Theycallmejack's Finest Hour

Jack shouts at the world because no one is listening.

Tag: happiness

August 12, 2013

End of an era.

Hey guys,

I’ve spent a lot of time doing some editing and changing things up and sorting stuff out and I didn’t realize that when I actually came to writing this that I’d get so emotional about it.

I’m retiring ‘theycallmejack.wordpress.com’.

I’ll give you a moment to take that in.

So, the situation is this, I opened this blog on the 14th of February 2009, I was a young guy having a lot of difficulty coming to terms with myself, my sexuality, my friends, my family, and my future. I didn’t know who I was or where to turn. This blog was an outpouring of everything I had inside my soul that I couldn’t find a way to exorcise.

I made my blog like a diary, where I considered my events and who I was. And reading back across those four and a half years, I’ve seen how I grew as a person. I know I’m not a fully formed person who has learned all his lessons and is completely ready to go out into the world, but I’ve made a lot of progress.

When I first started this blog, I couldn’t imagine being where I am today, back then, accepting myself and even being happy were a massive struggle for me, but let me assure you, in this final ever post on this blog; I have never ever in all my life been happier than I am now.

Theycallmejack traces my coming out, my search for my first boyfriend, my first relationship, the fall out when that ended, my next relationship, my moving from school to college and then to university, my friends along the way, my thoughts on the world and so much more.

I want to end the life of this blog by saying thank you. To everyone who I’ve mentioned in the blog who have helped to shape me on my journey to where I am now, to whoever made WordPress for helping me to express what was on the inside, and most of all to my readers. I’ve been so humbled by the sheer volume of people who’ve taken the time to read my thoughts and offer me their own advice and guidance and I am truly thankful for everyone of them. There are, however, a few special people who have made a big impact on my blog and my life beyond it and I’d like to personally thank a few of them.

Ryan O at ‘onefinegay.wordpress.com’, I don’t know where you are with your life or how it’s going but I really hope you’re good. Your help and advice really was amazing when I was struggling to come out and accept myself. You were like a mentor to me and a real inspiration. Thank you.

Justolefriend, I’m afraid you also fall into the category of people who I don’t know where they’re at anymore, but I’d like to thank you for your constant positivity, no matter what it was that I posted, I could always expect a wonderful cheering up from you. Thank you.

drucloud. You were equally as positive and well meaning as Justolefriend and always had a kind word to say on everything I posted. Thank you.

Sean McArthur at ‘pinkshanty.blogspot.com’ you always gave me great advice, and you helped me to believe that I could achieve all the things in my life that you have managed to achieve in yours. I hope your family is really well. Thank you.

My good friend, Iona at ‘piellagibson.wordpress.com’ who is a source of constant inspiration to me. She is kind, compassionate, and wise beyond her years. Iona, you have always inspired me to try to be a better person than what I am. I hope that you always remain as deeply good as I have known you to be. Thank you.

George Millman at ‘actorandpoliticalactivist.blogspot.com’, a guy who always has something to say about everything I post and someone who I very much enjoy debating with. He is both a leader and a fellow, and you can be sure that you’ll see his name more and more in the coming years. George, your comments have always been really interesting, thoughtful, and thought-provoking and I wish you all the best. Thank you.

And finally to all the unacknowledged commenters and readers, those who read my posted and smiled, or wished me well in their own way. You have helped keep me strong these last four years. Thank you.

Now, I don’t want to end on a depressing note, so I will close this blog by clearing up some of the (not very interesting) mysteries that still surround it.

  • I started a WordPress blog because a guy on my school bus had just started one. He was really cool and popular and I overheard someone tell him that his blog made her cry. I immediately decided that if I was to be as cool and popular as Dean, I would have no choice but to start a WordPress blog! And ‘Theycallmejack.wordpress.com’ was born.
  • ‘Theycallmejack’ as a username came from the song ‘That’s Not My Name’ by The Ting Tings. I don’t even know whether they’re still a thing now, but me and my friend Caitlin had just been on a school trip and spend the entire time singing that song so the name was a natural fit.
  • It was thanks to this blog (or one of the commenters) that I started watching Glee. Definitely thankful for that.
  • I frequently say that I don’t like lists. This is a lie. I love lists, I find them so useful and helpful for organization. I only say that I don’t like lists because I’m a massive Doctor Who fan and in ‘The Waters of Mars’ the Doctor noted that he doesn’t like lists.
  • My most used tag is ‘friends’ which I think is very sweet.
  • My final post count is 291, including this one. 319 if you include drafts of posts that never made the cut.
  • This is what I look like.

    This is what I look like.

     

Thank you for everything, dear friends and readers, my love to all of you,

And for one final time,

Jack out.

PS. You gotta love my PS’s over the years, right? Well this one is an important one. If you wanna take this blog as a jumping off point, then farewell, remember me as I was. For the rest of you, look at this as the start of a new journey. http://jacksayspurple.wordpress.com/

1 Comment
March 28, 2013

Look at the wonderful mess we made. We pick ourselves undone.

I restarted my computer just to write this.

Seriously, I turned off my computer in order to go to bed, and then I restarted it just to write this blog. What I’m saying is to prepare yourself for rambling nonsense of a half asleep blogger who will probably not make much sense. Also, you should know that part of my motivation to write this now was that I like waking up to comments and feedback on my blogs. So yeah. Just throwing that out there. Not begging for comments or anything… just saying… Just. Saying.

Anyway! Down to the actual blog! I’ve been away for a while because I couldn’t think of any topic that seemed to be good enough to talk about. But then I started thinking about this and I thought this could be the thing. Maybe it won’t be. We’ll see.

I am going to blog about home.

I’ve just come back home from university for the Easter holidays, or ‘Spring break’ as my American readers would know it as. Except we don’t do Spring Break in the way that American movies always portray it. We tend to just stay home and do very little, maybe watch a bit of Jeremy Kyle? No wild beach orgies for us Brits…

Anyway, I was walking my dog around the village where I live before, and it suddenly struck me that despite having lived here for over fifteen years of my life, I’ve always felt like an outsider in my village. When I was younger I lived in another village a few miles away, and I went to primary school there so I never really got to know any of the other kids of my age from the place I live now, because they all went to the village school and I went somewhere else. And when we got to high school they all knew each other already from primary school and their parents knowing each other and stuff like that, and I never had that. I’m not complaining, I made friends in the village and it’s never really held me back; I guess I just haven’t had the same experiences and connection to the place that the other people my own age have.

