All-American Boy

Anyone heard of Steve Grand? He's a singer/songwriter from Chicago who is openly gay and had a viral hit last summer with the music video for his song, "All-American Boy." Since then he has released two more songs, including the extremely catchy "Stay." The media outlets tend to label him country, but I don't really think of him that way. Oh, and he is extremely attractive (he's a former underwear model). The most remarkable thing is that he's no novelty act . . . his songs are actually really good!

He's been running a Kickstarter campaign for the last month to fund his debut album. It's the first crowd-funding campaign that I have contributed to. Amazingly, he met his $80K goal in just 17 hours. Now he's up to more than $200K. It's one of the most successful music campaigns that Kickstarter has done. The campaign closes on Sunday, so if you'd like to contribute, be sure to do so ASAP!

Here's the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevegrand/all-american-boy-the-album

Meeting someone new

It's been a fun weekend so far. The Texan and I are still texting back and forth. We haven't had a really long conversation for several days, but we've both been very busy. 

I had a Grindr conversation with a local guy on Friday. After chatting for a while it became apparent that we had a mutual friend: Jake the Australian! Jake had told the guy he was going to see a friend in an improv show over the weekend and I told the guy I'm in a troupe. Didn't take long for him to put the pieces together. He decided to come with Jake to the show so he could see me perform and meet me.

Before we ended our conversation that night another revelation occurred. After I sent the guy my phone number he realized we had texted before . . . He was a guy from a dating website who I had tried to set up a meet with a year ago! He had flaked out back then, and he was apparently very remorseful. I told him not to worry about it. He could make it up to me by coming to my show.

Come he did, as did Jake and my friend Walter. After the show we all hung out at a bar for a while, then got late night burgers. He seems like a nice guy. Pretty cute, smart, and a very active sense of humor. He and I bantered back and forth a lot. When we parted he expressed the hope of meeting up one on one sometime. I told him that would be cool.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it is a thought that crossed my mind: he's in the same profession that a certain ex was when I first met him. But he seems to handle the stress of said profession a lot better. Perhaps a sign of more emotional stability.

My siblings and the Texan

Hey all!

First of all, I'll answer a question I got in a recent comment from fan of casey. I'm close to my sisters and have always gotten along well with them. However, I am a lot closer to my cousins despite the fact that my sisters have lived much closer for most of my life. This is largely because I'm a lot closer in age to my cousins. My sisters are from my mom's first marriage, and there's quite an age gap. My cousins, on the other hand, I grew up with and thus have more in common with. 

The older sister has been married to one guy most of my life. The younger one is a serial monogamist who is never long without a boyfriend. It felt so good to no longer be the only one of my mom's kids without a significant other, if only for a short while. I look forward to having that again someday.

I always feel like I should visit my sisters more often. They live close enough that I should really see them more, but far enough that it needs to be a day trip pretty much.

In other news Im still texting with the Texan every day. I talked to him on the phone for the first time last night. I don't know what could become of this, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

I've gone out three times with a guy that lives pretty close to me. Nice guy, and was the same class as me at my alma mater university. I'm not sure I feel enough of a connection, though. He's quite feminine, which in small amounts can be attractive but I feel with him it's a bit too much. Also he seems to be a bit of a homebody at heart, while I'm usually most attracted to active guys who love to go out and do things and travel (hello Texan! Haha) He's so nice and close though! Why do I only have interest in unavailable guys? Ben was emotionally unavailable, now the Texan is geographically unavailable!

Oh well. Corresponding with the Texan is fun. I just hope I'm not making a mistake by turning down perfectly good, available guys like Wes and this new guy.

Cast of characters

Partially for my benefit, and also for the benefit of anyone who might find what is written here interesting enough to follow, I will summarize some of the more prominent people in my life. All names have been changed, so this will help me keep their pseudonyms straight!

So without further adieu, here is the cast of characters in the life of Cal . . .

Family

My mom: She has long been one of my closest confidants. Coming out to her was difficult and it took several years to complete the process, but now she is totally supportive. Though Republican she is generally very open-minded and relatively socially liberal. Lives in the Midwest with my dad.

My dad: I've always had a good relationship with him, though he is not the most communicative person. He is very outspokenly conservative, which made it very hard for me to come out to him. Turns out he's more libertarian than anything else, so the whole gay thing doesn't bother him. He still doesn't support gay marriage though.

Gavin, Roger, and Brad: My three cousins. They are my best friends in the world and among the first people I fully came out to. Gavin is the older one that lives on the east coast, has a great job and is dating a model. Roger is the one who also lives in So Cal and is most likely gay as well, but not out (to his family at least, including me!) Brad is the youngest one, and though our age difference is the greatest I am closest to him. We are intellectually very similar and he is the first person I fully came out to.

In addition to them I have two sisters, and several nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts, and a couple other cousins.

Friends

Janice: My only close female friend, she is like a sister to me. People used to think we were related, or a couple. She, along with my mom and Brad, is one of my closest confidants, though I don't really see or talk to her that often these days.

Walter: My good friend that I've known since high school. 

