My Husband, My Boyfriend, and I: Manifesting Managing and Mastering Gay Relationships

By Ishmawiyl Wang

Chemistry dictates connection! Discover an entire world of energetic dynamics that dictate why we attract who we attract! In this unprecedented metaphysical look at gay relationships, go behind the veil to learn how energy rules the world of relating. You’ll understand the ultimate purpose of relationships, feel empowered from the inside out, and create the relationships you have always imagined. This guide will show you how to navigate sexual relationship structures with confidence and identify different types of relating. Get past the triggers and trauma to the root of gay loneliness, and successfully position yourself for successful relating! Be prepared to go forward with confidence and experience the feelings and vibe to manifest your dream relationship from the inside out. Vibe attracts tribe!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798765237878

Ishmawiyl Wang

Ishmawiyl Wang is a Metaphysician, Visual artist, husband, and energy practitioner. He applies Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous principles to harmonize his relationships. He is a student of universal law and seeks to share nontraditional perspectives on relationships cultivation and mastery.

Book preview

Sick of this Shit!

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Between Saturday and Sunday, I reached out to five people, trying to see where I was going because I wasn’t staying home! Maybe this is just it, and we need to be apart! What is this?! If he wants to be alone, fine! Who knows when he will ever shift or change? I can’t bang my head against the wall for it! I can’t expect him to show up any differently! Too much energy has been poured into him. He has no reason to shift. There is nothing even in his external world that speaks to him about shifting and change. No other men hold him accountable for even how he shows up in his relationship. Silly me sat with moving far away from the nasty space we were in, but what was I running from? Would it be different if I packed up and left? What am I doing?!

I was fired up! Do you know the feeling of being done? Do you know what it feels like to feel that you have tried but don’t see the desired results? How about the question of how did the relationship end up in chaos? Or, at best, is this all in my head?! While I was firing away, I knew that I was not sitting centered in my higher self. I knew I was not in the space to make any decisions out of wholeness and peace, so I did the next best thing and reached out to a sister coach for support. At the very least, I needed to be heard and an additional set of eyes to help me see what was happening in my world. My emotions are like a whirlwind, the ocean’s waves, the spring’s mist, and even the fiery wildfires taking down anything in its path. It sounds scary and unpredictable, but after studying the metaphysics of energy, it became clear how they worked. Significant truths and understanding have existed throughout my marriage and in relating with others. Those are as follows.

• I am a participant in the creation of the experiences I experience.

• I had to learn to cultivate joy from inside myself.

• I had to learn to honor my emotions by giving them a space to be seen, heard, and channeled into something focused.

• I am the only one I can control. We are all autonomous, and I can only control myself.

• I am responsible for my happiness.

• I had to learn how to see myself in others.

At one point in time, when it seemed that all was lost and there was no way we would ever have peace, I decided not to go to any friend’s home. Initially, I thought it would be best to give us space. When I asked my oracle about staying or leaving, I saw that it was not in my best interest to go. After all, what exactly was I moving away from? Why is it so easy to leave but not so easy to face the challenge inside?! Many of us have not been given any tools to help us during times of hardship. We end up just playing the blame game, vomit-venting, defending our egos, and building resentment against one another. It’s a shitty place to be on the road to a failed union. My husband and I exist in the world with very different perspectives, mine being the more mystical approach and his the more logical. We had the left and right brains covered.

I was more interested in the underlying energies at play hence the use of a personal oracle. It, like meditation, is a tool from the toolbox to help navigate the relationship and to assist me in fostering harmony by looking into the energy I would be responsible for cultivating. I must insert that the oracle isn’t a fortune-telling device. It doesn’t predict the future. It simply looks at what is from a holistic perspective. I can navigate whichever space I am in and clarify what I need to work on. During difficult times, I must remember that I am the center of my joy. Remembering such was challenging for me because my husband’s mood deeply affected me. I am sure you know the feeling of looking at a loved one and wanting to wave a magic wand, melting away all of the pain. However, I learned that I just had to create the joy anyway! Looking at and channeling my own emotions has been the most challenging aspect of relating.

