Hold the Mustard

One thing that my Asian friends complain about is that men in Chicago aren't into Asians. They feel that there are a lot of stereotypes that work against them and that the men who do want to date them are only fulfilling some fantasy because they enjoyed M.A.S.H. when it was on television... or because the men want an authentic "Oriental" massage. That's when I sit them down and tell them my quirky little story about the mustard bottle.

I once had breakfast in a pancake house in Houston with my friend, Sam, after we stopped dating. He dumped me for someone cuter, but we became friends again after he got dumped by the cuter boy when the cuter boy found someone cuter. Then I thought to myself that gay men pick boyfriends exactly like they pick shoes.

Sam and I sat at the table, deciding what to order, when I asked him why I had such bad luck dating men. He reached toward the condiments and placed a ketchup bottle next to a mustard bottle. He pointed to the half empty ketchup bottle and said "I'm the ketchup. See how everyone likes ketchup? It goes with everything." He then pointed to the mustard bottle and said "you're the mustard. It's just there on the table and collects dust because no one ever wants it."

That comment set into motion a series of events that would test the strength of my resolve. I spent years trying to make myself perfect because I didn't want to be the mustard bottle. I wanted to be the ketchup, or maybe even the hot sauce. Only brave people ask for the hot sauce. After practically killing myself with the intense workouts so I could look skinny and nights of binge drinking so I could fit into the bar scene, I still had trouble getting people to like me.

One day, after I eventually made my way to Chicago, I had lunch at Clark Street Dog with my roommate at the time. I noticed that he was putting mustard on his Italian sausage. The mustard bottle was practically empty, and I couldn't stop staring at the full bottle of ketchup next to it. He told me that a lot of people in Chicago love their Italian sausage with just mustard on it.

EPIPHANY! It wasn't that everyone in the world hated mustard. Who would use mustard on anything in a pancake house, anyway? I realized that the Richie who got dumped by a person who would eventually get dumped by the person that he dumped Richie for in the first place was fine just the way he was. Just because mustard bottle Richie wasn't popular in one place doesn't mean that he couldn't be accepted in another. Different strokes for different folks, right?

So whenever one of my Asian comrades whines and complains about people not liking Asian guys, I just tell them that in a place with an abundance of meat, the mustard bottle reigns supreme! And that reference works on so many levels!