Tom: A friend who has become close over the years. He has a rather interesting personality that can be a little much at times, and is socially rather awkward. However he has proved to be a very loyal friend and has given me a lot of support over the years.

Phillip: A college friend who is among my closest friends.

YouTubeGuy, aka Steven: Now that this guy has become one of my good friends I think he deserves a proper pseudonym. I met him before my coming out process by finding his YouTube channel. He lived across the country back then but has since moved to Northern CA with his boyfriend, Jack. He played a huge role in my coming out process, as we supported each other over long distance. We got into relationships around the same time.

Jack: Steven's boyfriend, who has become a good friend in his own right. Since Steven is so busy with work and is not the best texter, I often communicate with Jack instead.

Lance: One of my best friends from college. I pretty much fell in love with him back then, which was the major event that got me questioning my sexuality. Oh, and he's straight, and I never told him about that. He dropped off of the radar for several years, which hit me hard, but eventually we got back in touch. Now my feelings for him are long gone and we are just friends.

Sam: A friend that I met through an online dating site. I used to refer to him as my "Breakup Buddy" since we both went through tough breakups in 2013 and supported each other. We still provide each other a listening ear when memories of our past relationships get us down.

Wes: A friend that I met on Grindr. We dated for about a month. I appreciated his emotional availability, but ultimately I called it off because I just wasn't feeling enough of a connection and I was afraid of hurting him like I had been hurt in the past. He took it hard, but we were able to remain friends. He has since befriended a bunch of my friends and often will come to get-togethers (even when I can't!)

Nina: A college friend who is quite a wild girl but is also a very sweet, considerate person. She has had plenty of experience with both guys and girls but now has a long-term relationship with a rather low-key guy who compliments her quite well. She often organizes get-togethers and also enjoys trying to make me over or set me up with guys (the one time she tried it ended up being a straight guy . . . oops!)

Bill: Another gay friend I met online. He has become a cool friend to hang out with. He lives a bit far from me so I don't see him often.

Jake: One of the first guys I went out with. He's an Aussie that didn't quite feel a spark with me, but we have remained friends since then. I don't see him too often, but he was definitely an important part of my coming out process.

Other

Ben: My emotionally troubled ex who I fell in love with and got dumped by after I had let my guard down. I don't want to ruminate too much about him on this blog for fear of turning into a broken record, but since he is still on my mind a lot (and he is at this time the only person I have had a serious relationship with), his name is bound to come up. For the full story, both the good times and bad, see my old blog.

The grind

Like many guys who are much more interested in dating and relationships than random hookups, Grindr is not my preferred method of meeting guys. However, sometimes it surprises me.

I met my friend Wes through Grindr back in September. We dated for about a month before I decided I just wasn't feeling it. Since then he's become a good friend.

Another friend, Jared, I had a little mini romance with shortly before that time. I also met him through Grindr.

Lately I've had a couple really good conversations with people I've met on Grindr. The bad news: it seems like they are all from out of town!

First was a guy from San Francisco. Very nice, my age, and starting medical school in the fall. We had a really good conversation and texted a bit while he was visiting So Cal. No chance to meet up unfortunately, but he suggested we meet up when I visit SF in June (more on that some other time).

Next there was a guy from New York who also seemed really nice.

Now this weekend I've been texting non-stop with a really nice guy who has been visiting So Cal from Dallas. He was busy with family so once again we couldn't meet up. He's at the airport on the way home as I type this. He plans to come back to So Cal, but probably not until the fall.

I almost was going to go on a date tonight with a guy visiting from Rome. He seemed really nice and really keen on meeting up, but I haven't heard from him since yesterday so I think he's going to flake.

Now I just need to find someone I mesh with so well in my neck of the woods!

A new beginning

I have decided to start a new blog.

Disclaimer: life is quite busy lately, so I don't know how often I will be writing. However, I enjoy blogging, and my previous blog, allmixedupinca.blogspot.com, doesn't really seem to fit where I am anymore.

Not to say that I'm not "mixed up" at all anymore. But I feel like I have a lot more direction in my life than I did during the bulk of my twenties, and I no longer want a blog with a title that has such a . . . negative connotation. Part of meeting one's goals is attitude, and I no longer want to label myself as being mixed up.

For those who don't know me, my chosen blogging moniker is Cal. Not so original, it's because I am a native Californian. Southern Californian to be exact. Land of sunshine, Disneyland, and Hollywood.

Just as the title of my previous blog was a reference to a 311 song, the title of this one is a reference to a Soundgarden song. Namely, the song "Outshined" off of their album Badmotorfinger. It contains the well-known line, "I'm looking California, but feeling Minnesota."

I chose the title for several reasons:
1. Soundgarden is one of my favorite bands.
2. I live in California.
3. I'm "looking." Not in the Grindr sense (hookups, etc) . . . but rather looking for that special someone to enjoy life with. Not to mention looking for my place in the world, as so many of us are.
4. The line in the song suggests that the singer has a positive, happy exterior but on the inside is a bit cloudier. Well, I'm generally a very positive, calm person on the outside. At times, especially over the past year, I've definitely had my "feeling Minnesota" moments (no offense to any Minnesotans that might read this). My aspiration is to not only be looking California, but feeling California as well. I think I'm on my way.

