#63: completely out at work (in UK)

You’d think that by now that I’d have a lot less coming out to do. This is especially true since I’m pretty comfortable telling most of the people that I meet in non-professional environments about my sexuality from the get go.

Given that I now work full time however, it in undeniable that many of my friends (present and future) will come from professional environments where I’m definitely not AS comfortable. As mentioned before I am out to one or two people here but that was pretty much it.

I am however now completely out at work here in London. I came out to my gym buddy 2 days after that freak London snow storm happened and then I did it en masse last week when a group of us were heading out for lunch.

It was really funny because one of my friends who had already known was there and she found my nervousness really hilarious.

Sitting at that table, I grew a pair and I pretty much said “I’m dating a guy.”

There was no weird reaction of any kind. In fact, everyone said “That’s great” and then asked the dreaded “So what’s going to happen with you leaving soon?” I pretty much changed the topic once it got to that point because I’m in denial about the fact that I’m leaving.

In fact, I even invited DT to my work going away party last Friday and he got along really well with everyone. At the party, one girl was like “You should have told me so much earlier. I would have shown you all of the hotspots!”

With regards to DT, they all really liked him and he thought they were pretty cool people. In fact, one guy asked me how he was doing just yesterday.

This is the first time I’ve felt comfortable enough to do this and I’m not sure whether my new found confidence will travel with me across the pond but I do think I’ll be a bit less secretive overall within the work environment in NYC.

Perhaps I’ll come out to a few close colleagues but probably not take the en masse route I did here in London.

#62: in denial

At times I feel like I’m in complete denial about the fact that I’m about to move back to New York City on Saturday. I’ve yet to pack anything, make concrete transportation plans for getting myself from the airport or even figure out any of the other litany of small things I have to do.

Ignorance is bliss and right now I’d just rather not deal.

Sure, moving back permanently to NYC is exciting and I’ll be happy to see my friends there but London really has left an amazing impression on me. From the city itself, to the people, my family, friends and the guy I’m currently dating.

It’s weird because although I find myself not actually packing or doing anything of the sort I do find occasionally find myself on Craigslist looking at apartments and looking at cheap Ikea furniture. I even worked out a budget and estimated how much I can afford to spend on a place, food, etc.

I think it all comes down to perspective. Looking at apartments or furniture means that while I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m leaving, in my mind I can convince myself that it’s at some point far away in the future.

Beginning to pack and making concrete plans however, means that it’s actually TIME to leave and I’m not sure I want to unleash the wave of emotions that I’ll feel when that realization hits home.

#61: dublin!

I’m currently typing this entry from an airport lounge on my way back to London from….Dublin, Ireland!

After arriving on Friday night with DT around 9pm, we ate, headed to bed and actually got off to quite the late start on Saturday with us getting up around 1pm.

We’ve both never been here before but DT is clearly the more directional of the two of us and I pretty much spent the weekend following him around assuming he knew where to go on the map.

The past 2.5 days have been spent exploring this amazing city doing such touristy things as going to the Guinness Brewery, the Spire of Dublin, St. Stephen’s Green Park, dining out, etc.

We even checked out the Irish version of Abercrombie & Fitch called Farrell & Brown. It was eerily similar and even had an Irish Wolfhound as the logo in place of A&F's signature moose.

On Saturday, the 14th (i.e. Valentine’s Day) we went to this really nice restaurant called Venu and we were clearly the only gay couple in the joint. Our waiter had this “Awww how cute” smile on his face the entire night (at least it seemed so to me) and both the service and food were excellent.

After dinner, we (of course) checked out Dublin’s fun and surprisingly active albeit small gay nightlife scene.

Perhaps the most amusing parts of the trip were:

1)    Being asked if we needed separate beds when we attempted to check in at our extremely nice hotel. We smiled at each other and politely said the King would be just fine. ☺
2)    Attempting to enter a gay bar/club called the George and being stopped by security who asked us if we were aware that it was a gay establishment. The rainbow flag clearly DID NOT give ANYTHING away. LOL.

All in all, a great city, amazing (and intelligent and sweet and sexy) company and a wonderful trip resulted in the best Valentine’s Day weekend that I can ever remember.

Plus, I can finally say that I’ve been somewhere else in Europe besides the UK!

#60: random times, random places

You know that saying "The world is a small place?" or however it goes?

Physically we all know it isn't but somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, it just feels like a smaller place.

It's not only because of the internet and telephones (although they do really help) but because I feel like no matter where you are you run into people that you know.

Anyways, I was walking home from the doctor's office on Monday night during the rain (by the way, sick + rain = miserable.)

As I was walking, I hear someone call my name. "Jay?" 

I stop and wait for the person to come over assuming that it's probably someone from work but then as the person gets closer I realize that this guy is actually an old friend of mine from the Caribbean.

It's kinda odd how I ran into him randomly on the street in a city of 7 million+ people yet I hadn't run into him in years on an island in the Caribbean with less than 500,000 inhabitants while I was still living there a few years ago.

I was still in a pretty bad mood (remember sick + rain = miserable!) but I took his number and I promised him we'd do lunch or dinner and I'd explain to him exactly how I happened to be in London since last he had heard I was roaming around somewhere in the US.

It's kind of akin to that friend you have on your IM list, but even though you're both online, you never message one another and then randomly out of the blue, you get an IM from that person.

People pop back into your life at the most random times and in the most random places.

#59: snow halted my coming out

So today was supposed to be my big coming out day at work. I was going to tell more of the people who I work with that I'm gay. Only 2 people at work currently know.

Anyways, it seems that mother nature had other plans and decided to inflict upon London (and the rest of the UK) the most snow this city has seen in 18 years. To put that into perspective, I was 6 the last time London had this much snow.

With the amount of snow that fell and the ensuring transit and road chaos, around 3 people made it into work today. None of them being the people I was planning on coming out to.

Maybe I should take that as a sign or maybe it's just bad timing. We'll see if I still have the courage once the snow melts and things returns to normal.