The rise, flight, and regular crashes of the..

All of my family/friends that I went on the stag do with are coming down with swine flu.

Its 10 days until my wedding.

Fuck.

We had our joint stag do at the weekend... It was fabulous and I will upload a few photos that you can have a look at. However, if you have facebook and have added me previously, you can find them all there anyway! My sister arranged it all and chose our outfits which included leg warmers, braces, a light up tutu, hats, whistles, willy straws, and netted gloves. Add on to that a whole load of glitter and that summed our night up! We had such a good time and there was a really good turn out, with the usual 20 people dropping out, but still about 20 showed up!

  What I am both happy and upset about is how fantastic my sister has been running around finding bridesmaids dresses/jewellery/shoes for her/her kids/seans sister/seans sisters kid and buying any room decoration for the evening party.  Im happy because there is no way I could have found everything that she has, and it has been a great help to us. On top of this, she has arranged our stag do, and even managed to do us a Sunday dinner the next day sporting a full hangover.  What upsets me about the whole thing is that both me and Sean feel guilty about her having to arrange everything. It does feel as though it has been very one sided although we have got two head bridesmaids and I think considering she works full time as well, she has done a fab job!   I think when it is all over we will be taking her for a meal to say thank you for all of her hard work!  

I came out when I was 15, and can honestly say Ive never had a problem with homophobia or any bigot views. There have been people that have not liked me because of my sexuality, and Ive not liked them back because I have branded them shallow cocknoses. But, I have never really been made to feel as though I should be ashamed of the lifestyle that I choose to lead.

I have a few friends at work, some of whom I am fonder of than others. One person that I have always got on with is a particular guy... For the hell of it, lets call him Carl. He is a straight married guy with children but quite camp acting. He is in his 40's and is well known for his "ditzy, faffing, rushing around doing something and nothing" ways and his sometimes quite gossipy and bitchy comments. I should also mention he is one of the team leaders in our department. I have always got on ok with him and have stuck up for him when others would talk about him. "Well, hes always been alright with me" Id say. Boy, did that change when I decided to extend an invite to him for my civil partnership.

Because I was unsure on numbers for guests to invite, I decided that it might be best to invite the whole of my team to the evening party and also a selected number from the other section in our department. "Carl" was one of these people. My sexuality had never been an issue in discussion with him, and on the contrary, because the guy was quite feminine I didn't think for one moment that I may have offended him by extending an invite to him to celebrate with us. This rendered me all the more godsmacked when he took me to one side and told me that he would be unable to attend.

"Fine!" I stropped in a jokey way that people have come to know and love...
"Thats... Just... FIIIINE... N-n-n-oooo I understand.... Better people and parties to visit..." all done in a typical humourous diva strop way.
"Actually, no Adrian" He replied... "I wont be coming because I dont believe that what your doing is right..."

*Ouch!*

"oh... ok then..." I finally managed.
"I mean, I like you as a person, but marriage SHOULD be between a man and a woman.." He continued.
"But, its a civil partnership not a marriage... and its only really a party your been invited to.." at this point I was trying to justify myself.
"but, you see... it would be to celebrate...... *he hesitates*.... THAT."
"oh... oh... right..." was all I could manage.
"I mean, your a nice person and if you have a birthday party, then Id be sure to come along, but I wont come to this because I dont think its right.." were some of his last words although the whole lot is now somewhat of a blur...
"Oh, Im digging myself a hole now aren't I?" He finished... Yes "Carl"... yes you are.

*you wont be invited to ANY party of mine in future you fucking twat* was all I could think.

And do you know something, I dont think I have been made to feel so ashamed of myself. As a gay man, noone has ever made me feel so dirty for something that should be have been so innocent. And to make it worse, with his bitchy opinionated views, I get the feeling now that he actually enjoyed saying it to me and enjoys hurting peoples feelings in some ways.