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But then that got me thinking about where I really belong. And I can’t really think of anywhere. Certainly not here. It’s nice and all, but I feel like an outsider after fifteen years. That doesn’t seem like the type of place where you’d think that you belong.

Even if I were to widen my view to ‘the North of England’, I still feel like an outsider in many ways. My family isn’t from around here, yet I’ve grown up here, so my roots are all sort of tangled. I have family all over the country and I don’t think I there is one place where the family kind of sprung up from. One of my grandmothers is from the other side of the Pennines, the other and her husband (my grandfather on my mother’s side) are from Leicestershire, which, contrary to the belief of some of the ignorant Southerners I know, is NOT ‘The North’, and my grandfather on my father’s side is from London. Beyond that I’m not even sure. I’m pretty sure I have some Irish in me, but hell, who doesn’t have some Irish in them?

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A lot of my friends have families who all sort of cluster around the same place. My boyfriend could probably visit all his family without going beyond a five mile radius of his house. That kind of family clustering seems weird to me, I’m not sure why. I guess some families are just more closely bonded than others. Two or three family meetings per year are more than enough for me, thank you very much. But I guess that sort of thing really ties you to a place, and I don’t really feel it.

I think part of the reason I went so far away to go to a university near London was because it’s somehow easy for me. I don’t feel tied to the place I’m from so uprooting myself and going away for three years seems… I don’t know… right, somehow? Yet when I go back to university after holidays or whatever, I still always get sad, and I still always get excited to come back. I don’t know. It’s weird.

But that’s not to say that I think I’ve found a place I belong at my university. I enjoy my time there, of course, this year has absolutely flown by, and you know what they say about fun and flying chronology, but I know that at the end of the day I’ll be leaving in three years so there’s no point considering it a place to belong.

Founders Building

Yeah, this is where I go to university.

They say home is where the heart is and I think I agree with that. I don’t feel like I belong at university as a place, but I do feel like I belong there when I’m with my friends. Equally, though I may not be attached to where I live as a place, I always look forward to coming back to seeing my parents, and my friends who’ve stayed up North, and my dog, and most of all, my boyfriend. But if I could take them all and put them in a different place, would it be different? I don’t think so.

I still think it’s important though. Because being at home is about being comfortable and I think that’s definitely the most important thing about home. And I feel comfortable when I’m with the people I love, and so I think that even if I never discover the place I truly belong, I will always know that I do belong because of them.

So where is my home? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know. I think I’m destined to be a wanderer all my life. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m a tumbleweed. If I wasn’t a tumbleweed then who would I be? I wouldn’t be me. And I like being me, so I’m glad that I’m a tumbleweed. Some people are cacti and some people are tumbleweeds. The desert needs both of them.

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And that is a suitably philosophic note to end on considering that it is 3.28am.

Much love to everyone,

Jack out.

PS. Completely unrelated but my choir did a concert recently and I filmed it, so if you’d like to check us out here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzJMPhrpFlc&list=PLhQife1L-GihGmhOBE1E7UZc3kyjio2XQ

3 Comments
February 23, 2013

Anything Could Happen.

Hello. I’ve been pretty busy lately so I thought I’d write a blog and check in.

Well, I know I’ve written a blog this week, but it was a bit… silly. I thought I’d do a more personal one, maybe try to be a little more positive because I am kind of noticing since coming to university that I’ve become pretty negative about the state of the world. Seriously, there’s a new thing that I ‘just can’t stand’ every couple of hours and it’s all a bit depressing really.

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The thing that I ‘just can’t stand’ at the moment is an essay that I’m writing on whether villains in Gothic fiction are the most interesting and complex characters. I don’t hate the essay because of what it is, I find the subject really interesting because I like reading Gothic fiction and the novel I’m writing about, Matthew Lewis’ ‘The Monk’, is absolutely fantastic. The problem is that the whole process of writing essays is just very time consuming and really quite dull. I genuinely haven’t left my flat since Tuesday. Frankly, I don’t know whether I’m even alive anymore. If I had died from essay ennui and was writing this blog as a ghost I wouldn’t be surprised. That’d be an interesting turn of events, that’s for sure…

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Me as a ghost.

But ok, that’s all I’m prepared to have a rant about this blog. Or at least, that is what I shall strive for.

Then again, what is a blog if not a rant about your opinions? I guess I could write one of those ‘diary’ sorts of blogs but I do sort of find those slightly… childish? No, that’s not fair. I just think that writing those sorts of blogs leaves you open to a very specific kind of misrepresentation which I have blogged about before, and I find myself somewhat at odds with. So I do endeavor to avoid writing those sorts of blogs nowadays because I don’t want that misrepresentation of my life.

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A fantastic example of misrepresentation found through a quick Google search.

Hmmmm… what to blog about… what to blog about… oh! Here’s one, it’s not very interesting and 90% of people won’t be interested but last week Nintendo finally announced the release date for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. For those who don’t know, the basic premise of the game is that you arrive in a town populated by animals and you build yourself a life there. It’s a sandbox game in the most sandboxy of ways. You can pretty much get up to whatever you want in your town, from fishing, to catching bugs, designing clothes, decorating your house, talking to the animals. I’d be very hard pressed to explain what makes it so much fun to play because pretty much every explanation of it makes it sound like the most boring game ever. It’s one for kleptomaniacs and people who like to express themselves. This installment has you taking the role of town mayor so you can do a whole lot more personalization, such as building public works around town and stuff. Animal Crossing: New Leaf has been available in Japan since early November, and we’re not getting it in Europe until June 14th, but I’m still super excited for it! The announcement of this game is one of the reasons I first bought my 3DS and I’ve been waiting nearly 3 years for it to come out, but I know it will be worth it! I’ll remind you all again when it comes out and you can send me your friend codes so we can all meet up online and have Animal Crossing based shenanigans! I may even do a review of it on my other blog when I get it. But if it sounds like your cup of tea from my small and rubbish description, I would seriously recommend getting a 3DS and the game when it comes out!

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A bizarre but brilliant example of Animal Crossing adorableness found on Tumblr.

