys in the entire building. So of course I got chatting and drinking with him. There was a show by some old drag queen, and there were a small crowd of girls there so I wasn't the only one to shake my booty and embarrass myself. But i digress. This guy, who was a blondie, seemed to be more into me than I was into him. And i'd had too much to drink by that time, so of course when the crowd grew and there were more entertaining people to chat with, I moved on. And blondie was pissed, lol. I got chatting to another guy and we ended up leaving together and started walking home. Yes he came back with me, but no we didn't do anything. We were both exhausted, it was past 3am and I had work the next morning and had to be on time. But the company was great :)

The next day was my welcome lunch at the company. This is Brisbane and no there are no kosher places around. There are barely any jews around! Well it made things easier that I don't keep kosher 100%. And by that I mean I will eat non-kosher, but will stay away from non-kosher meats, and everything else that by definition is not-kosher. So no lobster, crab or prawns for me either, but with those restrictions in mind, there are plenty of places to eat. I didn't need a vegetarian place. Regular eateries had something I could eat. (One of my workmates did actually say to me once "but you can eat kosher pork, right?"). Anyway lunch was nice, met most of the employees at the office there and it was all on the company's bill :) .

I did end up going back to Sporties to check out this karaoke. It was bit sad but it was better than nothing, and I hung out with the best looking guy of the bunch that I had met that night. I will not go into detail about what we got up to that night. But his place had a nice balcony, with a great view of the city, and it was only a short walk back to my hotel afterwards.

The next night I was hoping for a bit more excitement. A friend of mine was in the area for a long weekend away so he drove up for the night. We first went walking through the city and ended up at the casino. We had something to eat at their restaurant and met up with a friend of his who recommended we head to Fortitude Valley which is supposedly where the nightlife is supposed to be. Unfortunately for Brisbane that means a bunch of loud drunk teenagers and a lot of cops. It really wasn't much, and it was a Thursday night!

Well that was the end of my first trip. I went back a couple weeks ago and this trip was so much different! For starters I didn't do much there after hours, just chilled out at home. Home being my company's apartment in a building that overlooks the city which was really cool. Really nicely decked out.

I did have a guest over one night after work. No not THAT type of guest. I had a friend i'd been chatting to on gaydar. He lived in Sydney but was heading to Brisbane for work the following week. And 2 days later I found out that I would be too. So he came over one night for a few drinks before his flight back home, that was nice. Other than that I was just busy with work and chilling out after work. And that's how the trip ended. To be fair there's nothing inherently wrong with Brisbane, but after spending so much time in New York I'm used to more. More people, more nightlife. Everything seems small compared to it.

I came home and had one day left for the week at work. It consisted of a couple hours work, an extended lunch meeting at a restaurant with a coworker and associate and then a stop at a pub on the way back. Now if only every week ended like that :)

j

Life update #2

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:35:00 +0000

My last post was filled with a bunch of things that had been going on in my life over the past few months. I decided to break it up into 2 posts because I knew i'd never get it finished if i didn't so here we go with part 2.

Passover has come and gone, and I was generally a good boy, no leavened bread for me. Of course that doesn't mean I was offline, so i got a bunch of number of guys that wanted to hang out, but of course I couldn't do it. No I cannot go out and have a drink, but some people just don't understand. Some thought I was just fobbing them off. Oh well, not much I can do.

A crazy thing did happen though. Of course you would remember the crazy chick. You know, the random chick that rocked up to my going away party in a gay bar in New York thanks to my stalker who made a facebook event at the same time and place as my party. I will call her Crazy Bitch because I couldn't be stuffed coming up with a name for her. So Crazy Bitch, as in first name crazy, last name bitch. So I was at a friends place, and another friend of his was there too. Part of the conversation began like this: "How about we set up Crazy with X? X invited me over for a meal, maybe i'll bring her with." Of course I butt in "Which Crazy?" "Crazy Bitch" "As in THE Crazy Bitch that rocked up to my going away party in New York?" "That's the one." Well my friend knew the story, but his friend didn't. So i gave him a brief rundown about my stalker and Crazy Bitch. Of course i left off the bit that it was a gay bar.

So Crazy Bitch is in town, but that's not the end of it. That night I went to the supermarket, not the one i usually go to, a different one this time. And of course who is there? Crazy Bitch. Crap. I avoided eye contact, did my shopping and left. Would she recognise me from New York? Who knows. Of course, thats not the end of it either. Later that night I got a message from Crazy Bitch on facebook. To my real account. She introduced herself and asked if I wanted to hang out because she was visiting. Do i reply? And if yes, what do i reply with? I let it go for a few days. I wanted to reply with something bitchy. Maybe something along the lines "I know who you are, i've met you before. I didn't want to hang out with you then and I still don't. Instead I just left it pretty tame. Primarily because I'm not really such an asshole.

