Damascus, I think we’ve got a problem
21 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Ex-Boyfriends, Reflections Tags: gay, Help, LGBT, scared, syria
There is something seriously wrong with the mental status of gay people in Syria. I don’t want to look like I’m generalizing, but by God, there is something wrong with these people. Is it a joined mental disorder? a need to turn everyone’s lives around them to a living hell? is it a “narcissist personality disorder with the sense of entitlement and rage attacks,” as my European friend puts it? I honestly don’t know.
I mean, hear me out, over the last year in Damascus, I faced so much drama that I cannot be solely blamed for. Yesterday, a guy who I dated for two months, then kicked out when I discovered that he is cheating on me, stealing my money and even stealing condoms from my own drawer to sleep around, he shows up to my doorsteps; I open the door unaware of his presence and he jumps into the house.
When I try to push him out, he started beating me up and crashing everything he sees in front of him; the glass tables, the TV screen, the laptop, the small music recorder. Anything that he sees, he is crashing. It was a seriously scary mess that I witnessed while shaking.
I’m far more stronger than he is; I could cause a serious deal of harm to him. But, you shouldn’t be afraid of a strong and wise man, you should be afraid of a weak and crazed man. He was throwing stuff around, and honestly, I was scared he will kill me.
Two hours later, and after the landlord kicked us both out of the house (so, yes, now I’m homeless and sleeping on the floor of my father – the homophobe – house). My ex calls me asking me why would I treat someone that loves me that much in such a bad way. He started saying that it was my fault he destroyed my house, as I caused him to be angry when I refused to talk to him.
He is the same guy that I talked about in this post, who almost killed me in our last fight throwing a bottle of whisky in the air towards my head.
He is, strangely, not the only person with mental disorders I met in Syria.
The first guy I dated here stole my stuff and called my father and told him that I raped him. the second one is this guy. My friend’s ex commited suicide in my friend’s house and we had to rush him to the hospital, my other friend’s ex punched a window with his arms until it broke and cause him a trip to the hospital. Someone I know got his passport burned down as a revenge act from someone he dated for two weeks then left him. My passport was stolen by a guy I dated. There is something wrong with this country’s gay people. I just don’t know what it is.
I’m scared now; scared of ever leaving the house and going anywhere. I know his threats are just a way to bring my attention to him and the best way to deal with them is ignoring him; but this is insane. It’s an insane situation that I cannot believe I’m stuck in it. I’m not totally sure what to do anymore.
So, I’m leaving.
I decided this today, I’m going to pack my stuff, get on a car and head to Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, anywhere but here really.
I’m scared; and I’m leaving.
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The Ex-Files: Five Stages of Grief
20 May 2012 1 Comment
in Ex-Boyfriends Tags: bad people, boyfriend, cheat, ex-boyfriend, gay, hate, LGBT, relationship, steal
Denial
“He is not the one for you,” Jo told me while we sit in a small park in the heart of Damascus, “Sama, have you lost your mind? He can’t seem to have any conversation to share with you, he is spending your money as he pleases, he doesn’t like your friends and quit frankly he doesn’t seem to like you.”
The guy is sitting next to her now. He looks uninterested in sharing anything with her. He has his eyes on someone else in the park. Someone younger than me; smoother than me; thinner than me. He looks at him and I seems to notice an unspoken conversation between the two of them. I refuse to believe my eyes and I continue the conversation with Jo.
“But I do care for him a huge deal, Jo” I tell her in English, comfortably discussing him knowing he doesn’t speak the language, “I just think that he’ll be a better person”, I say, “I think with the right amount of caring, and if I put enough effort into helping him developing his personality, he would be fine.” She shacks here head and decides not to continue the conversation.
Humam, my roommate, knows all about him. “He is using you, Sama,” he explains to me, “the same way he used his ex-boyfriend. He is with you because you’re providing him with a roof on top of his head, a hot meal every evening and a pack of cigarettes everyday. You’re a perfect catch, Sama, why do you do that to yourself? Why do you stay with him?”. I explain to him that I don’t see it that way. “He loves me, I’m sure of it,” I say, while I notice him going to my bedroom, picking up my iPod and playing a game on it in the livingroom. “You can’t see it but we all do, all of your friends can tell. He only cares for you because you are providing him with money and luxury,” he says, “ask him if he would like to find a job; or explain to him that you can’t spend money on him anymore and see his reaction.”
