Breaking Into Hives Over Pet Peeves

I am so darn peeved off right now I could probably tell all & sundry, all about my pet peeves which I would normally keep neatly tucked somewhere deep inside a sulcus in my head. Externalizing internalizations is a strong medicine for the soul, they say, and it would be just what the doctor had to order me today. Continue reading on at your own risk.

Pet Peeve # 1 : is finding myself sat at the pictures in close vicinity of a wise alec who likes to pretend he gets every single joke in the film with his sing-along canned laughter to accompany the screen play. In my observation, most times than not, it is a naturalized American doing this kinda thing but naturalized or not, I get peeved regardless. Equally obnoxious, I find people ( mostly twenty something young ladies) to be who crack up every now and then for no rhyme or reason, especially, when the film has hit an emotional high note : a very tall order for films screening in Kuwait, I know, but we'll let that pass. If it's anyone who should please be thrown out the cinema it is guys and gals with a fetish for mumbling sweet nothings into their cell phone once the movie has started. I have no issues with newly weds making out in the cinema, or for boy friend and girl friend to get up-close and personal when the lights are dimmed provided they do not make a whole lot of ruckus.

Pet Peeve # 2 : When people I call my own start to behave in a gauche manner causing slight to others, I get peeved off with a capital P and I lay my displeasure thick on them. Although I can't seem able to do anything about it when strangers whom I feel a strong attraction for, physically; start acting up with others, I feel the chemistry for them disappear, there and then, and for good reason. Nothing annoys me more than finding a certain "Body Beautiful Y chromosome" I have just set my eyes on 30 nanoseconds before starting to misbehave with his brood, the maid or the shop floor and restaurant staff. A zero tolerance attitude to such behaviour kicks off in me by default, and with it ends my quest for finding my "Mr Right", once again.

Pet Peeve # 3 : In parties and at family re-unions I am deeply perturbed by an unhealthy interest from uncles and aunts, cousins and second cousins, in my singleton status in Life. So when are we getting hitched is the question on most people's lips always, and they don't seem to mind asking me about it for the umpteenth time. Lay off me! Since I do not begrudge anybody their right to matrimonial bondage, by that turn, I should be getting a waiver off matrimonial bondage too. Talk Gay marriage, and suddenly you and I we have something to talk.

Pet Peeve # 4 : I hate reciting my autobiography; warts-and all, in real-time to someone I barely know though blogs make it acceptable somehow. What can I say - call me a dude of no (sic) double standards, if you must :)

Pet Peeve # 5: People from the city, in business who get their forthrightness and assertiveness mixed up with being rude. I try and shun such people, whenever & wherever possible but it isn't always that straight : as they say, Man proposes; Nature disposes. Sometimes you just have to learn to bunk up with them, c'est la vie.

Pet Peeve # 6 : is getting told off I did not apply enough common sense to the task in hand. Well, excuse me, but I always used to think common sense ain't that common and anyone with so much as a flicker of common sense in them will pick up on this. Besides, rubbishing someone's capacity to use common sense ; isn't exactly going to lead to an emergence of a"Mensa endorsed,"pattern of thinking and behaviour, in that person.

Pet Peeve # 7 : Racial profiling by sales staff when out shopping with the fellas' and the fellis. It has a way of getting in my hair when the store staff has already pigeon-holed our buying preference/ taste & yes, even our budget, into one or the other categories the minute they see us walk in, before we have ourselves given it a thought or three. And I am not just talking Comme des garcons or Aquascutum, here, but your ordinary Godiva- the chocolatier or just about any Lebanese/Italian Men's Fashion Store.

Pet Peeve # 8 : People smelling of garlic and onion and those with Irish bitter breath stay away from me. I can be rather pointed in my refusal to getting to know you any better - sorry, it's nothing personal.

Pet Peeve # 9 : When I cannot summon enough courage to make that phone call and slip into a quagmire of self-loathing and doubt.

Pet Peeve # 10 : When I have nothing interesting to say on my blog and force myself to scribble anything and everything that comes into my mind at that mentally famished moment in time.

Where is the time to stand and stare?

Gone are the days when I could go pick up any book and finish off reading it cover to cover in one go. Those were the days when I could afford a lie in on a Saturday and not have to worry about running countless errands to try and stay on top of things in the week ahead. Gosh, I miss those days ever so much when I could luxuriate in foam bath for hours on end - just me and my Crabtree & Evelyn toileteries - a panel discussion on Radio 4 to keep us both company. Taking books or the Sunday papers in with me to the bath has never been in my nature, so I am not about to pretend feeling miserable without them my chaperones. And what to say of the time I actually had had to exchange pleasantries with myself in the mirror, first thing in the mornings! I vaguely remember being stood naked in front of a mirror each day before a wet shave; in deep conversation as it were, with the Adonis like body I liked to tell myself I owned : if only hips could lie. Those were indeed the days when I could get as much pleasure soaking in the flavour of peppermint tea on my daily commute in to work as I would get feasting my eyes on dandy gentlemen in the Soho (dandy yes, "camp" no) or holding hands later that evening, with my pilot bf by my side on the lounger.
As I sit here navel gazing I am having a pretty hard time remembering when was the last time I had touched my own navel and made love to myself. Was it a month ago on my birthday when I had taken the day off and been in the shower a full half hour relishing the jet stream of water as it hit my body, or was it on some foggy New Year's eve when W and me had decided to give the " Ecstasy Circuit" the miss and stay in instead to celibate? Just so you know we did however; celebrate watching home videos of happier times and by fondling and caressing one another over a heavy wine tasting session.
Where have those days disappered? Who dunnit it to all of us? Was it the mobile, the Internet or cable that have turned us all into the walking zombies we've become so not given to behaving on the spur of the moment and taking it easy? And is it ever going to be the same again for us Ordinary Gays?