Why 2018 Will Be Better

I've written about this before, but not from this angle, so I figured it was something I could do today, as it's New Year's Day, and I find it important to allow for self-reflection.  We'll be back to movies and politics tomorrow, but until then I wanted to do some personal writing on the blog for a little break from Oscar season.

Until a few weeks ago, the defining moment of 2017 for me was going to be something that happened to me in March.  I had just finished a fourth date with a guy I really liked, or at least thought had potential.  He was charming in an off-beat sort of way, seemed to be enamored with me a bit, and we had a lot in common.  His mother had even called during one of our dates, not knowing I was listening on the bluetooth, and asked about me saying "I'm so glad the first date went so well!"  So it was a bit of a surprised when, after four dates, he called me and said he didn't want to see me romantically anymore, instead deciding to just be friends.  This was fine (it was only four dates, after all), but it felt so sudden considering we'd had four dates in rapid succession, had had a good time (or so I thought) and he had actively pursued me more than the other way around, frequently texting me throughout the day or calling me at night.  So in hopes of gaining a little more perspective, I decided to be brave and ask him why he didn't want to date me anymore.  He seemed very insistent on wanting to be friends, and if we were actually to be friends, I needed him to be real with me on why I wasn't a viable dating partner.  I expected something along the lines of "our personalities don't match" or "I'm not ready to date right now" or pretty much any sort of bullshit, but he blurted out "You're too fat for me to find attractive," followed by a perhaps too candid "you shouldn't wear striped shirts."

I should have told him off or hung up the phone, but I felt like I was responsible for this moment because I'd insisted he tell me why we shouldn't date, and so I let him speak for a couple of minutes about my physical appearance in a way that was far too emboldened for even someone who had been prodded, and then wished him good night.  And then I felt very bad for myself for a little bit, but instead of doing what I should have done, which was be angry and think he was beneath me, I thought about how one of my worst fears had just been realized-I was not good enough for someone to love me.

This was, you see, not the first time a man has been cruel to me.  This wasn't the first time a guy had called me fat, it wasn't even the first time in the past year.  My last three boyfriends broke up with me via text message, all three putting the blame on me rather than themselves, even though one of them was already cheating on me at the time and couldn't see how perhaps he might be the one at fault in that situation.  There are two things that I think I had the most difficulty shaking away when I was in the closet (one of which we'll get to in a second), but the first of which is that being in the closet you are taught to think very poorly of yourself.  I grew up thinking that I was going to hell for liking the boys in my class.  I grew up hating so much of myself because no matter how hard I tried (and oh lord, did I try), I couldn't stop being gay.  I had to endure people announcing "they accept me" when I came out, not realizing that in that process I still have to seek other people's permission and approval.  The entire act of coming out is, the way it's handled currently, a truly condescending affair.  In fact, if you ever have someone come out to you, instead of saying "I accept you," perhaps jump straight to "I'm so damn proud of you for telling me!"  That self-loathing has been replaced by acceptance and pride, but it leers its ugly head every once in a while, particularly when it comes from people who perhaps should know better than to disparage someone too like them for their own comfort.  And so, while I didn't admit it to myself at the time, this bothered me.

From most objective perspectives I had a very successful 2017.  I paid off my car, finished multiple library projects, and bought a mattress & laptop.  I hit numerous professional milestones, perhaps having the most successful personal year of my career, and went on a beautiful vacation in Hawaii (and have a second vacation planned in a couple of weeks).  I wrote my 2000th blog post right here, and endeavored upon NaNoWriMo.  I've been to the gym more in the past year than I have in the three years preceding it and created an awards manual on Shutterfly.  Many of these projects have been sitting on my bench for years, waiting to be done, and as a list they represent a very strong output for one year.

But that rejection hung on my actions in my personal life in a way that I wasn't admitting to myself.  For, with the exception of NaNoWriMo, none of those things really scared me personally, none felt like a huge leap-of-faith, but instead were just what was supposed to happen next based on years of prep work.  That isn't to say they weren't accomplishments, but they were safe goals to make.  They were goals with little personal risk, and ones that I knew I could achieve through discipline or hard work, but not at all through faith.  When it came to actions that I was unsure of, ones that made me emotionally vulnerable or required me to have confidence in myself in a way that felt uncomfortable, I avoided those circumstances.

I stopped dating for months and months; in fact, since that night I've been on approximately three dates that I can remember, all of which I felt totally off my game because I just kept thinking "am I too fat to be on this date?"  I went to the gym, but would avoid the bathroom scale like the plague, and nearly quit when I realized that I hadn't lost as much weight as I had hoped, even though I had obviously changed physically for the better.  I increasingly found myself avoiding social situations with friends outside of work, perhaps most coming to a point when I skipped my 10-year-reunion from college, and I loved college (and the people I went with).  I had been planning on going for months, but all I could see in that mirror was a fat failure.  Someone with no boyfriend, and the reason was he wasn't good enough to have one.