• How do I safely express my emotions?

• Why do I feel what I feel?

• Where is it coming from?

• How could I feel supported in such a space?

• How could I hold space for my husband’s emotions?

• How could I not be triggered by him being triggered?

• How could I navigate my triggers?

We often get so focused on how we perceive someone else is showing up that we get stuck! We never stop to ask ourselves how we show up! Does it mean the other person did not commit any transgression? Does it even matter? If I am the creator of my life, what is residing in me calling forth my experiences? These are some hardline questions that can feel uncomfortable to ask. I am willing to place coins on the line to say that we were not brought up in cultures that told us we were manifesting the good, the bad, and the in-between, purely as expressions that streamed forth from the deep recesses of our subconscious minds. When things are going south in a relationship, we don’t have the mechanism to transcend the suffering. We do not know how to be in peace and joy regardless of what transpired. How often do we feel that life is against us? How often do we think things happen to us rather than for us? What if we adopted the perspective that all of our experiences existed to serve us? Would we then begin to question in what way they serve us? Let’s look at life as a space where we consistently learn. So would it be about the growth after all? It’s never easy to see how one grows amid discomfort, but it always becomes apparent after the storm.

For many of us, there is no way we could adopt a perspective that all is well when we are experiencing what we consider to be hell. We exist in the space of anger that takes weeks to calm. We sit in sadness and funky moods that drag on for days, and some move into depression. We go to bed upset and wake up as if a new day has not arrived. We hold grudges, refuse to let things go, and do not see our partner/s in a new light because, in our minds, the story of what happened is on replay. Every time we replay that story, that memory, we rekindle the emotions and experience the story again and again. It becomes a nasty cycle in our minds that lead to the story playing out in real time over and over again. Slaves to our emotions, slaves to an old tale we kept on replay in our head while holding onto an expectation and a belief that someone else had to change. Anyone but me! Of course, I’m right! Of course, my way is better. Oh! The expressions of the ego!

No one taught me about marriage. No one taught me the truth. That relationships are a wild ride but the best vehicle to learn about oneself! We were both wild! I was the raging water, and he was the wildfire! They say water and fire do not mix, but who knew that despite these seemingly permanent traits, we were not fire and water? We go beyond such; the one to shape, mold, and manipulate the energies to create! It becomes easy to state that we are too different. It becomes easy to declare that we do not mix, that we do not see eye to eye, and it becomes easy to say that we are not compatible. If we could learn that we are not our personalities, we could learn to see ourselves in one another. Suppose we learn to speak one another’s language. What is compatibility but a temporary measure based on where we are in time and space?

While many gay men hold onto an outdated possession/ownership paradigm where it’s about what we do or don’t do with our genitalia, I learned that marriage was about creating diamonds. Solid, resilient, impenetrable, long-lasting structures that stand the test of time. It was about seeing oneself in the mirror, except that the mirror was the other person. It was about shared experiences and building. It was also about the ocean’s depths where all our fears, secrets, memories, pain, and unhealed traumas lay. Relationships were about getting the opportunity to heal. My actions triggered him. My triggers triggered him, and his triggers triggered me. The word trigger was triggering. Let’s just say everyone’s feathers were ruffled. The wild west of relationships. Could we get any messier?! The space of triggers took me entirely outside the space of peace. What was peace?! The funniest thing is that it was in the midst of the madness that I learned what peace was. It was the eye of the hurricane, and I had to choose to be there.

