July 16, 2003
Number Three
I met this guy a while ago. He's more of a business colleague than anything else. Every time I see him, he's always dishing some other guy he knows or works with. One day I visited him at his office and he went berserk over a new guy with a darling southern drawl. He just "had" to introduce me to him, and I don't know if he was playing matchmaker or what. After the Southern Belle left, my friend said to me, "Isn't he just the most?" I replied that I thought he was cute, and that was all I said. "Yeah, he's cute. Moving right along..." So I see this friend out at one of the bars on the weekend. He comes over to where I'm standing and whispers, " 'Southern Belle' is here tonight. You should go and talk to him." "Oh that's nice," I said. "You don't like him?" asked my friend. "I don't know him," I said casually. "Do you want to know him? You said he was cute. I can set you up with him if you want," offered my friend. And I'm all, what? So I said he was cute. That doesn't mean I want to fuck him. I mean, really. What is that about? This same friend, when introducing me to the Belle said as an aside that "he's family." "Oh? A brother? A cousin? What?" That whole "we are family" stuff is so I don't even know. I just don't use that word to describe someone who's gay or lesbian. They're "gay" or they're "a lesbian." Whatever.
It just occurred to me that this friend might be recently out of the closet although he's a little bit older than I am. I have to remember that not everyone started cruising guys when they were fifteen. It's no surprise that I should turn out to be so jaded. Perhaps he's having fun flaunting his new-found freedom. It gets to be a little tedious after a while, though. And I'll go back to the old gay hat thing. I'm gay, OK? I've been gay for my whole life. I remember knowing who I was when I was 10. I was lucky to have a supportive and loving family. I was lucky to find supportive friends. I was able to express myself at an early age and learn about my sexuality from real gay people rather than bitter, hackneyed stereotypes that some straight guy in Hollywood thought was a real gay character. [That's not bitter, now, is it?] I was able to become comfortable with who I am in my own time in a safe environment. I was never afraid of being gay. I was never ashamed of being gay. In fact, when I'm reincarnated in the future, I only want to be a gay man, maybe next time living in New York or London from the get-go. So with all of that experience under my belt, I would have to admit that being gay is so old hat to me that I hardly ever notice it, not that you can tell by reading some of this stuff here. But really, it's just part of who I am. I don't feel the need to go out and scream from the top of the mountains that I'm here, I'm queer, etc. In fact, if you can't tell that I'm gay upon meeting me, I'm not going to mention it because it just doesn't matter that much, you know? There is so much more to me than being gay, that I don't find it necessary to even make it a topic of discussion. Like I have here.
