We drank wine in the matinée...

Yes, well. I am currently sitting in Sydney airport feeling quite drowsy. There is a lot of hustle and bustle considering it is 10.13 am on a Sunday. But still, FREE INTERNET.

Yes my friends, if you are in Sydney airport, and you have a MacBook of any description (I'm sure it would work on Windows machine) connect to 'The Lounge Sydney', and you will be provided with free internet, courtesy of Virgin Blue.

Gotta love it.

My flight here was really enjoyable, I sat next to a Mr McDonald (I do know his first name, I just don't want to fail at spelling it - Yewen? Something Scottish like that) and we had a great chat about his experiences with people, work and life in general. He works in the oil industry, primarily testing desposits, and has worked in Canada, the US, and more recently, Iran. He had a lot of great viewpoints, came from farming stock, and passe don some advice that I will remember for a long time.

Thank you, Mr McDonald, for making my flight so enjoyable. I wish you all the best in Canada, and hope that your business fulfills both its own potential and your dreams. And who knows, if I do become a lawyer, despite not being my preference at the moment, maybe we'll cross paths! (Not in a bad way.)

Unwanted Attention

In today's world, sexuality is a constantly debated topic. Gays of both gender face a fair amount of difficulty in both professional and social aspects of their lives. A lot of this is unfair, and often unprovoked. However, there is a percentage of the population that does bring themselves down, and invites some of the flak that they receive.

Before I continue, let me put one thing straight: I don't have a problem with gay people. I know some fantastic gay people. My brother would be one of them; I have a few friends who are wonderful, and a few of his friends who are wonderful. However, there have been a few incidents which are complete hand-pulling-shirt-collar situations. I won't describe all of them, but let's just say if I for some reason wanted to start a vendetta against gay men, I would have ample reason to.

This particular incident is fairly recent. i have several friends who, despite being relatively sure about their heterosexuality, have at one time or another leaned into a Scrubs-like moment of contemplation and just wondered. As it turns out, one of those friends made a tiny faux pas when we were out for a few drinks. He had been pushing me to go out, I hadn't seen him in a while, it all sounded like a good idea. I had some other things to do, but the night started really well, so I decided to keep going. It was around the 3rd bar, and the 7th drink that we took a walk to hunt down a Savings & Loans hole in the wall.

It was on the walk back that things took a little spin. My friend decided - perhaps because his sensibilities had been lowered or even removed by alcohol - to tell me that whilst he wasn't bisexual, I was someone that he would make an exception for.

I'll just let that sink in.

At first, that could be slightly flattering. But then the reality of the situation sets in. I am a slightly younger friend, who is in a very happy relationship with his girlfriend of 18 months. He is a fairly close friend, with no current or recent relationships that I know of. This makes me just a teensy bit uncomfortable.

More to the point, as far as he concerned, same-sex occurrences did not equal cheating. This was even more worrying. I put the message out there that I wasn't interested, thank you, and can we just leave it at that.

This issue does tie in to my previous post. What is one supposed to do when 'no' is not enough? And when your morals and personal standpoints are utterly in conflict with someone else?

I think the main problem here is not so much the actual informing of the attraction, but the actions that followed it. I have had men before tell me that they were interested. One was very sweet, one of the nicest people you could possibly meet, who just told me that when I was 18 (I was underage at the time), if I ever decided to follow that path, he would be interested. Another, slightly unpleasant experience was when I was out for a run a few months later, and a 30-something year old man tried to convince me to go home with him, and that despite my feelings about men (or rather, lack of them) all that would change I "have [my] dick in his mouth".

My friend could have decided to leave it, but he pressed on. Hopefully now he will, and we can resume the friendship with boundaries as just friends. But it needs to be understood, not just by him, but by others; sometimes what you want is not what someone else does. Whether you're straight, gay, bi, experimenting or just confused, people have limits and boundaries and these need to be respected.

Otherwise all that could happen is something everyone regrets.