Tyler

The main ideas from this information are: - The speaker is excited about traveling in 2024, particularly to England and Germany. - Minas is an important place to the speaker because it is lesser-known compared to Sao Paulo and Rio. It is known for its good food, including milk cheese and coffee. - Minas is described as the equivalent of Texas in terms of population and economic strength. - Minas has historic cities that were founded because of the discovery of gold, and many of these cities still have beautiful churches and gold artifacts. - The speaker's first real relationship started when they were 18, and they met their partner at a bar. The bar scene was important to them as a place to socialize with queer individuals. - The speaker's partner was found through social media, and they had to hide their relationship initially because they were afraid of being outed. - The speaker's partner had a horse farm and they rode ATVs in the middle of the night, which was Testing, testing, okay, it's finally working. Look at you saying finicky, you are an American. I don't even know what that word means, but I say it a lot, finicky. What are you most excited for in 2024? I think travel, but that's very vague. Yeah, so travel, where are you excited to go? No. Minas. Internationally speaking, I think I'm very excited for England. I think I'm very excited for Germany. Why is Minas so important to you, because people don't know? Minas, I think most people know Sao Paulo and Rio, but they don't know Minas, so. Yeah, I mean, I understand what you mean when you say countryside, I think people will understand that, like the more farm area, agricultural heavy area of Brazil. 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 rankings, but Texas. Texas is high, Minas is like second or third most economical. Powerhouse. What would people that visit Minas expect to find there? Good food. Good food, it's what it's known for, it's food? The best food in Brazil, for sure, because there's a lot of bright, clean, country food. Wow, so it's a big milk cheese producer. Coffee? Wow, I hope we can go there when we visit, I love coffee. Oh my god, how much was the coffee tour in Maui? Like $200? We didn't do it, but. Oh, come on. It was only like three hours. Limited. Very limited. Well. The shape of Minas is a witch, it has like a face and it has a very long nose. Really? Minas Jedis, is that with a J? G-E-R-A-I-N-S Wow, M-I-N-A-S is Minas. Wow, the first picture that comes up is very pretty. 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 teacher lived when I'm English. Why are they, what's historic about the cities there? So those are the very first cities founded in Brazil. So those cities were founded because they found gold. And that's why it's Minas for Minas. Because Minas, meaning it's mine. That makes sense. Wow. So a lot of people from Portugal colonized Minas. Colonized to find gold. And a lot of slaves were imported 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. Interesting. So this is almost like a central state, kind of. I guess more eastern central. It's very close to the coast, but it is a central state. Right, okay. And the capital city is Belo Horizonte, which is close to where you lived. Nice. Well, I'm excited to go there. Minas is the second largest consumer market in Brazil, behind the state of Sao Paulo. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. But it's very cool. Very cool. So today we're diving into our first episode. And I think what I'd like people to take away from this podcast, as we're just starting, is that it's really just a place for us to get to know you better. For you to get to know us better. I've always wanted to do a project with you like this. After doing the primary care pod last year, I had such a great time interviewing people I didn't know. I thought, what a better way for people to actually get to know me better than having conversations with you. I think that's one of my favorite things about social media is getting to know people and hopefully opening up to let them get to know us. And yeah, this should be fun. I'm excited to see where this goes. Yeah, we have a lot to talk about. As usual. But go ahead. We have a lot of opinions about a variety of things. I'm excited to share it with you. Yeah. It's not meant to be taken too seriously. But we'll see how it goes. Happy to have you along with us. And today we're going to dive into, yeah, you know, this is called Relations Pod. But it doesn't really have those limits where we only talk about our relationship and our previous or future or relationship advice. But I think this first chapter will really be talking about us the most so that you get to know us and have an idea of who we are as the podcast unfolds. Let's do it. Insert music here. Okay, so let's talk about relationships. Okay. Oh my goodness. I don't even know if I can remember all of my past relationships. Not that I feel like I had that many, but usually when they're over, I like to put them away in the very back part of my brain so I don't have to think about them anymore. Yeah, my first real relationship. My first real relationship, I... It's okay. It can be background noise. Let's just keep going. My first real relationship. Oh my God, what is this? Okay. From now on when there's interruptions, let's just act like nothing's going on. Let's just keep going forward. My first real relationship, I would say real as in I took it seriously. I was 18. I had just finished high school, about to start college, and I was out at a bar that I was going to pretty regularly. It was an 18 and up bar with friends and I ran into someone new and we just started talking and we hit it off pretty well. And yeah, that's kind of how it started for me. I met him at the bar. It seems to be a common place, at least back then, where you would meet people. Oh yeah, I mean, I really liked going out back then. It was a huge part of what I enjoyed. It was 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 also going to a Christian school growing up. And so the bar scene was really where I was going to see most of queer individuals like myself. And so I really enjoyed going out back then. Did you? What was it like for you as far as going out? 