Hello fellow Brokies!
This thread is a continuation of the original "How Brokeback Affected Me" thread. Please use this thread to post your thoughts about how you were affected by this film. The thoughts you had, the emotions you felt, and the actions you took.
Can you divide your life into chapters titled "Before Brokeback" and "After Brokeback"? Have you made small changes, large changes, no changes?
Tell us about it.
To start this thread, I went and found my first post, from the original thread, back on December 29th, 2005, three days after I saw the film for the first time.
How it affected me???
Well, it re-affirmed to me the belief that the type of love Jack and Ennis had is possible, and I deserve to have that too. I came to this decision about a year ago, when I decided to take chances and placed a personal ad. After a few misses, I have finally met someone, and we are dating.
I think I got more of a sense of pride and anticipation as I walked out of the theater at the end of the movie. I remember thinking....."This is gonna help people change how they think. People will come away from this, and realize we all don't lisp, and prance around all swishy, with limp wrists, acting like a bunch of "man whores", looking for sex, but not love."
Wow. What a difference a year and a half makes.
I still believe that the love that Jack & Ennis had for each other is possible for me, and that I deserve to have it. The guy I mentioned in the above post and I are no longer dating. That's ok. I've since moved on in my dating life, and have had other encounters and relationships that I've grown from.
I learned that time is short, and I've actually started approaching men. I'm no longer content to being the "wallflower", and I'll actively flirt and attempt to meet guys. Sometimes it's paid off, sometimes it hasn't. But at this time last year, I was content to be the "wallflower", not realizing that I was hiding myself in the shadows, denying myself the opportunity to grow.
I'm contemplating changes in my career, branching out into a field that I've thought about often, but held myself back from, because I didn't want to deal with rejection. A new career (just like finding love) is a risk, and if you want to receive rewards, you need to take risks. I now feel ready to take them, confident enough that even if I am rejected, I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on to the next challenge that I will be presented with.
Lastly, Brokeback helped me to come to terms with what I perceived to be my "femininity". In the post above, I talked about Brokeback showing gay men who didn't lisp or have limp wrists. It was something that I was always very conscious about. After reflecting on the movie, I came away with the idea that if Ennis & Jack had been more comfortable with themselves, things may have been easier for them. I'm not saying they should have acted effeminate. I mean if they were able to accept themselves as gay men, life may have gone more smoothly. So I made the decision to accept myself the way I am. Does this mean I'm openly flamboyant? No, but it means I no longer care if I act in a way that someone may be critical of, using my behavior to demean me. I have learned to be happy with who I am, and how I act. I feel much more relaxed now than I have in a long time. I even marched in the NYC Pride Parade this year, and that is something I said I would NEVER do.
I also took the leap, and started to travel, and since BBM, I've been to Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, Michigan, and Colorado. California, DC, and UK are next on the list. If anyone would have told me 2 years ago that I would be traveling all over, meeting people from around the world, and doing things like square dancing, horseback rides, hayrides, and other new things, I would've told them they were crazy. But it's happening for me.
and it's all because of Brokeback Mountain.