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