My blogging story:

I started my initial blog primarily to help me sort out confusion over my sexual orientation. All throughout high school and college I did zero dating, focusing purely on academics. I knew I wasn't as interested in girls and sex as some of my friends, but I just chalked it up to being a rather prudish kid growing up. I had small crushes on several guys in high school, but I also had crushes on girls so I didn't really recognize it for what it was. It wasn't until I fell in love with a male friend in college that I began questioning my sexuality. I spent several years trying to come to a solution via introspection, blogging, and therapy. My efforts were put on the back burner for a while in my mid-twenties when I had a bit of a career identity crisis, and began to come to terms with the importance of doing what you want to do, rather than what you feel you should do.

After the career issues settled down for a while, I finally decided that I had taken the passive approach to figuring myself out long enough. At the age of 27 I signed up for an online dating site and began going on dates with guys. It was mostly an experiment, to see how it felt. I never would have expected to fall hard for the second guy I met up with, a guy named Ben.

Ben and I had three fun-filled dates, and each time I saw him I liked him more and more. We had all sorts of things in common, from similar senses of humor to values to interest in fitness, hiking, movies, music, and traveling. We both were very social and intellectually very compatible. I also found him very attractive, with a smile that made my heart melt. At the end of the third date, however, disappointment struck. He told me he felt we were a "boat without a rudder," which I took to mean I wasn't being forward enough. He suggested we just be friends. I agreed, liking him too much to part ways. However, as we hung out more over the next month I found myself falling for him even more. I decided that if it was a "rudder" we lacked, I needed to step up my game. So after a wonderful series of activities on Cinco de Mayo, I went in for a peck on the cheek, to communicate to him that I still had feelings. One thing led to another, he ended up saying that his feelings had changed, and before I knew it I was in my very first relationship.

My time with Ben was amazing. He lived a little far from me so I would only see him on the weekends, but in many ways I didn't mind. It made every weekend a mini-vacation. We did all sorts of fun activities, from hiking, biking and kayaking to watching movies and traveling. I liked him so much that I accelerated my coming-out process so he would not have to have a closeted boyfriend. This involved coming out (and being outed) to my entire family and group of friends and taking Ben as my date to my ten-year high school reunion (a huge step for me). My love for Ben led me to break out of my comfort zone in other ways too: I finally started eating sushi, I began doing karaoke (I've always loved to sing but was always afraid to do it in front of people), and I even went to a Korean spa with him and walked around a bunch of strangers completely naked!

Despite my enjoyment of the relationship, not everything was perfect. There were various red flags that, in retrospect, I should have paid more attention to. There were signs that Ben had some major self esteem and intimacy issues. He often seemed to fear judgment from me (for instance, not applying to food service jobs when he was unemployed, for fear that I would not approve), he would sometimes repel my attempts to be affectionate, and he showed signs of being an excessive people-pleaser. Also, even though he claimed to be focused on dating men, he identified as bisexual and his Plenty of Fish profile that I found suggested that he had been dating women not too long before I had met him.

Long story short (see my other blog for the nitty gritty), he ended up blindsiding me with a break-up. One minute I think we're doing better than ever, the next he's telling me that I'm way more emotionally invested and he hasn't been happy for several months. He claimed that he would love for it to work out, but four days later he dumped me, saying he'd love to still be friends. He said I was the whole package, so he felt he needed to try dating girls again to see if that would work better for him. One emotional month later I reached out to salvage our friendship and he condescendingly pushed me away via email and a follow-up phone argument, comparing me to a drug addict and slapping me with what amounted to a restraining order ("I feel we should only be in contact once a month or so . . . anymore than that will stunt your healing process") Two months later, he "liked" a post of mine on Facebook which lead me to find via his profile that he already had a new boyfriend. The rejection and rapid replacement kicked off a difficult year during which I struggled with the sudden loss of the man who had turned my life around and shown me what it meant to have a special someone in your life. If that weren't enough, around the same time I was rejected by Ben, I was also rejected by every medical school that I had applied to. Suddenly when I thought I had finally had everything figured out, I was back to square one.

Since then I have grown significantly. It has been more than a year since Ben walked out of my life. I still think about him all the time, but the emotional impact is less and less. I no longer am hung up on the idea of us being friends and am more focused on meeting people who are capable of appreciating what I can bring to their life. I have a new potential career direction and have also gotten heavily involved in improvisational comedy, which is a hobby that served to give me a creative outlet and distraction when I was still struggling to recover from the heartbreak and disappointment. I'm back to dating as well, and I am constantly working on keeping an open mind, not playing the comparison game, and not trying to find a replacement for Ben.

I still occasionally struggle with doubt about dating guys. I no longer question my attractions and readily admit to being attracted to men. However, when my dating prospects dwindle I do often stare longingly at the other side of the fence and wonder what I would experience were I to try the larger heterosexual dating pool.

I'm still not sure what this blog will look like. I'll certainly blog about my dating exploits, and perhaps write about things that are on my mind, whether they be in my own life or in current events.

Until next time!

Cal