The patron content is only available for patrons of Tale of Men. You can become one here.

Tale of Men project was born out of my passion for photography and storytelling. As it grows, the cost starts to mount. You can help the project stay alive by becoming a patron or purchasing the Tale of Men magazines. Thank you!

The most important thing I learned is to never stop learning.

And that there’s so much more to learn than academics.

Brussels gave me a job, it gave me a chance to discover who I am, it gave me a queer family, it gave me love in so many new forms, it gave me everything I never had and didn’t know I wanted. And yet it fed my depression, it gave me heartbreaks, it gave me the pain of seeing friends leaving, it shook my world apart and 

and that is life, isn’t it? 

I had a modest upbringing and fought my way up winning scholarships and that’s how I got to see the world outside my hometown. I used to like what I could afford and told myself I didn’t like whatever wasn’t in my reach. It was self-defense. I am the product of my environment, and since moving to Brussels I’ve felt free to live so many lives that I’m almost struggling to keep up.

Day after day I lose a piece of my armour and take a step in a new direction with a little less fear and a little more confidence.

And that’s exactly the life I want right now.

There have been plenty of experiences that broke my certainties, one of them happened in a darkroom. I had only been in the party scene for a few months. I never enjoyed partying when I was younger – but back then I hadn’t known any queer parties, I didn’t know other gay people. That night, it just so happened that I met someone on the dancefloor, and something clicked. I learned what it meant to feel desired. He brought me to the darkroom, I barely knew what that was. Yes, I was open minded, yes, I was open to discovering, yet I was partly still prejudiced toward the whole idea.

Even after decades, the Catholic guilt is hard to suppress at times. The thing is, I can’t forget that night. It was the night where I found out for the first time a more submissive side of myself. It was a night full of erotism. That night, I discovered how many things can happen in a darkroom, including the longest hugs. It was a night of bondage and slaps, but it was also a night of cuddles. I felt safe. Later on, I felt a bit all over the place emotionally – but the highs come with the lows, and I’ve been learning to handle those feelings because they make this life worth living.

A life of kindness. A life of dancing. A life of empathy, of ecstasy and euphoria. A life of first times, so many first times. Biking through the park. Kissing boys on a night out. Taking a walk on the beach in winter. Going home with a couple. Swimming in a lake. Hugging in a darkroom. Shifting the whole meaning of love and friendship to accommodate whatever feels right. There are no templates, there’s no one way to define anything, labels are there to help those who need them but won’t restrict the nature of human relationships. I am living.

SEE MORE PATRON CONTENT: DOMENICO

The patron content is only available for patrons of Tale of Men. You can become one here.

Tale of Men project was born out of my passion for photography and storytelling. As it grows, the cost starts to mount. You can help the project stay alive by becoming a patron or purchasing the Tale of Men magazines. Thank you!

Sometimes I feel like I’m living two lives. One in Brussels, where I moved almost five years ago with the thought that it would be only for a moment, just a step in a five-year plan before returning to Finland. And the other in my hometown, which feels both familiar and distant at the same time. I didn’t imagine that Brussels would hold me for this long, yet here I am, not ready to leave.

Whenever I go back to my hometown – twice a year at the height of summer and winter – I fall into a rhythm that feels both comforting and strange. My family and friends insist that everything has remained the same, but I see new buildings, new chapters in their lives, and new faces (in Grindr too). It always surprised me how they claim things are unchanged while life clearly moves on. And then I wonder what changes in my life go unnoticed, blurred by the constant movement between two places?

As a gay man, I am familiar with being in between, this liminal space where you’re never one thing or another, never fully fitting into the expectations people set for you. I’ve made peace with that, but its legacy has made me creative. Lately I realize more ways I hold myself back, traps that fool me repeatedly and new masks of my own making.

At my new workplace last year, I built a new identity for myself. A professional, credible man in the corporate world. It worked for a while since I had a sense of importance and stability, but I also feel like I forced myself to another mask, hiding behind it and giving way too much of myself to one direction. My ego wants to hold onto masks. But it’s also blinding me from what else could be possible if I would let down my cover and look around. I would like to be more abundant: not only the work persona, but a loved one and giver.

I’m trying now not only to live in between place, but myself and my many variations. To let go of the stubborn need for control over who I should be. To give room for other sides of myself to manifest in the moment, naturally. To redirect myself more of towards things that I hold dear like community and connection. It’s not easy but maybe there are more possibilities to do so than I dared to notice.

