Tolerate Me

The following is a modification of, and inspiration from, a conversation that I had with one of the friends I’ve made since starting this little enterprise. To that friend (you know who you are) I say thank you for provoking my thoughts.

Intolerance. We’ve all seen it. There are those implacably intransigent souls who just can’t live and let live. They’re the ones that you think about while lying awake at night because you know they wouldn’t think of you the same way if they knew the real you. They’re the ones that for whom equality isn’t enough. Don’t worry, you’re not reading the ravings of an idealist. I’m a pragmatist, a product of my experiences. These days you’ll have a lot less to complain about if you only expect so much. Not to say that it necessarily should be that way, or always will be, but it is what it is. That’s why I’m a pragmatist and not a realist, because I’m not without hope, I just take it in smaller doses. This also applies to intolerance. You don’t even need to be happy about who I am, I just don’t want you to make me feel bad about it. You don’t have to give me a big hug and say how much you love me, you only have to tolerate me. That’s it. You do have a right to be disappointed (No, you’re never going to have a daughter in-law. No, you’re never going to have a sister in-law. No, I won’t go out and hit on girls with you. No, my heart was never actually in it. No, we never had a chance. Yes, I lied to you) but just don’t be disappointed IN ME. I am who I am, no more and no less. So if you can’t tolerate the real me then you can hit the bricks.

It was last semester that I had my first real run in with malevolent intolerance. After a late night I come back to find the roommate chatting with one of his friends. Before going on, there should be a caveat about my roommate. He is a nice enough guy, he’s not a bad person, I think he’s just equal parts naive and nescient. Anyway, they had obviously been smoking, and I don’t mean cigarettes. Doing my own thing I hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation until someone said, “faggot.” Long story short the roommate said that he would never have a gay son and if he did he would have to ‘beat it out of him’. Mortified. I almost didn’t even sleep that night. Incidents like that are what make me wonder if it’s a mistake coming out. It’s like those times that you’re in a crowded situation and you hear the word ‘faggot’ or a similar slur. All of the sudden you feel like you’re wearing that scarlet letter on your chest, you’re only inches tall, and everyone is looking at you like you’re the punchline of some sick joke. Intolerance. There’s the bullying that happens everyday in schools, these modern day witch hunts that beget hatred and fear. They have taken countless lives and threaten to take more. Intolerance. A few years ago in my high school years a particularly religious gentleman in my grade said in class that being gay was a disease and needed to be cured. We were nothing but polite and even partnered up for projects sometimes, but I know that if he knew, I would have been dead to him. Intolerance.

Why would come out to a world that’s not even ready for me? Because I have to. Those who know me well could tell you that I’m not the kind of guy that will take grief from anyone. The “straight” me would never put up with this, so why should the real me? The “straight” me would never let anyone treat him any less than he deserves, so why should I? I need to shrug off this un-empowered feeling and go ballistic. I have to do my part. This is where that pragmatism rather than realism comes in. I realize that I can’t be the single driving force against intolerance, but I’m sure I can change something. Some plans have been made, and I’ve already been taking strides. The two people I’ve come out to since starting all of this have been great and I think they’re a bit more open minded for it. It’s an uphill battle against intolerance and it’s going to take time. But I know I’m on the right team, and I’m ready to do my part. There’s a lesson I thankfully learned early on, though lately I seem to have forgotten it, and I wish more people knew. Don’t ever let other people tell you who you are, or especially who you aren’t. You are you. Wear your stripes proudly, my friends. The next time you think about changing your stripes for someone else remember, the stripes on a tiger are hard to change.