That may be hard for you to read if you know me in real life.  It's hard for me to write.  But occasionally you have to be true to yourself and admit out-loud what you were feeling, because it's the only way you can move past it.  And if you do know me or are just reading this and are bummed that someone you don't know feels that way (I'm like that too-I always read personal stories hoping for happy endings), you're in luck, because the defining moment of my 2017 turned out not to be a guy I liked calling me fat.  It came to be, perhaps in a twist most would have seen coming but I for some reason did not, a movie.  Two movies, to be precise.

The first of these two was Coco, a movie I saw over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I will admit that headed into this film I had already written the film's review in my head.  I was prepared to give it 3 or 4 stars, probably the latter considering the plaudits, but was not really anticipating anything more special than Brave.  I had seen a number of good movies and a couple of great ones, but I hadn't yet been surprised by a movie in 2017.  But somewhere about ten minutes into Coco, I realized that I was kind of into this movie, liking it much more than the trailers had led me to believe I would.  The film pushed forward, and though it was a narrative I could see coming a mile away, I didn't really care.  The music was lovely, the lead vocal actor was endearing, and it was just so damn beautiful.  I stopped thinking of it as a critic, I stopped thinking of it even as a film aficionado, and just lived it in the present.  It was a joyful experience, and at the end I couldn't quite tell if I was crying because of how happy the ending was, or because I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so happy without planning to be.  I hadn't allotted for this feeling, I hadn't assumed it was going to happen-it was just spilling out of me.  I love movies for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most intangible way I care for them is because sometimes they take my breath away, they make me realize that I need to change how I've been living.  Coco did that for me.

And a few weeks later Call Me by Your Name followed up with a grand chaser.  The weeks leading up to the holidays are occasionally a hard time to be prodding the "single guy" aspects of my life (it's hard to be single around the holidays), and without a second reminder from the universe, I might have just viewed Coco as a mirage.  But then Call Me by Your Name shook me to my core.  This was a movie I was anticipating loving, one that I figured would get five-stars.  But as it unfolded, I felt filled to the brim, like I was watching a classic movie for the very first time.  There's a scene toward the end where Michael Stuhlbarg gives a speech that felt so in-line with how I had been feeling for months, I felt like it had been written with me in mind (that may be narcissistic, but good writing/acting has a way of bringing out our inner-narcissim).  I cried more out of sheer feeling on the drive home than an identifiable emotion, and stayed up for hours feeling the need to write a review of it not out of duty or posterity, but sheerly to have someone to talk to about all I'd felt during the picture.  And then I cried again the next morning, again out of joy that I could feel such a thrill or jolt after such a long dormancy.  And literally I cannot shut up about the movie nearly ten days afterwards, which is unusual for someone who watches 4-5 movies a week.

For the other thing you get good at when you're in the closet is compartmentalizing your feelings.  This may be something everyone gets to be good at with age and hardship, but for me it stems from having to repress having authentic emotions for decades.  As a result, I got really good at not putting myself in situations where I could be hurt, and in the process I also sacrifice a lot of opportunities where I get to feel bliss.  These two movies reminded me, though, that unexpected happiness is perhaps life's greatest gift.  I didn't anticipate loving them like I did.  I have no idea if they'll hold up when I inevitably repeat watching them, and I don't even know if they're the best movies of 2017 (still working on that list).  But what I will say is that they are perhaps the movies I loved most at first sight this year, and that showed me that I could believe in the unexpected if I allowed myself to do so.

So in 2018, I am going to take that message, that things might be better than I thought they could be, and take risks in hopes of bigger reward.  I'm going to continue writing my novel and finishing it, even if I don't know if it'll be any good when it's done.  I'm going to start saving up for, and hopefully going on in the calendar year, a trip to Europe for the first time in 17 years that I've been putting off because I'm scared to go by myself.  I'm going to start weighing myself and investing more time in the gym, even if I don't know if it'll result in a boyfriend or a different image when I look in the mirror.  And I'm going to eventually start dating again, risking my feelings and heartbreak in hopes of finally delivering my love life a happy ending.  It won't be easy, but I feel emboldened, thanks in no small part to Coco and Call Me by Your Name.  Once again, movies have provided a beacon even when I didn't believe in myself.

And, for the record, if a guy in 2018 calls me "too fat to date" again, I have the true confidence to know that I'll respond "go fuck yourself" and hang up the phone, rather than sit and take it.  Sayonara 2017...2018-you're up!