SEE MORE PATRON CONTENT: VILLE

The patron content is only available for patrons of Tale of Men. You can become one here.

Tale of Men project was born out of my passion for photography and storytelling. As it grows, the cost starts to mount. You can help the project stay alive by becoming a patron or purchasing the Tale of Men magazines. Thank you!

I was born in 1981, in a city in what was then East Germany. From the beginning, I was a quiet, introverted child — someone who preferred to observe rather than to be seen. I always felt a little out of step with the world around me. When the Wall fell and Germany reunified, it was supposed to be a time of hope. But for my family, it was the start of something else — something harder. My parents struggled to find their footing in the new world, and as they lost their way, I lost almost everything I had known. Stability, security, even a clear sense of home — they all slipped through my fingers.

At school, I became the “poor, weird kid,” the outsider. Children can be cruel, and their words left marks that time hasn’t completely erased. To this day, I still carry the scars of feeling not good enough, not wanted, not seen. As I grew older, I had to face another part of myself: I was gay. In a perfect world, that would have been just another detail about who I was. But in reality, even within the LGBTQ+ community, I often felt judged — not enough, not pretty enough, not loud or perfect enough for a world that sometimes seems obsessed with appearances.

And yet, despite everything, I kept moving forward. It wasn’t easy. There were setbacks, doubts, dark nights where I questioned if I was ever really going to find my place. Somehow, I built a life — piece by piece, step by step. Today, I stand on my own two feet. I travel the world, I celebrate life, I dance under city lights, and yes — in true cliché fashion — I love to party.

Still, self-confidence is something I haven’t fully mastered. Doubts linger, and sometimes my shyness and insecurity create a distance that I don’t mean to put there. I know I can come across as reserved, maybe even cold — but the truth is, I feel deeply. I care deeply. I don’t always have all the answers. I don’t always move through life with boldness or certainty. But every day, I try — to be kind, to be open, to live honestly. And maybe that’s enough: to keep showing up with a good heart, even when it’s hard.

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It was just another ordinary day. A slightly warm 25 degrees, a gentle breeze blowing, the sunlight bright but not blinding. I had a shift from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., preparing ingredients, mixing drinks, greeting customers—just like always. Everyone was busy with their own lives, and so was I.

After work, as usual, I went to the gym. It’s the only place in my life where I still feel I can keep control of my own rhythm. The treadmill, dumbbells, squat rack—these systematic workouts help me maintain balance amid the chaos.

I walked into the shower. Hot water flowed down, washing away sweat and exhaustion. Just as I was about to leave, the door was pulled open. I didn’t even have time to react, hadn’t even turned off the water. It was a blurry, broken moment—time froze, sounds disappeared, and every inch of skin suddenly felt unfamiliar, no longer belonging to me.

I put on my jacket, covering the swollen marks left by the resistance band. I put on a mask, hiding the redness of pimples around my mouth. These are all things that can reasonably exist in everyday life—no one would ask questions. As I left, I still said “Thanks, bye” to the front desk staff, my tone steady, as if nothing had happened.

I rode my scooter from Yonghe, heading north, all the way to the unlit coastline. Out there it was so quiet, it didn’t feel like the real world. I sat by the shore; the wind was gentle, there was no rain. But I heard “raindrops,” one by one. They weren’t falling from the sky—they were falling from inside me. I thought, maybe that’s the only sound I can make—unseen crying, a pain I dare not admit.

On May 12, I went to the hospital. I said I’d had sex and forgot to use protection. The doctor didn’t ask much, just prescribed PEP. I nodded, thanked him, took the medicine—like a responsible adult. This way, I could convince myself it was just a risky sexual encounter, not some kind of trauma. As long as I don’t say it out loud, as long as I don’t admit it, then it’s just an unpleasant event, nothing more.

I went back to work—preparing ingredients, mixing drinks, greeting customers. After my shift, I went to a friend’s bar, drank with them until midnight, laughing and having fun, as if the world had no cracks in it. I told myself: as long as I look normal, as long as I smile naturally, no one will suspect what happened yesterday. That way, I’m not a sexual assault survivor, but just a normal person who had an unfortunate sexual experience.

SEE MORE PATRON CONTENT: JIM

The patron content is only available for patrons of Tale of Men. You can become one here.

Tale of Men project was born out of my passion for photography and storytelling. As it grows, the cost starts to mount. You can help the project stay alive by becoming a patron or purchasing the Tale of Men magazines. Thank you!