That evening, I suggest to him that he should find a job. “You don’t need to pay for anything, and I’ll keep paying for everything you need, just find a job that would fill your day with work and maybe you can save some money,” I ask him, and a fight is insured; he doesn’t want to work; he doesn’t want to leave my house to his family’s house. He doesn’t want to change anything.
Anger
The fight continued; and it reached a high level that I’ve never experienced before with anyone. “I’m not going to spend more money on you,” I remember saying, “you’re welcomed to stay in my house; and I love you and I want you to be my boyfriend; but you need to start working on getting your own money.” He started shouting and screaming; picked up a bottle of Whisky on my table and smashed it to the floor next to my feet. then, picked up another faze on the corner; and smashed it to the wall next to my head. I got seriously scared. I picked up a long wooden stick and started waving it. “Stay back!” I started screaming, “and leave my house this very moment.” I was angry; almost ready to kick him out. I’ve never been insulted, or threatened, in my whole life this way.
I started roaming the house. I was totally alone. No friends to witness this; or to help me calm him down. I wanted him out of my house and out of my life. I did not want this person to stay. “Go out! Now! I don’t want you anymore!” I started screaming, and he explained that he is not leaving; never again to leave. “I’m never leaving it for you, this is my right to get what I want from you. I’m not losing my sources this easily.” It was obvious that my friends were right.
Three hours later; and he is not leaving my house. I tried everything: Talking to him, threatening him with the police; explaining to him that he can’t stay anymore; that I don’t accept violence in my house at all. I explained to him that he needs to leave in so many ways. yet, he is not leaving. He is refusing to leave.
Bargaining
“OK, you can stay!” I tell him so, and I feel guilty right away. I was not telling the truth. I did not want him anymore. However, I did not find a way to get him to leave but to buy myself some time and try to find a better solution. The next morning; I pretended that for religious reasons, I can’t have sex with him for two weeks; which is laughable, really, everyone knew I was not relaigious at all.
He didn’t care. It seemed like it was a relief for him, really. He doesn’t need to pretend that he likes me anymore. He just can sit around and order stuff that he wants. “I want a new hair product,” he would text me, “I want an expensive dinner tonight,” he would demand. I wanted him out; and to get him out, I needed to play his game.
I don’t know, did he know that it was his final days? suddenly, he did not try to even hide how much he wants to use me. “I want new clothes, I want a new watch, let’s buy this, let’s get that!” he would demand and go crazy when I refuse to play this game.
However, all of his games ended when I found a condom stolen from my own drawer in his pocket; that was it. That night, I kicked him. He was screaming and shouting; but he was out the door.
Depression
I’m not depressed because I kicked him out, God knows it is a great relief to get ride of this blood sucker of a man. I’m depressed because of the two months I spent trying to actually turn this into a real relationship. I am sadden that, like always, I turn out to be the naive one; and people take advantage of that. I’m depressed that, while he was crying his eyes out asking me to keep him, he had the time to go to my bedroom and steal some of my stuff.
He, on the other hand, is depressed because when my friends saw him the other day; he was with a guy who is paying for his cigarettes, food and liqure; but that guy was treating him like shit. Telling him that he bought him with money, explaning to him that he is only a sex-toy; and getting phone calls from other gay guys to flirt with while he is at it. He is depressed because he, finally, figured out that he played ball with me; and he lost.
Acceptance
Today, I deleted all of his photos from my mobile phone, and I wrote this post.
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Saudade
19 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Personal Tags: Eyad, gay, happiness, LGBT, mother, Saudade
“So, tell me something sweet in Portuguese.” I told Sydma, my Brazilian friend who is leaving the country tomorrow: being the last foreigner I personally know in Syria. “I wanna learn something new.”
“Well, I have pride in one word that only, we, the Brazilians, say.” She told me as I inspected her beautiful features. She has the same look I see in everyone’s leaving the country eyes. A mixture of confusion, a touch of guilt and lots of puzzled emotions about leaving a country whom they really liked yet can’t stand handling anymore. “Saudade is the enjoyment of remembering, a feeling that comes to you when you remember things from your past yet you feel good about them.”
“That’s nostalgia, right?” I say, trying to think of a similar word in Arabic. “No! Nostalgia is not always a good feeling: we are talking about a genuine feeling of happiness that comes from remembering things that are long past.”
I laugh and go on experiencing saudade.
