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Gay-liens, Unite.

Another year gone by so quickly, and pride season is once again upon us. It seems as though with every year that goes by, however, the meaning and purpose of Pride continues to become more and more blurred, almost feeling like a distancing planet carrying our predecessors further into outer space. Now the question is, are we the aliens, or are they?

Even as a doe-eyed twenty-something queer kid skipping down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the festival in my size 30 jeans and v-neck t-shirt, hand in hand with my designated hag and a water-bottle filled with Svedka and Emergen-C, I always knew in the back of my head that this environment that I was trying to exist in was a complete sham, void of any spiritual growth or maturity, and driven solely by a need for attention, whether purely sexual or otherwise.  Looking back, there were certainly some fun times had, but when I think of some of the things that I put myself and my body through in order to assimilate to the standards put forth by the gay male community at-large, I feel devastated.

Rather than spend countless hours attempting to untangle the old box of Christmas lights that is the gay community’s jaggedly collective road to its current state of affairs, let’s just cut to the chase…

We MUST evolve.

The gay community must confront its problems head-on, and we must collectively begin to evolve and grow, not just for ourselves, but for current and future queer kids as well. As a school counselor in the K-12 public school system, I am beginning to see gradual change every single year, and young queer kids are beginning to live their lives openly at a much younger age than I ever felt able to. Will this solve all of the community’s problems? No. However, it certainly opens the door to many amazing opportunities for growth and evolution.

Many of the problems that continue to plague the LGBTQI community have been triggered by what I can only describe as “Peter Pan Syndrome”, meaning, queer folks in the millennial and boomer categories, for the most part, lived closeted lives throughout their entire childhoods, and expended a tremendous amount of energy hiding their true identities, rather than experiencing a normal childhood and young adulthood full of cliques, crushes, first kisses, same-sex prom dates, getting to second-base, and even first heartbreak. Most of us did not get to experience any of that.

Truly think about that for a second and reflect…

Even as a write this, I am overwhelmed with a flood of emotion thinking about how I was completely robbed of all of these milestones that every child should get to experience. I never got to date a boy in high school. My first kiss was during my freshman year of college, which occurred simultaneously during my first sexual experience, and lacked any kind of purity, innocence, romance or emotional meaning. I took girls to prom, one of which was somewhat against my own will, and was one of the saddest and loneliest nights of my teenage life.  Even though I had some friends, I felt completely alone and empty inside because there was literally not one person on the entire planet that I had ever shared my true identity with.

I was an alien in human form, like the kids from Smallville.

Due to my complete lack of a real childhood and failure to reach any of the aforementioned milestones in this piece, I found myself regressing back to child-like behavior during most of my twenties. Binge-drinking with friends, partying in West-Hollywood every weekend, living at home with my parents, figuring out how to date (but always failing because I couldn’t keep my disco stick in my pants, and neither could they), starving myself to be thin, shaving my entire, very hairy body to look like the other boys, tweezing my eyebrows, flat ironing my hair - I cringe even thinking about what I used to do to myself. Does it sound familiar? It should. This is basically what every 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grader does as they navigate self-exploration and identity during their formative years.

That’s right folks, you heard it here first; the gay community has re-created high school, on loop, to make up for lost childhoods. If that is not one of the most nightmaric thoughts that you have had in awhile, may I suggest seeking out help?

Kidding.

All jokes aside, this terrible tragedy has snowballed into continued tragedy within the gay community, whether any of us are willing to recognize it or not. I can’t tell you how many times I have been sitting on the patio of Hunters in Palm Springs with a Jack and Diet on a Saturday night, trying to have a meaningful conversation with guys my age who were either hopped up on prescriptions drugs, meth, cocaine, or booze, and were clearly addicted to self-tanners, steroids, a variety of penis enlargement methods, or a combination of all of these things, and have either told me that I take life way too seriously, or that maybe I was the one with the problem.

Adorable, right?

I am not so naive to think that I am going to solve all of the LGBTQI Community’s problems myself with a blog post. However, I hope that by reading this, we can all at least attempt to be a little bit more mindful of what we face everyday, so that we can begin to deal and heal.

