The Eye of the Beholder

I spent the last day and the half feeling pretty down. The other day was Israeli Independence Day, the most fun holiday in Israel. I was very excited to go out Wednesday evening and party with my friends. I was also very aware of the fact that should I succeed in moving to Hanoi at the end of the year, this was very likely my last Israeli Independence Day as a resident of the country, so I wanted to make it count.

At one point me and my friends made it over to a bar called "Evita", THE gay bar of Tel Aviv. I was having a good time with my friends, trying to dance in my own unique way, when I noticed a cute guy (of course he was Asian) dancing up a storm about 2 yards away from me.  My friends tried to push me in his direction so that I would dance with him, but I balked. I WAS TERRIFIED! My fragile self-esteem could not take rejection.

Later on that evening, drunk and angry at myself for being such a coward, I stepped outside to get some air. A guy who later told me that he was about 50 years old started to talk to me.

Him: "Don't I know you from somewhere"?
Me: "I don't think so".
Him: "I think I do. Didn't you use to be fatter".
Me (very shocked and not knowing whether to be insulted or flattered): "Yes".
(It turns out he had seen me around Bar Ilan University). 
Him: "Well your still fat enough for me, and I like fat guys".

Now I was insulted! Just to make sure I was really insulted, he went on to assume that I was significantly older than I am. That was enough to ruin the whole evening for me, which was a real shame. In my mind I had just been called fat and ugly.

Of course, that is not what happened. What really happened was that someone (granted he was old enough to be my dad) found me attractive and tried to pick me up - granted in a very tactless way, and I rejected him. And why did I reject him? Because I found him to be unattractive (and tactless).

I get upset whenever I am reject based on my looks, so why do I do it to other guys? Everyone always says "it is what is inside that counts", but everyone also knows that that is bologna. The truth is that both the inside and the outside are very important. It is true (and it has happened to me) that when you become attracted to someone's personality, you can become attracted to their looks even if at first you did not find them attractive. But that takes a lot of time. So when first meeting someone, looks are very important.

And while there might be a general consensus that guys like Zac Efron are attractive, looks can be very subjective. There are guys that make me go weak at the knees that my friends think are ugly and vice versa. Beauty can be subjective. Since coming out of the closet, I have been with quite a number of guys (in a very non trashy, not slutty way of course) and the vast majority of them, I found to be very attractive.

                                              To me: GORGEOUS!
                                              To my great friend Ella: Ugly ???


                                           

                                                                                      

So while I may never be a super model, I am still holding out hope to meet someone that is beautiful on the inside and the outside. The thing I must really work on is my fear of rejection. I cannot become paralyzed with fear whenever I am in a situation to meet someone. So the journey to self improvement continues. I hope I will get to write a post about "the wonderful guy I met" sooner, rather than later.

The Time of my Life

June 30th, 2011 I finally landed in Hanoi my dream trip to Vietnam had begun. I was very excited. I had signed up for classes in Vietnamese and in my free time I planned to travel and live life to its fullest. Everyday I would go to class at 830, study for 3 hours and than have the afternoon and evening free. At the airport I was greeted by a guy named K (he would not want me to use his real name). I had met K on the internet a few months earlier and we had become pretty close. He was very helpful in getting me set up in Hanoi. He introduced me to his friends, showed me around the city and taught me how to drive a motor bike.

My time in Vietnam was exactly what I needed intellectually as well as emotionally. On the intellectual side, I learned a lot of Vietnamese and I got to see some amazing historical sites. I ate all kinds of amazing and unique foods. I got to experience Vietnamese culture first hand and I loved it. Emotionally, my trip came at the right time in my life. Almost every person I met while I was there was gay. I was able to be open and honest and act however I felt comfortable. I went from being  "that guy coming out of the closet", to just another guy. Every time I kissed a guy while I was there (so many beautiful Asian guys;)), it felt completely normal and main stream as opposed to in Israel where it always felt taboo. I no longer thought to myself that I was dealt a bad hand of card and that if I could become straight I would. I had carved out my own little "gay world" in Hanoi and this allowed me to finally become completely comfortable with my homosexuality.