I consider myself to be a lucky person, really. When I was young; I wanted a lot of things that people considered abnormal: while all kids wanted to grow up to be doctors, my family had a hard time dealing with my wish to grow up and become a journalist and a writer. “Writers don’t get paid, my son, and journalists are sinful in general,” that’s how my father decided to handle my dream, “you ought study hard and become a doctor.”
Ten years after this conversation I managed to get my first job in journalism. I remembered that conversation in my first day in the office and I smiled.
I’m twelve. My uncle just got himself a Made-in-China video recorder; which was a small miracle back then in Syria. It wasn’t the usual flat screen camera where you’d see what you’re recording on a small convenient little screen and play it back to entertain the people with photos you just took of them. It was the huge one with a little lance and a microscope-like eye spot where you see what you’re recording in black and white.
I took charge of the camera after much negotiations with my uncle who didn’t want to give his precious new toy to a minor. My mother, however, used her influence and got me the video recorder. I spent the afternoon taking videos of my uncle, his family, doing interviews with them and playing pranks on them.
That night, and after everyone went to sleep, I slowly went to my uncle’s room; got the camera, and connected it to my little TV screen in my room the way they said I should in its little English manual. I sat there and I watched the movies with sleepy, yet contented, eyes.
I’m not born yet. My mother is in her wedding dress. I see the video years later and she looks amazingly content. She has this long black hair which was softly decorated with white little pearls. She is smiling to the camera and smiling to my father. They feed each others pieces of little chocolate cake.
I’m 19. Eyad and I are sleeping in bed. He wakes up to me tossing and turning. I had a fever. He jumps off the bed. I see his naked body as he dressed up fast and called my mother. I see his body glowing in red due to the fever and to my blurred vision. I go into a trance due to the fever. I wake up in what seems to me like minutes, but it’s not. I have been in a semi-coma for 8 hours. I see Eyad’s face. He looks tired and worried. I reach out to him and try to sit up but he forced me to go back to sleep. I point to my throat and he brings me a bottle of water. I cough. His eyes are tearing. I cough again and he produces this voice, like he is in agony himself due to my pain. He reach with his lips towards me, he kisses my forehead and whispers that I should go back to sleep.
I wake up the next morning to find myself sleeping on his chest. He was sitting in bed, asleep, and he was hugging me with both arms. I was wide awake but I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to stay in his safe arms forever. I smile, and I go back to sleep.
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Amman; the Primadonna
17 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Reflections Tags: Amman, bar, gay, syria, trip
so, if by the time, the bar closes and you feel like falling down, I’ll carry you home tonight.
Unbelievably bored in Amman, I sit in a cafe called Books@Cafe, famous for its queer atmosphere and considering the odds that made going back to Damascus in 7 hours from now such a delightful thought.
I have been in Amman for the last four days now and the city did nothing to me: it’s not emotionally challenging nor one of these cities where you see a new wonder on each corner. It’s, in my own humble opinion, a yellow city of similar looking buildings and unsatisfactory ruins that are not to compare to those of great cities such as Beirut or Damascus.
Damascus, that far away city with blood on its skies, looks so inviting tonight. I never thought I’d say that but it is how I feel.
I spent my morning in my hotel room watching porn, chatting with a friend from Canada and enjoying the AC before I was almost kicked out of my room for check out. Sadden to leave my little cave, I walk in the city trying to find something entertaining to do. I talked to a traffic police guy, watched as two guys had a fight about their cars, had an adventure trying to buy cigarettes and had a lengthy conversation with a taxi driver about how I’d prefer not to comment on the situation in Syria before I realized that all that took me less than 30 minutes. I sighted and entered the cafe accepting my pending fate of immortal boredom.
In comes the guy…
I know what you’re thinking, here it goes again, Sama. Yet another story of a guy you have a fling with that starts, typically, with flirtation efforts from your side and ends with a lengthy post about your broken heart and uninteresting love misfits. However, I would disappoint you this time. I did not flirt with the guy, I did not exchange details about our sexual lives and roles in bed on Grindr. I honestly don’t even think he is interested in doing so. Our eyes crossed path for a short second where it was obvious he doesn’t really appreciate the attention this might bring him.
Also, I’m leaving back to Syria in less than eight hours so the effort I’d put to get this guy’s attention would be gone to waste. I had my full share of encounters in this city and I honestly don’t want another phone number on my mobile that will surely be deleted in my next devoted session of cleaning up my Facebook, Twitter and address book contacts.
