To function in the work world and other places, I pretty much shut up about that part of me (which is not much of a hardship because that is just a small part) except for how I hate lying when I'm directly asked, which doesn't happen often.
I have had people found out about me, only to have them never look me in the eye directly after that or (in some cases) just stop talking to me altogether.
This happened again very recently and I am still hurting over it, especially since they brought up the conversation and I chose to be honest. Lying, apparently, for some people is much more acceptable than homosexuality.
Even though he's not writing about it here at all, I think of Shakespeare, though I have no clue whether he would support gay rights or not if he were around today. In the Merchant Of Venice there is this well-known passage:
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"
People who are gay still do all the things straight people do. You know: buy groceries, shop for shoes and clothes, go to the dentist, take the car into the stop, care about their families and friends.
Most of us have a "lifestyle" that is no different than straight people's...but the word "lifestyle" (a popular word choice among rabidly anti-gay politicians so they can create fear and visions of things gone amuck) certainly has no bearing on gay people who remain celibate or remain committed to just one person their whole lives together.
I think of what I'm willing to do to please the people in my life who are so anti-gay they will only have me as part of their lives if I am who they want me to be. When these people are my parents, whom I love a lot, it's so unbearably difficult.
There are some things about me that I always thought I'd change in a second if I could...the physical things that keep me single, the emotional things (like shyness) that help me fade away when it comes to being datable and finding love. Now I wonder if maybe they are actually blessings, a weird kind of double protection, to go with the determination and old-fashioned beliefs I already have.
One of the few "ex-gay therapy" philosophies that comes as close to non-offensive as I've ever seen centers around this:
Singleness is not a sin.
The site (Christian Answers) goes a bit further and enters territory I don't like ("The opposite of homosexuality isn't heterosexuality, it's holiness."), but at least the man who espouses this belief gets that you can't "make" someone gay become straight.
I hope that I can promise not to write much more on this, at least not for a while. Really, I'm okay with being single, I'm okay with doing as much as I'm humanly capable of to make my family happy, but the one thing I can't do (something I don't think anyone can do) is make myself feel things I don't.
It's hard enough denying your own, very real emotions without trying to fabricate new ones that just won't come. I know it's not politically correct to say this, but I would gladly be straight if I could be.
What person would want to risk losing their family, their friends and others they respect? Love is wonderful, it really is, but whether it's one-sided or reciprocal, it's hard to be in love in a world that so clearly has its set rules on what it thinks it is and isn't.
More on this can be read at the link below. I don't agree with everything, but I do like that there is some understanding and compassion:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-cross/cross-gaychange.html
2 comments:
You don't have to feel that you need to apologize for what you want/feel like writing. You should do so as much as you want.
Sometimes, we're all so hellbent on fighting things that we forget how hard and exhausting it can be, especially when that fighting involves going against a lot of close people in your life.
It's not compromise entirely, hiding parts of yourself - it can also be a way of preserving that part of our identities, and as much as we might call it cowardly or whatever, it's very necessary at times. You're brave and strong, and I think you're doing the best you can in your circumstance. Cyber hugs are so insufficient but here's one anyway.
Thank you for the hugs!
And I also want to thank you for writing that it's "very necessary" at times. I feel like it is!
Maybe this is the wrong way to think about it, but given where I am in my life right now and that I worry about "losing" people I like who don't believe in gay marriage (or even gay rights), I find keeping private with them is best.
If I were ever fortunate enough to meet someone special whom I'd want to grow old with, I wouldn't hide because I wouldn't want to hide my partner, the person I love dearly (in this completely hypothetical situation where I someday meet someone.)
For now, and quite possibly always, I have books and music, both as interests and loves. Sometimes, for some of us, that's more than enough. :)
Thank you again! Have a lovely weekend!
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