About a week or so into my trip I got a text message from a guy named Hoang. Before I left for Hanoi, my friend Long had told me that I should contact his friend Hoang when I arrive because he thought we would get along. After I arrived, I was too nervous to just contact Hoang since I had never met him. But one day I got a message from him and we agreed to meet up that night for dinner. To be honest, the very first thing I noticed about Hoang was that I thought he was one of the most beautiful people I had ever met. Having had some success with R in Bangkok, and K in Hanoi, I was very flirty with Hoang. But our relationship never went in that direction. Instead we became amazing friends.

                                        Me and Hoang at my goodbye party

It is stunning how quickly one person can become a central figure in your life. It was as if we had been friends forever. Hoang and I would meet up almost every day and we would talk for hours. He introduced me to some of his friends who were all very nice people. He planned a trip for the two of us, to the cities of Hue and Hoi An in central Vietnam. One night when my hotel had to temporarily evict all the guest, I called Hoang and he came right over to help me out.

All too quickly me last last night in Hanoi arrived. Saying goodbye to Hoang was extraordinary difficult. I had gotten so used to seeing him everyday and the thought of not seeing him for a long time was hard to handle. I cannot imagine how my trip would have been had I never met him. I am sure I would have had a great time, but because of Hoang my time in Vietnam was amazing and one of the best periods of my life.

As emotionally difficult as it was leaving Vietnam, I was coming home to something much more difficult; coming out to my parents. But that story will have to wait for another post.


Here are some links to some of the pics from my trip :)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106811648929928513312/albums/5624331465884153073
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106811648929928513312/albums/5626972895519404881
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106811648929928513312/albums/5625884337222894177
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106811648929928513312/albums/5636518103459381521

My First Romantic Experience

When I turned 18, I started to be set up on many, many "blind dates". Set ups were the norm in the orthodox world. Either a friend of mine, or a friend of my parents was always telling me "I have a girl that would be perfect for you." Between the age of 18 and when I started to come out at 26, I must have been set up on over 80 first dates. The vast majority of the dates were boring. The dates that weren't boring, were scary. Whenever I felt things progressing "positively" I would get very nervous because in the back of my head I knew I did not want to end up with a girl. I would think to myself "if this relationship works out, I will never get the chance to be with a guy." I would therefore always find a reason to break up.

At 26, I started to come out and wanted to start meeting guys. Of course, I did not know how to go about this. As far as I knew Jerusalem did not have a gay bar and I did not know any gay guys that I could ask. Luckily, my friends Ariella and Dan had many gay friends. When I told them that I was looking to meet guys, they were able to tell me about the most popular Israeli gay website, Atraf. With their help I opened an account and started to meet guys. Of course, as anyone that knows Atraf will tell you, this is not a place to find romance. It is mostly a hook up site. So at 26 I found my life lacking any romantic experience whatsoever. While hook ups can be fun, I am the type of guy that is looking for romance.

At the end of June 2011, I finally left for my dream trip in Vietnam (I will write more about that trip later). On the way I had a 24 hour layover in Bangkok. So while I was there I set out to find some yummy Thai food. The staff at the hotel I was staying at recommended I go to a restaurant in a specific mall. When I got to this restaurant there was a waiter standing in the entrance to welcome me who spoke a decent level of English. This waiter (we will call him R) was very beautiful and obviously gay. Through my lunch I flirted with him a bit and he seemed to be flirting back. At the end of the meal I paid and went to walk around the mall for a little bit. I kept thinking to myself, "I have one day in Thailand, try and make the most of it." 

