The Prox: Read This First
Admission of guilt
So he did fabricate the whole thing!!! I know I shouldn't feel any sense of satisfaction in that, other than that for some reason I had a deep suspicion this was a hoax all along, from the beginning of the threatening emails (before the assault!). It just seemed really fishy from the get-go. I am happy that there are dangerous assailants out there on Princeton campus, but I am also really weirded-out that Nava would actually hurt himself to the point of concussion. How did he do it?? Also, I am deeply disturbed at the reaction on campus before this was all revealed to be a hoax - it was so terribly politicizing, with the right trying to use it to their advantage and the left hoping it was a hoax so that they could use it to their advantage! Why are we so splintered?? Also, I hope this doesn't damage Anscombe's ability to openly and intelligently discuss their issues - I sure don't agree with their positions, but I would like to talk to them about it in an open forum.
Love always,
Bryan
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sad, confusing, dangerous world...
I've been following with interest the back-and-forth in the Prince over the past week about the Anscombe Society that recently culminated in the reporting of an assault of one of the group's members.
After reading various blog posts I've found about the incident across the internet, it's amazing to me the amount of virulent anti-progressive rhetoric I've encountered. This reveals to me what I think is a sad personal truth: that I've been living in a bubble. A bubble of openness, tolerance, progressiveness. I grew up in a very loving and supporting family, and in high school in West LA none of my peers ever said anything disparaging about me being gay. They (at least to my face) accepted me for who I am and it wasn't an issue.
But that said truth that I'm now realizing is that a great percentage of the nation isn't this way. Even at Princeton, there are factions who would rather not associate me because I love guys rather than girls, who would look at me awkwardly for holding hands with my boyfriend, who would write essays and letters to the editor positing intellectual arguments for my I shouldn't be able to freely love who I want to love. So sad...
What's the solution? I don't know. I guess the world is a huge enough place that there are enough allies for me that I basically have to surround myself with like-minded people and ignore the rest. Because there's no way to unconvince people of the hatred they've believed for so long. Otherwise, I'll get dragged down into their ruthless arguments and feel worse about myself because even though I know they're wrong, it hurts deeply to hear people say disparaging things about me and my life, when I know that I am harmless and am just trying to live a happy life.
So how does this all apply to the assault on the Anscombe member? I'm not really sure. Even though I think his views are misinformed, hateful, and dangerous, I think that right now this is an expression of sympathy. Nobody should ever be subject to physical attack for their views, no matter how wrong. We either need to ignore each other and accept a truce and live in peace, or engage in friendly, positive, constructive dialogue to try to come to a consensus. I just wish I could show them that being tolerant of me and letting me enjoy the full rights of marriage would do nothing to undermine their own lives whatsoever. And I wish I could make it clear to them that whoever assaulted him was not representative of a progressive movement whatsoever, and I want this heinous crime solved as much as they do.
After reading various blog posts I've found about the incident across the internet, it's amazing to me the amount of virulent anti-progressive rhetoric I've encountered. This reveals to me what I think is a sad personal truth: that I've been living in a bubble. A bubble of openness, tolerance, progressiveness. I grew up in a very loving and supporting family, and in high school in West LA none of my peers ever said anything disparaging about me being gay. They (at least to my face) accepted me for who I am and it wasn't an issue.
But that said truth that I'm now realizing is that a great percentage of the nation isn't this way. Even at Princeton, there are factions who would rather not associate me because I love guys rather than girls, who would look at me awkwardly for holding hands with my boyfriend, who would write essays and letters to the editor positing intellectual arguments for my I shouldn't be able to freely love who I want to love. So sad...
What's the solution? I don't know. I guess the world is a huge enough place that there are enough allies for me that I basically have to surround myself with like-minded people and ignore the rest. Because there's no way to unconvince people of the hatred they've believed for so long. Otherwise, I'll get dragged down into their ruthless arguments and feel worse about myself because even though I know they're wrong, it hurts deeply to hear people say disparaging things about me and my life, when I know that I am harmless and am just trying to live a happy life.
