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cub

Thoughts Of An Insecure Gay Man

by Ryan Shea

Credit to: BubbleWS
Credit to: BubbleWS

 

It has been brought to my attention by friends of mine (amongst other people) that a lot of my articles tend to focus on the negative aspects of the bear and gay communities and never the ones that are positive.  My original goal when I started this website was to distance myself from my music blogging (which I did for four years) and start writing about the gay community and the ever present issues that seem to surround it.  In doing so, I found myself in a tug of war of not choosing sides yet wanting to get my honest opinion out there.  I was also defending myself to a point where people I knew started to think that I only listened to my own opinions and never anyone else’s.  Throughout a year of writing about the gay community and the tons of comments that I have gotten from my write ups, albeit good or bad, there is a conclusion that I have come to in all of this-

I am insecure in how I view myself in this community, my writing, and ultimately myself.  It has just taken a very long time for me to finally realize it until the repetitive comments that people were telling me finally smacked me in the face.  A lot of what I write is based off of my own experience in this community over the past ten years or so and a lot of my insecurities tend to show up in my writing.  I think what the ultimate issue that I am trying to figure out is how to turn it around, how to not let a lot of what I think people are saying or thinking about me affect me to the point where I am putting it into writing and not necessarily hearing an opposing viewpoint because I am so hell bent on being right?  That’s when another a-ha moment came into play- a lot of those insecurities are just that.  Nothing more, and nothing less.

I think when someone comes into the gay community, they come in with a shit ton of expectations about things.  Generally, they are let down because they set the bar so high in how they view them that often times they can come away from any experience disappointed or feeling like there is lacking.  Therefore, they turn that disappointment onto themselves and wonder, “Why am I not fitting in?”, “Why don’t I feel good looking enough?”, “Am I too fat for that guy?”  It really becomes a vicious cycle that we do to ourselves as adults, and it can lead to bad traits that the gay community has come to experience such as mean cliques, bullying, self hatred of course and not feeling like a community is well, a community.

I have found myself hard to be around groups of gay men even at my own age, because I fear judgement.  I fear it in the worst way possible because I go into every situation wanting everyone in the room to like me.  It is sort of like the adult version of high school.  When you go to that particular party or gay bar, and you are solo in doing so, a lot of these thoughts tend to go into your mind.  As social as I can be sometimes I tend to go overboard just to reassure myself that the person or persons that I am talking to go away with thinking that I am a funny, nice or cool guy.  There has even been situations where being overly social can be viewed as slutty, which is a wrong interpretation on things.  A lot of guys draw a very fine line between being Most Talkative and Mr. Wallflower very well.  Same goes with dating.  I find myself putting so much effort into the other guy, when I have been told by several different friends and family members that it’s best to just be yourself and let them come to you.  But at the same time, when you hit the age of 25 and every freaking time you go on Facebook and at the top of your news feed is someone announcing that they are getting married, engaged, having a kid or buying a freaking house that “clock” that is so widely known kicks in and you want to pull out all the stops to be like them.  The “Jones’ to a certain degree.  When you also see a ton of your friends getting into relationships, there is a part of you that is of course happy for them but envies them as you want the same thing.  I know I can’t be the only one that thinks this way.

Maybe it’s from being in a big city that I feel this way.  I found that when I was in smaller communities guys tended to be friendlier and more wanting to get to know you.  At the same time, being in New York City has been really amazing in terms of meeting people that right now are my best friends and would do anything for me and vice versa.  There really are some amazing guys that are out there that are genuine and good, you just sometimes have to weed through the bad ones in order to get to the good ones.  A lot of guys I know stopped trying because they got tired of the scene and didn’t really feel like putting in the effort anymore, but for me I like a good challenge and due to that have the friendships that I do.  Am I still insecure throughout it all?  Sure.  But at the same time I can live with these insecurities and try to better myself in this process we call life and still find a way to make the gay community great in finding your own niche in things.  Things always don’t have to be so negative or bad, and that is something that I am learning throughout this whole process.