I worked up the courage to go back to R and ask him if he would show me around the city after he was done work. He agreed! I sat down and talked with him for a few more hours while he finished up work. Afterwords we walked back to his place so he could get changed. He asked me if I wanted to go dancing, or go eat, or what. I told him "I don't care what we do, as long as I get to spend time with you." He blushed and seemed kinda nervous. I again decided to work up all my courage and I leaned in and kissed him.

We than left R's apartment and walked holding hands to a near by bar. There we had some food and drink and met a few friends of R's. We held hands and kissed throughout the meal. The whole experience of being publicly affectionate with a guy was exhilarating. Living in Jerusalem, I never imagined being able to hold hands with a guy while walking in the streets or kiss another guy in the middle of an outdoor bar. Afterwords, we walked around the city some more holding each other and talking. We ended up spending the night together. In the morning we ate breakfast and than I walked him to his bus stop. When his bus came, we kissed each other goodbye and he left.

While I only got to spend an afternoon and a night with R, it was very romantic and I will remember it fondly forever. I felt emotions that night that I had never felt before. I got a burst of self confidence. I no longer thought that I would end up alone or have to settle. I had just had a romantic evening with a beautiful Asian guy. For the first time I thought that maybe my fantasies could some day become reality :)

My Failed Attempt to Visit Vietnam

By the winter of  2010 I was openly not religious and immersed in my studies about Vietnam. I was studying Vietnamese 3 times a week with Long and spending much of my free time with him and at his house. I was also getting very depressed. I had accepted the fact that I was attracted to men a few years before hand, but my religious life style always motivated me to try and ignore that aspect of myself. But now I no longer believed in a religion that hates homosexuality, so my only reason for not pursuing it was fear. I was afraid of how my family would see me, how my friends would see me and I was afraid of such a major change in my life. But the more I tried to ignore my attraction to men, the more I realized that I couldn't. But how was I going to approach learning about this part of myself?

I decided that a trip that coming summer to Vietnam would be the perfect answer. Why Vietnam? For a number of reasons. First, my studies gave me a "legitimate" reason to travel there and what to do with my time while I was there. I would go for a few weeks and take classes in Vietnamese. Second, I did not know anyone in Vietnam. Any Vietnamese people I knew at the time were all overseas. I would be completely anonymous and free to meet new people and experiment living a gay lifestyle. Thirdly, I am what is called in gay slang, a rice queen (for all those who asked about that tag in previous posts, I told you to be patient and I would explain). A "rice queen" is a non Asian guy that is only or particularly attracted to Asian guys. For all these reasons, I reserved a ticket to Vietnam for July of 2010 and I was VERY excited.

When I told my parents of my plan to travel to Vietnam to take classes in Vietnamese they became very concerned. At first they would just say "we are concerned but its your money, do what you want with it." But as the days passed concern quickly turned to panic. My parents told me that since I was newly not religious, that it was a dangerous time in my life for me to go to a country with no Jews. They feared I was vulnerable and would fall in love with a Vietnamese girl and that marrying a non Jew was the worst thing I could do in their eyes. It would be unforgivable.

Of course I knew how my family felt about intermarriage, but at the same time I could not put their fears to rest  by announcing I was going to meet guys, not girls. I told them not to worry, but they got very upset and begged me to cancel my trip. At first I refused. This trip was so important to me, I could not imagine canceling it. But one night after a very difficult conversation with my parents on the phone I agreed to put the trip off for one year.

At the time I was very angry and very disappointed. I had so much planned for this trip and it all disappeared a few days after being planned. But in the long run things worked out very well. In 2011 I did go to Vietnam and I had the most amazing time of my life. I met the most amazing people who changed my life forever. But of course, that story will have to wait for another post :)

How I Met One of my Dearest Friends and Fell in Love with Vietnam

It must seem very random that I would end up learning Vietnamese and planing on moving to Vietnam. But Vietnam has actually played an essential part in my life over the last few years, both academically as well as personally.

