Saturday, October 31, 2009

Me growing up - part 2: boys or girls?

I don't remember what started to get me sexually interested. In primary school though, I had many girlfriends. We made out in secret places, met after school and once I even dumped one for another girl, who in hindsight looks conspicuously boyish.



My primary school

I never thought of boys, because in an environment where boys date girls, why would a boy date a boy. I never questioned my actions.

I also played football from early age and in Europe, as usual, there are communal showers. In hindsight, this is where I got interested in boys. Oddly, I never found it strange that when I touched myself at home after the football trainings, I thought of my teammates. How could I not find this strange?

I did try to think of a female classmate once, just to try out thinking about girls, because I did wonder a bit, but it wasn't satisfying. I also had a picture of a Swedish tennis player next to my bed, Mikael Tillstrom. I must have found him cute…



My tennis crush - cant find another picture:(

I don't know if my parents had any idea of what was slowly happening with me at that time. Maybe I should ask them. I used to sleep over at my cousin’s during the holidays we would do stuff. And sometimes my football teammates would stay over and we would do stuff too.

Our clothing style during childhood and teenage years if often a bit of a giveaway, and I want to talk to my parents about this. I wonder what clothes I chose and what clothes they gave me, but I do remember that I had a bit of an eccentric taste.

During my teenage years, I wasn't a bad boy. I never smoked, I never got in trouble, I didn't have bad friends. In fact, I didn't have many friends at all. Up to now, I have no contact whatsoever with anyone from my home village.

The good friendships and the real changes started in my high school years. In the meantime, I changed from football to volleyball and hence fantasised about my volleyball friends…J



My high school

In my early high school years, I made a new best friend. We are still best friends now, even though we meet only every year or so, when I am back home. We always discussed girl issues, but suddenly, I did not have my stories to tell him anymore, but only listened to his.

My last girlfriend was during that time, I must have been about 16. I liked her and I still remember her hair smelled really nice. She broke up with me 1 day before my birthday, and for some time, my parents blamed this experience on the fact that I was more interested in boys. (I just found her on facebook and added her…lets see if she is married already…)

After that, I also had my last girl crush. This girl strangely had the same last name as my last girlfriend, but I was too shy to ever really talk to her. I used to go on bike rides to her village and just riding past her house made me feel good. Strangely, she did notice my approaches, but mistook them for my best friend’s. They nearly got together as a couple even!!!

Then, it was finished with girls and this started when a classmate talked to me about his gay friend. This was the first time I ever contemplated gay and from day 1, I somehow knew I belonged to this group.

We didn't have internet at that time, but when that came, the changes were huge. I was 18 at the time, and for the first time, I had a crush on a guy, a classmate. He still looks handsome today I think, but it’s amazing how quickly Western people age…

The first time I told anything of this to anyone was after a school party. At that time I just got my driver’s licence, and that changed my life. It was virtually impossible to go anywhere before, but now that I could drive, I could go anywhere. Of course, I couldn't drink, but I wasn't into drinking anyway.

I remember this night very well. It was just before the summer break. I drove another friend of mine home after the party, and I felt immense feelings that night. I cannot remember why but something got into me.

I told him, that I needed to tell him something and that I liked someone in our class. He started off with a few girl-names, and I saw no. Then, he said suddenly the guy’s name, and I said yes.

It was actually quite funny, because he later told me that he was so stoned, he didn't remember whether I really told him this story or whether he dreamt it.

6 comments:

Was Once said...

Now, tell me again how you ended up a Korean! :)

Asia in Australia said...

do you mean how I ended up with a korean?

well it doesnt really have anything to do with the story here I think...he could have been chinese or indonesian or maybe even thai, who knows:)

Christian said...

That’s very interesting to read about your past, it’s completely different from mine. I think I can date back discovering to be gay to the age of about 13. I watched a documentary about the Easter Island where young fit male inhabitants where shown doing sport, as far as I remember this was the first time I felt attracted to males. However, even at this age I knew that something was “wrong” with this and it would be better not to talk to anyone about this. Later in school, at the age of 16-20, I felt very attracted to a classmate (he looks a bit Asian) and there were two other cute boys (minors at that time) in my school. I wasn’t interested at all in girls and I had nothing with girls (neither with boys). Later, at age 20 in the army, there was communal showering. One of my mates (half German, half Brasilian) had a hot body, but the face was only “I wouldn’t throw him out of bed to let my cat in”. During University, aged about 24, I found a website about male swimwear by chance (really! I never searched for photos in the internet before). The subject of this website was rather what’s in the swimwear than the swimwear itself, and the vast majority of what I saw there was rather disgusting (hairy Caucasians), however, there was a category called “oh these sweet Asian boys”, and that was nice. It took another five years till I found the gayboythailand blog in December last year (this time not “by chance”). It showed that I’m not the only Caucasian interested in young Asian men. But what I read there was nothing I could identify with. Therefore, I still thought I rather stay alone my whole life and pretend to be asexual then to admit that I’m gay and interested in Asians. It was toogaybangkok that made me stare at the screen (not at pictures, but because I couldn’t believe what I read there and even worse, we have the same age, means I could do the same) and finally come out to friends and family. Eventually I read your blog and had another crisis, during which I booked my flight to Bangkok to spend a holiday there in August. What I read about gay Bangkok turned out to be true! In the town where I live in the UK the gay scene is pathetic; I went to Birmingham once, not much better. No Asians! I don’t know why I’m cursed with being gay and into Asians! The only ray of hope is a disco for international students that takes place each week, there is a lot of eye-candy from China and Malaysia (ethnic background, some of them are born and grew up in the UK). There are three stunners, although they are straight, exchanging some words with them and watch them makes me happy. Looking forward to read more about your life, especially how you met and managed to stay together with your previous boyfriend(s) when you moved to another place. (I plan to much: I already think about how to stay together in a world where mobility is required without ever having been in a relationship. Having lived alone for 8 years, living together and waking up on the side of my future bf is very important in my plans.)

Was Once said...

Referencing your tennis crush, that is.

Asia in Australia said...

Christian, thanks for your comment! Nice to read your story too. I had noticed on my last visits to Europe that it is not so easy to find young men from Asia in these countries.
A further problem being that if there are such people, them and their admirers (also relatively few) will end up crossing paths...
I noticed that in Australia and in New Zealand, Asians prefer to stay amongst themselves for dating, because the people that tend to be interested in them are probably a bit too old for them. You know, the whole rice queen, potato queen, moneyboy story...maybe I think I should write about this.

You could enhance your chances by moving to Asia. That's the reason why most Westerners are here in the first place, not for the temples:)

Asia in Australia said...

was once....hehe. they dont look the same?

well, I couldnt dream about Isan boys at the age of 13 could I? I think I'd never even seen an Asian man at that age:)