They're afraid of us.

I've been reading through various blogs and posts on Icarus. Especially about relationships and personality. A common theme seems to be intensity.

It is an eye-opening experience to hear it told by other people. All my damned life I have tried to control, hide, or otherwise disguise my intensity. He wears his heart on his sleeve. Chuckle chuckle. Like it's a thing that we can tolerate as long as it does not get out of hand. It never even occurs to them that this might be the very fabric of my existence. The stained glass through which I perceive their monochrome reality.

It's not a fucking lifestyle choice. Shit. Like someone would knowingly choose a lifetime of exclusion, ostracism, and derision. And don't get me started on the eternal, internal angst that moves in like a pack of mice and won't go the fuck away. He's like that. Oh, you know, he's just touchy. Yeah, and when that touchy is in the right spot and lasts for twelve fucking hours it's OK. But guess what: You can't just turn it on and off like a fucking spigot!

A lifestyle choice. One merciless blessing this life has bestowed upon me is memory. I remember when it was acceptable for people of color to partake in the blessings of liberty (so long as they rode at the back of the bus.) I remember when being homosexual was acceptable as long as you were his wife's best friend. (No school teachers, thanks.) Yeah, I remember a lifetime of platitudes smugly declared from on high.

A lifetime of fucking lame excuses disguised in socially acceptable language

And so here I am. I have lived twenty-five years among the gay community, basically my entire adult life. A straight man right in the fucking middle of a community that prides itself on coming out. Be who the hell you are and make them change their attitudes. I have marched with them and fought with them for their rights as individuals and as a community. It's so God damned obvious and, of course, typical for me to miss it for that reason.

I am in prison. The other prisoners quickly identify me as the pink monkey thrown in for the entertainment (excuse me, legitimate research purposes) of the keepers. An easy target. Get his credit card numbers! Get his telephone number! Find out where he lives! Money tree, here we come! Yeah! But they don't do that. Why? Because there exists a nobler sentiment among the outcasts of society? Maybe. Or no, let me refine that a bit. Bullshit. I wanted to believe this. But upon reflection, and removal from the romantic delusion and heights to which it took me, I must question this assumption. Eventually they leave me alone and avoid me. All of the prisoners avoid me.

The photographer is here to shoot me. All proceeds well at first. I am relaxed, He spends an hour shooting me in various poses around the apartment (Nothing in the buff. Humanity narrowly escapes again.) We chat during the shoot. He becomes oddly agitated at the end of the shoot. I pay him and all. I have covered my arms in athletic bandages (that damn bathroom remodeling project will be the death of me, ha ha.) I have carefully removed all the Psychiatric Emergency Hot Line telephone number signs (I think I got them all). The apartment is actually clean and I have aired it out all day. It should appear like a normal person's apartment. But he is nervous and uncomfortable. I see him to the door. He keeps looking over his shoulder at me. I have made him feel uncomfortable. But how?

I am shopping for sunglasses. I browse idly through the store. They have a lot, an awesome quantity, actually, of styles to choose from. But nothing appeals to me. The clerk tries to unctuously slide into my sheets. He's not my type. Sorry. But I'm friendly. I am always so damned friendly. I tell him I want a pair of solid, metallic sunglasses with perfectly round, reflective lenses that have a red shade to them when viewed at a particular angle in the sun, preferably 30 degrees from vertical. He stares stupidly at me. He becomes very uncomfortable. I almost ask him if anything is wrong. Are you OK? Can you imagine what would have happened? I guess you can. He babbles about some Armanni sunglasses that are almost round. I move closer to the case. He quickly moves away. I tell him to have a nice day and leave in a quiet panic (not that kind of panic). I have fucked up again. I have scared him.

We scare them

Oh, not when they have us in handcuffs. Not when we're locked away in a psychiatric institution with the same legal rights as a house plant. Not in the conference room while the Vice President is looking on. Not at the bar where everyone is enjoying themselves in empty-headed fascination with nothing. Not on TV where we're lovable, kooky nuts that lighten up an otherwise dull sitcom about dull people leading meaningless dull lives.

But alone? That's scary.

I'm coming out. Fuck them. Fuck them and their MSG society. Fuck them and their Brittany Spears look-alike contests. Fuck them and their righteous posturing. Fuck their good intentions. But most of all, fuck them and their bullshit, bald-faced claims to understand and care for us.

I don't care if I'm the only one. I've had enough.

Guidelines

I for one have never advocated non-intervention.

—Mahatma Ghandi