With open eyes.
It’s 8:52a and I’m sitting in a McDonald’s about a mile from my apartment, looking over printouts for today’s work, listening to godawful muzak, and nibbling on something that can’t exactly be called food but that silences the ravening of my belly. I’m waiting for the bookstore/cafe down the street to open so I can stake out a power plug, order coffee, and put in my 7-8 hours taking care of projects due today and tomorrow for my new job. It’s my first day working mobile, packing up the laptop and my Verizon wireless modem and just heading out to find somewhere to settle, people-watch, and enjoy having the entire city as my office. I’ve been dreaming about this for years, for even longer than the three years that I spent tethered within the confines of my home, chained to my home phone line by my old job.
I’ll admit it’s a daunting experience. I’d forgotten how isolated I’d become, how sheltered. I could go days without seeing another living being other than the cat; I left the apartment only to get the mail, run errands, and go to the grocery store at insane hours of the night. I’m not used to being around constant streams of other people in the usual volumes heralding daylight activity. I’m not used to quietly not-reacting to the presences of strangers; I’m not used to the quick, assessing glances in passing. I’m not used to that feeling that comes from instantly being recognized as gay, not by one random person in the grocery store but by someone here, another there, about every fifteen minutes a bored glance that passes, pauses, and lingers, questioning.
That look of recognition, at least, I know. I don’t know what it is about me that instantly identifies me; I’m not particularly flaming, flamboyant, stylish, or even the slightest bit swishy. Maybe it’s the big, waifish eyes that I curse every time I glimpse myself in the mirror. More likely it’s the rose sunglasses I wear to shelter my photosensitive eyes against bright artificial light - pink just because it amuses me. But regardless, as I sit here and type on my laptop and drink my coffee, I’m getting looks. Not from everyone, no. Just that old man with the forming liver spot on his balding head - a quick wrinkle of his nose, a grimace, “damn punks” written silently in every rigid line of his face. That woman with her toddler, moving to a seat two booths down from me, then casting me a wary look and shepherding her son further away. Another glance over her shoulder - disgust. A less hostile look from another man passing through, on his way out the door; I’m not sure what it is about him, but I can glance at him and know, too. He’s just a crisply dressed office worker, blouse and slacks and short, neat hair, but we exchange quick glances of acknowledgment, brief and uninterested, and he’s on his way.
Everyone else is content to ignore me. I ignore them. We all have our own business, our own lives, our own schedules to maintain. One fag sitting at a corner booth in McDonald’s isn’t important, or interesting. They’ll forget me with the first bite of their food; I’ll forget them by the time I finish this post. Some might not even be giving me those distasteful looks because I’m a little obviously gay; some might be because I’m young, dark-skinned, casually dressed, wild-haired, and sitting here tapping away on my laptop with my headphones in my ears and the little green light of my USB wireless modem blinking. Any one of those can be offensive to some. Sometimes it’s just enough that I’m a solitary male of unknown intentions. You never know what will set people off.
But it doesn’t change that now, suddenly, I’m aware of people looking at me in a way that I haven’t been for a long time. I’m aware of people taking me in, assessing me, judging me based on my clothing, my genetics, the way that I carry myself, the things I have with me. They’re forming a picture in their heads of who I am and what I do without ever meeting me. And some of them, statistically, are thinking “f*&!ing fag”.
Would anyone do anything about it? No. People with prejudices rarely make scenes in public places. They throw dirty looks, they keep their distance, sometimes they murmur to each other. But it’s not a pleasant experience to be the subject of such scrutiny, and I’d forgotten what it was like to deal with it every day. I’ll get used to it; I used to be completely impervious to it, although it’s natural that renewed exposure would bother me now that my skin’s thinned out a little. But there’s a reason that openly gay people often feel unwelcome in society in certain places, whether alone, in pairs, or in groups. That mute resentment, those hard glances…all are part of that. That knowledge that some day, somewhere, someone with a grudge might do something, and yet another of us will be making the headlines documenting another “tragic hate crime”.
Does that mean I’m afraid when I go out, now? No. I wasn’t afraid before, walking down the streets of Houston at 3a, arms laden with groceries and too encumbered to even defend myself should someone decide they want my wallet. There’s no reason to be afraid; even if I don’t live or travel in the best neighborhoods, there’s little likelihood of anything happening to me for whatever reason. Someone is attacked, injured, or killed in Houston almost every day, every night - but in a city this large, the odds are that it won’t be me.
But it has to be someone. And now that that awareness is awake again, that knowledge that people aren’t as oblivious and dismissive of me as I’d like them to be…I can’t help but wonder if one evening I’ll be walking home with my laptop on my back, only to stop at the sound of an angry voice.
