It has been a long time since I have last seriously posted on here, and it has been 2.5 years since i started this blog. I began to blog because of the social pressures i started to feel after finally comprehending that I am gay slightly less than 3 years ago. Back then I was a high school sophomore who fit no category while falling into so many, lost my best friend through my own idiocies, and read daily around 30 blogs of my peers in this LGBTQIA community that was Blogger (there actually were a few ally bloggers, I did not appreciate that fact back then).
it has been so long, yet I have been drawn back to this site, this long form of expression because I just have such a large load of information I need to express in a more personal, evocative manner than 140 characters or less. This weight on my body, mind, heart, and occasionally eyes is starting to feel like a burden; my first week of college is reminding me so much of the beginning of the second semester of my Sophomore year of high school. That fact hurts. I have had darker periods of my life, but that time, was the time that I could not know where to turn, so i turned here, to Blogger.
Let me explain why this week of college, while not in any way hell, has been my purgatory. The second semester of my second year in high school was a time when I was friends with people i did not fully trust, finally certain about my sexual orientation, afraid of who might dislike me for my sexual orientation, in a state of crisis about what I wanted to do with my life, and in a constant depression because of my lack of a meaningful social life. My first week at NYU reminds me of this dreadfully, outside of my dorm-mates (who are both awesome, except for my third who is an asshole and will be referred to as such), I have found it hard to make my own friends. This comes from my personality and the way I approach meeting new people. I have no idea what to talk about or how to be a person who can start to conversation with someone that will be interesting and engaging. This has been such a burden and has lead me to basically be the quite person who tries to be a part of the group, but at every attempt to infiltrate it just exposes why that person would not be a beneficial addition to the group. This has been happening everywhere, in my Cohort for C.A.S. (a group of around 35 students taking the same seminars), at the LGBTQ Center, but thankfully never when I am in small groups.
This has just been so disheartening. Furthermore, I am filled with sexual tension. I have just figured out today will be seven days since I last mastrubated, I am seeing the most attractive guys I have seen in my life, yet never being able to talk to them or feeling insecure and inadequate about doing so. My life just feels like a mess, and I am not capable of cleaning it up. Don’t worry though I still have four moths to go. This is weird though because I meant that as both as optimistic statement and one of forboding and sadness because that is just how this has been for me.
STORY TIME!!!!!!!
Just as a preface, currently everything I am writing is dark and sad, if anyone at all is reading this wants me to post some fun stories of what I have been doing in college, because I do have quite a few, please comment or tweet me or something because if not I am going to be using this blog as a way to unload all of my fears, anxiety, sadness, and frustration to the internet; so if you would like to see and hear fun stories just tell me, please!
Thursday night was the night that I was most ready to contemplate the idea of saying, “Fuck college! I’m out of here!” My story starts when I enter Washington Square Park. I was just bored and alone at that point, the perfect state for any idiotic destructive decision. As I get closer to the fountain, I hear a band playing and a small (10 person) crowd around them enjoying their music. One person in the crowd is this guy I think I want to try talking to because I would describe him as my foil. He is introverted, yet content with being alone in a crowd. He is just enjoying the music. Throughout the next three hour period, he stays and watches the band play; he stands, he sits, he enjoys as a solitary and quite figure, just another in the crowd.
Then there is me, I could not stand being just a part of the crowd, I wanted to be with someone in the crowd,have someone to talk to, to meet, to befriend. I stay and watch the band for an hour and a half. Throughout that hour and a half I see so many from NYU, but they are in groups already, pre-formed and unchanging. I do not talk to them, though I want to say, “Hi, my name is Robert, do you guys also go to NYU?” I can’t.
Eventually, I see my chance to meet someone i might know. A guy along with his two friends is wandering around WSP. I think I recognize him from an LGBTQ event earlier today, so I want to say, “Hi,” but he is also already with a group. As the hour and a half goes on he actually comes and sits next to where I am standing. I am almost sure it is the guy form the event. My chance never comes, the song never plays that would invite me to invite him into a conversation. He stays for around half-an-hour and then heads off. As I later learned when I got back to my dorm two hours later, that was Dylan Sprouse and not the person i thought to be a guy named Slater, as I now know the guy I was thinking of was. At least I now have the story of how i almost hit on Dylan Sprouse. Almost, but almost never makes a good story, it just makes a joke. I feel i am that joke.
As the night wne on the depression hit in, I truly was alone in a city of 10 million. I went to the fountain and sat and watched, observed. Too sad to enjoy, too out of it to truly notice. I ended up sitting in the same position at the fountain twice. The second time I go to sit down and I am just done, tired, alone, sad, yet unwavering. I was not leaving my purgatory because I am stronger, better than that. I sit and a crowd of loud and, unfortunately, interesting, vibrant NYU students come behind me. I want to join. I don’t. I sit and watch the sky. I suddenly notice it is the most majestic purple a sky can express itself as. I watch and stare at it. I begin to miss the stars. I am not religious, but it feels like there is no heaven above the NYC sky. It is you and what you are left with, further enforcing my foreboding of purgatory.
I decide to listen to Miike Snow, on a whim, I have no Spring Awakening on my iPod; a blessing in disguise. I listen and the music is slow, melancholic, yet uplifting. The music pulls be closer to happiness. I look to the concert and see my roommate dancing with this girl he desperately wants on, his unattainable goal this week. I sit and watch and feel better. I am ready to leave. I don’t though. I promised myself until midnight. I stay until midnight.
The last forty or so minutes I stay at the WSP are fine. I am sad and alone, but I am comfortable here. I am with many of my own kind, those that have no plans and no one. I just attempt to stay in this state. It works. As I finally walk back to my dorm, it is past midnight. I am ready to be done. My story does not end here, but this story will end at the park. As i walk away head held high looking for the future, I am ready to find it and turn purgatory into my friend, lover, and spouse. New York City is purgatory, and I have survived my first dark hour there. i can survive any more that come.
Thank you everyone who reads this. I just looked at the new blogger features and was incredibly proud and excited to have learned that this blog has been viewed upwards of 40 thousand times. For me that is gigantic, for me that is something I need to remember. I have no idea if this blog has helped anyone, but if it has, I am pleased to have done so.
Robert BP
Lrtackle15 on Twitter and Skype
P.S. I am about to go to I gigantic rave, festival called Electric Zoo. Do not think I am sad or depressed. I am excited and ready to have one amazing time. Talk to you all later!
