Eric Jordan’s Weblog

So I just got done hanging out with some people at a restuarant. This group of friends always goes to this specific location. They all know each other there and there’s a large enough group that even if you don’t plan on seeing anyone there, chances are you will.

The problem I have with getting to deeply invovled with this group is how very interlaced their relationships are with each other. It seems almost as if everyone has gone out with everyone else and has something to say about their past relationships. The boys are attractive for the most part, and seem to be all right people. They tend to seem a bit on the easy side, which isn’t attractive to me. I’m also not sure I could handle the conversation the way I’m sure it would go. Here’s my prediction:

“Hi! Guess what! I’m going out with Joe!”
“Oh. I went out with him last summer. Good luck!”
(I should not continue but…)”What do you mean?”
“Well…I dunno. He’s just <negative aspect of other person>.”

You get the idea, right? I’m almost certain that if this did happen, the negative comment would most certainly be lingering in the hidden depths of my mind for all the right times to pop out and force me to reconsider the relationship.

I live in a smaller area. There’s a cluster of cities and we like to think that when combined, we’re somewhat impressive. The big problem is, it’s still small. The cluster consists of something like 150,000-200,000 people maybe, but the gay community isn’t very large especially when you consider the age group to be 17-22 or so? I would say there’s atleast 30 gays in the area that fit in that age range. 25 of them go to this restaurant. I’ve been with the three others. I know 2 of the other people and they’re slutty without the 25 people. I’m doomed, right? =P

(Note: Figures in the article are mostly imaginative.)

I finished watching a flash movie about 8 principals to having fun. One of the principals stated that you should remove all the clutter in your life. I agree with that, but in the list of clutter it said people. I felt they said this hesitantly, don’t ask me why I think that. Either in that same movie or in another one made by them, they said that you should love and cherish your friends and family. This created a problem for me, if I were to follow those principals.

A lot of the clutter I see in my life comes from my family and sometimes my friends. I love them but they do have their tenancies to get overwhelming. I always saw my self doing something great with my life, but I also want to be with the people I love and experience life with them. There are some problems in that equation. I feel as though nothing truly great resides where I live currently. I live in a small area full of people and companies, most of which aren’t huge in the world. I would like to think that if I did something, it’d be to better the world but I don’t know if I can do that here. Basically, I want to move, see the world and draw in experiences from different places and people. Honestly, I don’t want to leave my friends…I want to leave my family, which I think is normal for someone of my age.

I feel as though one of my friends might be holding me back. I love her dearly, so I say this with the best intentions. I always thought I would be doing things in a spontaneous way. On a whim. She however plans everything, which works for her. She doesn’t want to move anywhere unless she already has a job waiting, an apartment waiting and knows what’s going on. I however don’t understand how you can have a life somewhere you’ve never been. There has to be some planning for the future, like I would either take enough money with me to get a place to stay or have someone waiting to help me out with rooming accommodations. So I was thinking about this lately, and I discuss it with her and she seems to think I’m crazy. She explicitly told me that I cannot go anywhere that I don’t have a place to live and a job to earn money from. I told her what I thought on all this, and as my best friend she barred me from going anywhere without mainly these two qualifications.

Would my friend qualify as clutter? She said she would follow me, if I moved appropriately. Would this be a good situation? Lots of questions are running through my head.

Hey guys,

I know I haven’t posted in a while. I haven’t really had anything to talk about…Okay, well I have but I didn’t think it was interesting enough to post.

It’s said that smell is the sense that creates the best memories.
I came home just now from hanging out with a friend and I’m so…bummed. I don’t know if it’s to the extent of being depressed, but definitely down. A boyfriend I was going out with this winter wore this spray called “Masculino” I believe and I loved it! Whenever I was around him, the smell was so pleasant it just put me in a 7th heaven mood.
We’ve been apart for months now, but even when I smell it I think of him. I think of all those moments we’ve shared together. I miss him and I missed that smell.
I was in the store a week ago and I sprayed some on myself. I know, creepy right? Well I couldn’t help myself. All the way home I kept smelling my wrist; where I sprayed it for easy access. A few days after my reminiscence I asked a friend if it would be inappropriate for me to purchase that spray. They said it would be fine. This friend knows that my ex wore it. She likes the smell too. She said it’s not weird that I’m wearing what he used to wear.

