The Gay Talking Heads

"I didn't have any gay friends in high school, only until I got here that I..."
"HAHA he's such a fruitcake..."
"My gay friend..."

On just this one night, I heard these half-sentences being tossed through my university's dining hall. And each conversation started sounding more appetizing than that chicken sandwich from the newly renovated burger stand. These exciting eavesdropped developments couldn't get any juicier! How are the gays (just me) at my school containing their joy, we have gotten what we always wanted- awareness! I do prefer praise and adulation over notoriety and derogatory remarks, but change is change and at least half of change is progress right? We're actually getting talked about now, the hot topic that could last a week, month, year!?

But where are all these repudiated gay guys at my school? Everywhere it seems! It's as if I was stricken by temporary blindness and rediscovered sociology in the recovery process. Before I get ahead of myself though, I realized lately that I have been noticing more guys that flaunt their hands when they talk and some others that walk so horizontally as if they had the legs of a flamingo. Good for them for not walking like the rest of us.

Though the icing on the cake came when I witnessed an immensely long (5 seconds) embrace by two guys right there packed. At that point, I believe I double-backed away from my destination then proceeded to walk around a half circle two too many times eying them the whole time until finally I was blocked by a road obstruction in the form of some human girl. There I stood as if I was one of the salad bar customers which has never happened before. I was so out of place there that I was able to shake myself out of my own self-induced gay trance.

I tried my best to think of something convincing, "No Kris, they are just REALLY good friends. Yea, definitely." (I believed myself since I've never invested in a gaydar of my own) But even without a pair of antennas, I could feel something different from what was seemingly any simple hug between dudes. Loneliness has worked great at sharpening my hypersensitivity to these things and my paranoia.

After tonight's events I couldn't help, but start putting any people setting off my tingling senses even slightly in the same square. My T.A. suddenly looks gay now and this German classmate that I often feel stern stares from is probably gay too, and this friend of min... though I better quit while I'm ahead.

Despite being nearly overloaded by gay stimuli, after living out a few more hours of my life, the familiar and the mundane slowly intruded back into my routines. My discrete math test is still on Thursday. My resume lays there as blank as three months ago. The street I walk back every night is just as empty. So actually where are all the gay guys here? Maybe sitting on that rising horizon, the one that never gets any closer.

Photograph by Kris Hoet

Just Go

So the thing is, I'm not really important. I'm gay, have mediocre grades, unmotivated to say the least, and in general lazy about everything. I'm nothing much, so it's ok that when you need me, I'm there and when I need you, you don't have to be. I've been shrugging off the times you come and go and don't say a word to me. But even if I'm average at best, you're a selfish prick at the least. It's fun to play computer games and basketball with all these other friends, right? I guess I never fit into your scheme of how friendship should be, so us being friends almost feels like an inconvenience. And it's because of my low self-esteem that sometimes I believe that I'm the one who wronged you. Although, by the second time I think about it, it's clear that you're the one not trying. You're the only person that I've ever told I'm gay, and all you can cry to me about is how you've lost your love. Wallow in your self-pity as I do, but I know what a meaningless path that leads to. But you know, at least you got to experience love, do you know what 10 years of lonliness feels like? I can basically summarize it for you as one of the most crippling, self-loathing aspects I have about myself. Feeling empty in my soul and cramping over a pit in my stomach truly tests my daily endurance. You don't need to question me on my love life, but if you really cared, you could at least have mentioned it. If I'm the only friend a friend of mine has told his or her life secret to, I know I would have the sympathy to talk to them about it time to time. I almost regret telling you I'm gay because I would not have the expectation of thinking that I actually have a friend that I can talk to.

Since I purposely tried to keep a distance from you so these type of incidents that wouldn't happen that are happening now, wouldn't pain me like how I predicted. I'm not strong enough to keep a lukewarm friend like you that will one day eventually leave. No one can have everything so stop putting forth different fronts to other people and make a choice- the one that doesn't include me. I already know oh so well that when the time comes you won't stand by me and it is just as well that I can't tolerate those who will throw me away at their own convenience. I'm trying to live by the adage “Life is too short, so love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't”. Perhaps just as wise though is something that you said so yourself "It hurts to know someone that made you think that you were important to them, thinks nothing much of you now." And both are absolutely right.