love yourself cafe, musings

just came from mgg's first-ever love yourself cafe talks. about 30 mgg readers came looking for people to connect with through meaningful discussion. migs called on the fabcasters to help facilitate the small group talk process. and i was just glad to help.

our group was one of the smallest, just 6 of us huddled in one corner. as facilitator, migs told us that our KPI was simple: 90% of the time, it should be the guests talking, rather than us. we could talk about anything and everything. and that i found quite disconcerting. it wasnt going to be easy to facilitate a discussion where people didn't know each other with no specific topic or issue at hand.

but somehow, we managed. and i got to know 4 other friends in one hour (pc joined me). all of them were single, but not all of them were searching. some of them seem to have found that sweet spot of singleness, without the bitterness or cynicism. we had two students, a professional, two teachers, two students, one in media, one in the culinary arts, an 18yo who was also the most comfortable with being gay and with being out.

we were in varying degrees of "outness", mostly to parents. but all felt comfortable with the status quo. there was a discussion on gay stereotypes - loud, flamboyant, promiscuous, irresponsible. and how some of us felt that need to be over-achieve and be responsible just to debunk such notions. i did like one comment that came out: isnt it that by "doing something about this stereotype, we are actually acknowledging the stereotype and giving it life and power?". we do not have to over-compensate to show the world that we are as normal and as responsible. we reinforce the stereotype everytime we react to it. love that challenging pov!

we promised to keep in touch and wrote our emails on the registry. i wish we would. though i know the probability would be quite low, given all of our busy lives. but i would like it if they did reach out to me, especially during those times that they would need someone to talk to, when it all gets lonely or confusing. though it was a very short period of spending time, perhaps we have planted seeds of friendship that could grow.