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 a book. But I never got to experience that. They were about 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 did there were other queer people? They were in a 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 bar. And when I met my first, when I met my boyfriend, I was 17. So as soon as we started dating, I obviously stopped going out in general. So I didn't experience that. Gotcha. So your going out phase wasn't really around other queer people because there were no real queer spaces in your community, but you did go out when you were younger, right? What was that like? What was your first venture into going out? I was going out actually a lot between my 15, 18. I was going out with my friends in high school. We would just go to a bar. We would just hang out. We would just go to a bar, go to a bar. And I wasn't out back then. So I was trying to fit in. I was trying to, I was trying to belong to this straight group of people. My school. So I was trying to, obviously before meeting my boyfriend, I was trying to date girls. I was trying to be cool. Yeah, I can relate to that. I think when I was probably 13, 14, 15, that was my main goal was to fit in and to appear straight. But yeah, really kind of similar to you, 16, 17, 18, I started going out. But lucky for me, while there weren't a lot of queer spaces, there was one bar in particular in Jacksonville called The Pearl. And it was a mixture of kind of everybody. It was straight people. It was gay people. It was all real walks of life. Every kind of community you could imagine. There were people of color. There were white people. There was the nerdy group that went. The cool kids that went. The people that liked to dance. Country kind of vibes, too. Because living in Jacksonville, we're on the southern Georgia, northern Florida border. And so it was just this melting pot, which I really, really missed. It was a great place to go and to meet people. But 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, probably 15, 16, that's when I first started meeting other queer people in my area as well. MySpace was probably the big one. It was the best way to feel comfortable, because you could meet people from home. I was scared of people finding out about me. So I met him through Facebook. I knew he was an hour away from me. And we started chatting. And eventually he drove to my hometown. And we met. We went on a date night. But every time we would have a date night, we would have to go somewhere else. He was never in my hometown. He was never in his hometown. So I had to 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 a few 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 this guy. Anyways, I tried to hide that from my parents, from my friends. It took me a while until I introduced him to my friends. Actually, I remember I told my best friend that he was my cousin. Out of the blue, I was hanging out with him. And then my friends would ask, Oh, who is this guy? Oh no, this is my cousin. I remember the first time at a bar. I remember the second or third time we ever hung out. I want to say the second or third. I hope it was not the first night that we ended up hanging out after the bar. But one of those initial nights. And this is the beginning of the red flags. But we got back to his house. And he had a bunch of property. Because he lived on a horse farm. Which was super cool and very interesting. Very big plus. I just thought it was really unique. But he had ATVs. So we decided, very stupidly, to ride on the ATVs in the middle of the night. Probably 3am after getting back from drinking. And so, I was riding on the back of the ATV. And he was driving. And he was driving out of control. And I was like, Hey, I think you need to chill out. This was really our first time hanging out. Well, we flipped the ATV. Going at least 30 miles an hour. And we were so intoxicated that I think the fact that we were so limber and kind of just like half-wasted helped us to survive. I remember standing up in this pile of mud. I don't know how I didn't die or break a bone. I didn't break anything. He didn't either. We walked away. But the four-wheeler was destroyed. It tumbled through the air and onto the ground. I just remember standing up in this pile of mud screaming like, What is happening right now? Because it was a horrible, horrible way to meet each other. And even beyond that, we still hung out way too long. That was one of the first nights we ever hung out outside of being at the bar. I believe we hung out maybe a couple times there. And then he was like, Hey, do you want to come back to my place after? And of course I'm like, Okay. And that's how that ended. I remember the dirt being so far up my nose and so far in my ears that I was getting it out with a Q-tip days later. Yeah. Well, when you live in Jacksonville and you're bored, and you don't have anything else to do, and your options are extremely limited. