New trajectory

I generally have considered the sexual orientation confusion and career doubts of the past couple years to be the defining issues of my so-called "quarter life crisis." Well, the latter definitely came to a head over the last two weeks, spurned on by the UCLA rejection. Having the only acceptance come from an east coast school, I decided to look more closely at how badly I really wanted the Ph.D. I realized that part of the reason I wanted to go to UCLA so much was that I still had not fully committed to the idea of a career in research/academia. The fact that it was the best program for my interests was a factor sure, and a convenient justification for my preference. But really, I wanted to be able to pursue the Ph.D. without having to disrupt my life too much. If later on I decided I did in fact want to pursue a career in academia, then I could commit to the uncertainty and moving around that would be involved at that point. Basically, low risk in the short term, and then I'd make the higher risk decisions later.

The UCLA rejection (coupled with rejections from most of the other programs I interviewed at) has forced me to do some serious soul-searching. After reading a lot more about the Ph.D. track online and talking to people, I'm now realizing that I just might not be well suited to the academic life. The level of uncertainty in that career path terrifies me. The idea of having to move from post-doc position to post-doc position, applying to faculty jobs alongside hundreds of other applicants, having to move to some random location in the country because it's the only place you can get a job, having to constantly apply for grants to secure funding, and worrying about whether or not you're going to receive tenure . . . I've realized these are stresses that I REALLY don't want to put up with. For a while I just figured they'd be things I'd get used to, that every career path has its own stresses. But now I'm thinking those particular stresses would especially bother me. I know that not everyone who gets a Ph.D. goes into academia, but it IS the most prominent option, and I don't really see the point of starting down that road having already decided that I don't want to be a professor. I wish these things had occurred to me before. . . and I admit the doubts have been recurring for several years now. For some reason I had blinders on until now. Once again, introspection only gets you so far. Sometimes it takes some kind of external stimulus to snap you out of your mindset.

So the last couple weeks has been a mad scramble to try to figure out a Plan B before the time comes for me to officially turn down the offer. I gave med school another look. Nope. Didn't appeal to me before, still doesn't. I looked at law school. They allow applicants from all different majors, so all I'd have to do is take the LSAT. But . . . I never really had much interest in being a lawyer. Physicians assistant? Good pay and more normal hours than a physician, but I'm not sure I'd like direct patient care no matter how many hours I'm on the job.

So now my mind has settled on pharmacy school. Being a pharmacist seems to have characteristics that might suit me. You have to be good at science, and it involves an aspect of science education (teaching others about medications, their uses, their interactions, and how to incorporate them into a healthy lifestyle). In addition, it has a lot of the characteristics that I felt were lacking from academia, namely, better job security, mobility, and higher compensation. I talked to a pharmacist the other day for a while, and she said it was a good profession. She warned me that it is a high stress job, which often involves having to make important decisions in distracting environments. However, I think I could handle that kind of stress better than the kind of stress that comes with a research career.

The problem: PharmD programs require some prerequisites that I haven't taken. Which means . . . I'd have to take more classes first. It seems like a pain, especially since I could just accept the offer and start graduate school in the fall. But . . . in the long run I just don't think I'd be happy.

It's a tough time, but in a way it's liberating to realize that I'm not stuck on the path I was on. A part of me realizes that plenty of people would love to have an acceptance into a Ph.D. program, and would say I'm a fool for planning to turn it down, especially at such a good school. However, I think the foolish thing would be to go into grad school for the wrong reasons. It wouldn't matter if it was the best school in the world . . . if I don't think I'm going to be happy in the career that results.

I'm also being careful not to make any hasty decisions. I'm going to give myself the entire time they're allowing me to accept or reject the offer. I want to make sure this isn't just the rejection talking, haha. If I still feel this way when the time comes . . . I'll turn them down.

You can't always get what you want

Having finished graduate school interviews up in February, I've been really excited to get the word back from all the programs so I could make my decision. My top choice by far was UCLA. They had the best program/faculty/resources for what I wanted to do, plus it's in So Cal so I wouldn't have to move that far and I could still be near my family and friends. I LOVED my experience there during the recruitment weekend, and I felt like all of my interviews went really well (something I couldn't say about all the schools I visited). One professor even seemed eager to advocate for me, saying he was going to email a couple of people on the admissions committee and tell them "they had to admit me." Suffice it to say, I was feeling very confident and had begun to make plans in my mind about what the next five years would be like in Los Angeles.

