alcoach ‣ The Gayly Mirror

When in love, you’d better be disenchanted

24Jun

By alcoachNo Comments

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When in love, you’d better be disenchanted

Hope and illusion first, disappointment and disenchantment then. Only once disenchanted, you can genuinely love and feel loved. Deep in our hearts, we hope to find someone beautiful on the inside and outside. If and when it happens, since we don't know them enough, we start to project our needs, dreams, and expectations on some kind of strangers. Most of the time, these projections have nothing to do with the person we fall in love with. We tend to believe that everything is perfect, but it's just an illusion of ours. As soon as the other shows their true colors - and we don't like what we see - we feel disappointed. The truth is that they are not responsible for our reactions since pretty much all the chemistry we were feeling was something our minds made up. Disenchantment is to r...

Internalized homophobia turns gay victims into perpetrators

21Jun

By alcoachNo Comments

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Internalized homophobia turns gay victims into perpetrators

They are gay but don't feel part of the LGBTQ+ community; they don't like pride parades and don't support marriage equality, and would never give a dog to a gay couple, let alone a child. It's called internalized homophobia and turns gay people into assholes. Psychology defines homophobia as irrational prejudice against homosexuals. It's typical among religious extremists and ultra-conservatives whose beliefs, principles, and practices are full of bullshit like machismo, xenophobia, and heterosexism. Homophobes do have personality issues, but we all know that the worst homophobes in the world are gay. It's called internalized homophobia and pisses many gay people off when other people's homosexuality is visible and recognizable. They must have forgotten how bad it hurt when they were i...

17Jun

By alcoachNo Comments

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Gay people hating gay people

The last thing you need in life is hate. So stay away from haters, especially if they're gay. Some gay people think gay people suck. They feel superior and entitled because even though they are gay, they are not like other gay guys. The others are just unkind, promiscuous sluts. Many gay men lead an intensively active sex life. Many others don't. Reportedly, more than 70% of EU homosexual men have a job that keeps them busy pretty much all day long, Mondays through Fridays. This is enough to understand that not all of us can spend our days thinking of or having sex 24/7. And even though most of us gay people do not have families with children to take care of or look after, it doesn't mean we don't have a life with our responsibilities, duties, and deadlines to meet. Some gay men fee...

14Jun

By alcoachNo Comments

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Love is way more than just a feeling

Psychologists call it drive, that motivational impulse that makes us feel and do better, with one main goal: spending as much time as possible with the one we are in love with. You see him, you like him, he likes you back. He smiles at you and you at him - timidly or nervously, it makes no difference. He comes closer and starts chatting with you. You guys decide to go to his place, or yours - again, it makes no difference. Once at home, in a second, you both stare at each other's eyes, start kissing, take off your clothes, and... boom! You find yourself naked, having the most amazing sex of your life. Surprisingly, he knows what you are craving for and how to give it to you. He knows what you like, although he doesn't know you at all. It looks and feels like a spell, but it's real. It's h...

10Jun

By alcoachNo Comments

closeUp, Gay Pride, Health

Here’s why you’d better come out

Coming out of the closet allows you to confirm your identity and feel acknowledged. But it can't be an obligation. It has to be your choice. Coming out of the closet can be hard. It can stress you out, especially if you live in a highly homophobic family and/or environment. Whoever has already come out knows the benefits that come after speaking the truth. But we all remember the insecurities and unbearable pain before coming out. Almost all non-heterosexual people (in particular those born in the XX century) spent years and years denying their real sexual orientation. Some still do and hide in the closet, but that's a different story. Those among us who have overcome fear and shame know how better life can be once out of the closet. Nonetheless, in some cases, it's not as easy as i...

I love you, I want you, but I want to change you

31May

By alcoachNo Comments

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I love you, I want you, but I want to change you

It is the main feature of fatuous love - lots of passion and good intentions but no real stability that comes from true and deep intimacy. The bad habit of wanting to change the person you say you're in love with, turn them into someone they are not, and fix their shortcomings is not love. It is a lack of respect towards the person you're supposed to like, not to change. Psychology calls it fatuous love, that is the kind of relationship where one of the two wants the other to embody a particular ideal of man/woman. If this is your case, let me tell you something you may not be aware of. You are not in love with a person. You are in love with an ideal lover. But what's ideal is never real because reality is never flawless. When your partner changes just because you tell them so, they...

Passion, Intimacy, Commitment: the three main components of love (according to science)

27May

By alcoachNo Comments

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Passion, Intimacy, Commitment: the three main components of love (according to science)

American psychologist Robert Sternberg states that happy and healthy love relationships are based on these three crucial elements. Let's learn more about them, then. Passion refers to the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships. The passion component includes the sources of motivational and other forms of arousal within its purview that lead to the experience of passion in a loving relationship. Intimacy refers to feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness in loving relationships. It thus includes total acceptance of the loved one and ignites those feelings that give rise, practically, to the experience of warmth in a loving relationship. The physical and psychological need and desire to spend as muc...

24May

By alcoachNo Comments

closeUp, Health

Love at first sight or oversight?

Some people believe in love at first sight because it's just what happened to them. What about you? From personal experience or by hearsay, you know what love at first sight is. You probably know how it feels when two "halves" meet and love happens. Nonetheless, you may not be aware of what dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and pheromones are, and how they affect your mood when you're in love. The former is the result of our pop and "romantic" (and cheesy) culture. The latter are chemistry and biology. When you start dating someone you know nothing about - but somehow you like and feel attracted to - your brain starts secreting a series of hormones and chemical substances that dramatically alter their natural balance all over your body. This is why you get euphoric, a bit anxious or em...

20May

By alcoachNo Comments

closeUp, Health

Reason or feeling? The eternal war.

When feelings and emotions are stronger and more powerful than reason, we are screwed up. We humans think of ourselves as rational beings. Nonetheless, we are pretty much emotional. When our emotions are particularly intense, they can confuse and make us believe bullshit that, in our minds, become undisputed truth. Only on second thought, we realize we were wrong. Emotions drive children, not adults. Allowing feelings more than logic to run our lives as grownups is much less beautiful and romantic than what may seem. It is quite dangerous, actually. Childish attitudes and immature manners are not values nor virtues. They are just proof of uncompleted growth and development. Something in many of us, people LGBTQ+, has remained undeveloped. Those who suffered from homophobic attacks a...

IDAHOT 2020 – This is why we must not be ashamed of who we are.

17May

By alcoachNo Comments

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IDAHOT 2020 – This is why we must not be ashamed of who we are.

International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia 2020. Let's start with one fact: ours is a male-dominated, patriarchal, and obsessively religious society. This implies that if you are not male, heterosexual, and religious, somehow, you do not fit in this normality. What if you don’t fit in then? Well, then a part of our society feels authorized to be offensive and violent with you. Like if they were Gods able to decide what’s the right kind of love. Their targets to hit are always minorities. It is easy to blame those who are numerically lower or physically less strong. Technically, women would not be a minority, but as women, they are seen as inferior by some men. According to the prevailing patriarchal male chauvinism, women are inferior beings who have very specific ...