I Learned The Truth at 17

The Advocate ^ | April 9, 2003 | Paul Chandler

[Mister Magoo]

I learned the truth at 17

Our high school senior correspondent reaches a crossroads: If he takes another guy to the prom, is he doing it for himself, or just to fulfill an image of “gay teen” that’s taking over his life?

By Paul Chandler

An Advocate.com exclusive posted April 9, 2003

A few weeks ago I was contemplating taking out an ad that read, “Emergency! Need gay male prom date. Respond immediately.”

Every time spring rolls in, prom fever hits. Who am I going to go with? Where do we go to eat? What about afterward? Do we really want to go to “after-prom”? What group should we travel with? Is it really that important? Do we really have to go to that downtown French restaurant? Finally, the last one: Do I really have to go with a guy?

About six months ago I went to homecoming with my friend John. It was the first time in the school’s history that a male couple went to a school dance. While I had a lot of fun, it wasn’t as fun as it could have been.

The music wasn’t too bad (though at school dances one can only expect so much). Even the personal drama I had with one of my best friends wasn’t the reason for the damper. Now that I look back on it, I think it was because I felt pressure to be something that I wasn’t. Maybe it’s been that way all along.

I felt like I had to make a statement. One of the T-shirts I wear says, “W.E. We’re EVERYWHERE,” and that’s what I wanted to show everyone. I wasn’t going to sit down and take it. I wanted to show them that we are right there, listening to the “Oh, that’s so gay” and the “God, that guy’s a fag” every day, every single hour. We are their best friends, their siblings, their parents. We aren’t going to be faceless anymore.

When John told me he might dress in drag, I figured that if one face was that of a drag queen, all the better. This is one extreme: Learn it. Accept this and you’ll accept everything. I was going to shove it down their throats and make them feel what society continues to do to us. “I did a cheerleader in the bathroom.” Yeah? Well, my friend participates in an open relationship. There’s a park downtown where some people go for anonymous sex. We’re not all like this, but for every one of your extremes, we’ve got one too. We’re right down in the dirt with you, no better, no worse, same exact proportion, same exact problems.

It was like all the times in the closet when I had been pressured to say, “Oh, yeah, that girl’s so fine” were coming back and working backward. Now I felt I had to offer a loud “That boy is hella hot!” I had to be a rooftop yeller. I had to be the Gay Guy. I’ve heard that this is overcompensation. And now I can say yep, that was me.

My justification was that a demonstrated fact can destroy an existing stereotype when the two cannot coexist. A woman cannot be inferior and intelligent—we know intelligent women, so women are not inferior. A fag cannot be an athlete—I am an athlete, so fags can indeed be athletic. Once someone proves an assumption wrong, I figured, the whole belief system crumbles. The weak were the ones who succumbed to compromise; the brave prevailed.

But as the year progresses, I see I’ve made a fatal error. The positive truths about a person do not necessarily obliterate the negative assumptions. One person told it to me this way: “If you see a basketball player who is amazing, you cheer for him. If you find out he’s gay, you might still cheer for him, but only for that nonexistent part of him which is straight.” In other words, if you hate fags, you grant that this one person is an exception who’s more like straight people, and you can still believe that all other fags can’t be athletes. Simple as that.

And if you put yourself out there as only gay? Is that good enough to erase other people’s negative attitudes?

I know now, it’s not.

I thought I lived and worked for the day when high schoolers wouldn’t care when someone comes out. I longed for when telling your friends that you’re going out to the movies with Paul is as easy as telling them you’re going with Jenny. I think in that sense, I’ve done a little good and a whole lot of bad.

I’ve asked people constantly what I could have done better. They answer simply and directly and tell me that I should be doing what I think is the hardest thing of all to do: Be myself. One of the people who told me that was the best friend in my homecoming article, who didn’t approve of the idea that I might take a drag queen to the dance. (In the end, I didn’t.). We’ve grown apart since that article came out, and now there are times when we don’t even say hi in the halls. I look back on what happened and I can understand why he was upset. I was wrong. It wasn’t about him not liking drag queens; it was about respecting other people’s tolerance levels. It was about nudging people in the right direction instead of jerking them.

Sometimes when I try to talk to him, I can see how much he hurts when he looks at me. I feel like I’m ripping apart his insides. I don’t think I ever felt so stupid in my entire life.

I’m not going to lie. I’m still a flamer. But maybe there is a difference between nelly flaming and proper flaming. Maybe being nelly is throwing it in people’s faces because you don’t want them to see who you really are. Maybe it’s too hard to face the whole world naked, so you take refuge in stereotypes. That way, when people say they hate your guts and you’re going to hell, it’s not you, it’s that persona you wear. Then maybe it becomes so hard to take off that mask that you squeeze everything in your world into that niche and accuse your best friends of the greatest atrocities for the smallest crimes.

Maybe.

I don’t know where I’m going from here. I’m still learning. I guess I should start with square one—I experience “romantic feelings” toward guys—and work from there. It’s time to stop living for the spotlight and start living for myself.

It’s funny, you think you know everything when you’re 17. You start walking forward in long, easy strides until suddenly that rake slams into your face and you think you have a splinter in your nose.

I think I’m bringing a lesbian to prom this year, not because she’s a lesbian but because she’s a good friend of mine whose school is too small to have one. She’s also a great dancer. I’ll show up at her door in my beat-up car, pin on her boutonniere, and hold out a wrist for my corsage. We’ll eat at that fancy French restaurant, maybe get a limo, meet up with some friends before and after the prom, and fill in the rest with laughter.

We’ll just all be ourselves, enjoying the last major event before graduation.

[Fred Mertz]

The farm down the road has a few good looking sheep.

You forgot the barf alert, Magoo.

[RLK]

My impression from what I've read here is that this is a self-absorbed self-impressed person with an obsession to show their ass.

[Demosthenes]

Must be hard to "be yourself" when you spend your life defining "yourself" by where you put your wang.

[longtermmemmory]

this is a troll/disrupter thread, ignore

[Dianna]

(To the author) I don't hate you because you're gay. I hate you because you're obnoxious. Why is this concept so difficult for some people?

[Gil4]

...but for every one of your extremes, we’ve got one too.

I think the ratio is more like 1:100

We’re right down in the dirt with you, no better, no worse, same exact proportion, same exact problems.

Another lie.

[ppaul]

Sick little puppy.
Even more sick: the public schools are encouraging, "celebrating" even, this degenerate deviancy.

[Boot Hill]

Sick puppy Paul Chandler in his own words:

"I wasn’t going to sit down and take it."

"Accept this and you’ll accept everything."

"I was going to shove it down their throats"