The Summertime

So this summer has been quite the adventure and I've only just come around to opening my eyes up to everything. When I came home in May, I was literally counting down the days until I would be returning back to New York. I felt like I had run away from many things, almost like I retreated back home. I immediately began second guessing my motives and if I had made the right choice.. no, make that choices.

I certainly started the summer off huge, all but ending the relationship I had been in for the past 14 months. So much had changed about everything including myself and the outlook I then had on my life. I'm barely 20 years old. I can't even legally drink yet or set foot in a casino. And I've been in about 3 moderately serious relationships on and off for approximately 25% of my whole life. Something, somewhere, was telling me, "You need to slow shit down and look around before you continue down this road you're now on."

How dick is that, right? I mean, seriously... only us, as males, feel the need to END something because it's too good. I don't understand it myself, and yet, time and time again, I found myself confronting the fact that I cared so much about this other person and they clearly aren't having the same hard time. Compounding that is the fact that I never felt able to TALK to her about any of this for fear of hurting her. And then, there you have it- the vicious circle that I'm convinced kills most relationships with real potential.

Maybe it's the romantic in me that I never came to terms with; the guy that actually enjoys being in a relationship but is too confident externally to allow himself to depend on someone that isn't a blood relative. Maybe it is, after all, the fact that I am selfish- though I don't really buy into that as the "reason" for all- and want to "have my cake and eat it too." But now, after recent developments, I find myself questioning if I've effectively thrown it all entirely out the window and now have however many days or weeks until the alarm goes off, I wake up, and say to myself "oh sh*t what have I done."

SUCH IS LIFE- that's the response I would get now I think. I prefer my mother's own twist on the proverbial favorite:
"The wind blew, the shit flew.. You're only here for a day or two."

So, while I spent my summer trying to determine what I wanted/needed to do as far as my relationship when I returned to school with my significant other, yes, I tested the waters. For a while, I had it all- but it's funny how quickly a little change of perspective completely polarizes everything. Maybe everyone would be in a different place if I was a better communicator, maybe not. I keep saying maybe everything, but that changes nothing I suppose.

Do I regret the decisions I've made thus-far? Absolutely not. I don't regret decisions. I change the outcomes when I don't like them- and I suppose that's what makes me a Fratty Gent- a Gent that doesn't accept that which does not suit him, whether it be life choices, music choices, or sartorial choices. It's all related- everything is everything. We all just need to know when's the right time to bring it back to the planning board.





- Remember Gents, You are responsible for Your own happiness.

Why, hello there..

So, after much procrastination, I finally made it around to making a blog of my own. Think of this as an experiment- a venture out into the electronic world that connects all of us more than we can fathom today.

In case you were wondering, this blog will not be about any ONE thing, and that I am sure of. However, I have not yet figured out much else about it. All I ask is that you bear with me and give me your feedback as we all take this trip together.

On any given day or update, you'll likely find information about life, music, style, or anything else that catches my apparently "ADHD-driven" attention. Oh, and you'll probably come across a few attempts here and there to be funny- most of which will fail. But that's okay.

Now, a bit about myself (I'm doing this here and not on the sidebar because it's just not as cool that way): True to the title, the author of this blog is one Fratty Gentleman, and I say this for a number of reasons. I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago in a considerably Irish Catholic family, attending conservative blue-collar Catholic schools (you've got to love the single-sex high school experience) until the day I couldn't take it anymore and moved on to attend a very large- and even more liberal- private university in the heart of Manhattan.

I explain this because it is this clash of environments that led to my concept of a "Fratty Gentleman." A young man, always striving to be as true of a gentleman as possible, who cannot turn his back on all of the ideas that he grew up surrounded by- the "fratty" place and guys I call home.

Yes, I'm in a fraternity. I work in a major retailer that all Greeks seem to love. Yes, I go to school where almost all of the students hate "that shit." And that's exactly why I love being a part of two totally different environments.

As the days go by, I'm sure that I'll be telling you more about where I call home and whatnot, but for now we'll get on with the show as I leave you with a video shown to me by the one and only Dr. TMac.