Recently I had a dream where Zachary Levi explained to me in excruciating detail why men don’t like me.
It hurt, but it didn’t hurt, because ZL is not someone I’ve ever cared for…even so, that doesn’t change the truth and despite it being a dream it has excavated some very old pain.
My dream life is often much more vivid than my real life and, in this case, the words in them are not made up, but memories of what other boys said in my youth.
My whole life, from third grade on, I have been hyper aware of my distinct lack of appeal to anyone who didn’t have to like me.
Women and men equally don’t like me, but it hurts more with men because society places so much worth on women’s worth to men and the older I get the more I know I’ve failed at life.
From the time I was 12, my mom always pushed me to be normal. In restaurants she’d verbally nudge me to talk to waiters and it only got worse as I got older.
My lack of interest in men seemed to both insult and infuriate her, even before I tried to come out. In her eyes I just wasn’t trying hard enough and if I did I’d “get one.”
She didn’t believe in my ugliness like I did because she believed it was only a matter of my tweaking things. Her anger wasn’t with my looks, but with my indifference, my lack of engaging in the efforts to have a boyfriend.
For more than 40 years I have never doubted my attraction to women, even if I didn't understand it or welcome it in the beginning and still don't to some extent. To this day, I find my strongest emotional and romantic and (this said with much reluctance and even some shame) physical pull to women.
But because I have recently found myself a tad flustered around this guy I know, I have to wonder if maybe I should consider myself queer (a word that doesn't sit well on my mouth since I grew up with it being considered a slur) instead of a lesbian.
No comments:
Post a Comment