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, 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 lost and young and not sure how to really live my life. And yeah, I definitely romanticized the whole situation as well. But yeah, good old first relationships. Yeah. Well, I thought that my first partner was going to be my last partner. I thought we were going to be together forever. You know, the whole Cinderella moment. I don't think we have. Maybe today, obviously, we can say it's different. But 10 plus years ago, I didn't feel like we had a lot of great representation on television or movies or media on what to expect. And so I wanted the best for myself. I was going to find this person and even if we have a lot of differences, we'll learn to move past those and grow together. And we're going to live happily ever after. And that didn't happen. I think for me, my parents, they had always had a great relationship. And they were always my best friend and partner. So I always wanted that for myself. I always wanted a partner and a best friend. 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 ignored a lot of red flags and a lot of issues that we had in our relationship. So I think when you're young, you just ignore those things. Yeah. And I think too, of course, when you're queer, you have a unique opportunity to really be close with your partner because you can have a lot of things in common. And you really can develop that best friendship. But you can also have a best friend that's not good for you. You can have a bad relationship with a best friend. So sometimes I think I've been in a similar situation but just because you can have that label as well as boyfriend doesn't necessarily mean that they have your best interest at heart nor is it a positive situation for you. So. Did you have a healthy relationship? Was your first relationship healthy? I don't think I would say it was healthy, no. I would say there was a lot of drama. It was a lot of breaking up for a day or two and then getting back together. I feel like we didn't trust each other very well. But I was so young, I didn't really know what to expect. And my partner, I think he did his best. He's not like anyone who's perfect. I'm sure he would say that I was a disaster and I probably was. But no, I don't think either of us looking back would say, no, that was a healthy relationship. I think we both were in different places in our lives. We both weren't being fully committed to trying to make the relationship work. And it felt, looking back, that it was just a relationship of convenience. We both lived in the same city. We both sort of had things in common. We were attracted to each other. And I think we both felt at the time that we were the best option for each other at the time. And so that's never a good, healthy relationship when you're just with someone because you think they're the best option. I felt the same way about me and my partner. We had a lot of arguments. Sometimes we would be argumentative, sometimes not. But a lot of issues with a very jealous person and issues with me talking with a friend of mine, sometimes even girls. We would be jealous of girls. He was just a very insecure person. And I just had a very healthy relationship. 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, it's one of those things that first relationships are just very used to communication and sharing our thoughts. So he thought you were going to cheat on him with a girl? Yes, many times. Were you super close with girls? I was. I had many girlfriends. But he was really, really thinking. Yes, I had many girlfriends. But he was particularly for... I had many girlfriends, but he for some reason thought that I was not 100% gay. He thought that I was asexual or I was... I don't know. I think probably because I had a lot of straight friends and I would walk with my straight friends and I used to hang out with people from my high school and obviously I told him... I don't know. I think I don't know. I think both because... We're in no rest. Just collect your thought. Say it in your head a few times. Say it out loud in the mic a few times. Wow. That's good. I need to dry it up. We should probably bring our suitcases inside soon. I don't know. I think both. I had many girlfriends. I think he was paranoid, insecure. I think he was just an insecure person. I don't know. Yeah, I had many girlfriends but I just think he was a very insecure person in general. I did, yeah. Because I didn't want to... Because I didn't want to fit in. Kissing girls was my way to know I was straight and not go into deeper than kissing girls. I didn't want to go out and kiss some girls. There was this bar that I used to go to in Jacksonville, The Pearl, which closed years ago, but it was really not that. It clearly meant for everyone that type of space, but there was no particular vibe that was dominant. Everyone was kind of just doing their thing. Anyways, back to kissing girls. Your partner at the time thought maybe you were kissing the girls more for just attention and flack that you looked straight. Maybe something was going on there. Did he know that? Or was that not something he was aware of? That you used to kiss girls? Oh, well then that would be a reason why he would be nervous. But yeah, you're gay. Well, I know. Sometimes when you're... Maybe he thought you were too good for him. Maybe he thought... Maybe he was doing things on the side. You know, the most insecure people are the ones who are typically doing the shady things themselves. I 100% think that was the case because there is no reason sometimes for the amount of jealousy and yeah, I think that was definitely the reason why he Yeah. Huh. So maybe he was the shady