It’s funny how you can be in a good mood (relatively) one moment and then pissed the next. I just sat down at the coffee shop and checked my email, like my morning routine says that I must, before I started writing. I had an email from a new friend that was saying how my teasing him had hurt his feeling and made him feel unvalued. Typically, I pride myself on being able to read people and know who can and who can’t take my sarcasm. However, when I meet someone and they are instantly sarcastic and give me a hard time, I like those people. Likewise, I assume if they can dish it out, they can take it. It seems in this case I was wrong. It gets under my skin when people feel I am insensitive and that I am not thinking about their feelings. However, I guess I should be less sensitive and just say, ‘screw ‘em.’ How’s that for venting. Shesh.
Last night, I went to the Bible study with P, C, and S R-L. It was great to see them, as always. For part of the study, the larger group splits off into groups of three or four to work on certain things together. Previously, I had stayed with either P, C, or both. Last night, two men asked me to join their group, and hesitantly, I accepted. It was an odd experience. One I hadn’t had in a long time. One I thought I didn’t really have an issue with any longer. So much for being self-aware. Both men were married and good-looking, and as soon as we started talking, I felt myself shy away and enter my shell. I wasn’t aware how much I rely on other gay men or women as my safety blanket around straight men that I don’t know.
I didn’t feel unsafe or judged. Although they don’t know I’m gay, as far as I know, but I didn’t feel like I could be me or speak what was on my heart and mind. What is also strange, is that I went through a period when I was ‘coming out’ where being gay consumed everything that I was. I felt like I had moved way past that, where being gay was the same as being a guy, being short, being whatever—an integral part of me, but not all of what I am. Last night, without telling them who I am, it felt like that was all I was. It was nearly impossible to talk about the issue at hand and not incorporate personal aspects of my life, which obviously have a slight gay tinge (slight—right…). Of course, I could have just told them and moved on from there, but then the conversation goes one of two ways: they are no longer comfortable and shut down themselves or the focus becomes me being gay and what’s that like—neither of which I did I want. I have gotten so used to everyone knowing, that I can just talk and be open. I don’t really even remember the last time I felt the need to tell someone. I also didn’t realize how much of an issue with straight men I still have, how much it would have changed the dynamics if a woman had been present. Even as they spoke, I could understand them, but they were so other than me—women are too a lot of the time, but I can relate more to their way of thinking, even if it doesn’t match my own.
I wasn’t scared or shame filled, nor did I feel guilty for my reaction to the men. I was simply taken aback by my reaction to them and curious as to how (if at all) this might continue to reveal itself.
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