Fried Chicken and the Gay White Male
Friday, 6. October 2006, 15:36:59
Something about the parking garage at work makes me want to lash out at strangers. Especially if they have evenly frosty gray hair that has been frozen into a Dairy Queen poof on top of their head. The flickering fluorescent bulbs accentuate the crazed feeling I get, and by the time the elevator door encloses us, I'm practically clinging to the wall behind me as they blabber to some socioeconomically and stylistically equivalent person about 'what these flowers will say to our reader' and 'tapping into the lifestyle dream of the upper middle class'. They are able to comfortably ignore me because there has never been a doubt in their pasty little heads that every white person within earshot thinks and feels exactly the same way about everything.
In fact, laughing isn't the result of a joke where I work. No, laughing has become a way of reaffirming complete similarity of beliefs. Person A states an opinion and follows it with a 'you know?' and then Person A and Person B laugh simultaneously to acknowledge that they both completely agree. If Person B secretly did not agree with Person A (unheard of!) then they might sulk away afterwards and find their own Person B to laugh with about not agreeing.
Part of the problem is that I'm a WEB DESIGNER and CODER, and CARTOONIST. Around here, that makes people's heads explode because as a gay man from the South, I should have chosen Hair Stylist, Florist, or Interior Designer. So from the very start its like I've infiltrated the Trinity Broadcasting Network as an Information Technology professional every single day I come to work.
There are at least three men in this giant building who are paid a full time salary to walk around and check on flowers. There are innumerable food photographers, and a fashion photographer. There's a makeup guy. There are so many interior designers I don't venture a guess, but you can tell them from the other gay guys because they still use hair gel.
Of course there are the guys who do the expansive grounds work as well, but that's outdoors work and evidently only Mexicans are suitable for exposure to the sun in this state.
In fact, that brings me to a whole new topic, which is the reason anyone cares about a gay white guy at all around here in the first place. Here's why: tragedy. There's a sense that you 'had it all, and yet chose to give it up'. So we're a mysterious breed, often equated to vampires due to our romantic ruination. The gay Black guy. The gay Hispanic guy. They get none of this treatment because they had nothing to begin with. The lesbian is already a woman, and therefore already second class. Yes it is the gay white male alone who can be valued, and he can be valued only if he chooses to become a hair stylist, florist, or interior designer. This is because he can be subservient to upper class white women in those roles. Like a eunuch. So safe and yet still a white man! How convenient!
In fact, laughing isn't the result of a joke where I work. No, laughing has become a way of reaffirming complete similarity of beliefs. Person A states an opinion and follows it with a 'you know?' and then Person A and Person B laugh simultaneously to acknowledge that they both completely agree. If Person B secretly did not agree with Person A (unheard of!) then they might sulk away afterwards and find their own Person B to laugh with about not agreeing.
Person A: I just can't get enough fried chicken, you know?
Person B: I know! I am the WORST. I just love fried chicken!
Person A and Person B: HA! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! We are the WORST!
Hypothetical Me: I don't really like fried chicken.
Person A and Person B: You don't? Well the South just hasn't gotten to you yet is all, you'll see.
(later that day person A and B are squatting in Person B's cubicle talking about how weird Hypothetical Me is, and about how they don't think he's patriotic at all.)
Part of the problem is that I'm a WEB DESIGNER and CODER, and CARTOONIST. Around here, that makes people's heads explode because as a gay man from the South, I should have chosen Hair Stylist, Florist, or Interior Designer. So from the very start its like I've infiltrated the Trinity Broadcasting Network as an Information Technology professional every single day I come to work.
There are at least three men in this giant building who are paid a full time salary to walk around and check on flowers. There are innumerable food photographers, and a fashion photographer. There's a makeup guy. There are so many interior designers I don't venture a guess, but you can tell them from the other gay guys because they still use hair gel.
Of course there are the guys who do the expansive grounds work as well, but that's outdoors work and evidently only Mexicans are suitable for exposure to the sun in this state.
In fact, that brings me to a whole new topic, which is the reason anyone cares about a gay white guy at all around here in the first place. Here's why: tragedy. There's a sense that you 'had it all, and yet chose to give it up'. So we're a mysterious breed, often equated to vampires due to our romantic ruination. The gay Black guy. The gay Hispanic guy. They get none of this treatment because they had nothing to begin with. The lesbian is already a woman, and therefore already second class. Yes it is the gay white male alone who can be valued, and he can be valued only if he chooses to become a hair stylist, florist, or interior designer. This is because he can be subservient to upper class white women in those roles. Like a eunuch. So safe and yet still a white man! How convenient!
WIDGETIZE