You may ask yourself, why are relationships so dayum hard?! Maybe because we do not have the tools and support structures in place to thrive! When I look back, I understand that everything that has transpired had to be for a realization and awakening to take place. Many romanticize relationships, desiring to indulge in a space where we’re so profoundly intoxicated that there isn’t a care in the world. The reality is, that we are here to awaken into our highest selves. What is the best way to awaken? We awaken by acknowledging our divinity and actively creating our reality. Our beliefs, thoughts, and actions all shape our reality. Awakening is realizing that even the road bumps we have created are growth challenges. If we never unpack our pandora’s box, then how can we truly experience joy? We will simply brush things under the rug. Feelings of intoxication for many are the birth of new relationships where nothing the other person does can be wrong, and our tolerance is on a high. Time is the great teacher and the great revealer. In this close-knit cipher, we get to discover the other, why they are in our lives, and what we are to learn in this experience. I always ask other guys when they talk about their past relationships about what they learned. They tell me things like they learned to speak up, to love themselves more, learned the importance of communication, and became clearer on what they want to experience. They did however tell me this from a space of anger or bitterness. I asked why they then did not rejoice in gratitude?! Suppose you were left with new realizations and deeper understandings. In that case, you had to experience those relationships to get it! He wasted my time and my life! There is no such thing as someone wasting your time because you pulled the experience into your life to gain your new understanding. We will continue to create and pull experiences into ourselves to grow. How good or bad those experiences are, exists purely as a perspective of the ego.

Yes, shit happens! Sometimes you need to reset. Sometimes you need multiple resets. Who knew?! I did a ritual of release one Saturday and then was counseled in the morning.

It became apparent during the ritual that I needed to focus on myself. It always comes back to the self. Our beliefs, stories, memories, desires, and paths pull on the external reality, putting us into experiences that are the live and in-color versions of our narratives. Contrary to popular belief that selfishness is wrong, the law of conservation and preservation is a very fundamental guiding law. If I am pouring, pouring into others while not pouring into my own glass, then, of course, I’d feel empty! Moreover, on the other side of the table, he felt the same way. How many of us feel like they’re showing up, but the other person isn’t?! And who else gets blamed but that other person?! We did not look at our violation of self-preservation and sustenance!

My heart shouted, surrender, submit! And my ego shouted louder, No! This will make you a doormat. In the end, the heart I learned was correct. The heart is the space of deep compassion, empathy, and the willingness to love. If I were to give myself compassion, empathy, and love, then there isn’t any way I’d become a doormat. I would adhere to the law of conservation and ensure that I did what I needed to do to come into a state of peace and well-being. I also learned the power of this same compassion and empathy as it allowed me to hold space for my husband’s emotions. I realized that many of the disastrous fallouts in partnerships result from the inability to hold space for the emotions of another human being. I learned the importance of surrender and submission to the highest aspect of being, the higher self, the space of unwavering peace. In surrendering, I let down my heavy bag of burden packed with the expectation that things had to look a certain way right here and right now!

Why did I need the relationship to look a certain way to have peace and joy? Such a space where many of us use force to push the other person to submit to our will. Of course, it feels so good when the relationship is on a high note, when we spend good quality time together, when there is intimacy and shared joy! The question is, can we experience this joy when we feel that things are not aligned? I learned that this was indeed possible, but it required the tool of going inside to experience this joy via gratitude. In gratitude, joy begins to flood the entire body, and I had envisioned the joyful experience in my mind. Many times I felt my husband needed to take accountability and ownership. I also thought he needed to understand things my way. I realized that he had his path, journey, and understanding. I realized that he would reach whatever space he needed via his internal reflection. Was I taking ownership? Was I taking accountability? All the time? We have to check ourselves. So often, we desire our partner/s to change and shift quickly. We expect them to come to the same understanding as us, to share the same outlook just so that we can get back to feeling good. Why do we not take the time and space to cultivate compassion and empathy? Why do we not look for ourselves in our partner/s? If we are bothered by something they say or do, what is that saying about us? Did it spark a deep-seated memory? Is it out of alignment with what we were taught was accurate or true? Is it something we also do so we’re upset because we do not want to see ourselves? Is it because they are doing/experiencing something we want to do? Only when we see ourselves in our partner/s can we have empathy, compassion, and the like. Only when we can get to the root of why we feel ruffled can we discover what we need to work on and why the experience is unfolding.