I’m going to preface this post with an apology. It’s probably just me but I’ve been pressuring myself to get something up here for the last few days and it’s been something on my mind so I feel like this should have been done days ago. Hopefully I’ll follow through this time because I drove myself up here to middle of nowhere so that I would be more committed. It’s somewhere in the 40s right now and I’m sitting on the roof of my car. Hopefully I don’t get writer’s block because I don’t think it’s getting any warmer. So here we are, I guess I probably owe you guys a real post about now, eh? There’s really not much to tell, you guys have probably heard this story more times than your favorite bedtime story (I’ll skip the ‘once upon a time’). Besides, most of you have probably lived it in your own way. Anyway, here goes nothing. There was always that voice in the back of my mind telling me I was a just little different. Well I mean besides that, “You’re different and unique, like a snowflake” type of thing you’re told as a child. I guess that’s what I believed for the first while, up until when I knew better. Well Santa Claus and the Easter bunny went away and the divide between between what I thought of myself and what I thought was normal kept growing. It was an itch I couldn’t scratch, a thirst I couldn’t quench: that thought that everyone around me was somehow not quite the same. I had no baseline for normal because I wasn’t sure if I was another average kid. It wasn’t something I was worried about, I never felt like anyone thought I was different, it was just a curiosity. Sometimes I would jokingly think that I was in some kind of elaborate experiment or joke and that at any minute the curtain would roll back and there would be people in lab coats or an audience congratulating me. Alas, no (or at least not yet). Truth be told I had a pretty decent adolescence. I was extremely fortunate and never had the problems that many others had. Of course there were bumps in the road here and there. Among a few other things I had one of those ‘misunderstood’ phases a long while back. But with age comes a measure of maturity and I realize now how bad some others have had it growing up and that I had plenty to be thankful for. I might not have been the captain of the football team, I wasn’t first in my class, I never really sat with the ‘cool kids’ on the bus, and I didn’t drive the fastest car on the lot. But I’ve never had to worry for my personal safety, I’ve got a solid family, I’ve never lacked for friends, I’ve never even had a hard time finding a date for prom (though that’s an awkward story for another time). Anyway, sometime in my early teen years I began to get suspicions as to what was different about me. I had all the usual delusions and a few others: “It’s just a phase.” “This is all in my mind, I’d never act on these thoughts.” “Gay people are a myth, they’re only in the movies.” “If I don’t think about it maybe it’ll go away.” So there I was for a few more years. I tried not to dwell on it and continued to beguile myself into thinking that I was just being crazy and that I would ‘get better’ eventually. Well ladies and gentlemen (spoiler alert), in this case at least, it didn’t get better. It took until about sometime before my senior year of high school to even allow myself to think about this rationally. There came a day I decided to entertain the notion that this was more than just fantasy. I thought maybe that if I said it out loud, so it wasn’t all in my head, it’d be clearer. All alone I took a breath and muttered those words to myself, “I’m gay.” Then. The point that I knew absolutely, was right then. I’m not really sure what happened, the words felt clumsy and almost vulgar but I knew they meant a lot more than what two words usually mean. It’s those words that struck a chord deep inside me. It’s those words that would be with me for the rest of my life. I made up my mind to do nothing for the time being. I didn’t really want a relationship, especially then. I’m a pretty independent and not really a lovey dovey kind of guy (I didn’t even like to be held as a baby). Not needing anyone certainly makes life less complicated. So I went through my senior year, secrets held close, and had a lot of fun. Fast forward to college. Ups and downs, freedom, lessons learned, new experiences, responsibility, knowledge gained, etc. It was all magnificent and uneventful up until the Sunday before finals week last semester. One of my facebook friends posted a link to the video of Jonah Mowry responding to bullies. I watched it, and it was really touching. As with most videos, if I like them I’ll surf some of the similar videos or search for some. Hop, skip, and a jump later and I’m at the video of Randy coming out to his father. Blam. I watch all of his videos, and a second time. Before I saw those videos I had hardly even considered coming out, then all of the sudden it was on my mind all the time. It’s hard to explain, I don’t know why I feel the need to come out to anyone right now. I'm not sure what my next step is going to be at the moment, knowing me probably trip and fall on my face. I'm happy right now, and things are going great. I can hardly imagine being happier and I would hate to throw a wrench in the gears of what I've got going right now. I can't be brazen, I'm going to do my homework on this one. I've got a little something planned for the future, a trial run if you will. Stay tuned is what I’m saying for now.

It's time to call it on this one, my fingers are cold and it's getting hard to type. I did warn you that you'd heard this one before. If I didn’t bore you to death then I hope that at least you feel a little less alone now. I said I wouldn't start this with 'once upon a time' but maybe one of these days we'll all be able to have a 'happily ever after'. Be careful out there and remember, the stripes on a tiger are hard to change.

Here Goes Nothing

     Isn't it odd? I thought I was a relatively fearless guy. But at this moment, while writing this I'm practically shaking. The really odd thing though is that I don't even know why I'm like this. I'm confident nobody I know will relate this little venture to me. I'll tell you a secret, my name isn't even Paul. Even if someone did find this, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm happy with who I am and it might even be an easier way to go about this. All I would have to do is be there and say, "Guilty, the cat's out of the bag." But that's just it, I wouldn't feel guilty for being me, I would feel guilty that I had let anyone find out like that. When it's time I'd rather go with the, 'Hey there's something you don't know about me.' approach rather than the, 'Oh that? Yeah...' approach. But why am I shaking? I guess it's a little weird to be sharing this at all, even with people that are at the moment strangers. It had to come to this eventually I guess, journeys starting with single steps and all that. You can chalk it up to nerves I guess. There's something really intimidating about the unknown and I guess that's what this really is, an experiment with unknown results. I'm not sure where this is going to go from here, or how it even started. All I know is that I would be glad to have you with me if you want to follow along. You're reading the thoughts of someone who is... a little different, but the stripes on a tiger are hard to change.