So how does this all apply to the assault on the Anscombe member? I'm not really sure. Even though I think his views are misinformed, hateful, and dangerous, I think that right now this is an expression of sympathy. Nobody should ever be subject to physical attack for their views, no matter how wrong. We either need to ignore each other and accept a truce and live in peace, or engage in friendly, positive, constructive dialogue to try to come to a consensus. I just wish I could show them that being tolerant of me and letting me enjoy the full rights of marriage would do nothing to undermine their own lives whatsoever. And I wish I could make it clear to them that whoever assaulted him was not representative of a progressive movement whatsoever, and I want this heinous crime solved as much as they do.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Thanksgiving / the Family Mess
My mom's family is from Long Island so I went there for Thanksgiving. Despite a lot of mediocre, store-bought food (ugh, her side of the family is so plebian...) it was nice to see all the family and generally it was a very nice time.
The problem is really the football on TV. They just watch so much of it and it's just so lame! I mean, I can understand that there's a lot of strategy there, and there's drama of rivalries and bragging rights and whatnot, but still: they freakin' obsess over it. They put the TV on and watch it and it basically turns them into automatons, unable to interact with each other whatsoever unless it is a comment about football. Basically, pro football has ruined the social skills of a huge percentage of straight guys and it's really sad. It's almost like they're afraid to interact with each other on a level other than talking about football. And the funny thing is, I've been out to them for three years now and they still except me to watch football with them. They treat me exactly like one of them, even though the only thing I care about in football is that some of the players look hot in their tight pants. Maybe, I guess, it's a good thing that they treat me exactly like they would if I were straight - that's what gay rights is all about, right? This would be great, if by doing so, they weren't forcing me to engage in such a lame activity. It's like, by expecting me to watch football with them, by expecting me to be just like them, they're ignoring that I'm gay, they're ignoring the fact that I really am different, that I really am interesting, and that I can interact with people on so many more levels than just about football!!!
Move me to Europe, where straight men have real conversations and dress much cuter.
Pardon the generalizations.
Love always,
Bryan
The problem is really the football on TV. They just watch so much of it and it's just so lame! I mean, I can understand that there's a lot of strategy there, and there's drama of rivalries and bragging rights and whatnot, but still: they freakin' obsess over it. They put the TV on and watch it and it basically turns them into automatons, unable to interact with each other whatsoever unless it is a comment about football. Basically, pro football has ruined the social skills of a huge percentage of straight guys and it's really sad. It's almost like they're afraid to interact with each other on a level other than talking about football. And the funny thing is, I've been out to them for three years now and they still except me to watch football with them. They treat me exactly like one of them, even though the only thing I care about in football is that some of the players look hot in their tight pants. Maybe, I guess, it's a good thing that they treat me exactly like they would if I were straight - that's what gay rights is all about, right? This would be great, if by doing so, they weren't forcing me to engage in such a lame activity. It's like, by expecting me to watch football with them, by expecting me to be just like them, they're ignoring that I'm gay, they're ignoring the fact that I really am different, that I really am interesting, and that I can interact with people on so many more levels than just about football!!!
Move me to Europe, where straight men have real conversations and dress much cuter.
Pardon the generalizations.
Love always,
Bryan
Welcome to Occupied Ruin / the blog of Bryan
Dear friend,
Have you ever read "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky? It was really influential to me back in middle school, but that's beside the point. The point is really, that the structure of the book is comprised of a boy, during his freshman year of high school, writing letters to someone anonymous. He tells his life through these letters and works everything in his tumultuous life out through these letters and it ends up being a very meaningful record is his existence at an important transitional point in his life.
That was supposed to take place in 1991. Now, at the end of 2007, I think it's time to revisit that concept. Maybe I can use this blog as a place to write letters about my life. To help myself work out all of the crazy stuff that's going on in my mind and in my family and social life. Now the internet will make it public. Maybe you can learn something about my world and maybe it will put your world in perspective. Or maybe no one will ever read this but it will help me work out my world for myself.
So a little about me. I'm not going to use my real name because I don't want you to know exactly who I am, I don't want you to be able to find me on myspace or facebook, and most of all I don't want my friends finding this blog. I need some anonymity to be able to freely post the innermost churnings of my brain. But I also need it to be public so maybe I can get a little feedback from you.