Tonight I wore that spray. Every time I smell it, I miss him! I can’t stop thinking about him; cuddling him, holding him, being next to him, talking to him. All of it.

Is this a good idea? Should I continue to wear something that might possibly torture me the entire time? Or will this scent association dissipate?

Something that I find to be a large issue in my generation is young parents. It seemed that from junior year in high school to now, there has been a large amount of people who had children. These people range from 16 years old to about 25. I believe that if you’re under 25 years old, you are in no way mature enough to raise a child unless absolutely necessary and even then, your parents should help you.

The cause, in my experience with this is neglect of proper protection. Most of the young parents I ask say their kids are accidents. Neither of the parents has good jobs, stable lives or is emotionally prepared for a child.¹ The reason of neglect gives me the ability to, for the most part, not feel any guilt or sorrow for those young parents.

My sister is included in the ever increasing list of young parents. She is already on her second “accident child”. I remember a few of our conversations when she was pregnant with her first child. I asked her why she hadn’t used a condom. Her response was that it was too much of a hassle and they didn’t like the feeling of them. Then later in the conversation she asked me if I felt sorry for her being in that situation. I told her the truth, which is I did not feel at all sorry for her. She didn’t understand why. She was put in the awkward position of having to explain to her mother that she was knocked up without being married. I told her that this was the price she would have to pay for not thinking ahead and using the necessary protection to prevent it.

She’s now on her second child. The care she provides for her child is sufficient but no where near what I had hoped it would be. I’m thoroughly disappointed. Sure, she goes to work now (after having taken five months off). My mother babysits while my sister is at work. When my sister comes home, she calls her husband and they talk for a while then my sister goes to sleep. The entire time she’s home, our mother is watching my sister’s child.

I’m not trying to say she neglects him, but she doesn’t do her part by any means. I feel that she figures that because she’s worked 8 hours today, she doesn’t have to do anything after getting out of work. Normally this might be true, but because she has the responsibility of raising a human being for the next 18 years, she isn’t finished when she gets home.

One evening, she was busy talking to her husband on the phone in the kitchen. Her son followed her out there and proceeded on standing on a kitchen chair. Everyone else was sitting in the living room at the time, assuming she was paying full attention to the child. She didn’t take him off the chair. He eventually slipped a bit and almost fell off. He didn’t get hurt but he was certainly scared which caused him to cry. I was upset that she wasn’t fully aware of the situation her son was in.

I suppose this mother stuff will eventually sink in. Hopefully having two kids will speed up the process. The main thing I’m scared of though is the fact there’s a slim chance the children might be suffering. The child might suffer in the sense of emotional instability. The young parents of today may not have the experience in handling certain situations that may come up.

A few months ago a friend of mine was talking to me online. We were discussing her relationship with a new boy. She was 18 or 19 at the time. This was the year after she was supposed to have graduated. He was a sophomore. They had been going out for less than 6 months. They had made plans to get married and have a child. I stated that I was against this decision and as her friend I strongly suggested she didn’t follow through with this idea. When I stated this, she got upset with me and basically disconnected with me for quite some time. I don’t know what her opinion is any longer. We just recently started talking again, and the subject hasn’t come up and I dare not trigger it. Either way, it’s thoroughly disappointing to see that my generation has lost the ability to think through their actions before following through with them.

In ending, I’d like to state that I love my sister and my nephew very much. I think my nephew has brightened up my life immensely. In my opinion, my sister is doing a fine job raising him, but like any other parents, she has her weak spots.