“Hey. Hey, faggot. Where you going?”
What is with you people and the tags? It’s all about the tags with you. You don’t value me as a person! …yeah, shut up.
Listen to DR Streaming Radio
March 18th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Don’t. Even. Joke.
*is fighting desperately not to worry about him, for both what he listed and the million other things that could happen*
March 18th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Hikaru, the same things could happen to you even though you live in a city with lower crime and poverty rates and you look like a Christian conservative Republican (even if unfortunately, you are the latter). It could happen to anyone, anywhere, for any reason. At the same time, it could not. So despite today’s experience over breakfast reawakening my awareness of general daily scrutiny when in public, why worry about any of it when worrying won’t stop it from happening, but won’t cause it to happen either? A Boeing 747 could crash into the cafe I’m sitting in right now. The fact that I’m aware that airplanes can sometimes fault and crash doesn’t make it certain that it’s going to happen.
~glares~ So stop. Fussing. Jeebus. You’re going to mother hen me to death. Can’t even clear my throat without you thinking I’m going to die.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Many people get that kind of thing, for different reasons.
I don’t get it for my sexuality, which most people seem not to notice unless they see me actually with someone, but I get it for dressing extravagantly in black. Goths don’t get the same level of sheer hatred directed at us for our subculture, but we still get a lot of rubbish.
I’ve had people move away from me on the train even though there free seats near me, had abuse and litter thrown at me, had threats, even had a worrying moment when the driver of a taxi I was in said he’d rather see his daughter dead than one of ‘them goffick freaks’. Thankfully I’ve never been in a serious physical attack, but last summer a girl in Britain died after a vicious attack.
It’s never good, getting that kind of marginalisation, those looks. That horrible little feeling in the back of the brain that says ’someone is staring at you, and they do not like what they see’, and that terrifying little moment when someone yells at you when you’re walking home at night and you don’t know whether they’re content to just shout momentary abuse or whether they’re going to come over to you and make good on their word.
It would be very nice, very nice indeed, if people could at least stop the shouting.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
*pouts* That sore throat is taking forever to clear up, so nyeh. And I can’t help that I worry…
March 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
This is why I enjoy dressing in many different styles ^_^ To see how people look at me. Especially people who I see occasionally but who never recognise me, like the bus drivers. The way they react to the same person looking like someone entirely different.
It’s the most rebellious thing I ever do.
I’m not scared. And when I do get scared, I remind myself that I have a tiny aerosol can I can use to spray in people’s eyes xD
I ate at Mc Donalds too, today… Probably even at about the same time you did. I love coincidences.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I get looks for the goth thing too. That’s partly why I do it. Also, people concentrate on the goth image and ignore that fact that I’m female, tiny and therefore physically vulnerable. Something about the massive boots and ammo belts makes me a predator, instead of prey, in people’s minds. It’s a defense mechanism, if you will. The gay thing, on the other hand…my friends discuss me in private, apparently. I truly am the most exotic thing in their lives. It’s amusing but also annoying. I’m not even out with them, but they speculate. Don’t get anything about it in public, though. I suppose people can only cope with one instant stereotype at a time.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I can’t say I get those looks, usually, but I’ve seen them directed at other people, and they’re UGLY. Personally, I blend in too much to get too many looks of any sort, and I’m mostly too lazy to change that.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:25 am
There are three things I generally tell people within the first five minutes of conversation. I am Bipolar. I am Bisexual. I am Neopagan (now I’m returning to it). This means that I open myself to hysterical reactions to my mental illness (no one, not even the sufferer herself, can predict the mood swings of Bipolar Disorder). This means anyone who has an issue with Bisexuality/Homosexuality can shout at, threaten, and scorn me by telling me I’m wrong or don’t exist. This means that the members of the various organized religions available can denounce me as a satan worshipper, say I’m going to hell, and promise to pray for me.
Why do I do this?
So I can exclude all the assholes from my list of potential friends.
I’m now considering signing off on some friends who are all devoutly [insert organized religious affiliation here], insist that I’m putting my soul in danger, remind me that I was much happier as a Catholic/Christian, and promise to pray for me. This will leave me with a total of only two local friends whom I feel I can trust.
My patience with not being accepted and respected as myself is wearing very thin.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:00 pm
I do owe you a better response, now that I’ve slept. You know my look screams “Christian Conservative” no matter what I do. The prejudice and looks come from gay people when I’m in the gay community. I walk into a gay bar and I’m treated like a spy from the 700 Club.
But, it never feels good, no matter where it’s coming from.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I know what you’re talking about–I don’t set off most people’s gay-dar, but I do get the stares and the hostile looks at math competitions. I suppose that’s what I get for simultaneous possession of calculator and ovaries.