But onto better things. I was at the gym last week, cute guy in the changing room, lol. He got on my train on the way home. I transferred and just made it onto the train i needed to get home before the doors closed. I sat down, forgetting about cute guy and began to read the newspaper. One stop before mine who do I see but cute guy from the gym. Sitting on the other side of the train, a few rows from me. He'd been there the whole time and I'd been to busy to notice he was there. And now he was getting off. Could've been another Mr Subway perhaps? ;)

Of course back to the serious stuff, I'm quite happy the way things are going in my life right now. Work is fine, home life is fine, i'm not interested in shaking anything up because I like the status quo. Too bad not everyone feels that way. My mother came to me sometime during passover. She wanted to know if I had given any thought to seeing someone and seeing if I could change. Didn't I want to have a regular family? Didn't I want kids? I told her there were other ways to have kids. Her response was a classic. "You are not going to have a child with 2 fathers, it's wrong." Oh well, I thought she'd gotten past all that.

As I mentioned I started going back to the gym, and got a few personal training sessions to start off with. The first one absolutely killed me. They say that you can really feel it a couple days after and I bloody hell could. I was in pain, my legs weren't as bad as my arms. They absolutely killed! I had to keep them at almost a 90 degree angle because it was too much pain to straighten them. I had plans for that Thursday night, and the Saturday night and the Sunday too but I cancelled them all. I just couldn't do anything that didn't involve my arms.

I met up with a friend after work this week for a few drinks. We found this random looking place, it looked like a garage or warehouse of some sort, but the front of it was some kind of restaurant or bar so we popped in. We found the bar, and it had a few fridges full of Asahi. Thats it. So we got 2 and I asked how much. "Oh it's free". Well this was going to be fun. It turned out to be some kind of Japanese modern art installation and was sponsored by Asahi. Free drinks and nibbles all night. I guess that makes me cultured :) It was a fun night!

And lastly i'm going interstate for work for a week. So as you do I changed my location on my manhunt and gaydar profile because it'd be nice to find someone to hang out with when i'm there. Well i got inundated with messages and chat requests and everything. Crazy stuff! One funny coincidence was that I got chatting to a guy from Sydney last week, seems like a really fun guy to chill with. Of course the only problem being that he's in Sydney, though he did mention he'd be in Brisbane for a few days for work this coming week. A couple days later i found out so will I! It looks like it'll be a fun week :) Which reminds me, i still have a post from my last trip there saved in drafts. I'd love to compare the two trips when i get back!

ttul
Jay

Contrary to popular belief...

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:14:00 +0000

Contrary to popular belief, I have not forgotten about you. I've just been really busy with work and life. I'm going away next week again for work, but I promise i'll finish the post i'm working on over this weekend so you all have something to read while i'm gone.

Ciao
J

It's been soooooooo long!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:21:00 +0000

Yeah i know I have so much to tell the world, and not so much time to tell it all! The next few posts are going to be a bit over the place, I have things i need to write about from ages ago, some recent, and even found a blog post that I wrote and never posted. But i think i may post it soon enough.

It's been a crazy couple of months. Meeting lots of people, some for a drink, some for more than a drink. It's been a real roller coaster of sorts. Busy with work and my social life, it's been a real blast.

I've been making these little notes to remind myself what I want to write about and I hope i can bring this blog back to what it once was. I went out with a friend on Pride sunday. I'd been stood up the night before so I really needed to get out and enjoy myself. We hung out on Fitzroy st in St Kilda. Yes it was after the march, but it was still fun. We had a few drinks at a few places, ended up at the Prince which was packed. Managed to get outside eventually - as many people left their outside area would be the amount of people they let in. Met some interesting people out there, like someone who wanted to smell my shoe. His friend was cute so I let him, lol.

We popped into a place for some food before moving on to the Railway Hotel in Windsor - which of course I found out about from Rob the Drag Queens. We at least I think his name is Rob. The point is he's a friend of Mr Sydney's (yeah i'll get onto him in a later blog post, don't even ask). It had this cool outdoor area which is good on a warm evening. Lot's of eye candy too.

My mate has an iphone, so i introduced him to Grindr. I don't think he's forgiven me yet, lol. The one negative is that the bartender had no clue how to make a vodka sour. But besides that it's my new favourite place.

From there it was time for Love Machine. We had a blast, the only problem was we both had work the next day. But we partied and danced and drank and had a great time, including perving on one hot guy who were were trying to figure out if he was gay or not, lol. Maybe he was a footballer :) We left relatively 'early' after a great day out.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, it was a Sunday again and the next day was a public holiday. Of course we began at the Railway again, and then it was the perfect time to go to love machine we decided. Unfortunately so did a million others. The line was so long it was time for plan B. Only there was no plan B. My detective skills then came in to play. I knew a guy who it seems might have been a photographer there, maybe he could get me in. Only i didn't have his number. I knew his cousin, only didn't have his number either. Aha, facebook! We he didn't have his number on facebook either. I messaged him (the iphone came in handy :) ) and texted some people but no-one knew it. Either that or it was past midnight and they didn't respond. So we went walking up Commercial Road to see what else was happening.

