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Steve
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Really getting into it |
Location: London, England
Registered: November 2006
Messages: 465
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A few days ago I published here a link to a site which contained pix of 12 contestants in the Man of the Year contest here. On that same site today I found this very long letter. I have taken the trouble to translate it an publish it here because I would like to see your reactions to it as well. When I last looked at that forum there were already 49 responses posted.
Here is the letter:
This evening in the Dome club there will take place the contest for Pink Time's Man of the Year. I still dared to go to the contest last year. This year I'm not even thinking in that direction. I don't know why I started writing this, pouring my heart out in front of everyone in this forum. Mostly I am not given to excess emotion, and in my daily life I really don't remember it. But sometimes, and it happens particularly on days like Thursdays and Fridays when there are the best parties that I ever dared to go to, that's when I feel it. It comes up from deep within my stomach, and I feel the discomfort floating up into my throat and it weeps from my eyes. Everyone says that nowadays that whole beauty thing and the worship of the body is completely superficial, and all those who are looking for a relationship claim that what's really important is not what you look like but the inner you. But I know that this is just not true. I, a tall guy who wears glasses, am not the slimmest of people but neither am I the fattest. I am ashamed to go to the contest. I am afraid to show my nose there. I am afraid that someone will laugh at me.
When I go with friends past "the Out" and they want to go in I run on ahead while I still can, because I am ashamed of the stares, of what they are saying about me, and that maybe they are laughing at me behind my back. When I am invited to some big event, to a party, and my best friend wants me to go with him - I try a thousand excuses just so as to not to have to go. He, really cute and slim, really succeeds with men, so he doesn't understand why I am trying to cop out. And when we go into Kafka I lower my eyes to the floor, try not to be seen, so that no one will look at me, God forbid! There are some who have met me and told me that I am ugly, and there are some who have seen me and said that I am simply not their type. It's two years already that I don't have a b/f and I feel like I'm the loneliest guy in the world.
Today there will take place the contest for Pink Time's Man of the Year. There will be there the most beautiful guys that there are - the models on the stage and the models in the audience. The guys who go around without a shirt and with a beer in their hand and a cigarette stuck in their mouth. These are the guys who have no problem in finding and getting anything that they want, the guys who have a b/f every day of the year, and if they don't it's because they don't want one. These are the guys who if they just look at you you blush immediately or simply don't know what to do. These are the guys who if they fuck you it's because they need to cum and you are the nearest in the vicinity - just like when in QAF that muscular and handsome guy tells someone, "I fucked you because I wanted to do the good deed of the year", and he goes up to him and he hears these words and his face goes white and his eyes stand out from the shame. These are the guys that you'll never get and who'll always make you feel that you've got one kilo too many compared with their sleek and muscular perfection.
Because among us there are those that no one looks at. They are the tubby or fat gays, guys who weren't exactly favoured with beauty, who are seeking a relationship and not getting any. They get looks of scorn or pity: they have many good friends but they never have that one real friend. I don't want to criticize what happens at the Man of the Year competition; I know full well that I would be prepared to be one of them or just to dance in front of them in the club.
Tonight, when all are celebrating, I'm going to stay deep under my blanket. These competitions make me feel bad. I hate myself, I hate my body, I detest my mirror. I try to stop eating altogether. I shut myself up at home and run away from anyone who might say something like the hurtful things that have been said to me. Some time ago I tried to chat with someone on IOL to get a date. I described how I look and he said that he could identify me from my description and that we had met before. Then he started swearing at me: "ugly", "fat", "revolting"... I begged him to stop but he wouldn't leave off. He wrote out my full name and address and just went on and on. When he was done he just logged off in a fury and left me weeping alone.
I wasn't always like this. There were times when I looked different. It's hard for me to change, because today I am a much sadder guy. I'm closed, much more lonely. I'm only 21 years old and only my pillow knows the tears that I have wept just because I want to be like everyone else. I want someone to 'start with me' just once in my life. I just want them not to insult me because I don't fit. So, tonight, when you all go to celebrate in the Dome think about those who dare not go - and be happy. Be happy with the beauty that God has given you, your ability to experience togetherness, love and warmth. Be happy at the event which celebrates what is external and beautiful, because I myself would also be there if I could.
I have just one request: if a guy comes up to you, even if you really don't like how he looks, don't laugh at him and don't shove him off rudely. Don't be rude to others who aren't as lucky as you. Let us guys also be part of the celebration. I stay away by choice, but there are many who don't want to be alone and who also want to have a good time. Welcome them with joy and love, because you will make them feel good, feel wonderful. Life here is hard enough, and there is always another smile in the heart. Yours, Stav.
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warren c. e. austin
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Likes it here |
Location: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 247
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I understand this youth's anguish, although not from his perspective.
My heart, as everyone else's should too, goes out to him and all of the others beaten into submission by societal expectations and perceptions of self and their environment.
I have not aged particularly well, a combination of the excesses of my own youth and stresses most of you will not ever have had to bear; but, there was a time when I portrayed, and represented, the essence of style and drama that this youth pines for.
I don't lament this, as I was paid extremely well for it. My image reverberated from countless magazines, billboards and T.V. screens near each and every one of us.
I was a "Media Darling", the world laid at my feet, much as this youth describes in his anguish for meaningful companionship.
That I was what I was, and no-longer am, largely accounts for why for the best part of 25-years, or more, I have never allowed my image to again be captured on film or any other media, and why with the sole exception of one, there are no pictures of myself in my home.
I am truly sickened by the emergence over time, not just in "our" world, but everywhere in general, of humankind's worshipping at the alter of superficiality - a ritual that has sacrificed genuine compassion and emotion, with trade-craft and artifice taking their place.
We all, each and every one of us, are truly "special" individuals , notwithstanding our physical appearance, our wealth, our standing, or our apparent lack of any of them, and whose measure should be taken solely on the merits of who we are as very "real" living, breathing entities, and not for how we might benefit from that association.
Soonest done, the better for all mankind, and the fewer lost and troubled souls we'll encounter in our passage through this veil of tears.
Warren C. E. Austin
"The Gay Deceiver"
Toronto, Canada
2003.01.28 10:46 Hrs EST
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smith
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On fire! |
Registered: January 1970
Messages: 1095
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It's not who you are that holds you back; it's who you think you are not.
Perhaps he's looking in the wrong places for what he needs. Outer beauty lasts for about 20 seconds........after that, you better be able to come up with something more valuable like kindness, laughter and gentle strength.
smith
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A most profound thought, indeed, which speaks volumes with only a few words.
We do not remember days...we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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It's not who you are that holds you back; it's who you think you are not.
I need to be reminded of that sometimes.
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