A little bit excited.

I don't normally post twice in the same day, but I couldn't help it. I'm just bursting with this news.

This morning I received a phone call. It was unexpected. It was exciting. The call was from the Artistic Director of one of Australia's top dance companies. We had a lovely chat and I've been invited to meet with them and sit in on rehearsals of their latest work. This will all begin in April.

Yesterday I went and visited the company just to leave my details and see if it was possible to make an appointment to see the AD's assistant. On the same day, by chance, I met in a corridor, the Artistic Director of another of Australia's internationally recognised dance companies. We had a lovely chat and I was invited to make an appointment to show my folio and pop in and watch rehearsals.

On Monday I made a phone call to yet another of Australia's famed dance companies and got put right through to it's Artistic Director. We had a lovely chat and I was invited to show my folio and meet with the choreographers of said company and discuss the possibility of work with them in 2007.

The companies are:

The Australian Ballet
Bangara Dance Theatre
Sydney Dance Company

So I'm just a little bit excited. Three years ago when trying to make contact with the same companies, I couldn't seem to get past the secretaries. Three in three days! I'm actually quite calm, which is nice. It's a beginning, but a pretty auspicious one I think.

Fast Love

"I want you to make a list of goals so we can formulate a strategy to maximise the chances of you meeting someone."

This is a direct quote from my therapist, and it's my homework for our next session.

Ostensibly, I'm in therapy for grief counselling, but we seemed to have skipped over that fairly quickly and are now dealing with 'residue'. Read Relationship issues.

I like my therapist because she's a no nonsense sort of gal. She dresses simply and impeccable and even wears sensible shoes (I checked - can't help it I'm a clothes freak.) Direct statements like "You think wrong!" pepper her calmly delivered observations and advice. She explains things clearly, precisely and without the use of little diagrams. She's compassionate without being gushy. I can't stand therapists who want to sympathise -"Oh that must of been hard for you!" That might sound strange, but I'm not there to have my hand held, that's what friends are for (as well as the occassional kick in the arse) - I'm there to work , so my friends don't have to hold my hand nearly as much as I have needed recently.

She's a neuropsych/ cognitive behaviourialist type of gal. Which means a lot of techinical explanations about how your brain works and responds in certain situations. That sort of works with me, as it gives me a level of detachment to look at what's been happening in my life and how I've reacted to it. I've realise for someone who's preceived pretty much as being the sensitive, in touch with his feminine side sort of guy, this is a very masculine, task oriented way of approaching therapy. It seems that the boy who was always being ragged at school for being girly is really a bloke after all!

This approach sort of works. Up to a point.

It's been explained to me that because of the neglect I experienced in the first two years of life (Dad literally Town Drunk, Mum depressed and suicidal) my brain is now 'formatted' to respond emotionally to close relationships in a totally over the top, full on, flat out grap for love, kind of way. It appears I'm hardwired to be desperate. The analogy was if you starve someone of food, they crave it and will grab for it when it's offered.

I was quite calm as this explaination unfolded, taking in the details of post natal brain formation, limbic systems and bonding hormones with polite attention. Inside, my world was plummeting, whooshing down into that little dark space I've mapped so well in recent years. You see the explanation continued, this is not something I can change, it's just the way my brain works. So we need to understand how to deal with this.

It's called an attachment disorder and effects you in three major ways.

Our relationship templates are modeled on our parents. People are subconsciously attracted to other people who most likely resemble their parents. Mostly, but not always. Great. I'm mostly likely to find fucked up people (read Frenchie) to be my dream boat.

The 'commitment phase' of relationship building (psychobabble for falling in love) is abbreviated. When you find said Fucked Up Dream Boat you fall in love with them almost immediately.

The feelings conjured up by rejection are highly disproportionate to the situation. And God! Don't I know that one. After being in love with FUDB for a week, who then suddenly decides you're not for him, you spend months getting over them.

All nice and technical. Apparently the only way to deal with this disorder is slow down the commitment phase so you have time to check to see if your intended is the real deal and not a FUDB. You get the green light and then race on home.

This all well and good in the world of books off the shelf, but in my experience with FUDBs they appear to be the real deal UNTIL you commit! Soon as they realise you're into them - they're off faster than a dog with a cracker up it's arse. It took five months for Frenchie to bolt and that's a record for me. Admittedly it was all talk and no action up to the point where I asked him out, but still, I call that slowing things down!

So it comes to my homework for this week.

You know, I'm not going to even try for a passing grade on this one. I'm starting to rethink the whole relationships thing. I am getting a lot from these sessions. A lot of my attitudes to significant things in my life are changing for the better. I've stopped hating all gay men for a start. I was blaming being gay and gay men in general for my lack of success in relationships. I guess now I can blame my brain - I'm certainly over blaming my parents.

I don't like treating love like an accountancy exercise. It's just not romantic!

When I said this to my therapist, she replied that I have to be realistic about the nature of today's society. You have to go where the people are. Which is internet chatrooms and dating agencies. Apparently everyone is too busy to meet the old fashioned way. Sounds like fast love to me. Ironic, considering I'm supposed be slowing it down.