I recently had some kind of bad family news the other week. A relative of mine has died after a long stint in hospital. I won’t be any more graphic about the situation than that because it somehow doesn’t feel right to put such a personal matter into a blog for all to see. I’m not saying this because I want people to say ‘Sorry for your loss’ or anything because that’s just a stupid thing people say and it doesn’t mean anything. That in itself isn’t the issue I want to talk about.

No, what I wanted to say is just how important it is to cherish the moment and the people and the life you have, because, as the song says ‘Anything Could Happen’. This family thing got me thinking about what it is to be alive here and now. Y’know sometimes it’s easy to be negative. Hell, my rants are a testament to that. Isn’t it so much easier to talk about the things you don’t like than discuss the things that you do? The sad truth of the matter is that most of us take the good stuff for granted. Think about something as controversial as politics, for example, I’m pretty sure that most people want to rant about how little our government is doing to help him or her or me or you, but no one ever stops to think how lucky we are. In some countries people can’t even grumble about their leading politicians without being arrested. So there’s a big matter, but what about a little one? Think about your friends; how often do you tell them how much you appreciate them? For me, not very often. I do, but I don’t say it. Well maybe I should. Maybe I’ll say it now; I do appreciate you all, even if I don’t always say it. I know it sounds simple but you don’t always have to be grand to be honest.

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Google search for ‘Appreciate life’.

The whole world could change at any moment so y’know, be happy with what you have. Just stop complaining for once and try to see the good.

And staying inside to do an essay all week isn’t good. There’s a whole world out there and it never stops and it never slows down and if you miss it then it’s gone forever. Maybe there’s such a thing as afterlife or reincarnation or whatever, but no one can prove it, and so we have to live every day like it’s our last because one day it will be. When I’m dying and I look back at my life, I don’t want to have anything to regret. Carpe Diem.

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With that said, I’m going to sign off. I didn’t plan to write this blog about anything and I’ve ended up with 1122 words. If only essay writing was so easy… speak to you soon!

Jack out.

PS. Not that I’m begging for comments or anything, but I do appreciate them, and I do appreciate reading what my readers have to say on the stuff I talk about, so don’t be afraid to drop me a line! 🙂

4 Comments
December 13, 2012

My undying, death defying love for you.

Hello, world! Long time no see! (Unless you count that weird shit I wrote last time.)

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I’m not sure quite what I wanted to blog about, but I’m feeling the writing vibes so I’ve sat down in front of my screen and decided to write. Oh, but that’s a lie, because I was already sitting in front of the screen. I have been for several hours. Pretty much all day actually. I did go out to the pub to put a deposit down for a house I’ll be renting with my buddies next year!

This house is gonna be four boys and my best friend Hollie. So yeah, basically like English ‘New Girl’. I imagine. We’ll see, I’ll keep you updated on how it all pans out, world of blogging. Then again, you know me, I’ll probably forget.

One thing I was thinking about is how I kind of feel like I need some more focus in my blogs. At the moment they range from me not having much to talking about, to essays on various points which amuse me. Occasionally I just blog things that are just too long to tweet about… shit; has Twitter actually become the ‘micro-blog’ which it purports itself to be?!

I often feel like I don’t care about anything enough to be listened to. People who get listened to are the ones who feel really really passionately about something, and I feel really passionate about some stuff, but not REALLY REALLY passionate about that stuff I feel passionate about. There’s a Virginia Woolf sentence for you. Oh my christ; I’m such a pretentious university student.

Then again, I was reading my very first few blogs on here before, and I was so pretentious, so I guess being pretentious isn’t something which has just arisen while I’ve been at university.

If I had the time one day, I’d love to go back and read ALL the shit I’ve posted in this blog. I imagine it’d make quite the tale. It’s really funny actually because in my very first blog I said something along the lines of ‘I’m being pushed down roads I don’t want to walk down’, which was actually the first time that I genuinely acknowledged to myself the fact that I was probably not completely heterosexual. And now look at me! I remember I wrote a blog the night before I came out to my mum, so I’d like to look back on that one too… coming out was such a drama. And now they’ve just announced we British homosexuals will be able to get civil weddings and will genuinely be able to call each other ‘husband and husband’ or ‘wife and wife’ rather than ‘partner and partner’.

‘Partner’. What a ridiculous word. It just makes me think of a jumped-up sidekick. Like Watson in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’; we all know who’s the brains of the operation (Sherlock) but it is Watson who takes our attention for the whole story. I mean, admittedly that’s because Arthur Conan Doyle was growing sick of the character of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to be rid of him for most of the story, but, to return to my point, it is the exact kind of case wherein the word ‘partner’ is probably the correct one.

I do want to get married some day. Not yet, mind you, but one day. Mat (that’s my boyfriend if anyone has forgotten) showed me this video the other day of these two guys getting married. It was so cute! They used a passage from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, and ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson as their vows. Kind of cheesy, but very cute. I’d like a wedding like they had. It was on a lakeshore, and then the reception was at a kind of little chalet in a pine forest with lights strung up in the trees. Yeah, a wedding like that would be very nice.

Y’know, maybe I’ll talk about love in this blog. It’s one of those things that you either love or hate the idea of. As much as my early blogs will probably cause you to believe otherwise, I’m a firm believer in love. Always have been, and I hope I always will be. I’m the result of years of romcoms, Disney movies, musicals, and chick-flicks. I believe in true love, I believe in knights in shining armour, I believe that romance exists and everything can be all happy if you work hard enough for it. I’m a romantic. Not a Romantic though. William Blake and his cronies can fuck off.

The work you do for love is very important I think. I’ve had three very distinct love-based experiences tonight. The first occurred when one of my buddies texted me saying that the guy she likes changed his Facebook relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’. She was gutted. It turned out to be someone else mucking about with his account, but I think that experience very much proves that if you have something to say to someone; say it. Don’t pussy-foot around about it, don’t wait for them to make the first move, just do it. If you do that and they say no then hey, there are literally several more fish in the sea. But don’t just sit on your feelings because then you might regret not saying anything. And regrets suck don’t they?

Ok, so my next love based experience of tonight was one of lost love. When do you stop saying that to love someone is to never let them go? When do you realize that actually, for both your sakes, you need to let go and try to move on? It’s a very difficult subject. I always did have a very hard time letting go of things, yet I advise my friends to let go of things themselves. I’m a terrible hypocrite, but it’s something interesting to think about.

