L'argent ou l'Europe
I suddenly have the best realization. The problem with women, or the problem of women, or, if we're feeling very fascistic, the "woman question", has always been presented in the most egotistical in terms on my behalf. In other words, I see a deficit, and I go about trying to find out what the problem is. But while I am always sure it is their FAULT, I am perhaps sometimes mistaken that it their PROBLEM--that it is something about THEM that they need to change or modify, and not something about me which they perceive which constitutes a false perception such that they still are at fault.
Tonight I went out alone to a dive in the liberal, chic part of Memphis--as if anything could be chic in a city where the sidewalks of Union Ave. look like a costume party for Bring in Da Dance, Bring in Da Funk. The first bar was the Irish pub, which I went to in a mistaken calculation of St. Patrick's Day (it's really this upcoming Saturday). So I headed north to Sidestreet, the paradigm example of a sort of converted jazz bar disease-joint, with enough dank to dismay and more cigarette smoke than mirth. This is the sort of bar whose chairs run up dry-cleaning bills on Sunday at the local laundrette. And I was planning to use this atmosphere not so much to criticize it, but just to enjoy a few cheap imports ($2.00 bottles) while I visualized the caricatures around me deaden into the background like a Seurat painting. Instead, I ran into my friend Jonathan and my half-friend Thomas, both former Smoothie King employees, the same Smoothie King that I have left for good now. And a girl. Who I didn't know. We chatted, she seemed nice enough, but they were quickly on their way out. I expressed my intention to want to sleep with her as she went to the bathroom, to Jonathan and to Thomas. Jonathan then whisked her back to the bathroom upon her return and had a conversation with her. We then left. Jonathan and Thomas and I went in Jonathan's car, and then this girl (and I DO remember her name) went in her own car. On the way downtown, Jonathan told me that she had told him in the bathroom that she thought I was gay. And that our supervisor had thought so too at work. I was all of a sudden very angry. I wanted him to pull the car over. I wouldn't talk. I felt like crying, but the tears wouldn't come. I just didn't want HER to think that I was gay--who was she anyway. I talked with Jonathan for a while about it in the car. I was so upset about it. I couldn't get over it. We were on Beale St., and once again, I was blues-ridden, but could not cry. I just felt miserable, and I didn't want to the bar, but Jonathan had to go in for a second to get his cell phone, so I told him that I would follow him. Jonathan being the social acolyte that he is, he wanted to get a beer, but I quickly motioned that it was time to go. And a part of me was conflicted about what if anything I should say. Usually, I just move to the side about these matters. What she had said to him, and what he had relayed to me, hurt me. She had no right, meeting me for 10 minutes, to do that, to basically send me into a spiral of questioning my masculinity for a long period, to have me try to establish that I was really was what she wasn't. I could shut up and say nothing, and write about it or talk about elsewhere later. But something in me told me no. In the middle of this straight-punk "Blue Diamond" phantasmagoria bar, within earshot of at least six patrons, I extended my bony finger at her face and placed my eyes squarely upon hers, and offered loudly, "Oh, and by the way, I'm not gay". And then I walked out.
What was I trying to accomplish? Not her thinking that I wasn't gay, evidently, because a declaration of how gay a person isn't couldn't itself possibly be any 'gayer'. What I wanted her to know was that her first impression hurt, and that it left open a huge possibility that many others make the same impression, and this is why I am not approached by women. That they may just figure, "oh well, he probably is, or might be so, or definitely isn't this because he's so and so", and operate from that. But perhaps while it is their fault to be so judgmental, it is my problem in that I act gay or something. And maybe that's something I can change, maybe it's not. But regardless, while I will never stop attributing fault to the romantic and sexual conclusions of women, I will try to concede that those conclusions aren't made entirely out of thin air--that they sometimes have very real empirical grounding in the things they happen to see. And people, large quantities of people, may see things in me which I would not want to see myself as possessing. But one thing is clear--I was right to have unburdened my feelings about this in this way. We must not let these things percolate and destroy more and more friendships by eating away at the foundation of confidence we have in those friendships. Never let it go, never let the statement just pass unnoticed if you actually in fact noticed it very clearly, and it was hurtful. The feeling is never wrong, it's just rarely relevant unless you take the time to make it relevant for the person by whom it has been offended.