However, this guy caught my attention for a simple reason; he was simply shining of life. He walks into the cafe with fast steps and a welcoming smile that goes well with his light blue T-shirt. He takes a short pause to enjoy the soft wind blowing from the mountain of Amman. He smiles to the waiter and shake hands with him then orders a soft colored Ice Tea that goes well with the lively attitude he has.
His friend and him were talking about something that I didn’t hear but he shakes his head to the left and right as he present options to solve problems unknown to me before he ask his friend to “think about it” in an upbeat voice.
As the colors around me get shinned by his aroma and the jazz singer singing softly on the cafe speakers becomes a diva with her black voice; he smiles, move his hands flamboyantly and mix Arabic and English sentences to a funny delightful results.
I decide to break my rude stare at him and write this down instead. My feelings about this whole irrelevant encounter grows deeper. Lonely and sad in Amman and hoping to be back in Syria soon I remember that I simply do not have a similar person to this primadonna back in Syria. I liked him, and not totally in a sexual way but rather as a friend who can bring light joy to my heart. A person I can hang out with and get annoyed by his attitude yet laugh my ass off to his jokes.
He looked like a fun, simple person that you might need to have in your life. I remember depressing Syria and I wonder if I actually really want to go back there. I smile to the thought that I am sitting in a gay cafe; two lesbians on the side having a first date that looks like it is going well, a European guy is getting his hand massaged by a Jordanian guy underneath the table; a gay waiter with blue eyes is flirting with me and the lively guy and his friends. Suddenly, I started to like Jordan. To enjoy Amman. These people are lost in simple lives and jazz songs; and I’m lost with them; and there; we are Gods.
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Surrendering
09 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Personal Tags: death, Eyad, gay, love, mother, surrender
I will hold you in my arms, and never let go. I surrender.
Celine Dion – I surrender
There is so much in life that I yet have to experience, yet your fire is burning still inside me.
I watch you roam around my home; you look glorious as I ever remember you. You’d play some of your rock music and air-guitar to it while you’re doing some cleaning up around the house. You look so busy with whatever you’re doing: full of energy and grace as you move around my mother’s house like you’re floating. You look like an angel who was bestowed upon me from high above. I smile as I lower my sunglasses (I was on the balcony reading a book) and examine your body with my eyes. I put my book on the side table and approach you; hold you from behind, print a kiss on your shoulder and whisper a soft “I love you” in your ears.
We are sitting on a table with over twenty people: we sit on opposite sides of the table; you’re busy telling a short hair girl something about your last photography project. I was busy with Sarah talking about the humidity in Lebanon. From across the table I look at your eyes; they are glassy and empty as you’re speaking. You look distant and unapproachable. The girl, I came to understand later, was flirting with you. All the girls wanted to flirt with you. However, you had this delightful way of changing the topic and turn it into a professional conversation about nonsense.
You feel my gaze towards you: you look up and my eyes meet yours: suddenly life returns to your eyes. They shine with love, hope, future, grey hair and two adopted children and a dog; holding hands when we’re in our late sixties and smile; watching a million sunrise and a million sunset together. I smile to you; you smile to me and we both return to our silly conversations.
Eyad, I surrender! I know I can’t survive another heartbreak looking for a love that feels like yours. I want to live again with you: you’re the only man who I ever knew what love really means with. I had a thousand dreams for us and now I can’t seem to accept the fact that you passed away eight years ago. I can’t believe that the night got longer after my mother: my only connection to all of your memories and the only person who truely knew what you mean to me, passed away as well.
Right here! Right now! I surrender all to you all over again! I surrender hope, love, future and grey hair. I surrender the million sunrise and the million sunset. There is so much life for me to live: and I will live it with the feeling within that I’m afraid all of the men I met (and will meet) after you; they will always know that I’m still in love with you.
I will live again with your love: and no one can take that away from me.
I surrender.
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Back When I was Straight
05 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Reflections Tags: bisexual, gay, LGBT, prostitution, straight
“I mean, back when I was straight I was feeling much better about my life. I don’t honestly know what am I doing in this atmosphere; I think I wanna go back to being straight again…”
I dunno what to tell ya, my dear reader, I honestly have no idea how to response to such comments by gay Syrian people who mostly believe that they can simply change sexual orientation the same way they change flamboyant t-shirts in gay parties.