The first time I started focusing on Vietnam was on my search for a topic for my thesis. At the time I wanted to focus on military history and my thesis adviser recommended I read about the Vietnam War. After reading a number of books on the subject, I found that a couple of things really bothered me. First, everything was written from the American perspective and second, I had no idea if I was pronouncing all the Vietnamese names correctly. So I set the goals of learning more about Vietnam and learning at least the basic pronunciation of Vietnamese.

The only way I can describe the effect these new studies had on me is to say that I fell in love. I fell in love with Vietnamese culture and history. In my mind Vietnam became a larger than life, exotic and romantic far off land. I started to dream about someday going to visit a country that only a few months before would never have been on my radar.

At the advice of a professor, I called the Vietnamese Embassy in Tel Aviv in an attempt to find someone that could teach me Vietnamese. I was put in touch with an embassy's staff man's son, a guy by the name of Long. Long became my tutor and we met several times a week to study. In a short period of time we became good friends. His family often invited me to their home and were very warm and welcoming. It was in that house I also developed a love for Vietnamese food.

This was all happening at the time in my life when I started to realize that I don't believe in Judaism anymore. Since Long and his family are not Jewish, I felt very comfortable being around them at that time. Elsewhere in Israel and with my friends and family, I felt very self conscious about not wearing a kippa (Jewish skull cap) or eating non-Kosher food. There I was safe from judgment.

Long became one of my dearest friends. I am forever thankful for his help and understanding during that difficult time in my life. He also helped Vietnam come alive for me. He had real stories about his life there and about his family's history. I was able to put faces and names to what I had been reading about. This added personal connection to the country fueled my passion and desire to go visit.

This is not the whole story of my connection to Vietnam, but it is the start. There are still failed trips and successful trip to talk about (and I will also eventually explain what "rice queen" means since so many I've my readers have asked me that question). But those are stories for another day and another post :)

The New Road

Many times I've been told "You know, you should really write a book". And I always think "What a great idea! I enjoy writing and I have a pretty interesting story to tell. I should write a book!" Ya, right. Who has time to write a book? Not me. Between work, graduate school, a social life and any other number of commitments, it just won't fit into my schedule. So I thought to myself, "Its the 21st century, write a blog". So that is why we are here. Welcome!

So what makes people tell me that I should write a book? It must be because I have led my life along quite a twisted road. I was brought up as a radically right wing, religious Zionist Jew. I left my family and home in the US at the age of 17 to move to Israel. I was heading off to fulfill the destiny of the Jewish people and was on a mission from god! I was going to learn Hebrew and join the Israeli Army. I had planned on getting married to a a religious Jewish Woman and having kids while living in some settlement in the "West Bank".

At first everything went according to the plan. I moved to Israel, learned Hebrew and joined the Israeli Army. My family were all so proud of me. I was constantly being set up to go on dates But I was not really happy. I was struggling with two major issues. First, as the years went by Judaism stopped making sense to me. Second, I didn't want to marry a nice Jewish girl. I'm gay. At first out of fear of some scary, vengeful god and of disappointing my family I tried to keep all that buried deep inside.This lead to years of personal struggle. But in the end keeping everything bottled up was futile.

Now, it is ten years later. In the past few years I have left the religion and come out of the closet. I traded in the dream of marrying a Jewish woman for the dream of marrying an Asian guy (more about this later). I traded in the Jewish people for intense individualism.  I traded in god for...well....logic? free thinking? nothing? I traded in Hebrew for Vietnamese and I plan on leaving Israel after I'm done my current degree and heading off to live in Vietnam. (I know that seems random, but come back to read future posts and all will be explained). So it would not be an understatement to say I have turned my life upside down. 

American Orthodox Jews refer to their way of life as "the path". When they meet someone like me they say, "He is off the derech" (derech is the Hebrew word for path). This is considered a very negative thing to say about someone. But, I do not see it that way.While I may have left that path, the road I am on now is very interesting and exciting. I can't wait to see where it ends up.