Through my Rose Tinted Glasses: For those who feel lost, you are not alone

By Brandon Bourne

Have you ever been in a situation where you didn't know what to do? Didn't know where you belonged, or thought you were different and didn't fit in? If this does apply to you, I am Brandon, a 21-year-old guy, based in London, and happens to be gay. In this book, I am going to tell you a story. A story of my three years of University life. I entered uni one person and left another. The book will take you through an emotional journey, of change, self-discovery, and pain. There are many highs, and many lows, but one thing there is a lot of in this book, is Love and Determination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716671845

Book preview

emotions!

Who Am I?

The human brain. A thing of immense beauty, sophistication, intelligence and evolution. However, for me mine always seems to play tricks on me and make the wrong choices. Why does it do that? Does it know it’s doing that? Who knows? One thing I do know is that three years ago, I did not know who I was. One could say I was in an ambiguous situation, where on one hand my brain was set on the idea that I am who I am, however my body and actions spoke against what my brain had prescribed. I am going to take you on a journey through my late college times, right through the three years of my university life. First stop. Last few months of college. May 2016.

I was sitting on the playing field, sun beaming down, we were in the heat of summer at the time. We had a small group, we used to call ourselves the misfits, the people who didn’t fit into the norms of college life. I remember we used to have really cool chats and insights about the day, gossip, chat and gossip some more. I never really had close friends in college. It was my choice to be that way though. I just didn’t fully gel with anyone on that level and never really struck that bond of a proper friendship with anyone. I had surface level friends, like our group, but that was about it. We would chat and laugh, then go back to lesson and boom, the group was gone. I also was very introverted so when we had the odd party I did not go. I couldn’t, I was scared and worried as to what it would entail. My body would say yes let's do it!

My brain would say are you out of your freaking mind! You know those internal conversations you have yourself? Those! So, in the entirety of college, never once did I get the confidence to go to a college party, or a house party either. I never liked the idea. Whenever I got invited the first line would be ‘want to get smashed tonight?’. No, I want my cup of tea, biscuit, and notebook to write or laptop to design. Or both when I felt really hardcore. Yeah, I know I was boring, but they were not the friends I felt comfortable to let my hair down with.

Now do not think I hated college, as it also housed some amazing times. I learnt a lot, with expanding my knowledge of Psychology, and the many different branches it houses. I got to bond with old school friends who also came to the same college as me, and I also found my gay - dar working at full capacity. One could say my college had a lovely platter of god like men, what the gay community would call ‘jocks’ or ‘hunks’, to stare at. Then have my day dreams crushed as quickly as they came, when I saw the equally beautiful girls that would then run up and embrace them and lock lips with. Darn. Dream crushed. Reality check.

When I reflect on that time in my life, I also find it very strange how I did not really connect with any gay guys either, as there were plenty in my college. I remember this one guy who would walk around, a walking, talking stereotypical (by what society goes by) gay guy. The high, spray on shorts, spray tan, bleach blonde slicked back hair, handbag a waving and a voice that carried from one side of the complex to the other. It was always amusing to be walking down the very industrial and boring corridors of E block, to then find him walk around the corner like an explosion of colours on a black and white screen. I never plucked up the courage to talk to him, it didn’t help that he was ironically always surrounded by a barrier of girls. I just thought it would be nice to have a gay friend. I had gay girlfriends, my best friend who is a girl is gay, but it wasn’t quite the same as having a guy gay friend, as they would know my problems, concerns, and my enquiries, as they would be a gay man themselves.

I was still very much early and in infancy when it came to being a gay guy at the time. I had not kissed a guy, not slept with or even spoken to a guy at that point. I had no clue what my life entailed in a personal sense. In my business mind I had my next 10 years planned. Personally, who knew what tomorrow may bring?