[hellojacobsamples-blog]

Gay-liens, Unite.

Another year gone by so quickly, and pride season is once again upon us. It seems as though with every year that goes by, however, the meaning and purpose of Pride continues to become more and more blurred, almost feeling like a distancing planet carrying our predecessors further into outer space. Now the question is, are we the aliens, or are they?

 Even as a doe-eyed twenty-something queer kid skipping down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the festival in my size 30 jeans and v-neck t-shirt, hand in hand with my designated hag and a water-bottle filled with Svedka and Emergen-C, I always knew in the back of my head that this environment that I was trying to exist in was a complete sham, void of any spiritual growth or maturity, and driven solely by a need for attention, whether purely sexual or otherwise.  Looking back, there were certainly some fun times had, but when I think of some of the things that I put myself and my body through in order to assimilate to the standards put forth by the gay male community at-large, I feel devastated.

 Rather than spend countless hours attempting to untangle the old box of Christmas lights that is the gay community’s jaggedly collective road to its current state of affairs, let’s just cut to the chase…

 We MUST evolve.

 The gay community must confront its problems head-on, and we must collectively begin to evolve and grow, not just for ourselves, but for current and future queer kids as well. As a school counselor in the K-12 public school system, I am beginning to see gradual change every single year, and young queer kids are beginning to live their lives openly at a much younger age than I ever felt able to. Will this solve all of the community’s problems? No. However, it certainly opens the door to many amazing opportunities for growth and evolution.

 Many of the problems that continue to plague the LGBTQI community have been triggered by what I can only describe as “Peter Pan Syndrome”, meaning, queer folks in the millennial and boomer categories, for the most part, lived closeted lives throughout their entire childhoods, and expended a tremendous amount of energy hiding their true identities, rather than experiencing a normal childhood and young adulthood full of cliques, crushes, first kisses, same-sex prom dates, getting to second-base, and even first heartbreak. Most of us did not get to experience any of that.

 Truly think about that for a second and reflect…

 Even as a write this, I am overwhelmed with a flood of emotion thinking about how I was completely robbed of all of these milestones that every child should get to experience. I never got to date a boy in high school. My first kiss was during my freshman year of college, which occurred simultaneously during my first sexual experience, and lacked any kind of purity, innocence, romance or emotional meaning. I took girls to prom, one of which was somewhat against my own will, and was one of the saddest and loneliest nights of my teenage life.  Even though I had some friends, I felt completely alone and empty inside because there was literally not one person on the entire planet that I had ever shared my true identity with.

 I was an alien in human form, like the kids from Smallville.

 Due to my complete lack of a real childhood and failure to reach any of the aforementioned milestones in this piece, I found myself regressing back to child-like behavior during most of my twenties. Binge-drinking with friends, partying in West-Hollywood every weekend, living at home with my parents, figuring out how to date (but always failing because I couldn’t keep my disco stick in my pants, and neither could they), starving myself to be thin, shaving my entire, very hairy body to look like the other boys, tweezing my eyebrows, flat ironing my hair - I cringe even thinking about what I used to do to myself. Does it sound familiar? It should. This is basically what every 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grader does as they navigate self-exploration and identity during their formative years.

 That’s right folks, you heard it here first; the gay community has re-created high school, on loop, to make up for lost childhoods. If that is not one of the most nightmaric thoughts that you have had in awhile, may I suggest seeking out help?

 Kidding.

 All jokes aside, this terrible tragedy has snowballed into continued tragedy within the gay community, whether any of us are willing to recognize it or not. I can’t tell you how many times I have been sitting on the patio of Hunters in Palm Springs with a Jack and Diet on a Saturday night, trying to have a meaningful conversation with guys my age who were either hopped up on prescriptions drugs, meth, cocaine, or booze, and were clearly addicted to self-tanners, steroids, a variety of penis enlargement methods, or a combination of all of these things, and have either told me that I take life way too seriously, or that maybe I was the one with the problem.

 Adorable, right?

 I am not so naive to think that I am going to solve all of the LGBTQI Community’s problems myself with a blog post. However, I hope that by reading this, we can all at least attempt to be a little bit more mindful of what we face everyday, so that we can begin to deal and heal.