And finally, was my contented love experience. I had a really nice conversation with Mat before and it made me feel very happy indeed. Nothing’s ever perfect and relationships are REALLY never perfect, me and Mat argue all the time, but it’s really nice when things do work and you can sit there and feel all warm and snuggly after all of it. We celebrated our two year anniversary together quite recently, and it’s really weird to think that there’s been two whole years of ups and downs and petty little arguments and grand gestures of romance and all that stuff. But it’s nice.

I think love is always something to be thankful for. It’s one of those things that you can’t ever totally put down. No matter how bad or difficult things get; if there’s a massive argument, or unrequited love, or a break up or anything, we never ever really completely give up on the idea of love. Even if that idea becomes little more than a dream.

I love my boyfriend. Maybe that thought makes some people’s stomachs churn, and well, that’s ok, because at the end of the day, that won’t change how I feel.

Love is such a precious thing because we never ever really lose hope in it.

I love love.

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Jack out.

5 Comments
October 30, 2012

Gay to Straight.

I don’t usually get involved in this sort of things, but I have some views on this matter which I think need expressing.

Ok, so there was a programme on BBC Three which went out last night as part of a series called ‘Stacey Dooley in the USA’. The series examines some elements of US culture which are quite different to the way things are done here in the UK and there are interviews and visits to various places and that sort of thing. Your general, light, fluffy, ‘Stacey Dooley fancied a holiday’, Doesn’t-require-a-lot-of-brain-power sort of documentary. However, last night’s episode caused something of a storm due to its contents. The episode was titled ‘Gay to Straight’ and examined Gay Conversion Therapy which exists mainly in the USA.

This is a hot topic in the UK right now, especially in London, where a series of adverts proclaiming that gay conversion therapy could essentially make you ‘get over’ your homosexuality, were pulled from being advertised on the side of the famous Red Double Decker buses.

Before I get into the meat of this blog, I’m going to state some facts and opinions which will colour my views and arguments and that I think are relevant to the point of view that I’m presenting. For a start, I’m a young gay man, I’m in a very happy loving relationship. I never have and I’m pretty sure I never will consider trying to ‘convert’ to heterosexuality. My parents have found it hard to come to terms with my sexuality but slowly and surely I think progress is being made, I’ve had a good relationship with both my mother and father since I was very young, although we bicker at times, I don’t think there has ever been any serious cutting off between us, except for maybe when I came out as gay but that rift is slowly healing.

Ok, now here’s my main point and one which I think is probably going to cause some contention: I don’t think gay conversion therapy is homophobic. Nor do I think that it is a bad thing in itself.

People go to gay conversion therapy because they believe that they should be straight. They find the thought of being gay terrifying; they believe that it will limit them and their lives. To some extent, they are correct. Being gay isn’t easy, that’s just a simple fact. Despite the growing tolerance and embracing of the gay community by society, there is still at least a social unease about it, and at worst, in some cases, a downright disgust directed towards gay people. This homophobia can be pretty bad in the UK, but it seems to me, that it many many times worse in the USA. I can understand why people would be filled with dread at the prospect of being gay and would want to ‘convert’ to being straight. To the people who are filled with such a degree of self-loathing when they realize that they’re gay, and want to seek gay conversion therapy, more power to you I say. It isn’t homophobic to want that for yourself. If being ‘made straight’ is what it takes to make you happy then I absolutely agree that you should do it.

But I think the reasons why people seek gay conversion therapy is where we find the homophobia.

The people on this television programme were Christians. I know that a lot of sections of Christianity are very accepting of the gay community and at least tolerant, but many aren’t. And I know this isn’t just Christianity, a whole lot of world religions are very anti-gay. It’s here that we find homophobia. One only needs to look at the pickets outside Gay Pride meetings to know that. Now, I’ve not got a problem with you loathing homosexuality on the grounds of your religion. No, sir. People have been following these traditions for thousands of years and nothing some kid with a blog can say is going to change that. But here’s what I do have a problem with: making me or anyone else loath homosexuality on account of your religion. If religious people believe that I’m going to hell because I’m gay, then that’s absolutely fine, but I don’t subscribe to that religious belief and so I don’t see why you should concern yourself with telling me things that I have no belief or interest in. Religion shouldn’t make people hate themselves for being gay; if that is your view then fine. But keep it your view. Trying to subject people to your views or force them to believe things just because you believe them is cruel. Wouldn’t you rather they believe in the things you believe in because they think you’re right, rather than because you told them to? I believe that everyone has a personal relationship with God and I don’t believe that just because one person’s view exists that everyone else should have to follow that view as well.

Another cause of self-loathing for gay people is found in the home. A lot of, if not most, gay people find a lot of opposition towards their sexuality comes from their parents. My mother was horrified when I told her that I was gay; she feared that someday a gang of people will gay-bash me and I’ll die from it, or I’ll get AIDS and die, or that I’ll never be happy because I won’t have kids with a woman. And yes, maybe that will happen. But maybe I’ll walk in front of a bus and die. Being gay wouldn’t prevent that from happening to me. And maybe I’ll adopt some kids or have some via surrogacy, and maybe I’ll be a brilliant dad. Being gay doesn’t prevent that from happening to me either. I can understand the views of parents who react in a similar way to how my mum reacted. I do completely understand them. Parents want the best for their children, and for an outside observer who may not have much knowledge or experience of the gay community, you can see why it would be scary for a parent to see their child going down a road which they believe will only result in death and destruction. I’m sure my mum doesn’t feel like this anymore, because she’s come to see that I’m still her son, I’ve not changed, I’m happy in my relationship, I’m careful with myself, and maybe, just maybe, I’m going to be ok. But a lot of parents of gay people don’t give themselves this time to sit back and observe. And equally, some gay people don’t give their parents this time. They either expect that their parents should be fine with it, or in the case of those going for gay conversion therapy, they try to do something about it to seek their parents approval. Well please parents, give your child some time, and give yourself some time to observe and adjust before you make them feel horrible about themselves.

I think there are many more reasons for why gay people seek conversion therapy, but I think these two are the main ones. I think if other people didn’t try to impress their views on gay people, especially when they’re just coming out, then perhaps less would seek conversion therapy.

