Throughout my life, I’ve had two big moments of asking myself “why do you make things difficult for yourself?” and they both ended up with positive outcomes. I also have daily smaller moments where I think that, like today when I wiped out Android on my smartphone and installed GrapheneOS instead. When I tried to install Grindr and I couldn’t, and I installed Tinder but couldn’t get the location to work, I thought “there goes my love life, why couldn’t you just stay on regular Android?” I guess I’ll make it work somehow in the end because I’m stubborn with technology and don’t rest until I solve an issue. There’s Tinder for web browsers, which is actually a very nice experience and only requires receiving an SMS for verification. I used that in 2020-2021, the period when I’ve used a feature phone more often, instead of a smartphone. And if I wanted to use my most hated app, Grindr, because I reeeally needed a stranger with no profile pic to send me unsolicited nudes as a way to open a conversation, I still can use the iPad version. Maybe this will still have a positive outcome if I try harder to convince my friends to go to LGBTIQ+ bars and just meet new people in person, which is my preferred way.
The first of the two big “making things difficult for myself” moments was when I started my Erasmus year in Weimar. I got there at night, with a night booked at a hostel, the little German I had taught myself during the summer, and no reply from the student residence I had been trying to get into. I lay in the bunk bed to sleep and started thinking how much easier I would have had it if I had stayed in Granada. My classmates who stayed in Spain didn’t have to adapt to a new studies system and deal with as much bureaucracy as I was. They just had to continue their Art studies, from the 2nd year to the 3rd, in a smooth transition.
Many life-changing moments like that begin by just filling out a form. At the beginning of the year, I filled out a form to apply for the Erasmus program because, why not? At the top of my list of preferred destinations, I wrote the three German options in this order: Weimar, because I thought it’d be cool to have “Bauhaus Universität” on my résumé, then Halle and Munich. After those, the destinations in Italy, Greece, and the UK. I got selected to study in Weimar and it ended up being my best year as a student, both socially and academically, with a reignited passion for art. Coming back to Granada after that year was a letdown.
The other moment was when I arrived to Dubai in October 2015. The previous Christmas, when I was working as a waiter in a restaurant, I met a friend from high school who was working as a flight attendant. When I mentioned I had always been curious to try to become one, just as I’ve been curious about being a barber or a firefighter but moved away from those ideas, she insisted I should go for it because she could totally see me doing that. I let the idea rest and eventually wrote a list of options with what I found out were the best airlines, reaching for the moon again, with that Emirati airline on top.
Just like the Erasmus year, this experience started with an application. When I was called for the group selection process, I thought “well, now I guess I’ll have to go.” And when I passed, “I guess I’ll have to go to the individual job interview.” And when they phoned to tell me I was selected, “well, I guess I have to move to Dubai.” It’s always like I’m dealing with the consequences of the decisions a previous version of myself took, and I don’t want to disappoint him and say no, so I just go with this snowball effect.
From the job interview to the day we got to Dubai, 6 months had passed for the guys and 3 for the girls. As soon as I landed and got to my accommodation provided by the company, knowing already that it was farther from the city than the airport itself, I thought “what the hell have you done to yourself, Carlos?” The view during the bus ride confirmed what I had suspected from checking the city on Google Maps: that it was designed for cars only. And after my whole life in Europe, where I just walked or went everywhere on my bicycle, it was depressing.
The undeniable good side of those 4 years is that I got to travel to places I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Yes, it’s not like being on a holiday because you arrived at the destinations tired, with just 24 hours between the landing and the next takeoff, so you just dealt with jet lag however you could, slept what you could at the hotel and tried to find some hours to explore the city. But I still feel very lucky and privileged that I got to do that, and I learned to focus on the positive aspects of that job.
My social life in Dubai took a while to take off. For the first 10 months, even though I had a couple of friends, also cabin crew, I felt very lonely because our work schedules and free days didn’t sync enough for us to meet often. And I felt like I didn’t deserve to complain about being lonely because I had a cool job and was visiting amazing places. I don’t relate happiness with being in a relationship, but in those years, things started to get better when I met the first of the two boyfriends I had.
I consider those two periods of time, Germany and the UAE, very defining in my life, and a boost in self-confidence and being able to overcome difficulties. Now that I’m in Spain working as a substitute teacher, I remember those moments, but on a much smaller scale, when I’m called to work in a new school and feel insecure about my worth as a teacher. Or when I feel that I could have an easier, more stable life with a different job. I do like making things easy for myself and I think I’m somewhat lazy. It’s just that curiosity often leads me to a place where I end up in trouble, but at least I end up with stories to tell.
Links:
We need to talk about how Grindr is affecting gay men’s mental health
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/4/17177058/grindr-gay-men-mental-health-psychiatrist
GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org