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Getting back out there

Don’t rush into something new but when you’re ready, be open minded

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Advice, gay news, Washington Blade

It’s tough to start dating again after an unpleasant breakup. Give yourself time and be proactive about it when you’re ready. (iStock photo)

The idea of “getting back out there” after a significant relationship ends is daunting.

For many, starting over from scratch is so frightening, it may be the last thing they want to do, despite the fact that they may have a goal of finding a life partner. Anxiety, depression and self-doubt are just a few of the harsh feelings that easily arise when considering dating again.

For others, “getting back out there” may mean throwing themselves at online dating sites or the bar scene, just to fill the void their ex-partner used to satisfy. This behavior can also lead to unwanted feelings of depression because going on multiple dates all at once can be just a Band-Aid in wanting to cover up the wounds from a break-up. Either way, adjustments can be made to ready oneself for his/her next relationship in a healthy way.

First and foremost, take time to grieve your past relationship. Rushing back to dating after a short period can only lengthen your healing process. Talking to friends and family about what was most hurtful about your breakup is a start, but truly reflecting and moving past the relationship is more easily managed if you’re proactive about your healing. Hire a relationship coach or therapist for a brief time to net out and understand why the relationship ended, how it made you feel and know what changes need to be made in seeking a mate in the future (including dating people from “a different pool,” working on your communication skills and understanding  your “non-negotiables” in a future partner). There’s no specific amount of time that effectively allows people to feel ready to date again; it’s what approach you take to move on that will determine how long this will take.

Though this is hard for many, try not to jump into another relationship directly after ending your last one. If you feel ready to date, then by all means, do it. But be mindful and be sure that this person isn’t just filling space, but is rather enhancing your life and is truly a step in the right direction.

Also take time for yourself. Breakups are extremely stressful for most people, regardless of who ended the relationship. Surround yourself with things and people you love and who support you. Don’t frequent the coffee shops and neighborhood places that might remind you of your ex — try new places and meet new people. The faster you can embrace your new single self, the easier moving on will be.

After you are in a good space following the steps above, make a plan about how you see yourself dating again. Online dating is a great way to get your feet wet (again) — there are so many different people online and one can easily arrange dates soon after booting up a profile. But be sure not to make the same mistakes you may have made before.

Avoid red flags that trigger thoughts of your ex and be open to meeting lots of different types of people.  For those more selective and with less free time on their hands, hire a dating coach or matchmaker and work with this person on establishing realistic dating goals and who might be the best match for you. There are dating experts all over the D.C. area — find the best one that suits your personality and lifestyle, be proactive and get out there.

Once you’ve decided you’re ready to date and your plan (e.g. online dating, matchmaker, friend set ups, new social group, etc.) is in place, there are a few key things to remember. First, be open minded. You and your ex broke up, so whereas you may want similar qualities in your future partner, don’t look endlessly for this person’s twin. Be open to different geographic locations, different ages and different backgrounds. The person you dated previously didn’t work for you, so be open to something different.

Also, don’t be hard on yourself. Analyzing why you didn’t get a call back isn’t going to get you anywhere. Dating is a numbers game, so be thoughtful of whom you decide to meet, but don’t harp on those who didn’t see you as a good fit (or vice versa). Be confident and take things slowly.

Whereas you want to evaluate the people you are meeting in the new chapter of your dating life, don’t over analyze. Working with a coach or matchmaker can help you see both sides and is likely going to be a more efficient way of meeting quality people well suited to your lifestyle.

Also remember the cardinal rule of dating — don’t discuss your ex on dates with other people. Bringing him or her into the conversation sends the message that you’re not over it and are lugging around unhealthy baggage. If you get serious with someone, those conversations will happen in time. Avoid the urge to bring them up early on in a new relationship.

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Photos

PHOTOS: Pride on the Pier

Blade’s WorldPride celebration ends with fireworks show

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The Washington Blade's Pride on the Pier. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Washington Blade’s second day of Pride on the Pier at The Wharf DC ended with a fireworks show on Saturday, June 7. The fireworks show was presented by the Leonard-Litz LGBTQ Foundation.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

The Washington Blade’s Pride on the Pier (Photo by Cedric Craig for Wild Side Media)
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Out & About

‘Lou’s Legacy’ to make TV debut next week

New documentary features Blade news reporter

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Lou Chibbaro, Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The new documentary “Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at the ‘Washington Blade’” will make its broadcast TV premiere next week. 

WETA will broadcast Lou’s Legacy on Saturday, June 21 at 8 p.m. and Monday, June 23 at 9:30 p.m. Maryland Public Television will feature it on June 28 at 10 p.m. People anywhere in the U.S. can livestream the film at WETA.org, PBS.org, the PBS App, and on YouTube TV, Hulu + Live, and Amazon Prime. After the June 21 broadcast, viewers can stream the documentary on-demand on the PBS App, PBS.org, or WETA.org.

The documentary from Emmy-nominated D.C. filmmaker Patrick Sammon tells the story of the legendary Blade news reporter, Lou Chibbaro Jr., as he works on an article about the return of drag icon Donnell Robinson – also known as Ella Fitzgerald — to the Capital Pride stage. Donnell and Chibbaro reflect on their careers and discuss the ongoing backlash against the LGBTQ community, including laws targeting drag performers. 

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Movies

20 years later, we still can’t quit ‘Brokeback Mountain’

Iconic love story returns to theaters and it’s better than you remember

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Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger in ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)

When “Brokeback Mountain” was released in 2005, the world was a very different place.