Also, I completely agree with the decision to pull the signs off the buses. But I think the decision was made for the wrong reasons. Boris Johnson banned the signs because they weren’t acceptable in a diverse society. Well sorry, but there are currently signs on the buses celebrating homosexuality, and in a multi-cultural diverse society where many religions find this offensive, this isn’t acceptable in a diverse society either. There’s a bizarre sense of what can and what can’t be discriminated against and what people are and aren’t allowed to be offended about, which I find incredibly strange indeed, however that is a topic for another day. The reason I think the signs shouldn’t be allowed on buses is that they glorify an easy way out. When I first came out, I came out as bisexual because in my eyes that was more acceptable to society. Not only that but I promised myself I’d eventually snap out of it and the gay would switch off. If you’d offered me then a way to ‘switch off the gay’ even more quickly, I would have taken it and herein lies the problem. If people saw these signs when they were just coming out and weren’t quite ready to accept themselves then they’d probably leap at such an opportunity without ever getting to know themselves or experience the great happiness and fun that they can have being gay. They’ve had these fears and hatreds impressed on them by religion, society, their parents and they don’t know enough about being gay to make a fully informed decision yet. If, after they have had experience of being gay and are in a position to make a fully informed decision and they choose to go to conversion therapy to make themselves happy, then brilliant.

Also, I object to several commonly purported ideas about homosexuality which are thrown about by both homophobes and gay conversion therapy clinics:

  1. ‘You can choose to be gay.’ – No you can’t. Homosexuality is a commonly recurring trait throughout nature, it isn’t something that you can choose. Even if you could choose it, who would? People who have a serious masochistic streak who enjoy being constantly belittled and mocked for it? Yeah. Logical.
  2. ‘Gay conversion therapy helps people’ – I hate that word ‘help’ because it implies that they need to be helped away from being gay, as if being gay is in fact, wrong.
  3. ‘The gay lifestyle’. I HATE that phrase. Being gay isn’t a lifestyle. Being a vegetarian is a lifestyle. Being gay is not. It links in with the choosing to be gay, but it’s a ridiculous phrase that people need to stop using. Especially people like Stacey Dooley on television shows about this stuff.

On top of this, I don’t think gay conversion therapy works. I think it works as a suppressant but not as a cure. People can mock and belittle me and tease and heap scorn on me for the colour of my hair. I could dye it to make the problem go away, but that doesn’t change the natural colour. In my eyes, gay conversion therapy is like hair dye. It may cover up your homosexuality, but it won’t get rid of it.

I realize I’ve formed a rather complicated web of agreements and disagreements here so I think I’ll round off this blog by reiterating what I’m trying to say: let people be happy and if they are don’t try to ruin it for them with your personal views. Give people some time and thought. If you’re happy being homophobic, then be homophobic, but keep that homophobia to yourself. I’m happy being gay, but I do try really really hard to make sure that I don’t wave it around in the faces of people who are uncomfortable with it. I think everyone just needs to be a little more tolerant of everyone. If people are happy just let them be. If gay conversion therapy, or being gay, or being religious, or having a particular hair colour makes them happy then just let them be happy. Surely that’s the key to a more peaceful society; just let people be happy in their own little world.

As always, the comments section is open to everyone, I’d love to hear your views on this subject! If you yourself, or someone you know has gone through gay conversion therapy, I’d love to hear your stories and/or views on what I’ve written. I will say though, that I will be deleting and marking as spam all intolerant comments, whether they be anti-gay, anti-religious, or anti-anything-else.

Stay happy guys,

Jack out.

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July 14, 2012

I’m not sorry for just being me, but if you look past the past then you’ll see!

I need to write a less angsty blog. My past two have been dreadfully dull.

Anyway, I’m a good mood today, and I have barely been on Twitter or Facebook in the past 24 hours so I’m hopefully not going to end up writing about all my complains with people on their. Oh god, even thinking about it is making me angry… think of something else, THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE!!!!

I went to the pub for tea with some of my mates last night and it was so much fun! We were there for AGES! And spent the whole night trolololing which was obviously brilliant! Ended up feeling a bit like the Sex and the City girls. Even though two of the four of us were male, and we were out in the countryside… still, there was a lot of sexual banter and raucous shenanigans! Actually, is that what the Sex and the City girls do? I’ve never watched the adventures of Carrie, Samantha and whatever the rest of them are called so I’m probably not in a position to comment…

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If you’re wondering why I know that there’s one called Samantha and one called Carrie it’s for these reasons. In the hit film ‘Bruno’ (which has an umlaut over the ‘u’ but I can’t be bothered finding out how to put one of those in) he mentions there’s a character called Samantha, telling an American redneck that ‘that’s such a Samantha thing to say!’ which is a funny exchange if you watch it, though it’s on the trailer so you’ll probably see it if you just look on Youtube. And I know one of them is called Carrie because my friend always retweets a fan account of Carrie Bradshaw or something.

As you can probably tell from my recent blogs, I have a slight addiction to Twitter. And yes, I would call it an addiction. Everytime I go on my phone, I always find myself scrolling to the page that the Twitter app is on, even if I want to text someone, the app for which is on the start up page. It’s awful.

I wish I was brilliant at photo editting. If I was, I’d be able to convince the entire universe of my (deeply, very very very deeply) underlying attractiveness. I don’t really know why I’d want to, but it might be a fun project!

I’m currently writing a novella about a zombie apocalypse. I’m not sure if the ‘zombie apocalypse’ genre really works in prose, but I doubt I’ll do anything with it, and I could probably transpose it into the form of a script if needs be. You might be able to check it out on my other blog if I do get it finished. I’ll post a link to that at some point…

If you’re wondering about the rambling nature of this blog (because obviously I never ramble on my other blogs, I always absolutely stick to the point) it’s because I’m just writing it while I wait until a time when my boyfriend is likely to be out of bed so I can call him and ask if he’ll give me a lift into town… that actually sounds very mercenary, but I should add that we’re going into town together anyway and I’ll pay for parking/get him a frappecino, so it all balances it out in the end. We’re currently on 11.12am so I reckon I need to spin this blog out for a good while yet…

I’d get the bus, but unfortunately my bus pass has run out, and unless you’re a lottery winner then public transport isn’t really feasible. I’m sorry, but £4.50ish (if you don’t have a railcard £3.70ish if you do) for a twenty minute train journey into town is obscene. And £3.70 for a return to town on the bus, which isn’t even fast or reliable is absolutely ridiculous. The problem is that some places (my friends/Twitter followers will probably know where I mean) get a bus every 9 minutes. 9 minutes. Who the hell needs a bus every 9 minutes?! I swear they could lower their prices if they just cut this down to a bus every 20 minutes or something. It’s obscene.