We chose not to go the Market, and the Exchange was dead as usual. We tried some random place called Priscillas. The place was tiny, The dancefloor had about 7 people on it. Quite possibly because that's all it could fit. The only good thing about it was it has an upstairs area that besides all the boys using the bathroom, was quiet enough to make out undisturbed, lol.

Of course we didn't stay there too long. We were both up for a late night, but where to go. We decided to try the other side of town. Beginning with Sircuit. Yeah i'd been there before, we had a few drinks, but i'd never been upstairs before. I'd been offered to go upstairs before, but never actually gone. So we checked it out. How should I put this... it was dark, and had small rooms that could fit maybe a couple guys. Of course there were gloryholes cut out in the walls. So we'd be making out and feeling each other up and then someone would stick his tongue through, or his cock. Yeah we know what they expected us to do, but we weren't interested. Just wanted some privacy ;)

So we left Sircuit, and headed for the Peel which was around the corner. Music, beer, some crazy lesbian trying to drag me onto the dancefloor and destroy my jumper I got in American in the process. Bitch. Anyway, how else to describe it but fun times :)

Um what else have i been doing, met up with another guy for a drink, from gaydar. I did ask him what his facebook is so I could fb stalk him. And he got all freaked out. I was kidding!!!!!! Jeez. Thats probably DOA. But met a few other people too which has been fun. Always good to increase my circle of friends.

Moving onto a different topic. I can't remember what I referred to him as, but I think i mentioned that some guy I was chatting o figured out who I was and I got all freaked out, well i figured out who he was. And of course we were destined to meet, in synagogue of course. I'd seen him a few times previously, but that was before I figured out his identity. The point is he's just a normal guy, was very apologetic about what he did, but i'm seriously ok with it.

It's been Passover this past week so that has certainly kept me busy. Hope you're all enjoying the pizza and bagels! And with that I bring this post to an end. There'll be more to come, I promise!
J

Sydney. The highs and not so highs

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:17:00 +0000

Well I'm back from Sydney. Got so much to write about, I hope I have enough time before I go away again in a few days ;)

Well almost 2 months later here I am continuing this post. I think I'll keep it about the highs, and possibly make another post about the lows. I arrived at night, and had a friend pick me up from the airport. The next day it was time to start working on my tan. Well maybe not quite but I definitely wanted to hit the beach. Bondi Beach was certainly the place to be. It was a nice day, i was enjoying the sun, on the sand in front of Bondi pavillion.

I texted a friend i'd met on facebook and had planned to meet while I was in town and told him where I was. His response was that he was finishing up yoga and would be down soon to walk me over to the part of the beach where I should be, lol.

Not long after he made and gave me the rundown. Down the south end is where the wogs are (yeah I know thats racist and politically incorrect, but who gives a crap. Google it if you don't know what it means), in the middle is where the families are, and at the north end are the gays, the Jews and the South Africans. Well damn if I wasn't going to head to where all the poofs are! lol. I spent about 7 or 8 hours at the beach that day. It was a beautiful day, some of his friends joined us later on (visiting from south africa of course, lol) as did a friend of mine.

One thing that happened that day was I got totally burnt. Sunburnt that is. The aussie sun is bloody strong! And the cream I had was shithouse. Not that it stopped me going to the beach the next day or the day after or most days I was there of course. I just made sure to get some decent sunscreen, and some sunburn cream, and to be honest i've still got some good colour even though it's been 2 months. Nice! :)

Other than beaching it most days (except when the weather sucked on a day or 2) I hung out with my friend who still had the week off work. We went out to eat at his fave places. Lunch at Potts Point, breakfast at Taylor Square, it was great to have someone to hang out with. I had come to Sydney planning to meet up with Mr Sydney who I've blogged about before, but that didn't quite happen. I was there for 8 days, we made plans a few times but he cancelled on me each time, more on that in my next post though. This post is about the good times.

I also hung out on Oxford St and in Darlinghurst, which I guess one would say is gay central in Sydney. I met my friend for some drinks at the Stonewall, which had 3 levels, and we drank on all 3 levels, lol. He met some friends of his there and once it was late we headed back to his place. He didn't want to shag, he wanted to talk. Well thats what he said anyway ;) I'm leaving it at that, haha.

Ah what else did I get up to? On Sunday I went out to Darlinghurst, to the Green Park Hotel. Their beer garden was packed with hot gay guys, as was the rest of the place, after a drink I headed to the Columbian for another and then to Stonewall for another. All while waiting for Arq to get pumping. And pump it did. 2 floors packed, lots of hot boys, good music, the usual drag shows, and i did what I do best. Drink, dance and pash ;) Met a bunch of people, it was a laaaate night. I left there at about 6am and cabbed it home.

