Monday, January 3, 2011

The Less Fortunate

Hey again, hope everyone enjoyed their new year weekend, hope you went out, partied, got a little drunk ( or not), but just enjoyed yourself.

I wouldn't mind having a night out on the town, well at town where I can be gay and there are a lot of available young blond guys which just happened to be gay.

Instead of that, I enjoyed playing five on five and working on our full court press, you got to say that sounds much better, and instead of Ice in my drink I had some on my knees, but that's way cooler isn't it? And I mean that in every sense of the word.

As for new years, since I don't enjoy going out to straight parties, I said this before, I just don't like being in a place that I don't have anything to really do, besides making sure that no girl hits on me or sends her friend to talk to me.

Instead I just went to a restaurant with a teammate and his wife and called it a night, the only thing I was kissing as 2011 came in was this screen, since I was finishing up another post, my latest one.

Regarding that, I just read the comment left by gp, to sum it up he said "we should do everything possible to avoid internalizing the anti-gay bigotry of society at large. We shouldn't think for a minute that there's anything wrong, sinful or immoral about being gay". That was about me writing about kids that their only sin was being gay.

I'm always happy to get as many comments as possible and I think that we might have misunderstood each other. For me it was just the same as writing that someone’s only sin is loving chocolate, it doesn't mean that it’s really a sin , or it's something bad, but just that it’s something that's different.

To make a larger point, a point that I mentioned in my last post, I go back to what I said about being gay as being different. I know it might not be popular to say, BUT, you can’t deny that being gay is not the normal thing in society and that being gay is a deviation from the "social norm.

I never said it means that being gay means that you aren't as good or that you aren't worthy to receive everything that a straight person does, but just to say that it's different, if it wasn't than 40-50 % of the world would be gay and not 8-10 % of it.

My point is that we are looked at as different than others, and rightly so in the matter of putting it to the simple meaning of things. Just like being left handed as my friend gp mentioned is a deviation from the norm (8-15 % of adults are left handed). What society does with it and the way they treat gay men and women, well that's a whole different story.

Last time out I talked about young girls and boys that are gay and the bullying they have to deal with. Something which follows with cases of suicide sadly enough. However there are still more problems in that same youth, a lot of times we talk about the treatment they receive outside of their homes, but there is also a big problem inside the homes.

I got the chance to speak, online that is with a couple of guys that their family threw out of the house because they found out they were gay. It was hard to hear and it was a conversation which I couldn't find any words of support to give, because if you can't rely on the people that gave you life and are the most valuable thing in the world, then who can you rely on?

I could only find a large publication from 2007 that says that 42 % of the homeless youth is gay, which is pretty hard to accept when knowing what percentage of the population gays are.

Trying to put things in context, I guess the point is that being different is something that people can't handle, it's not that I'm discovering anything new over here, but I guess that people just can't cope with it. A lot of families can't accept even their own kids because they didn’t turn out like they wanted.

I mentioned that I'm lucky to have a great family that loves me just the same even though I like guys, and blonds in particular :)
but to be serious, ignorance is a problem and it falls mostly on the gay subject, but there are a lot of people that are ignorant about a lot of matters and they take the different and the minority and try to "convert them" or deal with them in a matter that will give them quite and won't "harm" their way of living.

I don't know how it is to be homeless and I hope that no one I know will, but again, it breaks my heart and it's just hard to accept the kind of world we live in. Being homeless in general is a terrible thing and a lot of families find themselves in the streets because of the economic situation and financial problems, but being kids and getting thrown out because of a sexual preference, something that most of us don't chose, but is chosen for us? That’s just too much for me to handle.

As time progress and I keep writing those posts I get a stronger feeling that I would eventually want to volunteer and help those less fortunate than me. I don't know when or where, but I hope to keep my word, to myself, and do something, even small that could help.

For you out there that are volunteering and helping out kids, adults, gay, straight or both, I can only show my appreciation and my admiration of what you do and how you help. I'm sure you go home in the end of the day and feel good about yourself, and a lot of times that's much more than making another pay check or getting another rise.

I found myself lately writing much more about emotional things and less about sports related issue. I know that this is a blog about my life as a gay basketball player, but I feel sometimes that it's a privilege to share with you other things on my mind, so I just go for it.

Take care and have a nice week.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the thoughtful response to my comment. And for being kind enough to call me a friend- the feeling's mutual :). I wasn't trying to be critical or confrontational and i'm glad you didn't take it that way.

    I was 99% sure that you were just using "sin" as a figure of speech to mean "different". But things we say and write are always subject to misinterpretation and misunderstanding- words and phrases can have so many different shades of meaning.

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  2. New reader here. A little about myself - married 20 years, two great kids. Walked on the wild side in college: had a boyfriend who was bi, had two *fleeting* relationships with women, but have been solely hetero since the late '80's. My brother is gay, and two very close friends are also gay. I'm very staunchly supportive of the GLBT community and I was thrilled when DADT was finally repealed.

    I've been going through your blog, and although you do sound lonely on the personal side, I'm very happy that you're able to follow your dream of being a professional athlete. Many people don't get to do that - follow their dream, I mean. I can tell it comes at great sacrifice, but I truly believe that things happen when they're SUPPOSED to happen. You will find someone, someday, just when you're meant to. You sound like a very special guy, and I wish you all the best in finding someone who deserves your heart.

    I'll look forward to reading more of your posts!

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  3. hi.

    I'm late to the party. I followed you last year but sorta lost touch when went you went on vacation and then I forgot to log back on in the fall. I heard a story about AI (allen iverson) playing ball in Turkey and how he always goes to TGIF for dinner. I thought of you and have 2 questions? Will you play against AI? How will that feel? And, what do you do for dinner? Eat out, cook for yourself or have you hired a cook? And what about bkfst? Do

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