Filed by Trevor at 11:52 pm under Fightin' Words, Gay Agenda, Gender Identity, Homophobia, Love

“You’re such a sissy! What are you so afraid of? Then love the front of me, honey!” — Hedwig

I’m a total hypocrite. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I can say whatever comes to mind and you will know that we both have permission to take me with a grain of salt.

I dislike being gay. I realize that if I were a celebrity and had said this on national television, GLAAD would denounce me and Exodus International would use this as apparent proof of the feelings of self-loathing inherent in my deviant lifestyle, but as it usually is, the truth is much more complicated. I am not ashamed of the fact that I am romantically and sexually attracted to men, and I am not ashamed to be truthful about this. So I amend my statement: I dislike that being gay prevents me from having close, non-romantic, totally platonic friendships with straight men without the lingering suspicion that I am harboring much deeper feelings. I would even go so far as to say I hate this fact. In short: I want to be just one of the guys.

A friend told me once that if I truly wanted to be as such, then I would essentially have to forgo the desire to have the sort of friendships I want because straight guys just don’t have deep relationships with each other. I don’t agree with this at all. Simply because men traditionally have a difficult time articulating their feelings doesn’t mean they are unwilling or incapable of experiencing them. In fact, I have yet to meet one straight man who wasn’t preoccupied on some level — some absurdly so — with deflecting any appearance of being gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. God, I hate that phrase.

The worst part is I’m no different. I can change my actions, but I cannot change my behavior; I realize that I shouldn’t buy into popular conceptions of what is masculine, but I do. Not only are my speaking voice and inflection pretty unambiguous, I apparently can’t even walk as a man should, as was innocently pointed out to me one day at work with the assumption that I was already aware of this fact. I wasn’t, and I was surprised and thoroughly embarrassed by how bothered I was to have this information made known to me. It was just another reminder that while I’m a male for certain, I’ve never felt like a man in my life. I even said this to my grandmother when I was in California over the holidays, and she cautiously asked me if this was the prelude to yet another “coming out” conversation. I assuaged her concerns, but I’m not certain of how successful I was.

It’s not for lack of trying. Growing up I saw the relationship my older brothers had with my father and tried in my own misguided way to be a part of it. I collected baseball cards, but I only cared about the players with Germanic names — a fact my brothers understandably exploited by trading worthless cards for ones in my possession that I now understand were quite valuable. But what was the point? By my second year of high school I would ultimately spend hours at the Hancock Fabrics next to the hobby shop pawing through racks of organza and acetate, staying up late into the night hunched over my mother’s Elna making flags of my own design for the colorguard. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But I can understand why as a kid I never enjoyed a close relationship with the male members of my family: I was a drag. This is not self-effacing humor — I mean it. I hated sports, so my dad had to endure me sarcastically shouting “Ditto!” every time cheers erupted at the umpteen baseball games he was forced to drag me to. While they played horseshoes in the backyard or basketball in the front driveway, I was inside reading Erma Bombeck or making coffee cake that I would dye in neon colors. On fishing trips, I slept. Actually, I think I might have been doing it right in that instance, so scratch that.

Today things are a little different, though. Hometown pride runs like a river through this city, and it’s certainly rubbed off on me; at a Cubs game a year-and-a-half ago I was surprised to learn that I actually cared about what was happening on the field, and this past autumn I was even more surprised to find myself voluntarily tuning in on Sundays to see what the Bears were up to. But I will say that I definitely overstate my appreciation of both simply because it seems to be my only foothold. A lunge at the opportunity to bond on heterosexual terms.

I see no solution but to simply make peace with the situation, but in predictable fashion I’m going into it kicking and screaming. Perhaps a friendship where I can swill Old Style while cheering a touchdown in one second and note that those jeans make your ass look hot in the other is too much to ask. I wish it weren’t. And wishing is wrong.