Thursday, 23 February 2012

• Meeting MAD MAX

  It's intriguing to me how this blog has changed dramatically from its inception.

  It started out with GUYS GUYS GUYS I'M ATTRACTED TO GUYS GUYS GUYS.

  And now, it's more GUYS GUYS GUYS I'M TRYING TRYING TRYING TO RELATE WITH GUYS GUYS GUYS.

  The word "growth" comes to mind. Four years ago I had basically zero contact with the male gender outside my dad and brother. That's incredibly sad, looking back. I wish college had been more memorable. High school too. I wish I'd stepped out then the ways I'm stepping out now. But even now, it's still difficult. I'm certainly not swimming in any pools of dudes.

  Not meant to be sexual. Hopefully you guys get my humor by now.

  So remember this post about the greatest day evar? One of those facets came to fruition last night.

  I met Max. Mad Max.

  "Mad Max" is a writer with a phenomenal blog. He writes about faith and darkness and paints all of his life experiences with the brightest and darkest colors imaginable. I fell in love with both his style and content after the first sentence. Bought his book of short stories after two or three posts. Read his entire blog in a couple days. Sent him an email, told him how he'd encouraged me, basically said he was amazing.

  And oh, we happened to live within 30 minutes of each other, he living in Hollywood. How...coincidental...

  He emailed back and said we should meet up for coffee some time. Turns out Tuesday night would be "some time."

  SURREAL MOMENT #1: Driving down Sunset Boulevard en route to a Starbucks across from Sunset Gower Studios to meet this increasingly established writer dude with 3000+ Twitter followers, a phenomenal book of short stories. As I parked my car in the parking lot, I asked myself: Is this really real right now?

  Saw him at a table with trendy gloves and writing sprawled on a napkin, and I introduced myself. He looked up, smiled. Stood up. Would we hug upon impact? No, surely not right away. But goodness, what if all we did was a pathetic handshake? The HORROR.

  Handshake with a bro tap to the back. Bro tap initiated by me, but he reciprocated with a smile.

  Phew. Disaster avoided.

  He's 5-8 years older than me and ridiculously good looking. Do a Google-image search on "godly manly older brother mentor figure" in my brain, and you'll see a devilishly handsome picture of Mad Max.

  He bought my coffee. We sat down and he asked me what my story was. I'd emailed him in a time of hurt and confusion, and he legitimately wanted to know my story. So I told him. Told him everything.

  From SSA to Annie's death to this journey of male discovery I've been walking/stumbling through these last 4 years. I told him everything, and he listened intently the whole time, asking follow-up questions along the way. He shared some of his own story, and it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between he and I: he dealing with straight-porn, me dealing with crooked-porn.

  SURREAL MOMENT #2: I was able to talk -- really talk -- to this super handsome guy with confidence and limited intimidation, something which still surprises me actually. Dealing with Brock last summer was a huge reason why, I'm sure. I did talk about Brock with Max, and that was the only point in the conversation where I almost started crying. Male affirmation, man; gets me every time.

  Going into this divine appointment, I knew Max and I could talk about life or writing or both, but if we were to run out of time and only talk about one thing, we should clearly talk about life. So we did.

  Life > writing.

  My hour-long conversation with Max went by so fast. Oh, and after our hour-long conversation? How about a trip to Mad Max's sexual addiction support group? Would that be just too fantastical? I didn't really want to go to this thing, but why not just go and get this life experience and spend some more time with this awesome dude who'd invited me along?

  SURREAL MOMENT #3: Driving behind Mad Max and following him through Hollywood to where his support group meets.

  The SA group was led by one of the dudes associated with XXXchurch, one of the co-authors of this amazing book.

  It was a small group of 10 guys, spanning from 20s to 60s, with basically an even distribution of guys in each age bracket. After eating some "grace cookies," we went around the circle and had 8 minutes each to introduce ourselves and answer some simple questions from a paper.

  At first I thought I would only watch. The XXXchurch author dude even said I wasn't required to participate on a first visit. But as the paper was passed around, I felt increasingly compelled to share.

  SURREAL MOMENT #4: Listening to Max spew the junk from his life. Sitting in the same freaking room with him.

  Max was sitting to my right, and when he finished he passed the paper to me with a look.

  My turn.

  Here goes nothing.

  "Hi, I'm Tom."

  "Hi Tom."

  "Uh...I've been sober from porn and masturbation for 2-3 weeks now..."

  And I answered the remaining questions from there.

  SURREAL MOMENT #5: MAD MAX WAS SITTING NEXT TO ME ON A COUCH IN A HOLLYWOOD OFFICE BUILDING AS I ADMITTED RECENTLY USING PORN AND MASTURBATING TO A GROUP OF STRANGERS. OH, AND SOME AUTHOR DUDE FROM XXXCHURCH WAS IN THE ROOM TOO.

  Before I went home Max told me to keep in touch. Told me to email him if I ever had a "shitty week" and just wanted to talk. Mad Max loves that phrase: shitty week. He said it about 5 times that night. Makes me smile. I think I like that phrase too now.

  And then the parting goodbye. Another handshake to start...but this time, a combination bro-tap initiated by Max. And so I drove away from Hollywood and still don't know how to process all of this, what it all means.

  A year ago I wouldn't have had the courage to meet an insanely attractive guy with such a powerful gift for the written word. Or if I did somehow muster such courage, I surely would have wanted this guy to be my BFF forever and ever PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

  I'd be lying if I said I didn't want some kind of faraway friendship to develop with him. He's so gracious and kind and humble and open, and further, a great writer worth knowing in a world where you really benefit from knowing the right people.

  So we'll see. I'm still "detoxing" from Tuesday night.

  Still basking in the surreal.

  • 1:23 AM
  • 143 Views
  • 10 eProps
  • 7 Comments