Don't get me wrong; I've never had this many friends, straight or gay, in my life. It would just be nice not to be the Bruce Vilanch of the group. It would be nice for people to realize that my sexuality is more than just a few quips. It would be nice for the guys I'm rooming with to feel comfortable changing their shirts while I'm in the room instead of going into the bathroom.
My sexuality dictates a lot more of who I am than I would ever admit.
I don't know why, but I feel like I'm in blackface half the time--they can set up the joke, I'll supply a punchline that's expected (usually there are more than a few people willing to offer my services to "kiss it and make feel better" or something similar). For a few people it feels like they'll now have something to say when they vote against gay marriage: "Oh, I've nothing wrong with those types of people, I was friends with one in college even, it's just that...."
This hasn't been a new thing, so maybe it's me. I've said similar sentiments before, as I'll show later in the post. I've never had too many friends, and the ones I do have tend to be bisexual girls who conveniently have dated boys regularly, though they are more than willing to make a comment about Angelina Jolie if the timing seems right. I don't remember the last time I had a friend--and I'm talking in real life, not internet--who was gay.
Sure, my roommate last year was gay, but we were roommates and not really friends, and I mostly just tagged along like a sycophantic kid brother. In high school, I had acquaintances who were guys, and the guys my friends dated tended to get along with me, but no one who would hang out with me after school.
You could say that that's one of the reasons why I'm so ingrained in the gay ghetto of the blogging world, that I'm searching for gay male camaraderie that I'm lacking in my real life. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that, but I could see someone's point if they said that about me.
In fact, I think the last gay friend I had was my ex.
For those of you too lazy to read the archives, I'm still kind of/sort of not over him, even though it's been about ten months. I don't really know. We broke up via AIM (not my choice), and each sent an email or two as a postmortem, since it's doubtful that he'll ever see me again. Fortunately, I still have the emails, both the ones he sent, and the ones I sent.
I must thank you not only for being my first boyfriend, but for being my first boy friend as well. Not to delve too deeply into the semantics of the previous sentence, but you were the first person of our gender whom I could consider a friend since sixth grade, if not before. Ever since then, subconsciously I'm assuming, I have failed to procure any friends of my own gender, and even though I fraternized (or sororisized?) mostly with girls before sixth grade, my middle school and high school years are filled to the brim with female friends, from XXX to XXX, XXX to XXX, and similarly minded girls in-between. To be sure, I had male acquaintances, guys with whom I could have a good time occasionally, but these guys were never the kind to call me on the spur of the moment and see a movie or go thrifting. It is for this relationship, the platonic one I forged with you before our relationship, or rather, that we forged together this summer that I thank you first and foremost.
It's his birthday tomorrow. For those of you who've been paying attention, I was born on the day when the bombs dropped on Hiroshima, and he was born on the day the planes crashed into the towers. Maybe we were doomed from the start.
I don't know what the proper protocol is for this sort of thing. I still wear his ring, and I still have all the emails, letters, and gifts he's sent. I don't have his new email or telephone number, and I haven't seen him on AIM since January, which makes it his responsibility to make contact.
For my birthday, he (or someone pretending to be him) left a comment, which was the first time that he made contact in over six months. He didn't leave an email address nor a blog of his own, so I can't respond in kind.
So, if you're still reading this, Happy Birthday, punk.
