You Asked For It

It’s been almost two months and people have been hounding me for a fresh, new blog entry. The wait is over, and I’ve written a whopper! After wrestling with many possible gay-pride-related topics that would ultimately end up being viewed as fluff, I decided to share a fun little story about a recent experience on public transport.

A very attractive young man turned to me during a train ride last week. I didn’t know how to react at first. It was one of those moments that every awkward young man dreams of. I thought to myself: “YES! Cute people DO want to talk to me!”

Him: Do you have a minute?
Me: Yeah.
My thought: Oh fuck yeah!
Him: My name is Daniel.
Me: I’m Richie.
Him: I was looking at you just now and I thought you’d be perfect for our group. A bunch of other guys like me meet up every week…
My thought: ::drool::
Him: … and reach out to the world through our savior’s teachings.
Me: FUCK

The beautiful, steel grey-eyed hunk of a man was a God warrior, one of three things I hate to encounter when I'm on public transport. The other two are hobos and drunk girls.

There are four tactics that I use at the gay bars whenever I encounter a creepy man who wants a slice of my pie and I don’t feel like sharing. Surprisingly, these tactics can also be used against God warriors, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons.

1. Giving fake contact information.
2. Politely excusing yourself to the restroom so you can make an escape.
3. Saying that you have a boyfriend.
4. Letting on that you are mildly interested, then starting to pick your nose.

I opted for the third tactic, announcing that I had a boyfriend. How would he react when I told him that I wasn’t attracted to people with self-lubricating genitals? I thought that would do the trick, and watching the color drain from Daniel’s face left me with the same satisfied feeling I get when I tell children that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus. But Daniel quickly regained his composure and inundated me with questions about the validity of my homosexuality.

“How do you know that you’re really gay?” he asked. Before I could answer, he tried to draw parallels between my homosexuality and some dude from the bible who built an army for God. The only parallel I could see was the fact that both me and the soldier were constantly surrounded by men who haven’t seen women in ages, but I digress.

I can go on for hours about the fifteen minute conversation - nay, clash of faiths – between me and the annoyingly handsome (and possibly sex-starved) God warrior. We kept invalidating each other’s arguments with even more intriguing arguments much in the same way that Daffy Duck pulled a gun on Marvin the Martian, but Marvin pulls out a ray gun, then Daffy pulls out an even bigger gun, then Marvin pulls out an enormous cannon, until the weapons get bigger than the actual planet. It was getting out of hand.

In an attempt to end the madness and to get my mind off of the fact that he suggested that homosexuality is indeed a choice (because he talked to a lot of experts on homosexuality), I proposed a compromise. I would agree to meet with his little God warrior group and listen to what they had to say if he would agree to come with me to a gay bar and ask the patrons there if they chose to be gay. His response: “I won’t do that.”

I asked him why, and he said “because where I come from, that isn’t acceptable.”

I said: “where I come from, that’s called a double standard.” I told him that we’d reached an impasse and politely excused myself. And with that, I got up and exited the train. It was four stops away from my actual stop, but I just had to get out of there.

I’ve probably missed out on every major march on Washington for gays and lesbians, every hate crime protest, and every gay marriage campaign since I came out eleven years ago. But that day on the train, I felt like there was an opportunity to contribute to the cause in some small way by defending my own homosexuality. Aggressors toward homosexuality don’t always stand on podiums in Washington or run the Americans for Truth campaign. Sometimes they look cute and try to chat you up on the train. Be prepared to defend yourself!

It’s good to be back.