And then . . . I opened my email on Monday to receive A REJECTION. I was absolutely devastated. Here I had successfully gotten an interview at my dream school and come off of it feeling like I'd done a great job (and they told us 75% of the interviewees would be accepted so I had little reason to worry) and this happens. The past couple days I have been in a funk the likes of which I have never experienced before. On top of that I got sick, probably something I caught at the party over the weekend. So I'm home from work today trying to recover, both physically and mentally/emotionally. I am feeling a little better in all ways, though. I did get one acceptance (out of nine applications, geez) out of state. On the east coast. It's still a good school, just not quite as strong in the specific area I was interested in. I admit, the possibility of turning it down and reapplying to UCLA next year has crossed my mind. On the other hand, there's no guarantee I'd do any better next year, and I might not even get an interview (it's probably only going to get more competitive, especially in CA with all the budget cuts) I have a month to decide, so I have a lot of thinking to do. The thought of leaving my friends and family behind on the west coast pains me, but it might be good for me to get far out of my comfort zone. We'll see.

Make a move

I went to a birthday party last night. Several of the guys were gay (I've met them before, I don't find them attractive) but I spent a good part of the night hanging out with a girl, one of the girls whose birthday it was. She'll be moving out of state in a few weeks so there wasn't much point in pursuing her or anything, but she had a cool personality so she was fun to talk to. One of my best friends also liked her, but he spent most of his time trying to get me to make a move, to "have fun". Then my other best friend joined in too, asking me if I liked her. That made me feel very awkward . . . can't a guy just enjoy talking to a girl without the expectation of having to "make a move"? I'm not a random play or one-night stand kind of guy, so if there's no potential for it to turn into something serious I don't really see the point (asexual tendencies revealing themselves, perhaps?) I felt very confused after the party, though, because even though I hadn't felt the desire to make out with her or anything I did really like being around her. I wonder how I would have felt if it were an attractive guy with a cool personality instead. Would I have felt the same, or would there have been more of a physical desire along with it? Who knows.

During the night I had a dream about the party (that's pretty strange, usually I don't dream about things that JUST happened). In the dream we were all sitting on a big circular couch. My friends were there, and so was one of the gay guys, who was sitting to my right. He started to ask everyone, one by one, questions about their sexuality. While my friends were answering him (I can't even remember what anyone said), I was pretending to sleep so the question wouldn't come to me. Luckily he didn't catch on, haha. I don't think I need Freud to figure that one out.

Father of mine

Two posts in one night? Yeah, I've got a lot on my mind.

So today I had lunch with my mom, and I decided to bring up an issue that has been troubling me lately: namely, my dad. I've always been on good terms with my father, but I hesitate to say we're "close." This, coupled with a series of arguments stemming from his stubbornly held far right views that he seems to be unable to rationally back up (he has referred to Obama as "evil" on multiple occasions) has led to some negative feelings towards him on my part as of late. I don't want it to be that way. I also get the feeling sometimes that my dad doesn't really care about what's going on in my life. He never asks nor shows any interest. I have no idea how he feels about my decision to go to graduate school or anything.

My mom revealed to me that my dad has NEVER been a good communicator, not with anyone. She assured me that it's not that he doesn't care, it's just that he isn't good at expressing himself. I realized that the issue here may very well be one of social cognition. Someone who lacks "social intelligence," if you will, would have trouble expressing their feelings to others, trouble picking up on social cues, and trouble seeing things from others' perspectives. It seems that this might apply to my dad. An empathy deficit would certainly shed some light on why he often seems closed-minded and unwilling to consider other viewpoints.

Now that I'm considering the issue from this perspective I feel better about it. It's not necessarily that my dad doesn't care. He just finds it hard to show it. It's obvious that some people have more skill than others when it comes to things like sports or academics. But we often take social skills for granted and fail to realize that sometimes social difficulties come in different varieties than just shyness. I'll try from now on to be a bit more patient with him. I'm still determined to have a heart-to-heart with him, though. I want to understand him more as a person, and I want to help him understand me.

