Gabriel

The speaker discusses their excitement for traveling to England or Germany internationally. They talk about their hometown, Minas, in Brazil, which is known for its good food, mountains, hikes, waterfalls, and historic cities. They explain that Minas was founded in the 1700s because gold was found there and that it has a rich history with churches and gold artifacts. They mention that Minas doesn't have a coast but has many cities, with Belo Horizonte being the capital. They also briefly mention their first relationships, including meeting their partner at a bar and the challenges of being in the closet. Testing. Testing. Testing. Okay, finally working. Another thing is super finicky. Like, a small change, you have to start all over again in the settings. It's weird. Finicky. Finicky. I think travels, but that's very generic, yeah. The most? Minas. I like Minas. Minas is a good one. But, internationally speaking, I think I'm very excited for England, if we go, or Germany, different. I was born and raised in Minas. Countryside of Brazil. Right. What is a better word to say countryside, because countryside is not a correct word. Obviously, countryside means... Yeah, you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but Minas is a really big state. I'm going to say Minas is the equivalent of Texas, not in size, but in population and economical strength. Maybe more than Texas. Texas, I don't know the ranking, but Texas is high. Minas is like second or third most economical. Probably second, yeah. It's just behind Sao Paulo, so it's really, really important state. Always been like that. Good food. Yeah. The best food in Brazil, for sure, because there's a lot of rice, beans, country food, you know. Chicken, cheese, lots of cheese. Good spices, yeah. Yeah, a lot of farms. Coffee, yeah. South of Minas is known for the coffee. Yeah, I'm sure you can take like a farm tour or something. It's not as expensive as a coffee tour in Maui. We never did. Oh, yeah. It was like $150 for a brunch. More like three hours. Right. Something like that. Very limited. But yeah, Minas is known for the food, it's known for mountains, hikes, a lot of hikes, a lot of waterfalls in Minas. A lot of... I don't know. Minas is really big. There's like a bunch of things. Minas doesn't have ocean, doesn't have a coast. But there's a lot more to do. The shape of Minas, the state of Minas, it's a witch. It's like a witch. It has like a face and it has a very long nose. It's weird. Yeah, you should Google it. Minas, Minas Gerais state. Gerais. G-E-R-A-I-S Wow, the first picture that comes up is very cool. What is it? Oh, that's one of the historic cities. So, yeah, Minas has a lot of those too, the historic cities. And one of the cities is where my sister lived for many years, for her school. Why is Minas so historic? So those are the very first cities founded in Brazil. So those cities were founded because they found gold in Minas. That's why Minas is called Minas. Because Minas meaning it's mine. Minas means mine. Because they found gold in Minas in the 1700s. So a lot of people from Portugal colonized Minas only to find gold. And a lot of slaves were important to Minas as well. So a lot of those little historic cities are still there. As you can see, they're beautiful. A lot of churches, a lot of the gold is still there, in the churches especially. That looks like a central state. Yeah, it's very close to the coast, but it doesn't have a coast. And the capital city is? Belo Horizonte, yes. Yeah, it's like right in the middle. See? See? Yeah, it's really big. I mean, it's the city that has the most cities in Brazil. It has thousands of different cities. It has a bunch of little cities, small towns. It's Minas. Minas. After doing Prime Miniature Pod last year, it was a great time. And I'm doing Point and Go. And I thought, what better way for people to actually get to know me better than having a conversation with you. And, yeah, it's definitely one of my favorite things about being here. I think I'm going to be going on for three years. But I'm going to be here for five years. And, yeah, it's just fun. I'm excited to see where this goes. Yeah, we have a lot to talk about. We have a lot of opinions about a variety of things. We're excited to share with you. Yeah? Relationships. Relationships. Let's do it. I'm excited. Okay, so let's talk about relationships. We are very excited to talk about this topic. And we're going to dive into our chronological order of past relationships. Relationships. Do you remember how old were you in your first relationship? Yeah, wait. I'm going to have to wait a little bit. We're going to do it three times. Okay. The dishwasher. One more time. Okay. My first real relationship, I would say real, as in I was 18. I had just finished high school. I was about to start college. I was out at a bar that I was going to pretty regularly. I had a few friends. And I ran into someone new and he started talking to me. And we got along pretty well. Yeah, that's