¹The grammar of this sentence has been edited by Microsoft Word. If it sounds awkward, it isn’t my fault.

A couple times in my life I have had friends betray me so much that it is difficult for me to continue the friendship. One such instance is when a girl set me up with the immature boy that was a few years too young for me. She had knowingly allowed me to go out with someone who was illegally too young for me. My other friends agreed that this was a high offense and that it would be appropriate if I didn’t talk to her any more. So, calmly we all just stopped talking to her and I haven’t heard from her. I’m not quite sure why she’s been so okay with it, she sees us all hanging out together. Anyways, I was able to just move on without her just fine.

Another such instance was when a friend set me up with someone. Everything was going fine until one day, I was hanging out with her, another girl and we went to pick up the boy. We arrived at his house and I wanted him to sit up front with me and my friend got upset and insisted that he sit in back. I asked her why and she got offended. She said she needed to inform him of something. So, they talked then I asked if he could sit upfront and she agreed. There was a bit of hostility between us though. Later, after we dropped him off, I explained I was hoping to hold his hand for the first time that evening, and then I think she felt guilty. Anyways, I asked her later what the whole thing was about. She held it as a secret for a while, then informed me that she had told him that he had to contact another boy they mutually knew. This boy they mutually knew had to warn the boy I was interested in about something about me. I asked her what, and she said she didn’t know.

After that, it seemed to that there was a lot of drama between the three of us, all caused from the “secret”. Eventually the guy broke up with me because he was interested in someone else (who never went out with him anyways). The funny thing is I eventually met the person that had this secret message. He said that here wasn’t anything he was supposed to warn my ex about. He didn’t even know me, especially when the situation occurred. He just wanted to get in contact with my ex.

So now that you’re updated on the situation, my problems will be easier to understand. The girl that messed up the relationship between the guy and me because she lied about stuff and started a bunch of drama still thinks we’re friends. She calls me quite often and even annoys me with the whole “We need to hang out.” “Why don’t you call me?” and “I miss you!” comments.

I find it very difficult to hang out with people I lost trust in. I find it especially difficult to hang out with people who would appear crazy in the sense that they push drama into a relationship using lies. To be honest though, when I ignore her voice messages, text messages and calls, I feel a sliver of guilt. Is it all that bad that I don’t condone hanging out with liars, drama llamas and crazy people? Should I continue to hang out with her? I did have some fun with her, but the drama was overwhelming. Which out weighs the other?

Tomorrow is my friend’s birthday. She and I have been friends longer than anyone else. For the most part, during her birthday’s she’s content with just getting a “Happy Birthday” from me. This year, until recently, I hadn’t thought too much about it. This year her birthday happens to land on Easter. She asked me a few weeks ago to take her out to her family’s farm about a half hour away. I agreed, because I have the weekend off, I love hanging out with her and her family is interesting. Typically, I don’t feel pressured into giving her stuff. This year is different though. I feel because her entire family is going to be there, I should do something for her.

I’m a horrible gift giver. When I have to pick out a gift, knowledge of the receiver just completely fades away. I loose thoughts of what they like and what they’ve mentioned in the past. Typically I end up giving them a gift card and usually they’re content with that. Going to her birthday/Easter celebration with her entire family present with no more than a gift card may not look appropriate.

A few weeks ago, we were watching Pride and Prejudice and I mentioned how I was somewhat interested in reading the book. She said she also thought of reading it, so I was thinking just now of giving her the book for her birthday.

We come to the point in which makes me believe that gift-giving is the worst tradition I can think of (at the moment). For the most part, the gift-giving process would seem to be a terrific way of showing someone appreciation. In my past experience, and this mostly comes from experience from of gift-giving between family members, someone is almost always displeased. Two outcomes are possible. One, the person giving it can be displeased with the item, the trouble of retrieving the item, etc. Two is that the person receiving it may not enjoy the gift and has to put a face on for someone. Either way, someone is usually unhappy. In the case that both parties are appreciative of the situation, then it’s a glorious moment!

