Oh please, like there needs to be a reason.

Get it or get out

One interesting thing I've noticed, as homosexuality becomes more and more mainstream, is that almost all straight people still don't "get" it. Whether they're on the conservative or progressive end of the spctrum, or somewhere in between, they still don't understand what it is to be gay.

After years of being told "you don't choose homosexuality; it chooses you", only a few people still admit to thinking that it's a lifestyle choice. However, there's a certain disconnect between what they're told and what their hearts tell them. You can tell them "it's not something gay men choose" until you're blue in the face, and they'll accept that as a logical proposition, but deep inside there's a little voice that says, "okay, so they don't think they have a choice in the matter, but really, it can't be quite like that."

I've met otherwise intelligent, thoughtful, wise people who just can't shake off the idea that a gay man could go straight if only the right incentive could be discovered. They don't say it out loud, and they couch it in acceptable terms, but you can tell that under the surface they're clinging to some sort of free will escape clause. They believe, even if they don't admit it, that there must be some way your could reframe your life and/or your worldview to suddenly become attracted to women.

I think it all comes down to something I mentioned a few posts ago: straight people simply can't empathise with gay people, because the idea of wanting to have sex solely with your own gender, to the complete exclusion of the opposite gender, is just too alien to their own drives.

Not that I'm pessimistic or anything

My computer has finally been fixed, and I celebrated last night by playing a few rounds of Doom III, checking a few favourite blogs, and seeing if anyone new and interesting had signed up with GMM.

You know, it's weird, but scanning through gay personals and looking at pictures of hot, half-naked men actually makes me feel better about my complete lack of a love life. When I don't have the internet I can come to feel as if I'm missing out on possibilities. But with the internet, I can see with my own eyes that I'm not. Although there might be the occasional chance for romantic happiness, there are innumerable chances for something far sadder and less fulfilling than being alone.

On GMM, you see page after page of desperate, freaky, unhappy men who fight like seagulls over the occasional normal man who signs up. It feels like a competition rather than a community, with the latest halfway presentable newbie as the weekly prize.

On the blogs, you see page after page of sculpted young hunks being paid varying sums of money to bare their good stuff to any lonely weirdo with an internet connection. If I was one of them, I'm sure I'd think to myself, "I spend two hours at the gym every day and avoid carbs like the plague just so some greasy obese 50 year old can jerk off to my picture?" No wonder so many porn stars get into drugs.

By comparison, at least going to bed alone every night has a degree of dignity.

It's very hard to live up to loyalty

Nothing much has been happening lately; my computer has been broken for nearly a month so I haven't been on GMM or anything else. However I do have one small thought to recount.

I was watching a movie last night with one of my oldest and dearest friends, and in the course of our conversation he made a dismissive gay joke.

I wasn't offended - taking offense is a sign of a narrow mind, in my opinion - but it did make me sad. It drove home the realisation I've held for a while, that there's no way I'm ever going to be able to come out to him without it completely destroying our friendship. Not because he's especially homophobic, but because he'd be so devastatingly embarassed that he never knew, even after being one of my closest friends for decades.

I'm also pretty sure that he's defended me when I'm not around, if a more casual acquaintance asks "So is GTR gay or what?" I know from my own experiences how humiliating it feels to defend someone's honour against a perceived slight, only to later discover that the slight was in fact completely true and justified. You feel like a fool. You feel betrayed. You feel like everyone's laughing at your naïveté. Humiliation is a catastrophically powerful emotion, and never more so than with this particular person.

For all our closeness and reliance on each other, we interact on a very specific level. Once, a few months ago, I pushed harder than normal and forced him to reveal more of himself than he usually does, and to be honest it was a little alarming to see how emotionally messy things were beneath the calm and convivial outer shell. It's not as if he shares every single thing about his life with me. He's mentioned certain areas of his life but not really gone into the details of why these areas are as they are, and I've learned not to push him. So really, he has no objective reason to be upset if I've kept parts of my life hidden from him.

But people aren't objective, not when their feelings are on the line.