kind of how it started for me. Wow, so you met him at the bar. Yeah, at the bar. Wow. At least back then. Very romantic. Oh, yeah. I really liked going out back then. It was a huge part of what I enjoyed, a big part of my socialization. I grew up in a pretty conservative house. And I felt pretty alienated by religion and my parents' views. And I also went to a Christian school growing up. And so the bar scene was really where I was going to see the most queer individuals like myself. Did you go to a gay bar? Well, we didn't have a gay bar or a place to go to hang out in my hometown. So I never went to a gay bar in my hometown. I met my boyfriend through Facebook. That was around 2012, 2013. But I never got to experience that era of going out, going to bars in Brazil because I just didn't have anything. I just didn't have anywhere to go in my hometown. Where were you at the time? We were in the big city near my hometown, which was an hour away from me. So it was never possible for me to travel to that city that far. I was young. And when I met my boyfriend, I was 17. So as soon as we started dating, I obviously was not going. I stopped going out in general. So I didn't experience that going out phase, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Because I was going out actually a lot between my 16s, 18s. I was going out with my friends in high school. We would just go to a bar. And I wasn't out back then. So I was trying to fit in. I was trying to belong to this straight group of people of my school. Obviously, before meeting my boyfriend, I was trying to date girls. I was trying to be cool. There was one bar in St. Joda, Jacksonville called The Pearl. It was a mixture of kind of everybody. Straight people, gay people. It was all a little walk of life. Every kind of community you could imagine. There were white people. There was a nerdy group that went. Cool kids that went. People that liked to dance. Country kind of vibe too. It was just a melting pot, which I really, really missed. I really think you got to like to meet people. Yeah, so that's kind of how I met my first partner. And it's funny, you mentioned you met your partner on social media. I feel like that was before I started going out, like 15, 16. That's when I first started meeting other queer people in my area. Yeah. Exactly. And for me, because I was in the closet, I didn't want to meet a guy from my city. I was scared of people finding out about me. So I met him through Facebook. I knew he lived an hour away from me. And we started chatting, and then eventually he drove to my hometown. And then we met. We had a few date nights. But every time we would have a date night, we would have to go somewhere else. It was never in my hometown. It was never in his hometown. We would always go somewhere else because I didn't want to be recognized. I didn't want people to see that we were hanging out together. He was five years older than me. I was 17. He was 22, 23. So I didn't want people to see me with him because I was so scared of people finding out about me being gay or me hanging out with a guy. Anyways, I tried to hide that from my parents, from my friends. It took me a while until I introduced him to even my friends. Actually, I remember I told my best friends that he was my cousin. Out of the blue, I was hanging out with him, and then my friends were asking, oh, who is this guy? And I said, oh, no, this is my cousin. This is my, yeah. Wow. I shouldn't have known. It's funny. So after I met my boyfriend at the time at the bar, and we were like the second or third time to hang out. I won't say the second or third. I'm totally not the first night that we ended up hanging out after the bar. It wasn't an initial night. We got back to his house. He had a bunch of property because he lived in a horse farm, which was super cool. Very interesting. Very big plot, which I thought was really neat. But he had ATVs, and so we decided very strictly to go on an ATV in the middle of the night. Obviously, I didn't want to get him back from drinking. And so I was riding on the back of the ATV. He was driving. He was driving out of control. And I'm like, hey, I think you need to chill out. This is my first time on the ATV. So we flipped the ATV, going at least 30 miles an hour. Oh, my God. And we were so intoxicated that I think the fact that we were so rendered and kind of just like half wasted helped us to survive because I landed in a pile of mud. I don't know how I didn't die or break a bone. We didn't break anything. He didn't either. He walked away. The floor we were in was destroyed. We tumbled through the air and onto the ground. I just remember standing up in this pile of mud, screaming, what is happening right now? Because it was horrible. How long you guys were. . . To meet each other. And even beyond that, we still hung out way too long. Hold on. That was the first night you guys met? That was one of the first nights we ever hung out outside of like being at the bar. I believe