In the end, I’d rather just skip the whole process and spend the entire day with the person doing what they enjoy. I know I sound sort of like a jerk. I suppose we can all hope that experience helps this problem.

(P.S. This was written on Saturday, but I’m going to take the weekends off, when writing. I’ll maybe write posts and just hold them until the weekday.)

For the most part, I am an open person. If asked about my sexuality I will come forward and tell the truth. This does not mean I run around and yell it aloud, I find that obnoxious. All of my friends and most of my coworkers are in the know about me being gay. One situation that shocks me is when I get to know a girl, we start hanging out and we have a lot in common, then suddenly she’s obsessing over me. I have one of those friends right now. Here’s how it goes.

She and I met when she started working at the store. She doesn’t work in the same department but I have to walk past her area whenever I go on break, lunch, leave or come in to work. We got along, she had a nice style, what more could a gay guy ask for in a female confidant?

For a while, we planned on hanging out outside of work. Eventually we got around to it and we had fun. We hung out a couple of times after that. One time she hosted a Valentine’s party and I helped her with it. It seemed everything was going fine until suddenly she started to use the phrase “I miss you” quite often. I hear the phrase from a portion of my friends, but not as often as she was using it. It seemed like every time that I would call her, she would some how fit in it.

Then it started. She would call me randomly just to tell me she missed me. She would send me text messages just to ask me what I was doing. Why? Cause she missed me. It just kept getting worse and worse.

So my first instinct is to back away. Every time I do that with people like this, it seems to cause them to get more obsessive. I’m not sure what to do at this point, because it seems very much that she would appear to have a crush on me. We haven’t seen each other in maybe a week and I think it’s driving her mad.

I’m wondering if it will take her seeing me with a boy before she realizes that she has no chance. Is it too much of me to ask that she doesn’t get her feelings involved? How can I get her to stop annoying and not hurt her feelings?

For most people, there are times when the need to be with someone else is stronger than the need to find the right person. The solution, although controversial, is to settle. Settling is when you date someone that for some reason or another does not meet the ideal match requirements, according to standards set by you or the people surrounding you. Personally, I have often considered this. I have also had my friends tell me that the situation I put myself in is with a person they consider me to be settling for.

Today, I want to talk about a friend of mine. Her situation makes me and her other friends cringe at the thought. She’s currently in college, making her way toward a biomedical engineering degree. She was originally planning to become a heart surgeon but for some reason that does not appeal to her any longer.

Usually she has some guy she’s interested in, but for the most part she’s single. When she entered her sophomore year of college she met a guy and they hit it off. For a while things were going good but the guy was slow about initiating an official relationship status. They would hang out, go on dates and spend nights talking. She was happy with the situation for the most part only she wanted to know that they were official. When I would talk to her, she seemed to stress the fact that he was not leading or even hinting at the boyfriend-girlfriend stage of the relationship. I thought at the time that she must really like this guy and he seems to be an airhead for not wanting to start the relationship. My first fear was that he was a jerk and only wanted to sleep with her, but the places he brought her and the things that they did when they were together did not suggest that this was what he was after.

I remember one evening she came home and told me about her date. In their city, there’s a conservatory. Everyone refers to them as “The Domes” because there are three large glass domes in which are stored many varieties of plants. She told me they walked through these domes for a while and talked. They decided to sit on a bench and talk even longer. The domes were just about to close and he leaned in and gave her a kiss. She told me that she was excited and had really enjoyed the evening, but she wasn’t sure if she should continue this because she may be leading him on. Typically she doesn’t let anyone even speak of bases unless they’re dating.

One day, he just referred to her as his girlfriend and it pretty much was official. She wasn’t happy finding out this way, but it works. A few months later, some friends and I went down to visit her and we had our first opportunity to meet him. My first thoughts weren’t altogether positive. His hair was drab, his personality was less than satisfying and worst of all his jeans were about 3 sizes too tight! This guy she had made out to sound so amazing wasn’t so incredible after all.