Speaking of fire and water, we were destined ticking bombs because of our drastically polarized energies. My husband forged a way in the world, shaking, shifting, and making things happen externally. At the same time, I was more content diving into the mysteries of the universe, ritual, and spiritual experience. Fire is one aspect of the masculine energy, just as water is one aspect of the feminine energy. It dawned upon me that the key to successful relationships for gay men was understanding this cosmic dance of energies. The challenge, however, would be that social construct that places heavy value on the tangible, physical reality. To many, like the imagination, everything else is child’s play. It meant that men had to show up in the world in a particular way. Men with a feminine leaning may feel difficulties, looking to validate themselves internally, and thus see their validation reflected to them in the world. As a man, I could feel the eyes of society’s judgment. I was not supposed to be a kept man, free from bills, worries, and concerns about how things were getting done. I was supposed to be out here grinding, hustling, and putting dollars to my name to affirm my manhood. I realized this was why many men across all sexual orientations struggled with their emotional and mental well-being. Socially, the man’s value was purely monetary. A principled man, focused, purpose-driven, organized, managing, accountable, passionate, outgoing, and resourceful, is, of course, of absolute value! An emotionally intelligent orientated man, centered in the universal laws of the unseen, ceremony, commitment, alchemy, creativity, strategies, and the sensual healing arts, is also valuable. What happens when you have some of both? Does that happen? Absolutely! We could think of energies like going into the closet and asking what we need to wear today. We’d see how many options exist. We may also need some adjusting to fit into specific garments.

While our deep wiring for connection and community often leaves us human beings to seek validation externally, I learned to validate myself, and I learned to do so by going deeper into myself during times of conflict. The belief that I could change my reality and experience had to be stronger than a desire for comfort and validation from my husband. If I used silence, meditation, and my oracle to gain insight into the relationship or the world at large, then I had to lean on my understanding regardless if it’s validated from the outside. I had to lean into my understanding that I am the creator of my life regardless if society says to look for scapegoats and place blame on others. I had to release the term victim and an identity that says I am just a being floating around, helpless and powerless. I learned the true meaning of commitment and integrity. While many believe it’s about fidelity, a concept tied to the monogamous construct, I realized that it’s about how much one is willing to pour into what one desires to experience. Anything we want to see grow, blossom, and thrive in life requires commitment. It requires such a deep, protracted emotional connection that without it, it becomes impossible. Such is commitment.

Ultimately tools are what help to build and sustain relationships. Looking out into the world, one can only wonder what tools gay men have to shape their relationships. It’s difficult to say if they even exist at all. Still, in my relationship, I instituted tools I studied at the relationship academy founded by Kenya K. Stephens and Carl Stephens Jr known as the Progressive Love Academy, and PSALMS. Some tools were as such: The Feminine Choice Paradigm ™, The Masculine Desire Paradigm ™, Bagua Oracle ™, Bagua Character Mapping ™, and other tools such as 3way mirror ™, Moon cycles, and aspects of UPLVL Communication ™. These may all be foreign to most. But what are the tools gay men have if any?! Where are they? While my husband and I seemed like polar opposites after the honeymoon phase, I was committed to making things work by shifting myself! Indeed there were times were my ego felt like he was the one that needed to change, and there were most certainly times when it was clear that we were mirroring one another. I’m sure you all would agree that it is one of the worst feelings to feel that the other person has to change and that things would be better if they would just get with the program and change! However, that is the space I learned the difference between power and force. On the one hand going inside to shift my reality via power, while on the other hand pushing for change via force only led to conflict, war, resentment, and bitterness inside of a relationship. It is through my marriage I discovered most people had no relationship tools. Everyone was trying to figure it out and do their best.

Through my marriage and interactions with other gay/bi men, I realized tools didn’t exist. It was through staying around rather than quitting did I learn about commitment. I could separate, and divorce but If I understood the law of oneness, that underneath the ego, there is the consciousness that connects us all, then I’d only be running away from myself. I attracted this marriage into my life for a reason. Through my marriage, I saw all the aspects of my personality that were not favorable. I had to come to love all of myself. There is a stark difference between romance and unconditional love, but since we were lied to, most gay men believe that relationships are all about romance. Romance is an expression within the confines of very particular conditions. When those conditions are not met, the happiness withers away. I learned that love exists when we are able to move past our conditionings and still choose to love just because we can. It is not romance that determines the longevity and health of relationships but our capacity, ability, and willingness to grow through challenges and love without conditions.