 

Filed Under: LIFESTYLE Tagged With: bear, cub, gay, Gay Community, insecure

My interview with Modern Bear’s Travis & Chris- WOOF!

by Ryan Shea

Credit to: Modernbear.net
Credit to: Modernbear.net

 

I have been a fan of the Modern Bear guys for quite sometime, when I stumbled upon their website through a photo my friend shared not of a hot bear, but of a particular “modern” design photo that I had a similar interest to.  My thought process here was, “Finally! A bear page not 100 percent devoted to shirtless men.  There is thought behind this!” And that is what the Modern Bear message is truly about. They equate it to the following- Modern Design + Bears + Retro + Beefcake= THE MODERN BEAR!  Travis Smith and Chris Bale, who are based out of Palm Springs, California, visited the Urban Bear festival a couple of weeks back and I got the opportunity to talk with them about a variety of things they have going on currently.  Something I definitely wanted to mention was their fantastic new book called “Guide For The Modern Bear”, where they visited a variety of cities and found where is the best places to eat, shop and bar hop for the everyday MB (Modern Bear).  Take a look.

Credit to: Modernbear.net
Credit to: Modernbear.net

 

So Travis, how did this whole “Modern Bear” thing start for you guys?

It’s a combination of starting it three years ago, so that was a really good time to be starting a good commercial Facebook page anyway.  It was an experiment for us, a petri dish if you will, to see if anybody was interested in a “Modern Bear” concept and our formula of modern design plus bears plus retro plus beefcake.  Those are the things we like.  It was a free way to put it out there, and see if there was any interest in that concept and then determine if we should go further with it and produce a book and all the other things we ended up producing.  There wasn’t an immediate response to it, but I would say in the last six months we added 5,000 people. It took us the past three years to get to 25,000 fans overall.

What is that increase in fans attributed to?

I think the bear thing is going mainstream, we are kind of last to become part of this trend thing.  I think you will be seeing a lot more bears popping up in movies and television.  Like Anne Hathaway’s best friend role in her next movie will go to a bear.  It’s starting to happen.  That’s one of our goals is to get a TV deal, but doing the book first is the perfect baby step for us because by processing and writing the book it also helped formulate what Modern Bear was going to be as a commercial entity.

Tell me about the book you just released.

What we love about the book and how it turned out is how accessible it is.  A lot of straight people buy our book.  Wives and girlfriends approach us and say “What is my boyfriend? Is he an otter? A wolf? WHAT IS HE!” It’s hysterical.  It’s really funny when the book is at shelves, children gravitate toward it because it’s really cute looking of course.  The shop owner usually has to explain to parents what it really is about, and sometimes they even buy it.

Chris, tell me more.

Well, the book is a hybrid.  It’s a guide to all the different characters in the bear world.  You got your straight up bears, you got your muscle bears, cubs, wolf like me.  We are going to do this book every year and update it like so.  Each of these characters right now lives in a different city and talk about the bear bars, a few places to eat both fancy and low brow, you know for the bears who want their diner food.  The Modern part is mid-century modern furnishing and the stores in each place.  So you got Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Barcelona and London to name a few.  In the future we are going to have Vancouver and Phoenix which is actually where this whole thing started.


As an avid New Yorker would you say it is the best place to eat from your research?

Well, we did ELMO which is the best Mac N Cheese in town.  Let me refer to the book actually! The Breslin is really good.  That is this amazing restaurant in the ACE hotel.  The Shake Shack is amazing, and Westville is my favorite place for Breakfast.  We had a super cute experience at Kitchen last night. We had comfort food like Fondue which was yummy.

What are you ultimately hopeful for?

Well, we’ve always joked about being Beartha Stewart.  We are two bears, a bear and a wolf, that are into design and into hot men and bringing those two worlds together in any which way we can.

Credit to: Modernbear.net
Credit to: Modernbear.net

On top of being incredibly friendly and sexy guys, they are also very down to earth and have a great message to share not only to the bear community but straight women and beyond.  For more information on The Modern Bear guys and their story, check out their Facebook, Twitter and to shop for the book and anything else log on to their main site here.

 

Filed Under: ARTS, BREAKING NEWS, ENTERTAINMENT, FASHION, LIFESTYLE, STYLE, TRAVEL Tagged With: anne, anne hathaway, bear, california, cub, elmo, los angeles, miami, modern bear, muscle bear, NEW YORK, otter, palm springs, Phoenix, the shake shack, vancouver, wolf

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