Wed Blanket

The talk of the town of late, is the gay marriage of a high profile Lee boy to his vet boyfriend.

The talk of Cape Town, to be precise.

The two had apparently married in South Africa and thrown a wedding party that involved family members.

"It's so romantic," Stanley wrote in our group chat, supplying us photo after photo of the two boys.

"I wanna get married too," our sex bunny friend wrote.

"Who are these? What's happening?" Carl wanted to know.

Carl the dense one wants to know everything - including, recently, why all his Muslim colleagues are skipping lunch and not drinking water for the last couple of weeks.

Expertly ignoring Carl, Stanley went on to describe his ideal gay wedding.

"It will be a three-day affair. It has to be grand. It has to be big," Stanley the size queen said.

Left to his imagination, Stanley would go all out.

This time, he took it out to sea.

"My wedding will be on a yacht. All 20 of my closest gay friends on board."

"There'll be a string quartet, wine buffet and also a massage room - all gay hands on deck."

"It will be the wedding of the century," Stanley said, obviously coming across more as crazy Asian than Crazy Rich Asian.

"Wow, congrats Stan!!!" Carl typed sincerely in the group chat. "When did you meet the guy?! Why didn't you tell us?"

Again ignoring Carl, Stanley went out in full force, describing that his wedding will involve different themes: From a yacht party that allowed us to show off our ribbed bods to a grand dinner at St Regis where we would show off expensive labels.

"I have thought of everything for that special night - from the ballroom to the bedroom," said Stanley, who was suddenly a 16-year-old CHIJ girl who is planning to marry the man of her dreams.

Later in the day, I got round to seriously thinking about gay marriages.

I have long given up on getting married, even though I'm in a very long and stable relationship with J.

Stanley would always say that anything that's long and stable would give him great satisfaction.

I mean, I would love to marry J, but J the pragmatist can sometimes be a realistic wet blanket for me.

Ten years ago, I asked J to buy me a ring.

He looked puzzled and when explained that I want it to be a symbol of our love, he held my hand and said "Our love needs no physical reminder. And if it does, then let this be it", and planted a kiss on my lips.

Okay, he isn't that unromantic but he is indeed very practical.

The next day, J bought me 1,000 file rings - the type where you stick on hole-punched documents and cheekily told me I have more than enough rings in my lifetime.

Five years ago, I asked J for a ring again.

This time, he unwillingly bought me one and said grumpily "I don't know why this is so important to you."

But the man did buy me one, and I happily wear it because every time I look down at the ring, I think of J.

Stanley would later tell me that he also wears a ring - but each time he looks down there, he thinks of many other different men.

But back to reality.

The fact is that J and I have talked about marriage before - and the sad conclusion for me is that we will never get married legally or go into a civil union.

While Stanley and I share the same notions of romance, J is not only practical, but he is also religious.

The good Catholic boy in J has always been struggling with his sexuality and religion.

Stanley once told me that the good Catholic boy in him had also struggled - but with Stanley's guidance, the two later had a very steamy time.

But back to J.

After years of being with him, I know he loves me, and that's the extent of what he can do.

He won't legally marry me because it would make J feel like he'd taken another step of betrayal from his faith.

And I have come to terms with it.

It's not easy, given that I do have friends who're legally married, and they'd ask me when my turn is.

Yes, I get it even from gay friends.

Like my loud, draining friend Sul and his angmoh husband.

The two got married in the UK some two years ago for very practical reasons.

Sul had told me that his angmoh partner once had to be warded, and the homophobic nurse glared at him when Sul said he was his boyfriend.

"That's not next of kin, the fat uptight nurse in that fat uptight dress told me coldly," Sul said to me.

And so, after Sul's angmoh boyfriend was discharged, the two registered their marriage in the UK so that Sul is legally his next of kin.

Then I have friends who would just throw wedding parties with their partners just for the heck of it.

Six years ago, we learnt from our friends' Facebook page that two of our common coupled friends held a small "wedding party" in Bali, where they simply exchanged rings in the presence of many skimpily-dressed gay men.

Today, men can marry legally in Taiwan, South Africa or anywhere in the world that legalises same-sex marriage.

It would be fun to see it happening in Singapore, just so that the gays can for once earn back all their angpaos from their straight friends.

Stanley the calculative immediately said we would then have to give angpaos to both the straight and gay community.

It's not looking good, he said.

I shared my thoughts with J over our weekly Facetime - one of the ways we keep our long-distance relationship alive.

J said that at the end of the day, gay marriage is just a formality.

It's just using legal tender to get legal paper but that means little else compared to the larger scheme of things.

What's more important is that people must learn to not discriminate against the LGBT community first.

If you don't address that very fundamental step, it's no use.

Right now, there is just too little domestic momentum to move us forward to that gay-marriage goal.

Even a simple gathering of Pink Dot can stir up so much controversy.

We will have to work on that first and convince more people to be more accepting before we shove it down their throats.

Stanley was highly impressed with J whom he thought wouldn't think of shoving it down other peoples' throats.

"J should run for office and be a gay MP," Stanley told me.

And just as quickly, "I think I should run for MP."

"I have all it takes - I can multitask (trust me, I have pleased many men at one go), I am capable of raising sensitive stuff, even in Parliament, and if I contact all my One Night Stands since 1996, I will win by a landslide."



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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people