Who would I become? What would I become? Who was I? I was still very much asking these questions. Come to think of it, I think this was one of the main reasons that kept me so introverted, as I had not been that introverted in my life before. Secondary school, we were the loud voices on campus. We ran the school…in our own way! College was a very different Brandon. A questioning, guarded Brandon, who wanted to learn new things, but was too afraid to. Why I was afraid I cannot say, because I do not know. Something just held me back. It wasn’t my time. For the longest time I have always, and still do live with the mantra that everything happens for a reason, and life has its plans for me.

All I can do is try my best to help steer life in the direction I want it too. When it got to the beginning of the end of my second year of college, I began to give up hope that I wouldn’t ever have a Eureka! Moment that would help me understand who I was. That was until, a new wonderful misfit joined our group.

Their name for the purpose of the story will be Anthony. He joined with another girl who will be called Grace. They joined and we all got on really well and we were like how we always were. However, it wasn’t until Anthony had said a few things that led us to assume a few things. He was not like any other people in the college. He was called Anthony but seemed to be very feminine and share traits that seemed more feminine than masculine. In real life, these things shouldn’t really matter, however, the group was interested, and the questions were swirling. Sounds stupid really, but we really had these chats for a few weeks until he had, whilst chatting about his life, confirmed he was a Trans Man, and was born a woman. This was foreign to me, as I had no idea what being Transgender meant at the time, or what it really means and entails to be a transgender person in society. If you do not know, being Transgender is when you feel your gender, doesn’t match the physical sex of your body. For example, a biological man, may feel that he feels more like a woman in his gender, but has the body of a man, and vice versa. They may undertake surgery to fully ‘transition’ into the opposite sex and fulfil their true gender identity.

This blew my mind. I knew for certain that I was not transgender, however it was the fact that someone else was ‘different’ to the norm as I was. It was a defining moment in college for me. I saw the letters of the LGBT label, and saw that I ticked off the G, and he ticked of the T. My best friend is Lesbian, and my first crush was Bi, so there you go, I had finally connected with all the sexualities right! How naïve was I.

Again, I never plucked up the courage to talk to him. We would talk within the group and we would have a laugh but outside the group the conversation didn’t continue or exist. So, life was back to normal after that. To say I was fed up of college by this point is an understatement. University was a matter of months away, and the urge to leave all the introverted times of college was unbearable.

Just a few weeks left, you can do this, this is what I would tell myself every day. I was bored, I felt alone, and felt dead to the world. I couldn’t connect with anyone and I didn’t know why. Was I destined to be socially awkward for the rest of my life?

Would I be like this forever? Damn I hope not!

The days dragged; the lessons though kept me very much awake! I loved them, world’s biggest nerd I know but it was the truth! Jaimini, my amazing business teacher, Jorja, my amazing history teacher, and Kate along with John, my amazing Psychology teachers. They were definitely deserving of name drops as they really did help teach me the basis of what I know today and inspired me to keep researching and learning beyond college. One thing I have not touched upon so far about my college life, was that I was slowly putting together what would become my company during this period.

Serenity Co Software, as it was then, was blossoming. I had made my first proper app, it was an internet browser that had a custom built security protocol inside it which made it one of the most secure browsers out there, to my knowledge anyway! Although It didn’t make me any money so I am careful when I call this a business, but the downloads and the views my website would get would be something that kept me going throughout the college years.

One benefit to be the introvert that I was back then, is that it allowed me to have a lot of alone time to consolidate thoughts on what I wanted to do with my business and gave me time to consolidate ideas and concepts that I had going forward.

Then the day came, that fateful day, the last exam of the season, which meant the last day ever of college. I was so happy and also pretty emotional. This marked the end of a turbulent yet defining period of time in my life. I was no longer in ‘compulsory’ education. I was now a Uni student. It sounded so weird to say that. After the six-week holiday, I would be returning to the world of education as a first-year university student. The relief I felt when leaving that exam hall, I was on the train home within minutes of the exam finishing. Never was I to return to the college.