Y’know what is annoying? (If someone decries this as hypocritical then they’ll be getting a swift kick around the chops) When people make something that is clearly nothing to do with them about themselves. I mean, I’m all for finding a meaning that’s relevant to your own life in the things that other people say or do, but there’s a key difference between finding a personal interpretation and making something about yourself. Like when you say something, a fairly general, innocuous comment, and someone gets really offended because they decide that you were talking about them! It’s annoying. And the way that you see people doing that in the most downright inappropriate places. For example when people say stuff like ‘Rest in peace Gran, it’s been a year to the day since you died’. And that’s sad, and it might be a sad day for that person if they were particularly close to this metaphorical gran, but then, to that, someone comes along and replies ‘Ah, yeah, I know how you feel, my hamster’s a bit ill at the moment’. Sorry, what?! It sounds ridiculous, but I see this sort of thing happening so often. It makes me very angry.

I don’t know where that rant just came from actually but you know. I obviously can’t write a blog without fitting a rant in there somewhere.

I’ve been getting headaches a lot recently. I think I need to drink more water…

This is random, (LOL I’M SOOOOOOO RANDOM! (Note the sarcasm.)) but I kind of want to dye my hair. I’ve wanted to for AGES, but I’ve never got round to it. At first I wanted to dye it like dark brown, but it wouldn’t have matched my eyebrows and I would have ended up looking a bit like a reverse Boris Johnson, though hopefully a lot less chubby. No less eccentric though. So then I thought I’d dye it blonde, which WOULD match my eyebrows. I thought I’d probably get a lot of hassle from my mum for it but she seemed pretty cool with the idea when I suggested it since apparently I used to have lovely blonde hair when I was a kid. But unfortunately, I have problems with this colour as well, which I shall write out in the form of a list (which yes, I’m actually warming to, I don’t dislike lists as much as I did):

1. Apparently blonde is the stereotypical colour to which gay guys dye their hair.

2. My best friend has just/is just about to dye her hair blonde, and I know a ridiculous amount of people who’ve done so as well, so I’d probably look like I was just copying them.

3. My boyfriend has a thing of blondes, so I’d no doubt get accused of doing it because he’d pressured me into it.

4. I have enough blonde moments as it is.

5. My dad would go mental.

So I don’t know really. We’ll have to see… I might see if I can do it when I’m at university. But as a poor, impoverished student, we’ll then get the question as to whether I can afford it. Oh woe is me!

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Anyway, it’s now half eleven, so if Mat isn’t out of bed yet, then I’ll have to wake him up!

Jack out.

PS. I wore a bow tie yesterday. I felt so cool.

PS. Aren’t brackets cool? (Yes.)

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June 9, 2012

Nothing ever seems like it used to be…

My my my! I haven’t blogged in a while…

I honestly don’t know where on earth I’ve been all this time, so if any of my readers were remotely interested in such a tale, I’m afraid this blog will come as a disappointment… I actually looked at my last post and was surprised to see that it came from the misty past of April the 10th! I’m sorry, hands of time, but it does not feel as though you’ve traveled so quickly…

I have actually returned to the old Theycallmejack’s Blog a few times since then and attempted to write something worth reading, but I found that I was incapable of doing this to my own satisfaction so I didn’t. I’m not saying that what I usually write is much worth reading either, nor am I saying that this will be either, but still! Writing is good for the soul.

Maybe I should spend this blog trying to work out what I’ve been doing since the 10th of April and give you a fascinating insight into my life. I’d love to try such a thing, but then it occurs to me that I’ve done very little of note since then so I can see this being a disappointment… nevertheless, I shall bullet point the things I’ve seen, done, and thought of late that I can remember…

  • Finished reading The Hunger Games series. I was greatly impressed. So much so that I recommended them to a customer at work when she asked for a good read! They’re very good.
  • While we’re on the subject of books, though this isn’t in chronological order following the previous bullet point, I bought Madeline Miller’s excellent ‘The Song of Achilles’ on Sunday and have been avidly reading it ever since. I’ve actually had to force myself to put it down in order that some revision for my A levels is actually achieved. It’s such a brilliant, evocative story of Achilles’ life, told from the point of view of his best friend and lover, Patroclus. Honestly, give it a read and you shan’t be disappointed! It’s a really beautiful book, and a great read!Image
  • I had my drama A level exam on the 31st of May, and spent quite a lot of time annotating my exam script in preparation for that leading up to the exam which was a lot of fun. It went reasonably well I hope, but I won’t tempt fate by saying how I thought it went.
  • I watched the finale of Glee. I wasn’t greatly impressed I must say. I got confused by the episode where everyone body swapped because I couldn’t work out why other people were playing other characters as it seemed to have no real reason in the storyline, I felt the Nationals episode was underdone and slightly wet lettucey, and the final episode grated simply because Kurt didn’t get into NYADA and Rachel, despite failing her audition in the most spectacular way possible somehow did… mystifying! I’m aware this won’t mean much to the casual non-Glee-watching reader, but it is an event that happened.
  • Oh, I left college. I suppose that’s quite a big one isn’t it? Yeah, that was all rather fun! I performed in the Leavers Service in front of a huge audience with a play which we’d put together in about two and half hours? Nerve-wracking but it was a lot of fun and a nice way to end college. Then me and the drama lot went out and got a bit drunk. I was very drunk. More so than I’ve ever been. Embarassingly so. I believe I may have loudly whispered that the manager in McDonald’s looked like a man when she was standing beside me. Awkward. Shan’t be doing that for a while.
  • I discovered my Xbox was broke so I’ve had to buy a new one which arrived today and is very snazzy. There’s no buttons on it, you just hold you finger over the things that look like buttons and then it makes a little jingle and does what you want it to! It’s the little things in life that impress me most! Image
  • Spent a frankly atrocious amount of time watching The Jeremy Kyle Show and Come Dine With Me. I don’t even like either of these television programmes so goodness only knows why I’ve watched so much of them…
  • Revised. Talking about revision is almost as dull as actual revision so I won’t go into it.
  • Did spend quite a good proportion of my time playing Mario Tennis Open on my 3DS! It hasn’t got THE greatest review scores so I was a bit dubious about buying it, but it’s a lot of fun and very addictive, so it has my recommendation! Image
  • Spent a lot of time writing. I’ve been churning out my latest novelette at a ridiculous pace recently. I’m really getting into it, and I’m loving it! Back in the days before college wore me out so much, I used to write all the time, as any long time readers of this blog will know, but I haven’t in ages, so this new urge to write is very good indeed! I’m actually pondering whether to brush up a couple of my old things and publish them in somekind of anthology on Kindle… it’d be nice to get the feedback if nothing else… Image
  • I’ve sorted out a lot of university stuff, so I hope I get in. I really can’t be bothered doing the whole shebang all over again!
  • All the general going out with my friends and my boyfriend and the like…
  • Watched, and was slightly disappointed with the Nintendo E3 conference. My favourite part was when they revealed all those surprise announcements. <—– Sarcasm. Still, I did enjoy this little guy’s appearance quite a lot, and I hope he gets his own game: Image