So, my name is Bryan and I'm a freshman at Princeton but I'm from California. I live in a quad in an old gothic building with 3 pretty boring roommates. More on them and life at school in another post. It's getting really cold out. This is going to be my first real winter and I am not looking forward to enduring the long cold.
I named this blog 'Occupied Ruin' because I am interested in architecture. My dad is an architect and so is by boyfriend. Well, he's still a student. He's a second-year grad student in architecture at Yale. I'll call him Greg here - I don't want to use his real name either because he's 75% closeted and I don't think he would appreciate being outed here. None of his friends at Yale know he's gay. That's so lame (and what am I doing dating a 25 year old???) but we're so good together that I'm going to deal with it, at least for now. I met him in July at Tigerheat, this 18+ gay club in Hollywood. Tigerheat is so not my scene (it's pretty trashy) but there's a decent number of cute boys there and it's really the center of the U21 gay scene in LA, so it's where you could find me every Thursday night since I turned 18. I like Princeton a lot but I've been going up to Yale every other weekend or so to see Greg - I hope I'm not missing out too much on life here. Oh, back to the name of the blog. So there's this really ugly (but neat) building at Yale that the school of architecture was in before but now it's being renovated and they're somewhere else. It's this really amazingly strange brutal concrete thing that was in terrible condition. One time Greg described it to me as it was an "occupied ruin" and I've been fascinated by that phrase ever since. I've heard so much about architecture because of Greg and because of my dad that I kind of want to major in it too. Although then I'd be lame for following in the footsteps of my dad...
Okay, that's enough for tonight. Bye!
Love always,
Bryan
Have you ever read "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky? It was really influential to me back in middle school, but that's beside the point. The point is really, that the structure of the book is comprised of a boy, during his freshman year of high school, writing letters to someone anonymous. He tells his life through these letters and works everything in his tumultuous life out through these letters and it ends up being a very meaningful record is his existence at an important transitional point in his life.
That was supposed to take place in 1991. Now, at the end of 2007, I think it's time to revisit that concept. Maybe I can use this blog as a place to write letters about my life. To help myself work out all of the crazy stuff that's going on in my mind and in my family and social life. Now the internet will make it public. Maybe you can learn something about my world and maybe it will put your world in perspective. Or maybe no one will ever read this but it will help me work out my world for myself.
So a little about me. I'm not going to use my real name because I don't want you to know exactly who I am, I don't want you to be able to find me on myspace or facebook, and most of all I don't want my friends finding this blog. I need some anonymity to be able to freely post the innermost churnings of my brain. But I also need it to be public so maybe I can get a little feedback from you.
So, my name is Bryan and I'm a freshman at Princeton but I'm from California. I live in a quad in an old gothic building with 3 pretty boring roommates. More on them and life at school in another post. It's getting really cold out. This is going to be my first real winter and I am not looking forward to enduring the long cold.
I named this blog 'Occupied Ruin' because I am interested in architecture. My dad is an architect and so is by boyfriend. Well, he's still a student. He's a second-year grad student in architecture at Yale. I'll call him Greg here - I don't want to use his real name either because he's 75% closeted and I don't think he would appreciate being outed here. None of his friends at Yale know he's gay. That's so lame (and what am I doing dating a 25 year old???) but we're so good together that I'm going to deal with it, at least for now. I met him in July at Tigerheat, this 18+ gay club in Hollywood. Tigerheat is so not my scene (it's pretty trashy) but there's a decent number of cute boys there and it's really the center of the U21 gay scene in LA, so it's where you could find me every Thursday night since I turned 18. I like Princeton a lot but I've been going up to Yale every other weekend or so to see Greg - I hope I'm not missing out too much on life here. Oh, back to the name of the blog. So there's this really ugly (but neat) building at Yale that the school of architecture was in before but now it's being renovated and they're somewhere else. It's this really amazingly strange brutal concrete thing that was in terrible condition. One time Greg described it to me as it was an "occupied ruin" and I've been fascinated by that phrase ever since. I've heard so much about architecture because of Greg and because of my dad that I kind of want to major in it too. Although then I'd be lame for following in the footsteps of my dad...
Okay, that's enough for tonight. Bye!
Love always,
Bryan
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