I think I went back to my secondary school multiple times after leaving college, yet I have not stepped foot there since leaving. In all honesty I did not have a reason too, but even when I was curious and had a free day of going up there to just see it again, I always went and did something else with my time. There was an event there a few months after I almost went too but again, those inside conversations you have with yourself, persuaded me otherwise, and I went and did something else. Soon after, I got my university confirmation, I was officially (on paper now) a university student. I had a place at the University of Westminster, I was about to embark on three years studying the topic of Entrepreneurship, and I could sense a whole new chapter of life was about to start! Then those conversations came back and came back very loud. What if university is exactly the same as college was, you end up being alone and introverted?

What if you make no friends? What if it wouldn’t be what you had dreamt it would be? As I had dreamed of going to university and graduating with an actual degree for many years, if not my entire life. Waiting for this moment. What if it didn’t end up what I had planned?

I had a very quick moment of panic, but the excitement of starting this new chapter quickly shut down those voices. I was ready.

I still was confused and unclear as to who I was, but I knew one thing was for certain. I would seek to find myself within this next chapter of my life.

New Beginnings

September 2016. My bag was packed. Fluffy grey jumper at the ready and my trademark skinny jeans adorned. The first day of university was upon me. I was shackled with nerves. The questions that haunted me before had surged that morning, almost screaming. What if, what if, what if? Those dreaded what ifs, I had really started to hate them. I jumped on the 85 bus, then switched to the District Line, end goal, Marylebone.

I remember arriving at Baker Street, I had been there before for the open day but then it felt like University was still so far away. This was it! The day I had dreamt about for years before. I entered the revolving doors and up to M214 I went (Our first designated course room!). I went in with a few other people, and we sat down on a chair within the circle of chairs inside, made small talk and sat waiting for a lecturer to arrive. I got chatting to a girl sat next to me and we got on really well. It really helped with the nerves. She ended up becoming one of my really good friends Steph, more to come on other friends as they arrive in my life!

So, a woman arrives and tells us we are in the wrong room, so we all leave and go back downstairs to a bigger room housed in the post graduate area of the building. We walked in just as the now late founder of Pret a Manger was leaving the room, so got to shake hands with him and finally be introduced to the class. It was so daunting! A room full of 26 complete strangers. I knew no one. Even in college, despite my extreme introverted nature, I still had three or four people that I knew from secondary school. Here I was completely on my own, exposed. A plain context ready to be filled with new faces, new ideas and a new view of the world. I remember speaking to a few others and started to feel really comfortable after a little while, which was strange, as I had not felt this comfortable in a long time in an educational setting.

Our lecturer introduced herself, and we got told the plan for our first week. We were going to the Google Campus building in Moorgate the next day, to hold an event with no agenda but a set guest list, so our challenge was to host this event and fill the void with ideas and an itinerary. Our third day would be to go to a place named Tobacco Dock, which is an incubator for start-ups to run, start and grow their companies. An Incubator is a group of start-ups working together more or less if you don’t know the meaning of a business Incubator.

Three real businesses would present a problem, and we in groups of 6 would need to come up with a solution and pitch it to them back at tobacco dock 24 hours later. To say that week was intense is an understatement. I never knew my first week of uni would be so crazy. I feel also that we were blessed in the sense that normally other courses would be stuck inside going through introductory lectures (which they were), and we were travelling around to different locations in London. My group decided that we would make a YouTube video to help solve the start-ups problem which was that they didn’t know how to launch their brand new train ticket splitting application. We darted across London filming different segments of the video and then I was tasked with editing the final cut that we would be premiering to the group when we pitched to the board of start-up entrepreneurs. Our group was compiled of me, Steph, Mahmood, Theo (Or as we knew him Mr T), Sarah, and Dylan. We ended up winning that challenge, and that topped my first week off very well. The last day we had a social day organized by the University. They organized bowling for us all to compete in and most of the class made it. We had a blast, I shocked myself at how crap my bowling skills were (I redeemed myself a few years later!) and we all had a really fun time.