I found out later that he had aired his view to a couple of other members of staff around the office. This did upset me, but more because I was afraid that others actually agreed with him. I didn't raise this with any management, and decided to just take it as a lesson learnt. However, when someone asked me about my partnership and I could see him in the vicinity, I got very self conscious and had only what I can describe as a wave of shame wash over me. I dismissed any questions thrown at me and kinda skulked off as quickly as I possibly could or quickly changed the subject.

It would seem that he didn't think he had offended me enough when late last week a collection went around for my civil partnership and when his block were asked for donations, he told the collector and anyone else that was listening that he wouldn't be giving any money, and again exactly why he wouldn't be and his views on the subject. Would it have killed him to just say "sorry, no." It happened that one of my good friends was the person doing the collection and she was so angry on the lecture that I managed to squeeze out of her what was wrong.

I sat and thought about it for about 15 minutes and then had the choice on whether to go over and deck him or go and speak to my manager. I decided to go into my managers office and for want of better words "threw a wobbly" about it. I think having not confronting this issue before, I already had some surpressed hurt to hurl, and boy did I! The goods news was that my manager was extremely supportive and I had the option of taking the whole thing to HR and making an official complaint. I have decided against this, so long as he is told not to air his unwanted views to other people (especially as the majority of the office are friends of mine that are coming to the celebrations) and to not come over for a piece of cake when I bring in goodies on my last day before our day. (cos he really does have the cheek to do something like that.) Whether or not anything will be said to him, I dont know - but I will making sure that he knows before the day as I dont want my last day at work ruining.

The support that I have received from my colleagues over all of this, has been absolutely fantastic. Hugs, words of reassurance and a bit of realisation that people actually do like me. It has made me think about things a bit more in depth. I realised, that one person in a group of around 30 was in danger of ruining my "pre partnership excitement chats" (which, lets be honest is one of the most exciting parts!) and that if he doesn't agree with what I am doing, it really is not my problem. Believe me, if it was something in my personality that he disliked, I would try and change. I hate the thought of offending! All I am doing is making a commitment to my partner and going through what is now a legal procedure for doing this. Sure, it would be lovely if I could have people there to celebrate with me, but ultimately, if there was just me, Sean and a few close family, it would be as special.

So, I made a decision. I'm going to laugh, joke, and tell people at work all about my wedding/my partnership/my civil ceremony.. whatever you want to call it... like I should be doing. I am not going to be ashamed of myself, and Im going to hold my head high and be proud.

Oh yeah, and for my religous friend:

“be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Forgiveness is the key to "all" happiness...

xxx

This weekend is the last quiet weekend until we come back from our honeymoon... The line up is as follows -

Oct 24th - Stag & Fag night in Stoke On Trent with a Glitter & Sparkle Theme!  I have the best RingSpun T shirt to wear and am hopefully going to get glittered within an inch of my life! Also have Celebrations on the Friday!

Oct 31st - The yearly Fancy Dress at my dads which is also been doubled into a 50th birthday party for my papa.  I have a very special outfit to wear this year that has cost me an absolute fortune to get together. Pics will be added closer to the time...

November 7th - we have our Civil Ceremony at Brandon Hall Hotel and Spa and lovely evening do!

November 10th - We go down to London and have booked in to a relaxation suite for 2 nights at the Hilton Gatwick.

November 11th  - We go to see Wicked The Musical (my 5th time and Seans 2nd - there is no other westend that I have seen that even comes close so I figured I would just keep going to see the same one again (and again and again)

November 12th - We get our flight to Mexico to stay at the El Dorado Royale in one of their swim up suites for 2 whole weeks!!

Now the only thing I need to figure out is how to lose 3 stone in 3 weeks! ;-)

As always recently, its been a while since I last posted, but with that said, I dont get any hits any more so Im not really writing this for anyone other than little old me to look back on when im on my fourth big gay wedding!

Things are going well. The dresses have been completely changed to some Alfred Angelo that Bev stumbled on on ebay and got for a bargain price. The specially made dresses proved to be just a little bit TOO pink for our liking but more than that, both mine and Seans sisters have lovely figures and it seemed a real shame not to show them off!

We now have a few more people coming to the day time and so I have had to personalise a few more favours.

Just hoping its all going to be worth it!!