Does Anyone Feel Like This as a Homosexual?

(I sure as frak don't.)

I recently re-joined a gay-themed, forum-style .torrent website. I'll leave it to Wikipedia to explain to the unwashed masses just what a '.torrent' is, but I say rejoined, because the original site lost it's domain name and moved to a new address. In it's new incarnation, the site is a private, membership by invitation only affair. The moderators decided that, coincident with the address change, it was a good time to re-initiate everyone who wished to remain a member. Former members were issued an automatic re-invite by e-mail, and after the moderators verified a previous member's legitimacy, the requirements for initiation weren't difficult. One simply had to post a minimum of three entries to one of the many forums, either beginning a new thread or as a reply to an existing one.

I immediately set out to complete the first of my three required posts. I was browsing the threads, looking for something that would catch my eye, and inspire me to write something meaningful rather than simply satisfying compliance with the 3-post requirement. I ran across a thread entitled, Does anyone feel like this as a homosexual? It was basically a twenty-four item list of misfortunes, patterned after the following formula:

"I/we [suffered this specific misfortune/injustice] at the hands of myself/others because I/we [exhibit this particular homosexual/bisexual/transgender/queer stereotype/trait.]"

The following was my post to the thread.

Like many others responding to this thread, I found the content of the original post foreign to my experience. Maybe I have been lucky. Perhaps I was fortunate not to have been born with physical characteristics or to have adopted mannerisms which are typically associated with gay stereotypes. I don't consider myself particularly masculine on many levels, but neither do I perceive myself to be stereotypically gay either. I really don't fit into either world (if there really is such a thing as a 'Gay/Queer' world apart from the 'Straight' world) very comfortably, and I never have. Perhaps I was lucky to have fallen victim to a different type of abuse that masked or overrode any abuse I might have received as a homosexual while in high school. I was an intellectual. Notably, in high school I was not picked on for being gay, but for being smart, and for not being a jock, and for not being a stoner, and for a myriad of other reasons, but mostly because I was too small to do anything about any of it. Perhaps the abuse heaped on me for those other reasons spared me the notice that I was gay and the gay bashing that would likely have accompanied it.

I didn't know the definition of the word 'gay,' until I was well into college, let alone the concepts of bisexuality or queer. I simply had no exposure to any examples of homosexual, bisexual or queer people, either in the positive or negative connotation. I knew I was attracted to males when I was in grade school, but no more or less so than I was attracted to females. I never associated that attraction with any inner trait in particular. I'm not even sure I knew it was different from anyone else's experience.

I didn't date anyone until I went to college. Not even so much as asking a girl out to a high school dance or anything of the sort. I suppose I might have been identified as a queer as a result, but for some reason I wasn't. I dated girls in college, mostly because I was pursued by them, and because it was the only practice that I had any kind of example to emulate. I was probably spared being gay bashed because I didn't have any examples of gay stereotypes to emulate or flaunt.

I remember my first cognizant exposure to a real, live gay person, at the age of 22. I was fascinated. I was curious. I began to become aware of being different. I was proactive. I maneuvered myself into a position to become his friend and I wound up dating this person for over a year. He taught me many things. By my standards today, he was closeted and repressed. He was fairly obvious to anyone paying attention, but he wasn't officially out to any of his close friends, family or associates, though I'm sure they knew, as I did when I first laid eyes on him.

The past several paragraphs are background which might help explain the meat of what I intend to say here. Getting back to the core of this thread, I have gone through life without molestation resulting from my sexual orientation, however, there was plenty of abuse to go around, regardless of it's origin. People pick on you for being different, for not fitting in with their ignorant, limited idea of what constitutes normal. It's no more fair to be picked on or bashed for being an intellectual, or a nerd, or a geek, or a burnout, or an emo, than it is to be picked on or bashed for being a homosexual, bisexual or queer.

Finally, I've come to the entire point of this post. As an adult, I find no need to take abuse from anyone, for any reason. Simply, I choose my friends wisely and eliminate negative people from my life in rapid fashion. I have explained to friends and other interested parties, that I'm just far too selfish to care what other people think of the life I lead. Perhaps that particular characteristic makes me oblivious to abuse that is leveled at me at times. I just don't care enough to care. It's my life to live and I'm not living it for anyone else.