And that is all I can remember. Phew. I actually started this blog by saying that I wasn’t going to write about where I’ve been for the past 2 months and that’s exactly what I’ve done. You never know what you’re gonna get with me… madness! Anyway, I hope you’re all well and alive!

Much love,

Jack out.

PS. Here is a picture of some cheerful Pikmin to brighten your day! 🙂

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March 5, 2012

Here’s to us, here’s to love, all the times that we messed up, here’s to you!

I had a somewhat rough week last week.

I was feeling really lonely and left out; all isolated from my best friends. I felt overly stressed with my college work, and the play that I’m putting on. Besides that, some of my friends have some issues of their own which I was feeling powerless to help them with. And on top of it all, I felt like I was putting all my stress on my boyfriend, which was stressing me out even further.

But today, I’ve had the most brilliant day. Like, in all seriousness, I’ve had just such a great day. It’s as if someone somewhere was listening to every single worry and problem I was having last week and has mopped them all up in one fell swoop. Fabulous.

Ok, so my issues with hard work at college and worrying about university? Well, perhaps this is silly, but, I had to write an essay in Ancient History about how well the sources enable us to assess the moral attitudes of Rome in the period (Augustus to Domitian). I was really worrying about this essay because I thought I knew nothing about the moral attitudes of Rome in our period. However, the essay went remarkably well and I realized I know more than I thought I did. Which was fun. Anyway, the whole experience taught me that perhaps I should worry less about stuff, because if I do what I can do, I might just be better than I think I will.

Then I had a free. Which normally, I hate. Because Monday free is crap and I have no friends who share it with me. So normally I go find a computer and pretend to do work for an hour and a half. However, this free, I went to town with Cat. Who is a person, not a cat, hence the capitalization. And I had a great time! She’s a friend of mine, but not someone who I really see that often, so it was really nice to have a nice chat and a catch up, wander around, look in the shops, and have a bit of a laugh! Lovely!

Then drama, which I love. And I’m about to love it even more, because we’re studying a play called ‘The Lysistrata’ by an Ancient Greek playwright called Aristophanes, which is great because I’ve studied Aristophanes, and the context of the play so I get to be the clever one who knows lots about the play, which is nice! Plus I sit next to Addie, who is quietly hilarious. We contemplated our lives while eating a quarter of a Victoria Sponge each and raisins outside a theatre the other day. That’s the quietly hilarious Addie, I’m talking about.

The next portion of my day I’ll discuss are my rehearsals. We had two today. One at lunchtime and one after college. They’re for this play that we’re putting on. I’m the writer of it. And the director. And the producer. And it seemed like a much smaller project than it turned out to be when I started it.

I’ll not lie about it, the whole process has been causing me a lot of undue stress these past few weeks. Problems like getting my cast to learn their lines, finding the props we need online, editting the script, writing up the project that is getting marked, people managing the other people who are involved with the project, lighting for example.

However, this rehearsal it dawned on me that while, yes, I’m stressing like a bitch about the project, I’m loving every second of it. I’m doing the job (well, a taste of it at least) that I want to spend the rest of my life doing, I’m finally realizing my vision for a play I wrote but that I never thought would see any staging.

Most importantly though, I get to spend every Monday and Thursday with Georgia, Megan, Natalie, Matt and Rob Squared (there are two guys both called Rob) which has been brilliant. It’s odd because we’re a kind of mismatched group of drama kids who probably wouldn’t normally be friends, but we get together a few times a week and we make this play. It’s fun to spend time with them. Yes, we’re putting together a play, but we have fun. We’re always laughing and joking and if I’ve had a hard day at college, hanging out with those guys really really cheers me up. And for all the stress that putting on this play causes me, I wouldn’t trade it for the world because at the end of the day, I get to spend time with a group of some of the most funny, kind, dramatic, and brilliant people I know. Yeah, I’ll definitely miss it when it’s over; mostly I’ll miss hanging out with these guys though. If any of them fancy reading this, I hope you know how much I love you lot!

Not to forget my other friends of course. If truth be told, I’ve been feeling a little bit left out in regards to them at the minute and its been stressing me out a lot. But on my way home, I was texted by both Mollie and Hayley asking me if I wanted to go to the cinema or something with them, and Jess sent me a link to a video which she’d watched and thought I’d enjoy. Then there was Hollie who stayed up late last night for a chat and to send me some music, and Michelle and Ella who make my dullest lesson, General Studies fly by nonetheless! Little things, yes, but ones that truly mean a lot to me and make me glad to have the most brilliant friends.

And of course, this wouldn’t be one of my famous ‘thank you for making me realize that my life isn’t actually that shit’ blogs without a special mention going out to Mat, my boyfriend, who looks after me day-in-day-out. I know I get on his nerves sometimes, but he still puts up with me which is more than I could ever ask for. He really does go the extra mile for me. Today he’s spent ages working on a video uplink to help the lighting director of my play. Bless him. Truly a godsend of a boyfriend. I feel so lucky to have him.

And that concludes my blog for today. To summarize, I have realized that really, life is pretty damn good and that I am deeply, deeply blessed with some of the greatest friends imaginable. I’m humbled every time I come upon this revelation and realize it all over again. So so much love to you guys.

