I did not quite realize how much I did this until yesterday when I was talking with my best friend, who had asked me about what I ideally wanted out of my "love life" and she would actually sort of correct my veg sexless language. I also never quite realized how much in public that when I would use words that gave away that I was talking about the same sex I would just about drop down to a whisper, as if to hide some top secret, nor how irritated and snippy I got with others when they would talk openly to me the "out gay guy" in a normal volume using words like boyfriend, husbands, him etc as I just about bit her head off telling her the she was speaking to loudly several times because I did not want those around use to hear what she was saying.
The hardest part twisting my mind around is that, that is the silliest thing to get upset and uncomfortable about. They are words, words being used in a conversation between my friend, who knows that I'm gay and I, yet I don't like using the perfectly correct and much more appropriate and descriptive worlds. Not to mention that I don't feel comfortable talking in a normal voice, which also is so absurdly silly, as its not like whispering will make it that much harder for any one that intend on eavesdropping. It makes no logical since to behave that way, which is why it so surprised me that I behaved that way so much.
Theres no shame in it...The pronoun game becomes second nature when you practice it everyday. That is a mechanism you need to survive until you are in a safe environment and comfortable with yourself to the extent that you stop hiding and start being real with the people around you....thats not something that happens overnight. Its like braces....you need them for a time until your problem is corrected...(in this case finding acceptance and confidence in your own sexuality)...then when its time to take them off, you've worn them for so long, its wierd to be without them...even though they may have hurt you. In time, you adjust again.
ReplyDeleteI guess that makes since, I never realy thought about it that way. Yeah It dose take a while for it to not feel wired to not have braces after you have had them for years.(flashes a smill to show off the nice straight teeth they created)
ReplyDeleteI can relate entirely to this frustration with playing the dreadful "pronoun game" with friends that know of my homosexuality when we are in public. I hate when my friends and I talk loudly about my sexuality when I don't feel as though I am in a safe environment... But I am slowly getting over this. Partly because I am getting over a paranoia that everybody needs to know about my sexuality. Partly because I want more and more people to know me as I am and always have been. If people are actually interested in overhearing my conversations, then I might as well make it easier for them, right? Maybe that is bad logic.
ReplyDeleteBut, as Bryan pointed out, this is a difficult process. And I still play the pronoun game with people that don't know that I am gay - even when I find it more taxing and frustrating. The moment you get a bit of personal freedom, I suppose you want to know what the rest of it tastes like.
Kind of like that first bite of fresh corn in August... its only fully satisfied after three cobs...
I think for me the biggest thing is almost a paranoia that any and every one around is listening in, and will figure out and I really don't know what from there. Its really kind of silly given the place I live, which is actually a quite liberal college town. (well mid sized city)
ReplyDeletewell...if it makes you feel any better I still employ the pronoun gave on odd occasions....usually when I don't know how a person is going to react to full disclosure so I use it as a way to feel them out.
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