Anyway, I've decided that my answer for homework is going to be:

Just at the moment, I'm still raw. From the grief of my Mum's death and from the unexpected encounter with a major FUDB codenamed Frenchie. I'm not ready to go out there and maximise my chances. Good things are happening with my career and just for now I'd really like to concentrate on that area of my life. Perhaps in time, I'll feel ready again and then maybe I'll try to set myself some goal. The last thing I need right now is to meet someone I like and have it go balls up and spend the rest of this new year getting over it.

I might not be able to trust my brain, but I'm finding, slowing but surely, I'm beginning to hope again and trust in life.

Good Advice

Relationships advice is a strange beast. Everyone, it seems, is an expert.

Being of the single persuasion myself and having longed to find that special someone, I've spent time in the past blistering the ears of very patient friends with my impatience at Cupid's inability to sight me. In being true friends and wanting to see me happy, they have given me advice.

The thing is, the advice never seems to dull that ache.

And what I've realised is perhaps, I'm not seeking advice, just the warmth of knowing I'm loved by my friends.

As I said, relationships advice is a strange beast and it comes in two colours.

Colour me desperate. If you stop looking for it, don't want it, weren't so desperate for it, loved yourself more, happy in your life, it will come. Or variations ad infinitem.

Colour me go getter. If you want it, go and get it, or seek and ye shall find, or it's not going to happen with you alone in your living room. etc, etc.

I suspect the colour probably depends on the personality of the advice giver. Or their mood at the time.

What I've realised is the thought is to comfort, and not often in the words, because unintentionally, this form of advice rarely makes the recipient feel better. It just sort of trips off the tongue and there it is. It's simple and seems like one of life's trueism - and yes it probably is.

I'm guilty of giving this form of advice.

Recently a friend and her husband concieved after many years of trying. It was the culmination of a tiring and very emotionally loaded journey. During this journey they discovered that assistance was required. Being a good friend and having listened to her concerns I offered up a little gem. "Maybe if you took a holiday and relaxed, something might happen." As it turned out, my friend was being given that sort of advice by other well meaning people and it made her feel like shit, because the assistance required was of the expensive medical sort and good vibes in the ether were just not enough.

Knowing how relationships advice feels like a slap in the face, I should've known better.

But I did learn.

Now I try desperately not to give advice. I'm learning to be a good listener and be a better friend by showing I care. I might not be able to appreciate the experience, but I can sympathise. And hopefully that's enough.

Customer Service

My weekends are usually devoted to being a fashion slave. Which is to say, as an artist, I support myself by working casually in fashion retail.

It's serfdom in designer lables.

I'm always amused by reading articles in magazines or newspapers, or overhearing conversations where people complain of the crappy customer service they receive in boutiques.

I, myself, give superlative service. But only to customers I like. And that's the crux of the matter. You see, no matter how hard you try, most customers are already forwarned and armed about crappy service and the holier than thou 'tude of the retail consultant. They expect weals of mass instruction as they cross the threshhold and so launch a preemptive strike. It's called treat the retail consultant like a piece of anoying talking decor, or just ignore them all together. A cheery hello is greeted with stoney indifference. I swear, about 70% of people become deaf soon as they walk through the door. And the music is not that loud.

I take my role as retail therapist very seriously indeed. So the apparent deafness is a cause of concern and the severity of the condition must be promptly assessed. The most affective way to do this to simply repeat your initial cheery greeting with exactly the same intonation, but in a louder voice. About 50% of customers will respond the second time round. Some even display a bit of emotion. For the remaining 50% obviously the deafness is congenital but you still need to communicate a cheery hello. Sadly, I am deficient in Auslan, or any other internationally recognised sign language. But I've found the the two person greeting role play to be a very effective substitute. This is where, after the failure at the second attempt at cheery greeting, you turn to the retail consultant next to you and, once again in the same initial intonation, you give the your coworker a cheery greeting. Then your coworker returns the greeting, neatly reinforcing the notion of welcome to our humble store.

The thing is, after a few years in the rag trade as a rag, you learn very quickly to identify wasted effort and so don't bother. You save your energy for the fun customers. These are are the people who recognise that you're not a brain dead preprogramed zombie with magic powers to sell people things they don't want. That you're actually a real person. And these are the customers retail consultants will do practically anything for. "We don't have it in your size? Just let me check...hmm, yes our store in Perth has that. I'll just arrange a courier to get it here by tomorrow." as opposed to "Oh, I'm sorry, we seem to be all out of that. Such a shame, it would have looked sensational on you!"

I suppose I'm just having a bitch because mostly, fashion retail is boring and involves dealing with a lot of people who only want to interact to ask you stupid questions (why is that if you work in a store you are expected to know where everything is in Sydney?) and ignore you the rest of the time. But occasionally working in a designer lable boutique in Sydney's famed fashion strip can throw up some suprises.

Yes I get to meet famous people. Although strangely I rarely recognise them, they just look kind of familiar, until someone else points out who they are, generally the previously deaf/mute customers, who suddenly become loquacious in the presence of tv/film god/goddess.

