On the streets of Exeter, spontaneous conversations often remind us that people are at the heart of why we are here. In this feature, we connect with Toby to talk about building connections, navigating personal identity, and what brings true vitality to his days.
For Toby, feeling alive is deeply centred around shared time and human relationships:
"Spending time with my friends and family, absolutely and meeting new people and building connections. I think people is what we're put on the earth to spend our time with and that's why I try and pour ourselves."
Opening up about his personal journey, Toby shares the emotional and mental hurdles he faced after coming out, and how he learned to navigate it on his own terms:
"I'm gay so I mean it's very different now but when I came out that was a real struggle for me. And there were a lot of hurdles mentally and emotionally that I had to get over. And I think that made me quite resilient. I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've dealt with... It was meeting the right people at the right time. I felt very pressured internally, but I didn't rush myself into anything and stuff just happened organically. And I told people when it was my time to tell people."
Closing our conversation, Toby shares a powerful and compassionate message for the world:
"Tolerate people. From any angle, tolerance is the most important thing. We're all just human at the end of the day. Get on with your life. Be kind to people, do the best for yourself that you possibly can, but just be considerate of other people. And their lifestyle, their history, their experiences, their problems, their trauma because you don't know what someone's going through or what they've been through."