Who is this beautiful man that I called into my life? Who would ever believe me if I said that he existed in my imagination before I met him? It’s one thing to call someone into your life, but how does one navigate from there? I don’t hold a PDH, nor am I a psychoanalyst. However, people do confide in me. I learned psychology primarily from African spiritual sciences and personal studies. I studied the elemental energies, the deities, the archetypes, and what they truly represented in the human psyche and experience. I was certified in Bagua Character Mapping™, Astrology, Oracle reading, and the mystic arts of Feminine Power via Progressive Love Academy. The Bagua™ system, developed by Carl Stephens Jr. is a mathematical way of looking at what I like to call one’s energetic fingerprint. I realized that while gay men argued that they did not need to copy heterosexual relationship styles, they had no blueprint on how to relate to one another. They, in essence, threw the baby out with the bathwater, claiming that we are all men and, therefore, do not need relationship roles. They also claim that we all need to be masculine because we are all men. The Bagua™ system covers one’s Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous energies. It depicts a person’s dominant energies, challenges, strengths, and complementary energies. The problem was clear: many things were deemed heteronormative, but they had not been able to define any system for themselves, let alone energetics. Masculine and Feminine were labels thrown around based on what someone was wearing and their physical mannerism. Seeing the hopelessness many gay men have expressed, I felt deep empathy and compassion. I was once hopeless, but I moved from a space of lack to navigating a full-blown marriage like a boss! My life is rich, and it’s from the rich experiences that I write this book to share with you.

China China China

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From the age of fourteen, when I left the U.S. for the first time to the last flights back to the U.S. when Covid hit, I have been to China so many times that sometimes it becomes a blur in my memory. China was a space in my life of exploration and self-discovery in many ways. It was a space where I dove into culture, history, spirituality, sexuality, and artistry. I would describe much of my life as nomadic. I was back and forth, forth and back. There was one point, however, that put the pause button on everything; I got sick. There was so much shame and secrecy around gay sexuality that I never felt there was anywhere to ask a single question. I was alone in navigating sexual health and well-being and had little understanding of testing and treatments for anything. I was ill-equipped to navigate the heavily sex-orientated world of gay men in the U.S. While I have my feelings about words like protection and safe sex, one thing was for sure at that point in time, no rubbers were going around. I wanted to experience love and to be embraced. I wanted to feel good, but there was dissonance between what I desired and what was offered. Looking back, it was clear no one wanted to wine and dine with me, no one wanted to hug and hold me, and the only thing they wanted was sex. It was a miserable place to be back in the U.S. in what felt like such an unsupportive place. I felt that if I didn’t just go along with the norm, I wouldn’t get to explore or meet my needs. Peer pressure in the teenage years is one thing. Still, the increasingly strong desire to physically engage men became even more robust.

I cannot say when or how I became sick. While to date, there are theories and discussions around just exactly what HIV is and how it came about, with the medical establishment pushing one story and others pushing opposing views. I will share a perspective from a metaphysical space. For those who do not know, metaphysical essentially means beyond the physical. There are many ways to look at the world, and there are also many different practices. While I understand the physical medical model, I have learned to look at the root of many experiences and expressions in the world. So, what were my thoughts on why such an illness exists? Why did I get sick? These days when manifestation is spoken about, usually it’s from the framework of the law of attraction. There is a level of intention, energy, focus, and clear direction. Manifestation brings something into existence from nothing or the space of pure potential. We can observe the space we reside in, the furniture in our homes, the clothes we wear, the phones we use, and the airplanes we board that transverse the globe. We can see, touch, smell, and taste. Everything came from the mind of someone at some point in time. This speaks to the notion that while there is a human aspect, there is another aspect that we were endowed with: the power of creation. How does this creation happen? It happens through the vehicle of the imagination and the emotion that energizes the imagined into the physical 3D. In other words, we pull on the fabric of the universe to bring things into existence because we are connected to that same source. It is a created and instituted program from mind to body.

