No one deserves to feel like a token.

No one deserves to be silenced for white comfort.

The difference between masculinity and toxic masculinity is simple

Just cause you have a dick doesn’t mean you have to BE one.

The Philippines is admittedly a heritage zone for me and my original homeland… but Bali was entirely another world (Indonesia is country 22 for me). If geopolitics allowed I’d happily spend my life completing the set.

I’ve enjoyed every country I’ve had the privilege to either visit or reside in.

I really really REALLY hate feeling dependent.

If there is a silver lining it’s knowing I’m going to be in my own hotel room in a few days, for a few days.

Maybe. I am still not 100% solidified on where I’m even staying next week.

I’ve been having a wonderful time

Until suddenly I’m not.

Since I don’t speak Tagalog I am basically left out of 99% of conversations.

And then when I do understand I find myself struggling to muzzle myself because as the young (at 45!) liberal queer atheist I am the outlier.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful. This has been all sorts of amazing.

But also there’s so many frustrating aspects of this journey that are coming to roost.

Me putting on my “boy suit” and thinking, yeah I’m okay with it but looking at pretty girls and thinking gee it would be nice to look that good.

But also “geez that’s a lot of work and I don’t want to do that full time especially because I don’t want to attract cis het men”

So yeah.

I think this is just me admitting, as much as I am enjoying my time rediscovering my homeland, it's also bringing out a LOT of the stress and lifelong disappointment I've felt as a Fil-Am.

I don't get to be "properly Filipino" AND those racist fucks in the States don't want me either.

And how could I even pretend to be a proper partner to someone I *can't even speak to in their native language*?!?

Also, it is really truly disheartening whenever my family tries to talk to me in Tagalog and seems to forget I was basically denied fluency in that language at age four and no matter how I try I will NEVER be able to catch up with two weeks of practice at 45.

I'm kvetching here because this is still relatively unpopulated, and I don't feel like doing this in front of the 3500 friends-and-family over on the other social media outlets.

But it is sure something realizing just how demoralized I feel.

I don't want anyone to feel like they're "settling" for me.

I've been there. It's AWFUL.

I can't tell you how many times I've thought "oh she's cute" and then saw a Bible quote on her profile and NOPE.

Sorry, you can't make me believe in a so-called god who is silent in the face of genocide and child abuse.

I realize this limits my options. And I'm 45 and not as cute as I once was.

Also, my family encouraging me to seek out Filipina girls while I'm in the islands:

HOW MANY do we really think are in the Venn diagram of:
atheist/irreligious - bi/pansexual - polyamorous - birder - anime fan

Cause yeah. Umm.

I would rather by single than be unhappy, or WORSE, make someone *else* unhappy.

This is why I say I was a failure as a spouse: because I failed *her* (both *hers*), but I also have to acknowledge that the expectations both internal and external were ultimately impossible to meet or maintain.

"you need to lower your standards"

uhh no. social justice and human rights? non-negotiable.

i have a hard time believing a non-birder is going to want to spend time putting up with my wanderlust, and also, oh yeah, i'm poly, so compulsive monogamy is basically a drag chute deployed on takeoff.

This is where we’ve gone as a society. Empathy is politicized, so if the right calls it a sin, then we must claim it as rebellion.