Drew Gilbert

When you’re interested in someone, you usually start asking questions.

When you’re not interested, you start explaining your schedule.

Recently, more guys have been taking their shot in my DMs.

Which is fine.

I don’t always understand it personally, but I can’t tell people how to feel or how to act.

All I ask is that people respect my boundaries.

Most do.

Every now and then though, I get someone who is convinced they can change my mind.

They tell me how great we’d be together.

How much fun we’d have.

How hard they’d cuddle me.

How they’d take me to dinner.

How I’d be missing out.

The thing is…

If I ever date again, it won’t be because someone convinced me.

It’ll be because life naturally put the right person in front of me at the right time.

No sales pitch required.

Right now, I already have three full-time jobs.

DJing is a full-time job.

UPS is a full-time job.

And believe it or not, this page is a full-time job too.

Last week alone I spent over 40 hours writing posts, replying to comments, answering messages, and trying to be the best Emotional Support Dad I can be.

I’m not complaining.

I’m explaining.

Because a relationship isn’t something you squeeze into the cracks of your day.

A good relationship requires time.

Attention.

Communication.

Compromise.

Presence.

Showing up.

Making room for another person’s needs alongside your own.

That’s not a part-time commitment.

That’s another full-time job.

And if I ever do it again, I want to do it right.

The truth is, after four years of being single, I’ve built a life that works.

My routines work.

My schedule works.

My priorities work.

I don’t answer to anyone except myself, Pooh, and Mr. Bueller.

So if someone ever manages to sneak past all those defenses and into my life, it’ll probably come as a surprise to me too.

Because it won’t happen through persistence.

It won’t happen through convincing.

It’ll happen because one day I stop explaining my schedule…

and start asking questions.

❤️

Drew Does Dallas

IF I DID THIS WITH MY BELIEFS YOU’D TELL ME TO SHUT THE F*CK UP

Can we talk about how socially acceptable it still is to force religion onto strangers in public?

If I’m on a train, at a grocery store, walking down the street… I should be able to exist without being cornered into someone else’s sermon.

And somehow if you say “please don’t preach at me,” you’re the rude one.

Meanwhile if I stood there explaining my beliefs for an hour to a captive audience who didn’t ask… people would tell me to shut the f**k up immediately.

If I stood there preaching the “Gospel of Jesus Christ and Dark Room Saints” to strangers on the train or outside a grocery store, people would lose their minds.

But somehow this is socially acceptable.

Believe whatever brings you peace.

Pray.
Go to church.
Read scripture.
Light candles.
Talk to God.

I genuinely don’t care.

But once it becomes talking at strangers who didn’t ask to be part of it, it stops being faith and starts becoming entitlement.

Not everyone shares your beliefs.

And that should be okay.

Today a woman preached on the train for an hour so loud I could hear her over my audiobook.

An hour.

Last week a guy approached me at the bus stop to, get this… preach the word of Trump.

He tried handing me a pamphlet with the Constitution on one side, the Ten Commandments on the other, and a picture of Trump on it.

I did not take it.

I don’t validate that s**t.

I told him politely to stop.

Then I said, “Matthew 6:5.”

He looked at me and asked, “Are you a believer?”

I smiled and said, “No.”

He said, “Enlighten me. I’m not familiar.”

Figured you don’t.

And I said, “Of course. That’s the verse where Jesus says not to flaunt your faith publicly and not to pray on the street to be seen by others. To keep your faith between you and God.”

He replied with John 3:18, which basically says:

Whoever believes in Jesus is saved. Whoever does not believe is already condemned.

Basically…

Believe what I believe… or you’re damned.

Then he looked at me and said,

“I feel sorry for you.”

And I smiled back and said,

“You’re trying to control me with fear.”

Because that’s exactly what it was.

Fear.

Believe this or else.

Follow this or else.

Submit or else.

And when that doesn’t work… pity.

Again he said,

“I feel sorry for you.”

And all I said was:

Bubs, I’m not the one standing at a bus stop preaching to a gay guy who didn’t ask for any of this and somehow knows more about your own book than you do.

He made the sign of the cross and said,

“God bless you.”

I told him to shove his blessings. I don’t want them. I don’t need them.

And to have the day he deserved.

That’s trash behavior.

Walking around telling strangers they’re condemned.

Telling people they need saving.

Telling people what your God thinks of them.

I get that some of you believe you’re helping.

I really do.

But a lot of the time it doesn’t feel like helping.

It feels like validation-seeking.

Like if enough people agree with what you believe, then somehow it proves you’re right.

I tried Christianity once.

It wasn’t for me.

And honestly I haven’t felt that judged since I had my blood family in my life.

What a horrible way to live.

The amount of judgment I experienced during my brief religious phase was unreal.

And the contradictions never end.

One verse contradicts another.

Rules get cherry-picked depending on what’s convenient.

People follow the parts that benefit them and ignore the parts that don’t.

Circular logic.

Mental gymnastics.

Over and over.

These same people wanted the Ten Commandments displayed in schools.

People like Ken Paxton fought hard for that.

Meanwhile he’s in the middle of a divorce after multiple affairs and has faced allegations involving taxpayer money.

But that’s okay somehow.

That’s the cherry-picking.

Rules for thee.

Not for me.

Wild how I’m expected to follow rules that don’t even apply to me while the people shouting the loudest seem free to ignore the ones they claim matter most.

I actually respect Christians who keep their faith personal.

The Matthew 6:5 Christians.

The ones who live it quietly without forcing it onto everyone around them.

But there don’t seem to be many of those left.

Because what I mostly see is crosses as jewelry.

Crosses on shirts.

Crosses on bumper stickers.

Jesus fish on cars.

Bible verses in bios.

Faith everywhere…

except in the actual behavior.

Believe whatever you want.

Seriously.

But leave strangers alone.

❤️
Drew Does Dallas
Philosophy by Drew