one all along. Alright, so were you ever jealous in a relationship? Yeah, absolutely. I think in multiple areas of my relationship it almost felt like the person I was with wanted me to be jealous because there was some sneaking around that would happen with each different person this creation of distrust I remember in pretty much the two main long relationships I was in both of them, I caught them kissing someone else while we were at the same place together. So those types of things, you know they were at the time big deals and then I was you know, talked down to where they were little deals, but they're hard to get over it's hard for you to yeah, and so yeah, I think definitely that was one of the main things I realized too later in life that was not an appropriate feeling. I was always taught too in my early relations Oh, you're jealous or I'm jealous because we care so much about each other. These are healthy ways to be thinking in a relationship and it took me a long time to realize that that's not actually true and you're feeling jealous. There's obviously some sort of miscommunication happening or some lack of transparency that needs to be addressed. Yeah, of course trust and so that's when I realized before we got together and when I was dating people even before we started our relationship was that if there was any sense of jealousy between us this was never going to work or and it like I said, if we're jealous with each other we need to break up. It was more so like there needs to be yeah, there needs to be an issue addressed. Jealousy is a sign that something needs to be addressed. What about you? Were you ever jealous in a relationship? How about you? Were you ever jealous in a relationship? Yeah. What about you? Were you ever jealous in a relationship? No, I wasn't. No, I don't remember being jealous in my relationship because before they knew I only dated this guy for three years so that was my first serious relationship that I had and I don't remember being jealous in that relationship. I don't know. I feel like I did trust him even though he was probably doing something behind me, behind my back but I didn't feel jealous or I didn't feel insecure. I think I had a pretty naive conception of our relationship. I had a very romantic idea of our relationship for a while so I was never insecure I think. Well, that's good. It's good for you at the time. Jealousy is a very exhausting emotion. It takes over many aspects of your life. It's really hard to compartmentalize that type of emotion. Yeah, I think you were so beaten down by being the non-jealous person that you didn't want to have any energy left. Well, I'm glad that's over for you. Hopefully you're not jealous now. The only thing you should be jealous of that I have a stronger relationship with you is probably coffee. No, not even. Because you make the coffee most of the time. So the only thing you should be jealous of when it comes to our relationship that I may have a stronger bond with is probably coffee. But even then, you make the coffee usually so you're still a mega player in that relationship. You are coffee. That works for me. I'll call you coffee. Yeah, actually. He was 10 years older than me. We started dating when I was 18. He was 28. But I didn't really feel that pressure of an age gap between us. I feel like he was a very young soul. He's 28. He's still young. He dressed similar to the way I did. He acted similar to the way I did. We had similar interests. The only difference really was that he was more established in his career. He had obviously been through college already. He was a working professional. I was just entering college. But because he had already established a place for himself to live, I was just spending time there a lot and sort of adapting myself into his already pre-set life. So maybe in a way, there was more of an influence with him being older than I look back to see because we did spend the majority of our time hanging out with his friends, doing the things that he liked to do because we were in his environment. But I enjoyed that. That was great for me. I didn't want to be in my environment. I still lived at home. So this was like a great escape for me. But I didn't really feel constantly like, oh, he's 10 years older than me. I didn't really feel like I was walking around with that. What about you? He was 5 years older than me. And same thing for me. Even though I was 17 years old, I never felt he was much older than me. I never felt like that was a barrier or a difference or an age gap. I always thought we were very close in age. Also because I always felt more mature than people in my age. So I never thought that was a problem, an issue from my perspective. I think that also helped me mature a little a little bit more faster than people my age. I thought I was more prepared for the adulthood than people my age. Yeah, I think too, when you're queer, you grow up with a different view of things too. So you kind of grow up a little bit faster than the people around you. So I think it's a little different than, yeah, maybe if I was an 18-year-old female or male dating someone of the opposite sex that was 10 years older, I think it would have been a much different experience. But who knows? I can't go back in time nor change my ginger from the past or sexuality from the past. So I have no idea. But that's just my perception of it now. But I don't think that age differences are that big of a deal. Personally, I always was, it's so funny that you're younger than me now because I always thought I would be with someone who was older just because, yeah, I typically dated guys who were at