We spent the evening with him and I learned that he was a nice guy, but my thought was that he and my friend did not have a darn thing in common. She was majoring in engineering and he was a communications major. These are two rival majors, they hate each other. How can this Romeo and Juliet even be together? He’s a fanatic about a band from 4 decades ago, a band until she started dating him, she never spoke about. Now she’s in love with the band and wears t-shirts showing them off, despite most of their members being dead. I have to admit, the band is awesome, I listen to their music, but I never thought she was a fan.

The guy is from the south. This would be his first winter here, so he was pretty excited about the snow and ice. I was online one evening and she sent me an instant message concerning him. She told me that he had fallen on the ice, while ice skating with some friends, and was being rushed to the emergency room. She told me she had made plans earlier to go see a game and she was scared she would have to cancel the plans. I told her she should cancel the plans to see if her boyfriend is all right. She sat for at least an hour and could not decide if it would be okay for her to see him in the ER. I told her that that is where she would want him to be if she were in his situation, and she agreed but she still felt it might be too much. Finally, I convinced her it was okay, and she ended up going. I think him, and his other friends were thankful that she did show up. I kept her updated on the scores of the games so she didn’t miss out on that. Everything seemed okay then.

After he was released from the ER, I was informed that he was going to have to use crutches for a few months. He lives alone in his apartment and was going to need help doing simple daily tasks like cleaning, and washing clothes. She decided to help him through this. Well, a bit past half the way through, she decided it was too much. He wouldn’t ask her to do stuff any more he just expected it of her. He didn’t seem thankful that she was spending time tending to him instead of her important homework.

One day she called me and we talked about it. She was upset that she was doing all this stuff for him and he didn’t seem to care. I told her that she has to make a decision, to both get through it and hope that when he’s better he’ll go back to the normal way of doing things, or she has to leave, in which case he’ll be stuck alone and on the crutches. She decided to just wait it out and maybe see how things were after he healed.

The thing I’m worried about is the fact that she doesn’t seem to be happy with him. She doesn’t have anything in common with him, and she’s changed what she enjoys for him. In relationships, I think we all have to make sacrifices. One sacrifice we should never make is our personality. We shouldn’t change who we are to please the person we’re with, it wouldn’t make the relationship an honest one.

In the end, I think she’ll decide to break up with him because she’ll either decide they have nothing in common or she’ll find someone better. He’ll be heartbroken for a while, grow a bit tougher and hopefully move on. But is all this healthy for everyone? Should we subject ourselves to the occasional settled-for relationship?