So, what about this sickness? Why has it become so prevalent? Why has it become, in some ways, synonymous with the image of gay men or the larger LGBTQ? Suppose our beliefs, imagination, and emotions could be strong enough to create and invent realities that we favor. Could they create the opposite result? We are talking about people who grow up in a space of shame and guilt with a distorted self-image. The self-image is hated, the self-image is disregarded and hidden. The thing about love is that no child knows any textbook definition of what love is. The child learns to love through their experiences, what it understands from the environment and what it feels. There is a feedback mechanism occurring. The words I love you are empty if there is no emotional connection behind them. Suppose in the child’s mind, there is a disconnect between the words, the experience, and the emotions. In that case, the child will never record in their subconscious space that they are loved. Some people hear the words I love you and experience violence. They came to equate violence with love. If there is no drama, then he doesn’t love me. It would never matter how many times a mother or another uttered such words. When it becomes clear that one’s sexual orientation is a problem, a cycle of destructive beliefs come into place. The beliefs are acquired or adopted as truth and filed away as a program in the mind. We believe that we are not loved. We believe that we are dirty. We believe that we are sinful. We believe that we are not acceptable. We believe that we are unworthy. If we are vibrating in beliefs of shame, guilt, or not belonging, what are we pulling into our reality? What kind of experiences do we subconsciously call into our lives if we believe we are dirty? If we are ashamed of our bodies and sexual orientation? If we believe that we are not supposed to exist? Our beliefs carry a self-destructive program and a vibration that matches us right where we are at.

The root is the lack of love. The perceived lack of love is intricately woven into the entire culture. While we seek love, we do not create the conditions for love to exist because the program was never put there in the beginning. Why is it that sex comes to mind when people think of the gay community rather than love? Why is it sex is so easy for many to find, but love is not? Why do gay men describe the gay community in several adjectives, but loving is not one of them? The root is that most are walking around empty and on paths, ever searching for love and acceptance from the outside world. Does it mean that one cannot get sick if one grows up feeling loved and accepted? Metaphysically speaking, such is in the mind and experience of the individual. While I do not have tests and studies, I can offer a provoking perspective. I do not hold onto the view of things happening to me in life. I chose the philosophy that all experiences exist to serve me; thus, ultimately, there is always something to learn and grow from. I had to learn to love myself in a way I never knew.

I had to come face to face with the deep-seated belief that there was no space for me in the world. I had to eradicate the belief that I was unwanted or that I would never have anyone because I was stained. While many still wait for acceptance to look a certain way, the love for oneself has to be stronger than the desire for external validation. Unshakable peace and deep-seated peace and love should be the foundation. When I got sick, there was an inner knowing that something just wasn’t right. I could hear an inner voice talking to me, a guide say You are dying. That is what I heard very clearly. My chest was heavy and it I had difficulties breathing. I was in Beijing after transitioning from a teaching position in Shenzhen that did not pan out. So, I made arrangements to go home, and soon after that, I decided to go to the E.R. because of the breathing difficulties. I had several things going on, including some pathogen endemic to Asia. They had asked me if I had been traveling recently, and it all made sense to them when I told them I was in China. Of course there were a few other Asian countries I traveled to but I kept it simple. In the bed of a hospital quarantine room with a diagnosis that I was hanging on by a thread, a whirlwind of questions and thoughts danced across my mind. What was all of this?, Why did I have to suffer? Was it so shameful to be? What would other people think? I perceived the sadness that everyone who came to visit felt. I was pretty numb to it all. Am I going to die? What was death anyways? Although inside, I was clear that it wasn’t my time to go and that this was just an experience I’d have to go through. I spent most of my recovery time reflecting on life and finding internal peace.

