Grin. What? I am 48 years old. I wasn't wearing bright colors or strong cologne. I don't swish when I walk. I don't color my hair. I looked like an old surfer dude, frankly, with dark glasses.
Looking in the mirror when I got home, the only thing I could see that might have been an unintentional signal to the adolescent was a thin silver chain around my neck with a key hanging from it which could look from a distance like one of the symbols for "male" that you see intertwined with a second symbol to mean "gay men."
I don't wear the key because of that resemblance, in fact, I had never noticed it before.
You see, I no longer really think of myself as gay. I'm just a guy, a man. But there it was, and for a nagging moment I wondered about all the people I encounter in a day, the guy at the photo shop, my neighbor at the back gate of our apartment building. For a questionable bit of time it occurred to me that they might not always see me as just a guy and a man like them.
WTF?
So, I distract myself from thinking about it. But the insightful reminder is there. Always.
I chose not to respond to the kids. The remark wasn't very bold. I thought a few yards down the sidewalk, I could turn around and say, "Hey, thanks for the compliment!" but that would just make me part of their contorted little world.
I did turn around after a few paces because I found myself amused and surprised. They were nowhere to be seen.
The remark carried an unexpected sting. "Gay Boy" was a venomous hate mantra that I heard constantly as a kid and which beat my self-esteem down to nothing.
Of course, 35 years later, I am pretty secure with myself etc etc, so I am surprised at my vulnerability.
First of all, there's nothing wrong with "looking gay." Since I have gray in my hair and most straight guys my age (let's be honest) look like they're pregnant from beer and cheese, and I stay trim from swimming, maybe just the strangeness of seeing a slim older man makes me "look gay."
I don't know.
There's something more. Today is the first day of legalized gay marriages here in Los Angeles. There really is a feeling of justice, if even on a superficial level. There is a sense, at least to me, that gay people might really achieve equality and be fully equal with the heteros in the eyes of society.
I grin again. Maybe one day. "Gay Boy" is still a number one taunt by the adolescent set. I suppose it hit an ancient self-esteem destruction trigger in me that I had learned to avoid and ignore all these years.
And, naturally, as we all know, the kid who spoke out to me today probably couldn't deal with his own feeling of homosexual attraction, or else, why bother with me at all? And that's pretty sad, isn't it? A self-hating gay adolescent. Let's not forget how many gay kids there are like that still out there.
I mean, would these kids say to a woman, "Ma'am, he just called you a slut?" That probably still happens, too. Or the racial epithets to someone of color.
Really, kids might have said the same thing to Thomas Jefferson when he passed by.
Big Deal.
But for a little more than a few moments this afternoon, time folded in on itself and nothing was different.