Now, as it returns to the big screen (beginning June 20) in celebration of its 20th anniversary, it’s impossible not to look at it with a different pair of eyes. Since its release, marriage equality has become the law of the land; queer visibility has gained enough ground in our popular culture to allow for diverse queer stories to be told; openly queer actors are cast in blockbuster movies and ‘must-see’ TV, sometimes even playing queer characters. Yet, at the same time, the world in which the movie’s two “star-crossed” lovers live – a rural, unflinchingly conservative America that has neither place nor tolerance for any kind of love outside the conventional norm – once felt like a place that most of us wanted to believe was long gone; now, in a cultural atmosphere of resurgent, Trump-amplified stigma around all things diverse, it feels uncomfortably like a vision of things to come.

For those who have not yet seen it (and yes, there are many, but we’re not judging), it’s the epic-but-intimate tale of two down-on-their-luck cowboys – Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhall) – who, in 1963 Wyoming, take a job herding sheep on the titular mountain. There’s an unmistakable spark between them, and during their months-long shared isolation in the beautiful-but-harsh wilderness, they become lovers. They part ways when the job ends and go on about their lives; Ennis resolutely settles into a hardscrabble life with a wife (Michelle Williams) and kids, while Jack struggles to make ends meet as a rodeo rider until eventually marrying the daughter (Anne Hathaway) of a wealthy Texas businessman. Yet even as they struggle to maintain their separate lives, they reconnect, escaping together for “fishing trips” to continue their forbidden affair across two decades, even as the inevitable pressures and consequences of living a double life begin to take their toll.

Adapted from a novella by Annie Proulx, (in an Oscar-winning screenplay by co-producer Diana Ossana and acclaimed novelist Larry McMurtry), and helmed by gifted Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee (also an Oscar winner), the acclaim it earned two decades ago seems as well-deserved as ever, if not more so. With Lee bringing an “outsider’s eye” to both its neo-western setting and its distinctly American story of stolen romance and cultural repression, “Brokeback” maintains an observational distance, uninfluenced by cultural assumptions, political narratives, or traditional biases. We experience Ennis and Jack’s relationship on their terms, with the purely visceral urgency of instinct; there are no labels, neither of them identifies as “queer” – in fact, they both deny it, though we know it’s likely a feint – nor do they ever mention words like “acceptance, “equality,” or “pride.” Indeed, they have no real vocabulary to describe what they are to each other, only a feeling they dare not name but cannot deny.

In the sweeping, pastoral, elegiac lens of Lee’s perceptive vision, that feeling becomes palpable. It informs everything that happens between them, and extends beyond them to impact the lives they are forced to maintain apart from each other. It’s a feeling that’s frequently tormented, sometimes violent, and always passionate; and while they never speak the word to each other, the movie’s famous advertising tagline defines it well enough: “Love is a force of nature.”

Yet to call “Brokeback” a love story is to ignore its shadow side, which is essential to its lasting power. Just as we see love flowing through the events and relationships we observe, we also witness the resistant force that opposes it, working in the shadows to twisting love against itself, compelling these men to hide themselves in fear and shame behind the safety of heterosexual marriage, wreaking emotional devastation on their wives, and eventually driving a wedge between them that will bring their story to a (spoiler alert, if one is required for a 20-year-old film) heartbreaking conclusion. That force, of course, is homophobia, and it’s the hidden – though far from invisible – villain of the story. Just as with Romeo and Juliet, it’s not love that creates the problem; it’s hate.

As for that ending, it’s undeniably a downer, and there are many gay men who have resisted watching the movie precisely because they fear its famously tragic outcome will hit a little too close to home. We can’t say we blame them. 

For those who can take it, however, it’s a film of incandescent beauty, rendered not just through the breathtaking visual splendor of Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, but through the synthesis of all its elements – especially the deceptively terse screenplay, which reveals vast chasms of feeling in the gaps between its homespun words, and the effectiveness of its cast in delivering it to performance. Doubtless the closeness between most of its principal players was a factor in their chemistry – Ledger and Gyllenhall were already friends, and Ledger and Williams began a romantic relationship during filming which would lead to the birth of their daughter. Both Williams and Hathaway bring out the truth of their characters, each of them earning our empathy and driving home the point that they are victims of homophobia, too. 

As for the two stars, their chemistry is deservedly legendary. Ledger’s tightly strung, near-inarticulate Ennis is a masterclass in method acting on the screen, with Gyllenhall’s brighter, more open-hearted Jack serving in perfectly balanced contrast. They are yin and yang to each other, and when they finally consummate their desires in that infamous and visceral tent scene, what we remember is the intensity of their passion, not the prurient details of their coupling – which are, in truth, more suggested than shown. Later, when growing comfort allows them to be tender with each other, it feels just as authentic. Though neither Ledger nor Gyllenhall identified as gay or bisexual, their comfort and openness to the emotional truth of the love story they were cast to play is evident in every moment they spend on the screen, and it’s impossible to think of the movie being more perfect with anyone else but them.

What made “Brokeback” a milestone, apart from the integrity and commitment of its artistry, was that it emerged as a challenge to accepted Hollywood norms, simply by telling a sympathetic story about same-sex love without judgment, stereotype, identity politics, or any agenda beyond simple humanistic compassion. It was the most critically acclaimed film of the year, and one of the most financially successful; though it lost the Oscar for Best Picture (to “Crash,” widely regarded as one of the Academy’s most egregious errors), it hardly mattered. The precedent had been set, and the gates had been opened, and the history of queer cinema in mainstream Hollywood was forevermore divided into two eras – before and after “Brokeback Mountain.”

Still, its “importance” is not really the reason to revisit it all these years later. The reason is that, two decades later, it’s still a beautiful, deeply felt and emotionally authentic piece of cinema, and no matter how good you thought it was the first time, it’s even better than you remember it.

It’s just that kind of movie.

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