I wish "The Real World" would just stop hassling me

I'll admit it, I have a guilty pleasure. It's called "The Real World." That ridiculous show keeps pulling me back in! Part of my fascination stems from my (fortunate) lack of drama in my personal relationships. Seeing these vastly different personality types thrown into a house together shows me the kind of arguments I could be having if I wasn't such a laid back guy, or if the people I lived with weren't also easy going.

But I admit, the number one reason I'm interested in this season is Mike. He is a guy in his early 20s from Colorado who identifies as bisexual. I relate to him a lot, both for his sexual identity confusion and for his laid back, open-minded and good natured attitude. And he is extremely easy on the eyes. He currently seems to be more attracted to guys and is trying to become more comfortable with himself.

I glanced through some of the internet chatter about him, and it amazes me how many gay people there seem to be that refuse to accept the existence of bisexuality. There seems to be a large segment of the gay population that believes guys who call themselves bisexual are really just in the process of coming out as gay. While I agree that this is probably the case for some, and maybe even quite a few, I also have no doubt in my mind that it is possible for someone to be attracted to both sexes. Why shouldn't it be possible?

I don't believe people are born gay or bisexual. I don't believe they're born straight either. I don't think there's any inborn conception of what a human being even is, so why would we pop out of the womb already hardwired to prefer one sex over the other? We need to learn what the choices ARE first! I think the various sexual orientations develop via complicated interactions between one's environment and experiences and one's genetics. Certain characteristics gradually become sexually charged, and usually those characteristics are associated with one sex or the other. At this point the orientation has developed. I don't see why such a complex process can only result in either A or B, though. Heck, sometimes the things that people develop this affinity for are a very specific part of the body, or something unrelated to a person at all. I believe those are what we call "fetishes." Given the amount of variation in people's sexual triggers, I'd be shocked if true bisexuality didn't exist.

Um, how did I go from talking about a reality show to formulating a theory on sexual orientation development? I should really learn to control these tangents. So . . . yeah, Mike's hot.

The 4th Orientation

I read an interesting article today, at http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-there-asexuals-among-us-on-the-2009-10-29.

I've heard of asexuality before. I'm not talking about the high school biology kind of asexuality, where single-celled organisms reproduce by fission. I mean the so-called "fourth orientation." Someone who describes themselves as asexual lacks the desire to have sex with either gender. It seems to be very difficult to categorize oneself as asexual though, since it requires one to recognize the lack of something that he or she has never experienced to begin with. How do you know you're missing something if you lack the experience necessary to properly understand and define it?

At one point years ago I thought I might be asexual. Now I'm revisiting that possibility. Of course, these days I have a more open view of sexuality and view it on a multi-dimensional continuum. I know I've used my "compass" metaphor in my ramblings here before. To reiterate, the length of the compass needle represents the intensity of one's sexual desire, and the direction it is pointing describes the orientation. My difficulty in determining the direction is largely due to the lack of intensity.

Now that I've read that article and browsed through some of the internet discussions about asexuality, I'm beginning to wonder if I've EVER really experienced "sexual attraction." I know I'm not comfortable with labeling what I feel towards guys "sexual attraction." I like looking at attractive guys, and often feel drawn toward interacting with them. But this is not accompanied by sexual fantasies or a desire to see them naked or do anything sexual with them. The same goes for girls. I actually had a drunk girl try to climb into bed with me fairly recently and I had no problem resisting (to be fair, I had to leave for an interview the next day, haha). I had no primal urges to speak of there either.

So I guess what I'm getting at . . . can anyone describe for me what sexual attraction feels like? I know I'm pretty much asking this to an almost empty room since not many know I'm (tentatively) starting this up again.

On a related note, I found this blog . . . thereisnocloset.blogspot.com Interesting blog from an asexual perspective.