Later, well into recovery, I remember having a bite with one of my aunts, who inquired how I was doing. I told her that I felt fine and I was doing pretty well. On the other hand, her stance was that I wasn’t, that I wasn’t healthy, and that she couldn’t understand the lifestyle I was living. I was not in a space to go back and forth and thus chose silence instead. What lifestyle was she talking about? I asked myself. My life was filled with the struggle to make a way for myself, working different types of jobs, and trying to find time to engage in creative arts simultaneously. I was unclear why I was lumped into an idea of a lifestyle solely because I was gay. This was a period in my life when I began to ask what love was and why couldn’t I receive it. Even though many of us find ourselves in spaces where we are told that we are loved, at this point in my life, I realize that people like to receive love in a way that resonates with their being. For me, the only thing I felt I knew was shame. I heard that I was loved many times over, and while there were many sacrifices on my behalf, why did I still feel the way I did inside? Why did I feel I did not know love? I didn’t need pity then, and I don’t need it now. I have always had a very vibrant life filled with all types of challenges, but such is life, is it not?!

I’ve always lived in a very colorful reality. Throughout my life, my peers looked at me like a magical being. They were drawn to the bright image, artistic expression, empathetic attitude, and open mindset. I’ll claim that even when I feel life looks like a mess. A superpower of mine was that I could smile through any challenge. I was a globe trekker, a journeyer, and a nomad. I was the child who got reprimanded for drawing during class. My imagination was much more valuable than the lessons given to me. I daydreamed often and stayed in my head to find a place where I could be happy. As a young adult, the one thing I knew I loved to do was travel. While everyone was asking me if I had a girlfriend, family members asked if I had life insurance. My mother asked when I was getting my driver’s license. I was keeping my head above water. I couldn’t seem to get it together after university. I returned to the U.S. for university after attending High School in China. I, however, felt lonely. I could have stayed in China for university. Still, I was terrified of all my university classes being in Mandarin. So, I went back to the U.S. instead. I worked dead-end jobs and began studying African spirituality more than in university. Both took up most of my focus. There was no rich dating life, no extraordinary men in my life, and no space to expand in that area. It all had to be put on the back burner. I had moved from place to place, and while I had a place to rest my head, I felt nothing was panning out. In the 2010s, China was experiencing rapid growth, expansion, and development on all fronts. Life for expats, tourists, and foreigners as a whole was vibrant. I didn’t know what to expect as I would return as a young adult. Compared to my teenage life in China, life as a young adult was more expansive. I felt I was back in the space of exploring my identity, my sexuality, and my talents. This phase of my young adult life I call expanded exploration. It differs from the university period, with little exploration or expansion around relationships. In China, the environment seemed more straightforward for making friends and meeting men. From my youthful perspective, it was much more hospitable than D.C. Looking back, there was considerable interest in foreign men, but that reflected the larger culture where people wanted to connect with people from all over the world. It was a great thing to have foreign friends. My ability to speak Mandarin played a prominent role because it made it easier to converse in an environment where English was largely not spoken. This made life in China comfortable. While in the U.S., I was black like all the other guys; I did not grow up like them. I may as well have been foreign. I couldn’t navigate the black gay world, let alone the American one.

In my adult life, many narratives with men like me are far from empowering stories. Many feel they cannot find that remarkable man whom to relate with. Some have been in one relationship after another. Some are overall unhappy. Underlying much of what I have heard is the belief that they cannot create and enjoy what they create. They have no blueprint, and no support system. They are unaware of their true essence as source energy woven into earthly avatars. Some friends have cried to me, burdened by the experience of a community that is everything but a community. What stood out to me the most was the looming air of the hook-up culture to the extent many felt that was the only way to engage with other men in hope that they would end up with something. The experience of black men being unable to create with other black men due to a culture of shame, stigma, hiding, and social pressures also came to my doorstep. It was clear to me that great healing was needed all around. I had come face to face with shame, a culture of blame, victimhood, powerless perceptions, and a belief that no one would ever want me.

