First Online Date - Kinda Fun? :-)

I didn't realize we'd talked for four hours until we said goodnight, and I walked back to my car. :-)

I just got back from my first OkCupid date. We met up at 7:00 at a great casual restaurant in central Austin. The food was excellent, the wine tasty (and cheap!), and the company increasingly better. We ate and talked and ate some more until 11PM, when the staff kicked us out the door.

I'm not sure what I want out of this relationship (friend to do stuff with, guy to date, who knows?), but I had fun talking with "The Spaniard." He's got a cute laugh, he's a little flamboyant (but not flaming), and super-passionate about his work. We realized that we're both at the same point in our lives. We've dated roughly the same number of people, we're both just now realizing there's more to life than our careers, and we're both looking for someone to fill a sort of gap in our lives.

I don't think he's "the one," though. I can easily imagine hanging out with him and being social, but can't imagine life with him as a BF or partner. Multiple friends have told me "you'll know it" when you have a crush on someone. I don't have a crush. Is it normal for guys to casually date multiple guys as they "get out there" at first? It seems like dating online could be a numbers game if you let it become one.

I just realized my jacket smells like his cologne from when we hugged and said goodnight. *sigh* He was kind of cute when he hopped up and gave me a peck on my cheek. :-)

Outed by my Xbox

My younger brother and his girlfriend were in town a while ago. As I've said before, he and I are so much closer since I came out to him last year. :-) I hadn't come out to his GF yet, though. They stayed with me for a couple of nights, and one evening I gave them free reign of my Xbox 360.

First, I'm a casual gaymer. Second, I'm a geek. As such, I've set up the Xbox as a media extender so I can play music or video from any PC. I have several seasons of various TV shows stashed away, and it lets me watch streaming video on my flat panel in my living room.

So my bro went poking around for new Top Gear episodes (a mutual favorite). I let him click around, and he found "Another Gay Movie" 1 and 2 in my film list. Oops.

I walked by a few minutes later, and he and his girlfriend were smirking. He pointed. I blushed, laughed, and we moved on. :-)

At least it wasn't porn.

I'm still swamped with work... I have 200+ posts to read, and some more posts to write, but just wanted to post something here to say I'm alive!

Gay Careerist: Question Motivations, Not Actions

I've been second-guessing my career decisions last year since I can't leave my area until October anyway. I've come to the conclusion that I didn't think things through, and should have taken the "apprentice" position from last year.

Here's what happened last year:

1. Management offers a year-long assignment to go work under one of our senior designers.
2. I interview, learn that it conflicts with my own career plans.
3. Rather than re-frame my plans from scratch to learn if this fits, I dismissed the opportunity. It doesn't occur to me that management offered me this for a reason.
   
4. A month later, my management takes me off of my project anyway.
5. I begin declining every opportunity offered, because I'm clinging to my "dream job" of becoming a lead engineer. I became obsessed with getting out of the area.
   
6. I learn that I'm stuck working a boring, but critical job until October, 2010 anyway.
   
7. I earn a top rating for 2009, mostly for my work in the first half of the year.

I maintained a laser-like focus (also known as tunnel vision) on the job I wanted, without evaluating the other opportunities offered to me, or the motivations for why management offered them.

Lesson learned: If management suddenly changes behavior or offers something new, question the logic and reasoning behind it. Learn what happens if you decline.

On the bright side, I'm taking it easy for 2010. I'm working 45 hour weeks instead of 65 hour weeks, I'm contributing sufficiently to my team with maybe 1/3 effort, and I have time to work on the side projects I've put off such as education, "fun" hacking projects, and patents. Maybe I subconsciously decided that I needed a break. Unlike my favorite new game, Mass Effect 2, I can't reload a save point and try again just to see how the story pans out.

Now then... what were my motivations?

Coming Out to the Parents: One Year Later

A lot of us know where you're coming from, Steve. Sorry that you feel alone and hurt right now. ~ G

51 weeks ago, I flew home with the express purpose of coming out to my parents. They were shocked, my dad cried, but after two hours of talking, we hugged it out, and went to dinner and appeared to have a good time. The next day, I flew back to Austin. As my dad was seeing me off at the airport, he hugged me tight, and nervously asked me to "do this one thing" for him, and see a psychologist. I made a deal that I'd go if he went to one as well. He went that week, and unfortunately found a quack who told him that my gayness was their fault. I, of course, found the only gay, male psychologist on my health plan* and got evidence to the contrary.

• April, 2009: I flew home for their anniversary. Things didn't go well. My mom used me in a fight with my dad. At this moment I realized that my parents were not perfect, and their relationship was not a happy one.
• June: I flew home again. My dad told me he wants me to be happy. :-) I think this is the last time he and I have talked about the "gay" issue. :-/
• August: Mom asked me to stay closeted with a friend of mine. I politely declined.
• October: Mom started to move on to the "But I still want grandbabies," phase.
• November: Just after Thanksgiving, my mom quizzed me on just about every aspect of my sexuality, including my masturbatory habits. No grown man should ever have this conversation with his mother. I lied about still being a virgin.
• December: We flew to the Caribbean for Christmas with our extended family. I was informed that I should not come out to anyone, because "they wouldn't understand."
• January, 2010: On my emergency trip home for tech support, my mom asked if I'd talked to my dad about "anything." She still won't use the word "gay" comfortably. I hadn't. A few minutes later, she asked my dad the same thing. Neither of us want to talk about it with the other.
  

My parental goal for 2010: Somehow tell them that I'm dating. For extra credit, somehow tell them that I've slept with a guy. I can already see this conversation now... my mom's going to assume "it" was in some back alley, and I was tricked or forced into doing "something," and... *sigh* Maybe it'll go better. If anything, I truly hope we'll have some stories to laugh about in the future.

Heh. I just realized I started typing "home" again instead of "my parents' house." I think I've moved on a bit too. :-)

* Yes, my health plan has a pull-down menu that lets me filter for a "GLBT-Identified Practitioner." It's nice working for a progressive company.

Gay Geek: Yes, I'm an A/V Nerd.

Yes, I'm an A/V Nerd. I'll own that. I spent two hours this morning figuring out a way to pipe conference calls to my whole-house sound system. Thank you, Rogue Amoeba, for Airfoil. It works brilliantly. I can now call in to a meeting from my laptop and wireless transmit it built-in speakers around the house. This means I can listen to my morning briefings from anywhere in the house, including the shower. :-)

In high school I was a member of the school's TV studio and was active in the school's theater as a lighting and audio tech. At the time my friends (and enemies apparently) thought I wasn't getting laid because I quit football to go run the TV studio and do stagecraft. Little did they know...

I miss doing those things. I tried to volunteer in college, but wasn't allowed to donate my time because I was taking away time slots from actual Drama majors (they didn't want my free help as an Engineer!).

Dating Update:
I've stepped up my game on OKCupid and chatted with a couple of guys there over the last few days. One's a director for a local community theater, and I'm thinking I'll meet him for coffee soon. My only concern with him is that he has no "endgame" planned for his life. For me, I know I want to be CEO of a company. For him, he just wants to explore the world. We'll see how that works. He may not have a college degree either.

I find myself comparing everyone I meet to my (girl)friend Z, who's perfect in every way, except that she's a she! She's a professional, geeky woman. I can make a Star Trek reference, and she'll run with it. I recognize that she's pretty, I like being around her, but feel no sexual attraction to her. Grr. I've got to find her gay male doppelganger.