Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Rich, Justin & Antonio
Well if you haven't noticed him yet, there's been a new addition in many of my recent photos. This would be Antonio. Here's the story, at least the part I'm willing to tell ...
Burn Nightclub on November 17th, 2007
Cibo Restaurant with Friends on Nov 9th, 2007
Ticoz Restaurant, & Charlie's Bar on November 4th, 2007Justin and I met Antonio at the Monster Ball over Halloween Weekend. I noticed Antonio early in the evening because he was hanging out with a few of our mutual friends and quite honestly I thought he was cute, but I'm certainly not one to ever go up and blindly introduce myself. Later, as the dance floor was starting to clear out, Justin, Jerry and I were dancing with one of our friends and I asked him who the other guy was, so he introduced Antonio to us.
Immediately following the Monster Ball, Justin, Jerry and I hitched a ride with our friend KC and headed back to Jerry's house for a slightly impromptu after-hours. It was really just going to be a few of us hanging out, listening to some music and sobering up. On the way back to Jerry's, one of our mutual friends called to find out if we were doing anything because he too was not ready to head home just yet. Jerry invited him to come over and hang out with us. In a random twist of events, he unexpectedly showed up with another one of our friends as well as Antonio.
As everyone arrived, Jerry immediately broke out the mini disco ball he had been hiding from us for months to help set the mood for the dance music. The after-hours was fun, we were all just hanging out, listening to the music, dancing a bit and talking. At one point Justin and I looked at each other, glanced over at Antonio, and then both made our well rehearsed face gesture to each other, letting each other know we both agreed he was cute.
Later, as early morning moved in and the temperatures dropped, Justin became a bit chilly. A few of us were standing in Jerry's kitchen talking when Justin walked in and was shivering. Someone remarked "It's not cold in here, why are you shivering?" Antonio got up off the counter, wrapped his arms around Justin and said "Awww you poor thing, come here, I'll warm you up ..." Antonio put his jacked wrapped, arms around Justin and hugged him until he stopped shivering. In trying to understand the pairing situation of the group, Antonio asked Justin if he had a b/f. Justin pointed over to me and said he's my partner of 7 years. Antonio simply smiled, nodded and said "oh cool, he's cute."
Later as the morning progressed forward, Antonio, Justin and I ended up sitting together on Jerry's couch talking and I'm not sure how the conversation started but someone said something about their type. Justin looked at Antonio and said "honestly, I usually don't go for Latin guys, so you're not normally my type but you're cute" Antonio laughed and said "well honestly, I usually don't go for younger guys either, and your partner is more my type, but when you came into the kitchen shivering I thought you were adorable." I just laughed at them and said "I think you're both cute!" Antonio looked at Justin and I and said "I think you're both cute too!" As it turned out, the interest was mutual on all sides.
As the three of us continued sitting there talking, I decided that I would give Antonio our contact information so that maybe we could hang out sometime. I reached in my pocket, grabbed our personal contact cards, handed them to Antonio and said "You should give Justin and I a call sometime and we should hang out." He looked at me and said "Well what are you guys doing later today?" I just smirked and simply said "You!" We all laughed and the morning progressed from there. I'm sure you can guess how the rest of the day went, so I'll just leave it with that. ;-)
Actually it's been almost a month now that Justin and I have been hanging out with Antonio. He's a super sweet, genuine guy, with a huge heart, a great laugh, and a big smile. It really has been a lot of fun spending time with him and getting to know him better and Justin and I both enjoy the time we get to spend with Antonio these days. When I look back on it, It's really random how we met only just recently because after comparing notes, we realized we have several friends in common, and have been to many of the same events together over the past few years. It's almost strange that we never met before that night at the Monsterball. I suppose timing is everything.
Let's be honest here. I know I've always said I was going to be more open with the details about my life on here, well it doesn't get much more open then this. I know all this may seem overly complicated for an outsider to understand, even my close friends aren't entirely clear as to what's going on here, and for that matter neither are we. Justin and I have had numerous conversations about the implications of all this, and to a certain extent, it's even brought forth issues we've personally never dealt with in our own relationship, which I believe is actually a good thing, because we've now been forced to talk about and hopefully resolve them. The bottom line here is that Justin and I are taking one day at a time right now and simply having fun and enjoying our life together. It's always been my mantra that life is too short so enjoy it while you can, try every new experience, and live it to the fullest. That's exactly what we're doing. Justin and I have opened our minds to new experiences, we communicate and openly talk about things with each other, we're enjoying every minute of our lives and we're happy. Can you really ask for anything more out of life?
Anyway, I just thought I'd give you the background story in case you were wondering why this random person started appearing in our photos. Trust me, there will be more stories to come. Cheers!