In this book, I share different aspects of my experience and perspectives that tweak the mind to look at life differently. Ultimately one gets to decide how one will view what is genuine to themselves. My truth is that we, as the microcosm of the macrocosm, are creators. Through our understanding of such truth, we can shift our perspective to one that is more empowering and embracing. We can have the partnership we desire. We can have the support systems we need. There is no reason we must be stuck in paradigms and old perspectives that do not support us. There is no reason we should not be able to identify even our own beliefs and narratives that sabotage our growth and development in life. I don’t know what life would be like had I stayed in the U.S. as a teen. Television shows and movies were rife with the explosive nature of teenage years, and the dynamic social culture teens had to navigate. They had one foot in the world of their peers and the other in what many felt was the world of adults. To the outside, one could say I was shielded or privileged. After all, just how many people who looked like me could spend their youth in a foreign nation? Instead, I saw a shift from an impoverished life to opportunity and new beginnings through my mother’s dedication and hard work. There were countless sacrifices made along the way. I was a part of a small percentage of Americans who grew up abroad due to the work and business of their parents. At the time, I discovered an entire internationally connected web that linked government, commerce & trade, diplomacy, and everything in between. A string of international schools existed globally where others like me studied. Moreover, the term third culture kid describes quite well the absorption of different cultures for children who travel at a young age. In hindsight, I had absorbed particular understandings just by living in China at such a young age during my teenage years. I saw that society functioned quite differently than the U.S., and things such as hospitality stood out to me the most. We hear of southern American hospitality, but at the age of fourteen, I had never been to the American south, let alone heard about southern hospitality. Nevertheless, hospitality was a part of the larger culture in China and was not limited to one region.

As a teen, while others were more interested in girls, I was focused on the opposite. The only difference was there was no space to explore that openly. At that time, I gained satisfaction primarily through eye candy and self-pleasure. Sometimes there was gossip in high school as to who was seeing who. I felt somewhat miserable because everyone else was getting to explore while I was there with no options. It was not as if there weren’t other gay guys, but like me, no one would come out and say they were. It seemed socially unacceptable. It was around this time that I suppose my mother found out because I was searching for men online. I had left my laptop open and was confronted about the page on the screen. How could I be so dumb to leave this wide open on the screen?! I thought to myself. I could just die now! The sheer amount of shame and guilt that ran over my body from head to toe was intense. There was disapproval, but I could not remember the words from my mother’s mouth. Like a deer in headlights, I froze. It’s as if I completely shut down, and it’s likely a slightly traumatic experience for me. Since clearly, I was a sexual renegade, it became a struggle to enjoy the same experience as my teenage peers. I felt that there was an added layer of restriction regarding when and where I could go.

While I was most certainly freer than my American counterparts at that age, the safety of the Chinese environment allowed most foreigners to let their hair down. As a result, most of us teens at that time were fully immersed in the nightlife club bar culture. Gong Ti Bei Men, the north gate of the worker’s stadium, housed Club Vix and Club Mix. Across the street, through pitch-black alleyways, another strip opened up where the R&B bar stood. I was pretty self-regulated at that age regarding smoking and alcohol. Likely because even though I was different in many ways, I always had a strong sense of self and peer pressure was never an issue for me. I often shared spaces where other teens did engage in such and would decline the offer to join in without hesitation or guilt. If anything, I figured my mom would be more concerned about whether I was doing drugs. No, instead, she was worried about my sexual orientation. While sexual orientation was not verbalized past specific incidents, it was difficult for me to have a social life. I don’t know what a teen’s social life in the U.S. was like at the time. Still, in China, social life was not only outdoor activities, eating, and shopping but also going out! So, of course, there were times I had pushed the envelope to go out or overstayed my curfew just because I figured I might as well take advantage of being out and deal with the consequences later.

You may be asking did I go to gay clubs in China, and how did I develop my sexual identity. While I lived in a country with one of the biggest gay populations in the world, I had no clue where any such clubs were, let alone how to navigate this arena at that age. It