In my previous entry, I mentioned that I’ve had two boyfriends in the past. The first of the two I met through a friend of mine. One night, I was at work and my friend came in and visited me. I remember that earlier that morning I thought to myself that I should be okay with being single, so when she brought a guy in, I tried not to get my hopes up. We stood around and looked at magazines, I pointed out some guys I thought were attractive, and her friend agreed. A little later, they left and I continued working. After work, she contacted me and asked me what I had thought of her friend. I told her that I thought he was nice, and cute. She said he thought the same of me.
We ended up hanging out as a group a couple of times. One night, we went to her place, and we were sitting on her couch. I knew he liked me and he knew I liked him. I remember that him and my friend started sending text messages together, then he went to the bathroom. While he was gone, my friend told me I should ask him out. I was so nervous, I told her I couldn’t, so I told her to tell him to ask me out. I went to the bathroom, came back out and sat. I think it was one of the most awkward evenings of my life, but one of my favorite to look back on.
I forget how it happened, but eventually we started going out. We mostly hung out with the group we had met through, sometimes him and I would hang out alone. I remember one night, we went to the store and I “Mommy Dearest”, a movie my parents had talked quite often. I decided I wanted to see it, so I bought it. We went back to my place and watched it. He thought it was boring and so he distracted me. After the movie he ended up spending the night.
Things led into other things, and we started to get…personal. I think this would be the first downfall. First of all, he didn’t have the most pleasant of odors in a certain area. Secondly, I was 18 at the time, he claimed to be 17. I didn’t think anything of it. In the end, the night went well, despite not being able to finish him due to the odor.
Back to the age thing, my friends had introduced me to this guy, never confronted me about any problems. A few nights after we had the sleep over, I got a call from him (on the new cell phone I purchased so I could text him) and he told me he had something to tell me. He told me not to be upset with him. He went about it delicately. In short, he said he wasn’t 17, or 16. He turned out to be 15 years old. I told him that I would have to think over what that meant for me. I hung up with him and spent the evening feeling betrayed while I thought it over.
The next day, I called him and we discussed the issue. I wasn’t attracted to him because of his age but because of his personality and who he was. Anyways, a few weeks later our one month anniversary was coming up. I decided to take him out to eat to a fancy restuarant. While we were out, his conversation wasn’t pleasant, and his attitude was less than to be desired. At one point in the evening, he pulled the whole “Do you like seafood?” stunt in which he opened his mouth to show me what was going on inside. I was thoroughly disappointed. I remember back around that time, he also grew distant. He wouldn’t kiss me because of a cold, and he wasn’t cuddling any more. I was confused, but just let it go. About a week after the dinner, I was asleep before work and heard my cell phone alert me to a new text message. I opened and read it. It started with “I hate to do this, but I don’t know what else to do.” I responded promptly with “We can work this out.” and then received another one and another and another. They went on to describe how he was having problems with family and religion conflicting with the sexual orientation. I couldn’t argue with him because he wasn’t leaving me for a horrible reason.

A couple months later, I was with my friend. She mentioned that on his profile online, he had mentioned that he was interested in two guys in school. She confirmed his reason for breaking up with me. We were both confused by this situation, so she wanted to see what the deal was. She sent him a text message and he confirmed that he had lied to me. The real reason he broke up with me was because his best friend didn’t like me. She kept nagging him to break up with me, so he did because he couldn’t stand listening to her.

I was a bit shocked at first, but now that I look back on the situation, I think I was close to breaking up with him anyways. I don’t talk to the friend any more. I felt as though I lost trust in her when she didn’t tell me that he wasn’t as old as he was telling me he was. Sometimes I think about hanging out with her again, but she’s running around with a lesbian-in-denial now.

Who’s Eric? I think I know him best, so let me give you a briefing!

I’m a gay male, in my early twenties. I live in Wisconsin in a medium size city, where the crime rate is low and the income is high. Well, I speak of the average income. Personally, I work at a retail store which means my income isn’t the highest. I’m not in college, which I’m sure I’ll go into further detail later.

I would consider myself popular. I have a ton of friends. My cell phone’s address book has over 200 contacts. 175 of which are actual people I know. I would estimate that I have about 50 of them, that I could call tomorrow and they would give no hesitation in hanging out with me. I have a group of friends which I’m very close to. The group would be about 6 or 7. I could tell these people anything and for the most part, I do.

Relationships? I’m usually single. The reason I use for this is the fact that I’m gay and in Wisconsin, but I can’t help but feel there’s more to it than that. I’ve had two relationships, which I refer to when people ask about my history. The longest was with a guy who was incredibly immature. The other lasted two weeks, and it ended two months ago. I’ll be sure to elaborate on these in the future.

So you’re probably interested in knowing why I feel the need to write a blog, or why you should spend your time diving into someone stranger’s life. The reason for the blog is to try to discover why I’m single, why my life seems to follow the same path and hopefully get some opinions from the general public.

I’d like for this to be a discussion. You should post comments and insights. I’ll try to respond, hopefully with something entertaining. There’s not going to be many of you in the beginning, or maybe ever, so I’m going to just post about what’s on my mind for a while and hopefully it will get me somewhere. Anyways, if you have questions, just ask.