B

Dusting it off and opening it back up

So, here I am a year later. I had fully committed to leave the blog behind me, though perhaps I was a little hasty. I think I was feeling the pressure to update and was a bit ashamed of the complete lack of forward progress that was going on as far as figuring things out. I was also under the stress of trying to decide on what to do with the rest of my life in other areas (i.e., career). Well, now I've made the decision to pursue grad school, and just spent a month visiting various schools for interviews. So, that's a huge weight off my shoulders.

I also just wanted to sit back and let life happen for a while, to see if my perspective changed at all. Reading my previous post, I find it a little humorous how confident I sounded that I had it all figured out. I think I just wanted to leave the blog with some feeling of closure. I wasn't necessarily being dishonest with myself. I do tend to flip flop a lot, I'll admit to that much. There are times when I feel pretty confident that I could have a relationship with a girl, if I could just find the right one. Other times I seriously doubt it. It is true, as I said in my previous post, that I find it easier to imagine myself in a relationship with a girl than with a guy, though how much of that is society-bred bias I don't know.

Attending the interviews this past month has been an interesting experience. I got to meet a whole lot of people in a short amount of time, something that I enjoy doing but don't get to experience that often. Most of the interviews involved staying in a hotel near the campus with a roommate. The first roommate I had was a very outgoing individual. After the first day of interviews he made a comment about how many cute girls there were among the recruits. Immediately after that he asked me straight up if I liked guys or girls (cue spike in heart rate, haha). He said my sexuality was hard to read. I told him girls. He then revealed that even though he likes girls, there was a time earlier in his life when he experimented with guys. He said it wasn't really based on attraction, but rather it was kind of an 'acting out' thing. Still, he said he had several gay friends. At this point I decided to do the unthinkable: I told him the truth. I told him that I am physically attracted to guys, but have also periodically had crushes on girls in the past. We talked about this for a while before he fell asleep (it had been a long day). That was the last we discussed it, but I couldn't believe how I had opened up to someone I had just met like that. Other than my mom and the counselor, he is the only other person in the world that I have spoken to about these things in person.

Another one of my roommates was a pretty attractive guy that I got along quite well with. I was shocked after I came home and found out through Facebook that he's gay (and has a bf). Since I was able to open up with my first roommate, I'm considering perhaps doing the same with this guy at some point, if we continue to be in contact.

At the end of one of my school visits I arrived at the airport 3 hours early. To kill some time I began browsing in a movie/music store and ended up chatting with the store clerk. I asked him about the city and told him about my academic pursuits. We got into a pretty good conversation. After I had bought some items he suggested I hang out a bit, since I still had a lot of free time. At this point the thought crossed my mind . . . could this guy be gay? Yes, I know, maybe he's just friendly. Well sure enough, shortly after he made sure to mention that he was, in fact, gay. We talked a while more before I decided to go get some lunch. After I had walked a ways down the hallway though, I realized what a shame it would be if I ended up moving to this city and had no way of reaching this guy. Moving to a strange new place would be a lot easier if I had some already established connections. So I actually went back to the store and asked the guy for his card. He wrote down his phone number and email address on a card and gave it to me. So I guess you could say I asked a guy for his number, haha. Now I'm leaning toward another school, but who knows, I may still send him a message, I don't know. You can never have too many friends.

Now that my interviews are over it's just a matter of waiting to hear from all the schools and making my decision about where to go. So my mind is free to think about other things. I can't guarantee I'm going to be continuing to update this blog, it really depends on 1) whether I have anything of note to report and or just vent about 2) whether I have some privacy (I'm currently sharing a room).

As far as where I see myself going at this point . . . I'm still not sure. It's a huge leap to identify as gay, especially for me since I've always been a rather conservative person (not religious, just conservatively mannered I guess). I am and have always been deeply concerned with what others think of me. The idea that a good portion of individuals would take an instant strong dislike of me for just one characteristic of my personality frightens me. Aside from those issues though, is the very real concern about whether I would be happy in a gay lifestyle, because in the end that's really what it's about.

Still, I'm feeling fairly optimistic right now. I'm on the verge of a transition in my life as I prepare to enter poverty . . . I mean, grad school. Once I get out of the town I've lived in for the past 8 years and to a big city there will be a lot more opportunities to explore. If an opportunity comes up to go out with a girl (or a guy), I might take it. Each experience is a chance to learn.