Also, I honestly can’t figure out what is this “straight phrase” they all talking about! I’ve never been longing to see the bra of my female English teacher in high school; I didn’t feel the need to go running after some school girl trying to get her phone number, I honestly never called a girl late at night and played her romantic songs (oh. My. God. Even my straight scenarios are super gay) and I can honestly say that I’ve never kissed a girl. Oh, wait a minute, I did actually kiss a girl once! But she was a fag hag who me and other gay friends got with us to go to a New Years’ gay party in a private villa in Egypt. I did kiss her, but that was right after I kissed Mr. Stupid-With-Amazing-Six-Packs and right before I kissed Mr. Cute-Face-Tight-Butt; whom I had a threesome with both that very night. (Oh, the memories)
Along comes Saif; a semi-fat babyface boy in his late twenties; he is the “daughter” of my best friend. You see, to be part of the gay community in Syria you need to be part of one of the fictional families in it. Each older gay man, especially flamboyant ones, has a group of younger gay people who they call their daughters. The daughters call the mother endearing mother names like Yamo (oh, mother in Syrian Arabic) or the likes.
Also, some gay men, like myself, refuse to be referred to using female names (I mean, I’m a gay man interested in other gay men. No offence, my feminist readers. I just wanna keep my gender identity intact). Due to that, there are also sons. So, I have a gay man who announces himself as my mother (despite my wishes otherwise) and now I’m part of their family (some family in another city in Syria who I hate all of its members and find them extremely vulgar) and also I’m a brother to my best friend.
Naturally, that creates huge (and confusing) family trees in the community. I’m, for example, the son of someone who is the sister of my best friend (AKA my brother). So, my “mother” is also my aunt and my brother is my uncle. Confused? So I am.
Back to Saif, who I ended up being his uncle for no apparent reason. Saif went to Al-Hajj six months ago and came back with a renewal sense of religious thinking. That lead him to decide going back to being straight.
“I mean, it’s going to be easy, I’m bisexual rather than gay, I can be straight again,” he says while I listened absent-mindedly. Oh, how I hate how lots of confused gay guys go straight by using the ultimate joke: I’m not gay, I was just bisexual who got used on being gay. I mean, of course there are bisexual people. I believe in the Dr. Kinsey scale and all that. But I’m sure people don’t just yo-yo up and down Kinsey scale as they please.
Saif hadn’t had sexual relations with anyone for the last six months. However, “I jerk off,” he says, “rather a lot” to gay porn; as I came to understand when he showed me how amazing the video quality on his phone by playing a gay porn video (out of many stored on the phone) to me.
Faris is another example. Rumour has it that Faris, who works in a shop downstairs from my apartment, is a boy for rent. He has been in the scene for almost ten years. However, he refuses to call himself gay. “I’m not gay,” he points out in a gay party that we both attended (separately, thankfully), “I just sleep with men until I can get married.” He actually gave his own brother lessons in prostitution and they sometimes work as a team together (ew?).
The brother, who I won’t even bother faking a name for him, explained in the same party that he “had multiple sexual encounters with men before,” but he doesn’t understand how we handle being the giving party in oral sex. He doesn’t kiss his client or please him in any way other than allowing the client to give him oral sex and receive from him anal sex.
In that same party, Firas announced, finally, that he is getting engaged; which everyone congratulated him for awkwardly: and by the end of the night Firas was dancing with an older man in the corner and they left the party together to an unknown destination.
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Dreaming of Love
04 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Personal Tags: ex-boyfriends, Lebanon, longing, love, syria
He makes me feel a shallow feeling of happiness that I experienced way too many times before. A traditional expected love that only fulfills bodily needs and short purses of light entertainment. It’s a feeling similar to seeing a person in the street and believing him to be an old friend you didn’t see in a while; you start running after them, waving for them and calling them with dear nicknames you once used before. Then, you put your hand on their shoulder and you figure out your mistake. When you meet the real friend later; you feel silly for evening believing for one second that you fall for that unknown man; you’d even think that the person you waved for in the street doesn’t even look like your friend.
But you; you make me feel so beautiful inside; you push the envelop of how to get me happy. I can’t stop telling you all of my silly details about stupid horror movies I watch. I just want to tell you unexplained purses of funny jokes I just thought of to make you happy. You are the first thing I think of every morning and the last thing I think about before I sleep.
However, you’re there and here is here. He is refusing to leave my house after I kicked him out three weeks ago and you can’t come to visit.
Eff this eshh.
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