Why did the cock cross the road?

I went to a Lunar New Year Party last night. All of my gaysian friends gathered to celebrate by eating tons of food and drinking wine. It’s a bonus to be an Asian to celebrate new year twice a year. 

I don’t usually do new year resolutions, but I am thinking about what I can do differently this year. As I was accompanied by nine Asian-white happy couples at the party, I decided that this year I will not focus much on dating. This is after another frustrating dating experience I had earlier this week.

I have been on Tinder for a while and there are 242 matches on my list, which barely anyone chats. Most of them are into the game of swiping rather than actually chatting with people. I did connect with one guy, Patrick, almost year ago and not only we chatted, we actually swapped phone numbers to exchange silly humor texts, which lead to innocent flirty texts with some G-rated photos. He is 10 years younger than me, super short, like 5’5”, and an adorable smile. Despite the momentum of flirty texts, Patrick ghosted.

About 2 weeks ago, I accidentally texted Patrick when I was trying to text a friend with the same name, asking what he was doing for the weekend. 

Is the glass half full or half empty?

I have been blogging for 2 years now and first one , it does get better, was my coming out story and first guy I dated. Second blog, Bros befo Hos, was about Dave, my best friend in high school who was also gay. For most part, I did have a great time in high school but have some painful memories as those stories.

One of those memories is Howie, whom I sexually experimented with. I was senior and Howie was a junior. We would skip classes and hang out at his place to have a private study session of “physical chemistry.” It was very first time I performed oral sex and I remember thinking ‘he smells awful.’ Although Howie and I had a lot of fun when we were young, we lost touch  after high school. But like many others you lost touch with, we reconnected on Facebook. For the past few years, he was posting about his struggles with addiction to a point of losing job, money, home, and even is health. When one post was begging money from everyone, it just hit me like ton of bricks that he was in a deep deep trouble. But it does get better (or doesn’t get worse). Today, Howie is sober and only posts his sobriety goals.

My 20 year high school reunion is this year and I am hesitant to go. Part of the reason is feeling inadequate compared to some of the classmates. Many of them are married, have children, have a house, got divorced and even remarried. Some of their children are now in high school, one even in college. This negative social comparison always gets me depressed even though I know deep down that my life is great without being in a relationship. For some reason, it’s more painful to think that someone has it so much better than you.

And something about showing up to the high school reunion without a partner is the same feeling of going to the prom without a partner.