Asia's Most Hyperactive Gay Boy™ Grows Up

Hello, Friends!

I'm saying goodbye to twink-hood.

This is embarrassing. After all, one's legit claim to twink-hood ends as soon as one starts shaving.

These days, my face looks as though I'm in a prolonged state of hangover. My skin is coarser; my Gilette Mach 3 doesn't glide as easily as it used to. And my chest - for years, my source of pride - is ready to concede to gravity. I've started developing eye bags, too. Is this karma for laughing at my partner Chris' religious eye cream ritual?

Age makes everything droopy.

My waistline is growing directly proportional to my age. None of my pants fit anymore. I had to start borrowing Chris' trousers. And then those got too tight, too.

Age is the belt that keeps me on perpetual inhale, never exhale.

I had a long, hard look at my wardrobe.

I'm still wearing the same stuff from almost six years ago. The infamous shirts with the plunging neckline, which I have in all three colours (black, white and pink), purchased back when Ksubi still used to be known as Tsubi...

The first-ever pair of Diesel jeans I bought with my Disney paycheque - my one and only pair, coz they cost HKD1,700 back then. I felt so high after the purchase, I got properly scared I'd get addicted if I purchased another.

They're now threadbare, ripped, patched up by a tailor in North Point, ripped again... They still fit okay, but I've completely worn them out. Plus, I used to be able to go commando in these jeans. Not anymore, coz the rips in the crotch would expose my nuts to a horrified public.

I once thought these track jackets looked stylish. Now, they just look like Sue Sylvester.

These canvas-and-leather wingtips, also from Diesel (I know), once I thought looked cool. Now, they just look desperate.

I'm pushing 30.

This realization was just the kind of cold shower I needed when the temperature dips to 5 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, Chris had already sent a notice to our landlord that we'd be leaving our Sheung Wan flat by end-February. That means we have to move out - no if's, and's, or but's.

My Disney-twink clothes fit no more; my twink lifestyle is nonexistent; I need a drastic change.

My wardrobe was the easiest target. For a while now - like, for the past 3 years - my age-inappropriate clothes were, well, inappropriate. "Button up," Johannes would snap at me at parties. And when I wouldn't, he'd march straight up to me and button my shirt up, himself.

So I decided not to wait for a bitch-please moment.

I went shopping.

***

Causeway Bay was still my haunt of choice, but no longer Fashion Walk. I've grown more pragmatic to know better than blow my wad on the usual cK and RL and A|X. Besides, if I did that, it'd take me another six years to refresh my wardrobe.

So I marched to Jardine's Crescent in search for a new kind of man.

I threw twinky out the window. Instead, I embraced... paisley. 

I discovered G2000.

 

And true enough, I picked up four shirts and a pair of trousers - and later, even a new pair of glasses (unbranded; hand-made acetate frames from Japan, the shopkeeper assured me) - all for under HKD2,000.

"Adult James" is "Bargain James."

Asia's Most Hyperactive Gay Boy™ grows up.

And he's cheap and cheerful.

Good morning, world.

I'm James Gannaban, and I'm Asia's Most Hyperactive Gay Boy™!

With Affection,

James