But yesterday I encountered a whole new set of suprises. You might say it was the final come down from my New Year's Eve Celebrations. You, see, having come out a winner on the morning of the 2nd of January after hours of dancing and hijinks induced by illicit substances, I promptly put it out of mind that there'd be any consequences other than feeling a little tired.

Until I gave my usual cheery greeting to a customer as they entered the store. You know, they looked kind of familiar, so I wondered vaguely what tv show they must be from. And as they asked me about the clothes I suddenly realised. I snogged you for what seemed like forever, and didn't at some point you put your hands down the back of my pants? I found that I didn't know what was the appropriate social or professional thing to do. I mean do you say, "Gee you're a great kisser"? Or "Remember me?" And by the sheepish way he avoided making eye contact, I could tell that he didn't quite know either. In the end we both just pretended that we hadn't swapped saliva a few days before.

Unfortunately, that customer was hardly the last. I think I was visited by just about every person I snogged that night. And I'd been a busy boy! Even the husband and wife came into the store. I didn't just get the silent treatment from them, they fled within seconds of spotting me.

I pride myself on superlative customer service. This time round, I seemed to have got it wrong and obviously gave the service before the custom. But god it was fun!

Winners and Losers

"Only losers go clubbing if they're over forty."

I related this little piece of wisdom to my nineteen year old neice while I was in Melbourne recently. She'd asked me if I intended to go clubbing while I was down. And I'd replied rather caustically to the question.

What I didn't appreciate, that as her favourite uncle, and she has eight to chose from, that she was sounding me out, to see if I'd go clubbing with her.

I'm considered cool by my neices and nephews. Because I'm an artist and because I'm gay. And although not the youngest of my siblings and their spouses, physically and I guess mentally I appear to be the baby of the family. A lot of my tastes in fashion, music and arts are much closer to my neices' and nephews' tastes. They also consider me fun to hang out with.

And in my family, you never ask a direct question of someone if you want something from them. You have to come side on. "Oh, that's a nice chocolate cake!" actually translates as "Can I have a piece?" Having grown up with this oblique style, I still continually miss the implacation, as I did with my niece.

At the time I'd made the comment, I was arrogantly dismissive of anyone my age or older who considered clubbing a fun thing to do. Why? I guess I was jealous. Or blaming them for the fun I wasn't having.

So come New Year's Eve, and what I am doing?

I'm in a gay night club on Oxford Street in Sydney.

And am I having fun? Sort of. For a little while. Until I start reminding myself that I came without friends. And it's New Year's eve and I have no-one to snog. I like the music and I dance for a bit. A couple of guys try to make passes at me, but I'm a lonely little satelite in crowded space. A decidedly frosty little moon out near Pluto. So I leave early, just as the headline DJ starts his set.

But my New Year's Eve isn't over yet. I've bought a second ticket to another club night for the 1st of January. A glutton for punishment? This time I'm going with straight friends from Newcastle. And during the previous week, I discover a lot of my other friends in Sydney are also going. Inexplicably, I begin to feel excited. And it's been years since I've felt like this.

The event starts at 4pm and we arrive at 11.45pm. It's crowded and the dance floor is already a heaving mass of sweaty male bodies (mostly, there's a spinkling of girls in there too). My friend, S, offers me an e. I normally steer clear of drugs. In fact, I'm a little puritanical on the subject, often prosetylising I can't really see the point or that I've never had a particularly good time using them. But for this night, my attitude is 'what the hell!" I put the pill on my tongue and with a wink, borrow some cute guy's water to wash it down.

S declares "Shirts off!" And I whip off my tank top and leap onto the dance floor - although, shuffle and squeeze my way is a more accurate picture. I'm dancing for about five minutes and discover that I've already lost the friends I arrived with, but have spotted some other friends dancing on the podium. I eventually end up spending most of the night with the podium dancers.

I won't say that the e kicked in. It sort of strolled up and said hi and I found my body had surrended to a delicious suppleness, that music was my musculature and dance was a hidden language I had suddenly mastered. I look out at the smiling faces and caught the wave and let it carry me. Everything was without effort. Now I was sandwiched between two very beautiful guys, then I was kissing one, then the other. I was dancing with a married couple, the wife kissed me, then her husband. And I couldn't stop smiling, and laughing. Where ever I went I seemed to get grabbed for a dance which often spiralled into a passionate kiss.

I cannot remember having so much fun!

The most beautiful thing about it was the lack of desire. I saw so many beautiful guys. Some I fancied. I even snogged some of the fancied. But there was no pang of rejection. It was just being civilised and shaking hands with your tongue.

I guess you can say I've now been converted. Not that I'm about to run out and become Sydney's biggest drug pig. Just that I can say that I've been invited to Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Dance Party with the same group of friends and am really looking forward to it.

I'm approaching forty and hoping that I've got years of clubbing left in me.

Next time I'm in Melbourne, I'm going to ask my neice if she wants to go clubbing.

So I've joined the losers. But I feel as if I've won something.