Rumor has it!
About a year and a half ago, I made one of the most undertaking decisions of my life. Not only has it been a life-changing experience, but it has also been a fun, educational, and emotional roller coaster. I finally decided to publicly talk about my relationship status and I'm opening up about my engagement.
Being emotionally hurt, sad, and unsure of myself I decided to have a restart in life. I decided to learn to love myself again, evaluate the people around me, and let new things come into my life without a second guess. Not going to lie it took me a few months to get myself comfortable with this new routine. Once I felt comfortable with it I realized it wasn't enough. This is also where I learned to be careful what I wished for. I made the promise to myself to keep myself single until I'm twenty-five, to spend this time focusing on my career, life goals and mostly to understand myself more, of who I am as a person. To make this promise more official I decided to buy myself a ring and wear it on my ring finger on my right hand as a reminder of this promise.
Part of this promise also included embracing my best social qualities, travel as much as possible, re-create and re-brand my businesses and most importantly, no sex for a year. Though the no sex for a year was a bit overdone, I somehow made it through. And I'm very thankful for it because as a gay male, meeting people and making friends, sometimes sex gets involved. Sticking to my promise helped me meet not only the people I call friends today but also help me separate sexual attraction and friendship. Within the first month after making this promise I decided to close my marketing business and focused on re-creating it in a way I would feel more comfortable with it and with the hope for it to be more successful. I also decided to re-brand Javiortiz.com and took on a few new projects which I am currently working on to this day.
After wearing the ring for a few months a lot of people started giving me backlash about it. Some calling it pointless, useless, and the most popular one, a crazy idea. Some assuming I'm married, engaged, or keeping myself exclusive. And to be honest, I am! To myself!
Early this year I was debating about this promise and started to have second guesses about the whole idea of it. After a long photo-shoot, I decided to run over to a social event a close friend of mine was hosting. I normally don't like to wear my ring when it comes to editorials so I leave it at home when I have them. On this day, I wasn't wearing it. At the event, a woman I have never met before in my life held my hand and looked at my fingers. She asked me where my ring was, I was shaking and told her I left it at home. While still holding my hand she told me to never take it off until someone else gives me a new one. She continued asking me questions about the ring and about the way it was designed and engraved. She later continued telling me other things, some of them were things I was highly debating at that time and some were things no one in the world knew about. I couldn't handle the emotion and cried from feeling encouraged.
On the day the photos for this editorial were taken someone took this ring from my finger and threw it off from a rooftop located at the west village in New York City. And yes, I am currently wearing a new ring with a whole new promise, and this time no one will know the real meaning behind it. I am happy with where I am. I am grateful for all the experiences and the encouragement the first ring gave me through that dark stage of my life. Today, I'm looking forward to embracing and challenging myself with this new promise and can't wait to share it with you all one day. Until then I'll be in an open relationship with me, myself, and I!
OUTFIT DETAILS
ASOS Light Grey Blazer 
Polo White Shirt
Zara White Pants
Forever 21 Fedora Hat
ASOS Grey Loafers
Vintage Grey Sunglasses
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