least a little bit older than me. But I guess you broke that. Well, no. Yeah. I mean, I dated other guys that were a little younger sometimes too, but I don't know. At the time when I was younger, though, I definitely thought I would be with someone who was older. Did you introduce your boyfriend to your family? Yeah. So I introduced my original, initial boyfriend to my mom as a friend. And I think he met some other people in my family as a friend. I don't think I really ever introduced anyone as a boyfriend except for you. I think you're the only one who was really introduced as a partner. But yeah, I always would come up with some way we met because I didn't end up coming out until I was probably 23 or 24 to my mom. And I don't even think I've officially ever said the words to my dad even though he obviously knows you. We've been spending holidays with him. We were just around him the other day. But he clearly knows our current relationship status. Yeah, they both do. And that's been really great. I did not anticipate that would happen and I'm sure we'll have that discussion at some point on this podcast of how that evolved. But yeah, in my initial relationship at 18, I was definitely not ready to introduce my parents or family members to a boyfriend. But I do recall that my mom was not the biggest fan. But I don't know if that's because she knew we were more than friends or if because she knew that my boyfriend or friend at the time was a little cuckoo. 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. To my friend, 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, my friend and he was my friend and my family. Have you ever had a relationship that ended because of something silly? Probably. I'm sure that I've been in that situation. But usually by the time I have ended a relationship with someone it's because I'm ready to move on. I'm like kind of done with the situation or we would get back together. I was a frequent 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 always tried to make things work as long as I could. So 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 this is going to move forward. Because you put a lot of effort and energy into a relationship. I always felt like I gave it my best shot each time and so you don't want to have to do that again sometimes. You have to go through the process of going 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. Exactly. 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. I know him. I'm comfortable with him. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to put yourself out there over and over again when you start dating someone so I try to avoid that process if I can. How about you? Were you ever in a relationship where, well I guess you've only been in one other relationship. Did it end over something silly or was it serious? It was serious. I mean, obviously I had a lot of issues with communication, jealousy, mistrust, and yeah, the issues kept fighting up and it was no ball and we just got to a point where we needed to end our relationship and it didn't end up good so I had to move on. Sometimes it's just time to move on. Speaking of moving on, do you have any advice for a healthy relationship? Wow, advice for a healthy relationship? What is the biggest secret? Wow, so advice to biggest secret? I don't know. I think every relationship is different but for me, what I feel like works the best for me and for us is just to remember to be authentically yourself because that person you're with is going to find out who you are eventually. It's 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 it not going well and I think that also sort of overlaps with the importance of communication and just really trying to express yourself the best way you can and try to not leave anything unturned. If an issue bothers you, don't wait till later to address it. These things are easy to deal with earlier in a relationship and it's easier to determine how the person you're with is going to respond and are they going to work with you throughout this problem? Are they going to make you feel crazy? If they make you feel crazy, that's a red flag by the way. But yeah, I would say be yourself and try to communicate as best as you can. What about you? What is your secret? I think my secret and one of the reasons why I think people have a healthy relationship from day one is be happy with yourself first before going to a relationship. First just 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 is not you don't you don't need them to be happy but you are happy with them. Does that make sense? Yeah, I definitely think so. 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 perfect. I think it's perfect and as we wrap up today's podcast on gay relationships, remember that each journey is unique and your experiences contribute to the beautiful diversity within the LGBTQ plus community whether you're navigating coming out, building trust or celebrating milestones know that you're not alone. Take the insights shared here as inspiration and more importantly embrace the authenticity of your own story because we're all different. Alright, I tried. Amen. We'll see you all next time. Who knows what we'll be talking about. It could be a relationship issue. It could be about us. It could be about travel. It could be about really anything and if you all out there have topics you want us to touch on, reach out to us. Let us know. We're happy to hear from you. We want to know what you think and how we can discuss things that you find interesting. So stay tuned for next week. That was good. I think that was our best ever. Great job.