Jack out.

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February 6, 2012

What makes you so damn sure that you’re perfect, huh?

So I was pondering this subject on the bus, and I thought I’d write a blog about it.

This is one of those fairly generic blog posts where I’m not going to bother talking about anything interesting or relevant, and instead I’m going to wile away my time discussing my thoughts on this particular subject in a rambling, incoherent manner. There’s your warning.

I’ve been considering people. People who are just brilliant. In my opinion, most people are brilliant, but there’s those few who are extra specially brilliant. I’m talking about those people who seemed to be graced with every available natural positive trait.

You know who I mean, the people who look a little something like this:

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That person you know who’s just effortlessly good at everything. You know that one person. Who’s just flippin’ sexy, looks really good even if they’re just wearing scruffy stuff, seems to be inexplicably talented at EVERYTHING, and also seems to be more popular than sliced bread. That person. That bloody irritating chap/chappette who always seems to pop up and ruin your vague attempts at self-esteem.

See, I bet, if I got that exact outfit that the guy from the picture is wearing, made that exact same gesture, in that exact same place, I wouldn’t look as good. Because he’s just one of ‘those guys’, who’s always gonna be just brilliant. Gah. How irritating.

The worst thing about these super beings is that most of the time, they have no idea that they’re making everyone else feel so completely inadequate in comparison. And those who are aware of how generally great they are are always complete tools about the situation, dragging them down to the level of normal people who are just not as great.

Maybe that’s the point; its all just a coincidence, and a random set of genes which come together to produce such a person, and you’re not supposed to compare yourself to them. But, seriously, I don’t think if you looked right the way across the world you’d ever find a single person who wasn’t envious at least once of the natural graces of another person…

The whole thing depresses me somewhat.

But hey! There’s more to this blog than some kind of endless mope about how inferior I feel to those handsome devils! After all, that’s why I’ve been writing this whole thing in a somewhat satirical fashion. Because y’know what’s really brilliant about people?

Everyone is different.

So yeah, I find that guy whose picture I posted really attractive. And I bet there’s probably lots of other people who do too. But some people will thing he’s hideous. So even if I think he looks like he’s one of them ‘superior beings’, he probably has people who he thinks the same of. Because nobody is perfect to everybody.

I could sit here all evening and moan about how hideous I feel when I’m around those people; how I don’t look as good in clothes, how I can’t do all the things they can do, how I’m often a socially awkward lil critter, how people don’t like me as much as them, but here’s the point:

I was talking to Mat about some guy from college who is one of those people. And my boyfriend stopped me and said ‘he’s got nothing on you, whatever he does he’ll never be as perfect as you’.

As shit as I can feel about myself sometimes, I can’t deny that I’m loved. There’s at least one person out there who believes that I’m the pinnacle of ‘that guy’ness. Which is brilliant. And I’m pretty confident that for every single that person out there, there’s someone to think you’re the perfect one.

And that’s what makes me so damn sure that I’m perfect.

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Jack out.

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February 2, 2012

Take me out, into the nighttime, for walls won’t hold me tonight.

I don’t really know what I’m gonna blog about.

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So I’ll see how things pan out and then I’ll choose a title. It’s likely to be something Michael Jackson related because I’ve just watched the Glee tribute episode to him, which I loved so I have MJ rattling round my head. I like that about Glee; before I watched this episode, I wasn’t really much into Michael Jackson, he was just that mildly creepy, reportedly paedophilic, ex-celebrity who was famous for having lots of plastic surgery, and now that I’ve actually had one of my favourite TV shows introduce me to his music, I’m giving MJ a second chance. So yeah, hate on it all you like people, but Glee, despite its many flaws, does at the very least help introduce people to music they wouldn’t have listened to before!

So yeah, not really sure where this blog is heading.

Perhaps I’ll discuss the future. But then, don’t I spend all my time discussing the future? And yet, few of my predictions seem to come true. I could tell you about me and my boyfriend, but again, I do that all the time and frankly, we’re all good and our relationship is about the two of us, not the two of us and everyone else who reads this blog. College? Well that’s the same as ever – work, friends, enemies, bitching, etc.

Ahhh… life is just dull at the moment. But don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining. Because as boring as dull is, at least its safe. When life is dull then you don’t have to worry so much. And sometimes, it’s nice not to have to worry. Because, let’s face it, worrying can be pretty tiring. Dull is, at least, relaxing. Excitement is fun and loud and bright, but sometimes people get hurt and then you wish it was dull again. So I figure its better to take things as they come and be happy as much as you can, whether things are dull or exciting!

Actually, saying life is dull at the moment isn’t true in all spheres. I’m currently directing and producing a play, which I also wrote, which is great fun. It’s my first time of producing a piece of drama all myself, so yeah, it should be good. I mean, admittedly, I haven’t been too adventurous; it’s still being performed at my college and everything, but you have to start somewhere right? I’ve still had to organize booking rooms for rehearsals and performance, sort out someone to do the lighting, organize all the props and costumes, as well as directing! So yeah, I’ve been pretty busy at the moment, but honestly, I’m loving it! That said, I can see myself getting more and more stressed as we get closer to performance night… oh well!

In other general rambles, I’ve been thinking today about powerlessness. A couple of my close mates have been having a pretty rough week, I’m thinking of two people in particular and they’ve been really cut up about some stuff that’s been happening in each of their lives, and its really hard to see them like that. Probably not nearly as bad as it is actually being in their shoes, but its hard to see the people you love hurting… Its like, I really want to do something and help them, but I can’t because I don’t know what to do. I dunno. If they read this, and they’re feeling down, then I’ll just say that they’ve got a friend in me, I’ll do what I can for them.

I just found out that Android users are most likely to put out on a first date than people who own any other brand of phone. I don’t know why anyone made a survey about this, but I doubt there’s very much in it that couldn’t be put down to random chance. Still, you never know…

In completely unrelated news, Valentine’s Day is coming soon! Now, I love Valentine’s Day; I think it’s brilliant to have a day where we just celebrate love for the sake of it. On the downside, it is becoming something of a pain in the ass to find the perfect Valentine’s gift for Mat. I just wanna make it special. As always with me. Gah. I’m too soppy.

Anyway, I think I’d better round off this blog before I go insane! If you have any interesting or exciting news to share, feel free to drop me a comment!

Jack out.

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