I also met up with a fellow blogger while I was there, Brenton from Aussielicious. We had a drink at the Columbian, and then out for Thai food. It fun and good to get to know him, i've been following his blog for a while. He suggested maybe we'd go for a swim later (read skinnydip) but he had to have an early night, or so he said.

The next day it was more of the same. Beach, friends, out for dinner - Thai again but this time at Taylor Square, then a drink at the Beresford Hotel. They had a cool beer garden, I guess that would be a good description. It was a nice evening but eventually it was time to go. The next day was more of the same. A day at the beach (lunch at a nice cafe nearby), then I finished packing my bags and went out to eat before my flight home. Only this time it was a kosher place, lol. I got to the airport just before a huge storm hit which ended up delaying the flight. All in all it was a great trip :

Finally i've finished it! I hope to keep on blogging more often in future, though now that I'm working there's less to write about.
Jay

A bit late, but better than never

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:06:00 +0000

While posting about my visit to Sydney I realised I'd missed writing about something else! That'll teach me to not blog for a while. So i'm posting this before the Sydney post. I met up with a friend of mine that lives in London. He's a special friend, he was the first guy I came out to. He was the person that encouraged me to start this blog. He was a guy who flew to NY to visit me back in early 2008 to meet me :) Anyway he's from Melbourne originally and was visiting Melbourne for a few days for Christmas (yeah a really quick trip, like 4 or 5 days). Only snow storms hit Europe, he missed his connections and got stuck in Finland and then in Hong Kong. He made it here eventually but all his plans were out of whack. Would we still have time to hang out? Well he was out one night at a bar called FOG for a friend's birthday and told me to head down.

So I did :) It was really great to see him and I met a bunch of his friends, and made some new ones myself. Had a few drinks, and after a few hours it was time for all of us to head off. Maybe i'll meet my new mates for a drink sometime...

Anyway time to end this and continue my next post.
J

Had to laugh at these ads!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:20:00 +0000

The first one i got from Joe My God, and thanks to youtube found the next one :)

Happy Australia Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:13:00 +0000

Well somewhere in between all the darkness and misery and fun and sex, i thought I'd throw in some humour :) Very appropriate since Australia day begins in about half an hour. It's a public holiday, and tradition dictates that you go to the beach or a park and have some beers and a bbq with your mates. So that's what i'll be doing!

TODAY you'll probably want to party, celebrating all the things that make us unique. But how do you tell if you are a true Aussie? Here are my 43 top ways to tell if you're a local.

You know you're Australian if ...
1. You know the meaning of the word "girt".
2. You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn.
3. You think it's normal to have a leader called Kevin.
4. You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse.
5. You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the
garden.
6. You believe it is appropriate to put a rubber in your son's pencil case when he first attends school.
7. When you hear that an American "roots for his team" you wonder how often and with whom.
8. You understand that the phrase "a group of women wearing black thongs" refers to footwear and may be
less alluring than it sounds.
9. You pronounce Melbourne as "Mel-bin".
10. You pronounce Penrith as "Pen-riff".
11. You believe the "l" in the word "Australia" is optional.
12. You can translate: "Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas."
13. You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas,
prawns and sheep.
14. You call your best friend "a total bastard" but someone you really, truly despise is just "a bit of a bastard".
15. You think "Woolloomooloo" is a perfectly reasonable name for a place.
16. You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife.
17. You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that's twice as big as its $2 coin.
18. You understand that "Wagga Wagga" can be abbreviated to "Wagga" but "Woy Woy" can't be called
"Woy".
19. You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread.
20. You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become
Kiwis.
21. Hamburger. Beetroot. Of course.
22. You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels' song Am I
Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.
23. You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller
with every passing year.
24. You still don't get why the "Labor" in "Australian Labor Party" is not spelt with a "u".
25. You wear ugh boots outside the house.
26. You believe, as an article of faith, that every important
discovery in the world was made by an Australian but then sold off to the Yanks for a pittance.
27. You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them.
28. Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language.
29. You understand that "excuse me" can sound rude, while "scuse me" is always polite.
30. You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose.
31. You understand that "you" has a plural and that it's "youse".
32. You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle.
33. Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket.
34. You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call "Anzac cookies".
35. You still think of Kylie as "that girl off Neighbours".
36. When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs - just in case
you're trying to sneak in fruit.
37. You believe the phrase "smart casual" refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered.
38. You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction.
39. When working on a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever
they order low-alcohol beer.
40. You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble
remembering the second.
41. You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government's new test for
migrants.
42. You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says "cobber".
43. And you will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they
will understand.

Happy Australia Day.