Disclaimer-Absolutely no disrespect is meant to the members of the law enforcement community, for whom I have a great deal of respect.
Also, all names have been changed just because I feel like it.
“He’s a cop”
That’s what get whispered behind my back, and I don’t like it. Many of y’all know my situation. I am single, actually recently divorced, and live by myself. My job is not a 9-5 one. I am a night person. Many of my clients are people I see at night. Tonight I finished working at about 10PM. I came home, made dinner, chatted with a few friends here online, and then went out to my local pub. I had a beer, shot a round of pool ( I lost ), talked to a girl I know about dinner plans we are trying to make( 2 busy schedules ), and came home. The details differ day to day, of course, but I would say this is a fairly typical evening for me. I go out to the same pub 3-5 times a week, and do about the same thing. I have “friends” at the pub. I mean “friends” in the sense that I know them as pretty good aquaintences. I call them at times, they call me. John and his SO Kim and I plan on going to a Ravens game soon. Sam the bouncer is always a great one to kid around with. Judy and I have been intimate in the past, and we can go for hours having what would be a GD thread here. ( Jesus, I just realized I live in a Budweiser radio spot. All together now: “These are the people in my neighborhood, they make me feel nice, make me feel good…” 
) They’re not friends like I have elsewhere in my life, hell I have a lot of friends I have made on the SDMB that I am extremely close to. Geo, Falc, Tequila, Beth, Tibs, Chris, Lucretia, Bluesman, Ex-Tank, Tuba, Jill…the list goes on. These are people I can talk to about what’s going on in my life, how I feel, the real McCoy. They are altogether a much deeper level of friendship, friends w/o the quotes, in other words. “Friends” has it’s place, however. It’s…comfortable.
Here’s the thing. I go out alone. I am completely comfortable with myself. I’m not on the make. I have quite enough casual sex in my life. I could, very easily, in fact, pick up another wiggeling ass to fuck most nights, but that interests me less than you might think. I like my sex with people I know and like. I am outgoing and friendly. I have plenty of self confidence with out being arrogant. I accept life as it is, and I enjoy it to the limit. That’s it. That’s me to the max. I don’t play games, I don’t weasel around loking for aproval, I make fun of myself more than anyone else. I’m me in other words. This translates, aparently, to me being a cop. Judy told me, " I had a hell of a time convincing Brian that you’re not a cop " ( Brian is a totally scummy loser. He steals stuff from work and fences it. He sells drugs. He gets drunk and gets into fights. He is going to be found by the side of the road one day with a bullet in the back of his head, and frankly it can’t happen too soon.) I asked her why. She said that I was too clean cut. I don’t get it. I run my own business. I make about 100K/year. I couldn’t do that with 3 days growth and a pony tail down to my ass with tatoos all over my body( Not in my line of work, anyway. I know some people who look like that and do make lots of money, and I think it’s great. Defying convention is my middle name. Most folks in my profession wear ties and suits. I take pride in doing as well as or better than them in casual clothes. )Clean cut is a bad thing all of a sudden? John the bartender says it’s cuz I always come in alone and late at night. I’m sorry, but I was working. I’m not desperite to have a girlfriend. Soon I will meet a nice girl and we will prolly start to date, but in the meantime I’m not despertly looking for one. It will happen in time. Rushing it or frantically looking for it strikes me as the one way to ensure it never happens. How does any of this translate into someone who is acting undercover to catch people in crimes? Also, I’ve been going there for about 6 months now. If I was a cop, shouldn’t I have caught someone by now?
Ahhh, the whole thing amuses my by about half, and pisses me off by half. I accept folks for who they are. It gets me mad that I’m being pre-judged for no reason. I guess I have a small inking of what a black person might feel when he or she is dimissed as a “nigger” by someone who never bothered to get to know the person they were talking about. I don’t like it, and frankly, I don’t get it.