Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Who is John Anyway?

It�s Valentines day, time for celebrating romance and relationships and all that stuff. In my office, that�s meant allot of talk about boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands. Then there�s me. and John. What is it exactly that I call him when talking to someone? There is no real definitive accepted title/label. Straight people have it easier. But I ain�t straight, so what should I call him?

Boyfriend?

After a decade of being together, this sounds a bit silly. I think it fails to capture the importance and permanence of our relationship. We were boyfriends once, but I don�t think that we have been for quite a while.

�Friend�?

Always with a capital F. I�m sorry, but only people with �issues� about being gay use this. I�m friends (small f) with a lot of people. I�m friends (small f) with John. I really don�t want to be Closeted Friends (Capital F) with him. I need to go forward in my life, not backwards straight into the closet.

�Hunk O� Burning Love�?

OK, a joke. Does anyone actually say this in real life?

Husband?

I�m not to sure about this one. For me at least, husband has a very specific meaning. One that we don�t quite meet because we aren�t married. The closest thing to a ceremony we ever had was a few toasts and speeches at our tenth anniversary party. If we ever had an actual wedding, maybe, but even if we did, it sounds so formal to me.

Lover?

I use it sometimes, but not that often. It seems to make some people nervous, which can be amusing. It seems kind of limited though. Maybe a little too concerned with the physical and not with the emotional.

MyJohn?

For some weird reason I�ve called him �MyJohn� a few times recently. I have no idea what it means, or what I was thinking in the back of my head when I did it. There are an awful lot of Johns out there though, so it is sort of practical in a strange possessive sort of way.

Partner?

This is the word I'm using a lot lately. Some people don�t like it because it already has another meaning and it sounds so business like. I kind of like the word because it already means something else. I like the idea of being part of a force which is actively changing and adapting English to suit our needs. I like that people have to specify Business Partner now. A lot of people hate the word though.

�Roommate�?

Even more closeted than �Friend.� Let�s not even go there.

Sweetie?

I only call him that when I want to annoy him. John can be so cute when annoyed in a certain way. Although, he knows how to get me back, so teasing him can be a dangerous game.

The guy I�m Seeing?

This is fine if a little vague. It�s ok I guess If you're dating. We aren�t.

I guess I�ll stick to partner until I get bored with it and glom onto some other word. Maybe I should try Hunk O� burning love, it has a certain ring to it.

My last entry ended with a mention of warm temperatures and sunshine. Well it has been anything but the last week or so. There has been rain, hail, thunderstorms, flash flood warnings, mudslides, even water spouts. It�s rained about seven or so inches just in the past few days. That doesn�t sound to impressive, unless you take into consideration that it we usual only get something like nine or so inches in an entire year. Unfortunately, so much water in so short a time ends up doing more damage then good. With the ground already saturated, it can�t take in the extra water, hence the floods and slides. It did start to clear up today though, so things aren�t that bad. The snow level is really low right now. So low, that when driving into downtown it looks like the skyscrapers are backed by snowy peaks. Very picturesque. Very travel brochure photo.

If I�m a good boy, tomorrow I�ll post a �real� entry summarizing the traumatic events of the last week. More later and all that, -nico.

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