Tonight I went out alone to a dive in the liberal, chic part of Memphis--as if anything could be chic in a city where the sidewalks of Union Ave. look like a costume party for Bring in Da Dance, Bring in Da Funk. The first bar was the Irish pub, which I went to in a mistaken calculation of St. Patrick's Day (it's really this upcoming Saturday). So I headed north to Sidestreet, the paradigm example of a sort of converted jazz bar disease-joint, with enough dank to dismay and more cigarette smoke than mirth. This is the sort of bar whose chairs run up dry-cleaning bills on Sunday at the local laundrette. And I was planning to use this atmosphere not so much to criticize it, but just to enjoy a few cheap imports ($2.00 bottles) while I visualized the caricatures around me deaden into the background like a Seurat painting. Instead, I ran into my friend Jonathan and my half-friend Thomas, both former Smoothie King employees, the same Smoothie King that I have left for good now. And a girl. Who I didn't know. We chatted, she seemed nice enough, but they were quickly on their way out. I expressed my intention to want to sleep with her as she went to the bathroom, to Jonathan and to Thomas. Jonathan then whisked her back to the bathroom upon her return and had a conversation with her. We then left. Jonathan and Thomas and I went in Jonathan's car, and then this girl (and I DO remember her name) went in her own car. On the way downtown, Jonathan told me that she had told him in the bathroom that she thought I was gay. And that our supervisor had thought so too at work. I was all of a sudden very angry. I wanted him to pull the car over. I wouldn't talk. I felt like crying, but the tears wouldn't come. I just didn't want HER to think that I was gay--who was she anyway. I talked with Jonathan for a while about it in the car. I was so upset about it. I couldn't get over it. We were on Beale St., and once again, I was blues-ridden, but could not cry. I just felt miserable, and I didn't want to the bar, but Jonathan had to go in for a second to get his cell phone, so I told him that I would follow him. Jonathan being the social acolyte that he is, he wanted to get a beer, but I quickly motioned that it was time to go. And a part of me was conflicted about what if anything I should say. Usually, I just move to the side about these matters. What she had said to him, and what he had relayed to me, hurt me. She had no right, meeting me for 10 minutes, to do that, to basically send me into a spiral of questioning my masculinity for a long period, to have me try to establish that I was really was what she wasn't. I could shut up and say nothing, and write about it or talk about elsewhere later. But something in me told me no. In the middle of this straight-punk "Blue Diamond" phantasmagoria bar, within earshot of at least six patrons, I extended my bony finger at her face and placed my eyes squarely upon hers, and offered loudly, "Oh, and by the way, I'm not gay". And then I walked out.
What was I trying to accomplish? Not her thinking that I wasn't gay, evidently, because a declaration of how gay a person isn't couldn't itself possibly be any 'gayer'. What I wanted her to know was that her first impression hurt, and that it left open a huge possibility that many others make the same impression, and this is why I am not approached by women. That they may just figure, "oh well, he probably is, or might be so, or definitely isn't this because he's so and so", and operate from that. But perhaps while it is their fault to be so judgmental, it is my problem in that I act gay or something. And maybe that's something I can change, maybe it's not. But regardless, while I will never stop attributing fault to the romantic and sexual conclusions of women, I will try to concede that those conclusions aren't made entirely out of thin air--that they sometimes have very real empirical grounding in the things they happen to see. And people, large quantities of people, may see things in me which I would not want to see myself as possessing. But one thing is clear--I was right to have unburdened my feelings about this in this way. We must not let these things percolate and destroy more and more friendships by eating away at the foundation of confidence we have in those friendships. Never let it go, never let the statement just pass unnoticed if you actually in fact noticed it very clearly, and it was hurtful. The feeling is never wrong, it's just rarely relevant unless you take the time to make it relevant for the person by whom it has been offended.