we hung out maybe a couple times there. And then he said, hey, you want to come back to my place after? And I was like, okay. And that's how that is. And I remember the dirt being so hard on us and so hard on you that I was like spitting it out in two to three days later. Oh, my God. That's definitely a red flag. You should have listened to the signs. Well, when you live in Jacksonville and you're bored and you don't have anything else to do, the watches are extremely expensive. Yeah. And when you're gay, you have this dream, this idea of having the ideal partner, the teenage dream, the fantasy, the romance. So I guess you ignore all the signs. And sometimes things happen and people change or people, they mature. They get better. But other times they don't. And I was so young. I really enjoyed the adventure of the whole part of it. There was so much drama and chaos that kind of fed into sort of the theme of my life at that time. I was so young. Yeah. Not sure how to live my life. And, yeah, I definitely, you know, romanticized the whole situation as well. Did you have any expectation or stereotype before going to your first relationship? Well, I thought that my first partner was going to be my last partner. I was going to be the fourth ever. And I had a whole, you know, moment. I don't think we have. And maybe today, obviously, you can say it's different. But ten plus years ago, I didn't start to have a lot of great representation on television or TV or media, almost, in fact. And so I wanted the best for myself. So I thought, oh, I'm going to find this person. How did you feel before your first relationship? Did you think that you were going to have to get bigger? Did you think that you were going to have to leave her out there? Same thing for me. My parents, they had always had a great relationship. And they were always best friends, partners. So I always wanted that to myself. I always wanted a partner and a best friend. And it kind of happened with my first relationship. He was my best friend for a while. We dated for three years. But it was not a healthy relationship. And I think because we were so good friends and I liked the partnership behind our relationship, so I ignore a lot of red flags and ignore a lot of issues that we had in our relationship. And, you know, I think when you're young, you just ignore those things. You just want to... Yeah. Right. That happens too. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Did you have a healthy relationship? Was your first relationship healthy? Yeah. Ha ha ha. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That happens a lot, though. I felt the same way about me and my partner. We had a lot of arguments, sometimes silly arguments. Sometimes not. But a lot of trust issues. He was a very jealous person. We have a lot of issues with me talking with friends of mine, sometimes even girls. He would be jealous of girls. He was just a very insecure person in general. And, yeah, I didn't have a very healthy relationship. But I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how to respond to some of the arguments we would have. So, you know, I guess it's one of those things that first relationship, we are just very new to communication and sharing our thoughts to somebody else. Yes, many times. I was. I was. I had many girlfriends. But he was really, really thinking. No. Let me say that again. Yes, I had many girlfriends. But he was, and particularly for, yes, I had many girlfriends. But he, for some reason, thought that I was not 100% gay. He thought that I was bisexual or I was, I don't know. I think probably because I had a lot of straight friends and I would go out with my straight friends. And I used to hang out with the people from my high school. And obviously I told, how would I say this? I don't know. I think, I don't know. I think both. Because. It's getting sunny outside. Can you believe? Crazy. After all this rain. No. Yeah. I don't know. I think both. I had many girlfriends. I think he was just paranoid, insecure. I think he was just an insecure person. He. I don't know. I think I can say that again. Yeah, I had many girlfriends. But I just think he was a very insecure person in general. And. I did, yes. It was. Because I didn't want to. Because I wanted to fit in. And kissing girls was my way to tell people I was straight. And not go into deeper than kissing. So. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes we'll go out and I will kiss ten girls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Good old days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. About what? No. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Right. But come on. Come on. Yeah. I mean, there's not not even a question. Yeah. I don't know. I. Yeah. Yeah, I 100% think that was the case. Because. There is no reason sometimes for the amount of jealousy. And yeah, I think that was that was definitely the reason why he. Was so jealous. Yeah. Maybe he was the shady one. He was trying to find shady things about me. But shady lady. Don't come for me. All right. So. Were you ever jealous in a relationship? Yeah, absolutely. I think in multiple areas in my relationship. It almost felt like the person I was with wanted me to be jealous. Because there was. Something around that would happen with each different person. The creation of this trust. I remember. In pretty much the two main long relationships I was in. Both of them. I caught them. I caught them. Kissing someone else. While we were in the same place. Together. Oh my God. No way. It was such a thing. You know. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. It was such a thing. 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But I do recall that my mom was not okay with it. Really? That's because she knew we were more than friends. More than because she knew that my boyfriend or friend at the time was a little creepy. Well, that might be the case. For me, I never introduced my boyfriend to my family as my boyfriend other than my mom. My mom knew. But my sisters, my dad, and the rest of my family, he was my friend. My friend to my friends, he was my cousin. So I could never be with my family and him at the same place because he was my cousin and my friend. So I always try to hide that from everybody, right? He was my cousin to my friends and he was my friend to my family. Anyways, have you ever had a relationship that ended because of something silly that could have been easily fixed? Probably. I'm sure that I've been in that situation. Usually, by the time I have ended a relationship with someone, it's because I'm already in a bond. Yeah. So it's more than we get back together. I was frequently trying to get back with people that I had dated in the past. I always found a lot of comfort there and I was trying to make things work a little bit. I was one of those people who would break up and I would try to get back together, probably multiple times, unless I was like, okay, there's just no way possible that we could go forward. Because, you know, you put a lot of effort and energy into the relationship. I always felt like I gave it my best shot each time. And so, I don't want to have to do that again. It's a long process. You get to know someone. You have to, you go through the process of going, you go through the process of getting to know somebody, and then you share your life with this person. And it's a lot. It takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of time, especially time. And it's hard. It's hard breaking up. And then, obviously, after breaking up, there's always that feeling, oh, maybe we can get back together. Because it's kind of comfortable, too, because you already know him. You already are comfortable with him. And, you know, it's a, it's, it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it was serious. I mean, obviously, like I mentioned, we had a lot of issues with communication, jealousy, mistrust, and, yeah, the issues kept piling up, became a snowball, and we just got to a point where we needed to end the relationship, and it didn't end up, it didn't end good. So, it was time to move on. Time to move on. Do you have any advice for a healthy relationship? Or what's, what's, what's, what is the big, what is the biggest secret to have a healthy relationship, in your opinion? What I feel like works the best for us is to remember to be open to yourself, because that person is going to find out who you are eventually. Why not just show them from day one? Save yourself some time, save them some time. Because if they don't fall in love with who you are, eventually, when they do meet you, you're at risk of them not going back. And I think that also overlaps with the importance of communication. Just really trying to express yourself the best that you can, and try to not leave anything unturned. If an issue bothers you, don't get too late to address it. The things that you need to deal with earlier in a relationship, it's easier to determine how the person you're with can respond, and how they're going to work with you throughout this problem, or they're going to act a little crazy. This is more crazy than that, and that's fine by the way. It is, yeah. But yeah, I would say be yourself, and try to communicate with them. What about you? I think my secret, and one of the reasons why I think we always had a healthy relationship from day one, is be happy with yourself first, before going to a relationship. First, you have to enjoy time alone. You have to know yourself, know what you're like, know what are your goals, and then you find someone that will fill that gap, fill that space, in a way that it's not... You don't need them to be happy, but you are happy with them, if that makes sense. You're happy together. You're happy alone, but you're also happy together, so find somebody that you're happy together, and yeah, I think that's my advice. Beautiful words. Amen. Anything. Stay tuned for next week. See you next time. That was good.