I don't care if you're gay...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I mean…I really don’t.

Let me explain…

I never really personally knew anyone who was openly gay until I began working in my present position. My company is very progressive, very liberal, and makes a concerted effort to attract qualified people regardless of sexual orientation.

(I didn’t know this until I started.)

So, I end up working with three guys who are very openly gay.

At first I’m a bit apprehensive. Will they come on to me? Will they try to “convert” me? Will they follow me into the restroom and try and peek?

They didn’t.

Instead, they just did their jobs. Well. Quite well, in fact.

Now, please understand…intellectually I always thought: I’m not bigoted; gay people are the same as everyone else.

But I never actually knew anyone who was openly gay. I didn’t know how I’d react when I had to work every day with a gay people.

Well, I know now. It ain’t no different at all.

You might think, “Of course it’s not, you idjit.” Well, hey, it was an epiphany for me. I hadn’t had the “exposure,” so how was I to know?

Well, I’ve been “exposed” now for five years. During that time I’ve learned a few things:

[ul]The gay people I know talk about their sex life less than straight people.

Gay people are fiercely supportive of their friends…gay or straight.

Gay people are OK.[/ul]

So…it only took me 40-odd years to realize all this. At least I did.

So, I say, I don’t care if you’re gay. Or not. It doesn’t make any difference.

2

Bravo for you man… that’s a great post.

3

So much for that “Coming out” party Doob was going to throw for me. Looks like I’ll be straight for good this time. And I was looking so forward to comin… oh forget it.
:frowning:

:smiley:

4

Rysdad,
Next we send you into a gay bar to hang out …:smiley:

   While I wasn't as cloistered as you, (I knew a few gay guys in college) I had an interesting experience a few years back. A dart league I was in had a lesbian bar enter a team. More than a little strange going in there the first time (I'm a guy). After our nerves settled a little, though, it turned out to be probably the friendliest bar in the league.
5

Well, I care if someone’s gay. Happy people piss me off.

Oh, you mean the OTHER kind of “gay”… nevermind, then. :smiley:

6

My husband and I were just talking about this last night.

He’s had a gay woman ask to be transferred to work for him, citing that he’s more accepting of “alternate” lifestyles. He was fine with it and she’s going to be running the national training program for his group, but he says that he finds it very hard to manage openly gay people (He’s had at least three openly gay women work directly under him, as well as countless men).

::: DING DING DING!!! Sue’s PC-meter goes off! :::

“Why?” I ask cautiously.

His reasoning was that people who have come out of the closet have already opened themselves up to so much potential disapproval, criticism, etc. that they just don’t care.

“Excuse me?”

They don’t care. You can tell them that the proposal they just wrote sucks ass and in the scope of it all, it’s still not nearly as bad as coming out of the closet.

“I still don’t get it, Darling.”

It takes a certain amount of “I don’t care what others think of me!” to come out of the closet. Do you think after an event like that, I could possibly say anything about their work that would phase them?

“Maybe they have professional pride like anyone else.”

Of course they do, but what if it’s skewed, just like a lot of other people?

I came away from the exchange very confused…my husband is NOT a bigoted person, yet it almost sounded like it last night…even though I knew he was just being his usual straight-forward self.

Weird.

7

Congrats Rysdad. It’s always nice to see someone saying someting like this. Makes me feel that there actually is hope for mankind.

8

Me neither…
I don’t care if you are gay or not…

I have had probably 10 friends who were either openly or semi-openly gay.(Semi-openly meaning they could be open to people who they knew wouldn’t be terrorized by the fact)

But,
I have had no lesbian friends…And that is a confusing matter for me. I mean …a bisexual woman is a great concept, but a pure lesbian…what a waste of beauty for the male gender!!!
:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

9

Nice post, rysdad.

10

I have known and become friends with many gay people since I was in my teens. I have never thought twice about it. However, before my husband met me, he had never (to his knowledge) been around any and was extremely apprehensive when he learned I had so many gay friends. Homophobic? Uh…BIG TIME. He didn’t hate them, per se, but was seemingly very afraid of them.

Yet after he met my two best friends, both of whom are gay, it took him about a day to change his views. And believe me, I was extremely shocked that he did, considering how ridiculous and backwards his views had been. He and David, my best male friend since I was a junior in high school, became very close and often went bar-hopping (straight as well as gay places), went to football games, watched races and generally had a great time together. He himself marveled that he couldn’t believe he’d had such a dim view of homosexuality; his favorite phrase became, Hell, they’re just like us and I never even knew it! :slight_smile: It was kinda cute.

When David died, part of my life died with him, but my husband was simply devastated. He said he’d never had as much fun and as much laughter as he did with David, and he would always treasure his memories of David, as he was the one who showed him that just because someone has different sexual orientation doesn’t make that person wrong or strange. He said David was responsible for making him wake up and see how wrong HE’D been and he’d never even thanked him for it.

Now if I can only get him to change his views about my smoking…:wink:

11

Any questions I had about whether gay people were “just like us” were settled in college when I ended up sharing a townhouse with several people including a gay guy. Yep, he was just like us–he just didn’t compete with me for girls.

12

I really only know of one person IRL that I know is gay, and she’s just someone I say hi to in the halls. I was really embarassed though when she told me-we were talking about a teacher we had, and she said, “She kept asking me why I didn’t dress more feminine-but she finally got the hint when she saw me hugging my girlfriend, you know?”

I hadn’t known she was gay, so I kind of said, “Oh,” like really awkwardly. I felt soooo bad. She didn’t notice, though. It wasn’t that I cared per se, it was just like, I felt like I acted like an ass.
Most of the gay people I know well are online-here as well as other places. I really don’t think much about it.

13

Well, I care if someone’s gay. How else will I know to ask them out or not?

:wink:

Esprix

14

Hey, Esprix, did you get your gaydar fixed?

15

Homosexuals I have no problem with, but smokers :eek:…well, you’re going straight to hell for that!

In fact, come to think of it…

[sub]Dear Mr. Chick,
I have an idea for your next pamphlet…[/sub]
:smiley:

16

Hey Sue Duhnym, I once asked a friend of mine (who had a lovely tattoo over her left lower ribs) if getting a tattoo hurt very much, she shrugged and said “Well, nothing really hurts after you’ve been though childbirth”. I think Mr. SueDuhnym’s idea that nothing hurts after you’ve come out of the closet is not such a bad one. But gays are just as easy to manipulate through professional pride as anybody. Have you had a chance to follow up on that conversation?

Good for you, Rysdad. It’s amazing how knowing even one gay/ethnic/whatever person can open your worldview.

17

Whaddya mean I am going straight to hell??? I live with a non-smoker. I AM in hell. Whatever Lucifer could come up with couldn’t hold a candle to this. :wink:

Ok…sorry for the really lame pun. Carry on with the topic at hand.

18

I don’t want to be overly critical, but I can’t help that point out that:

are stereotypes just as much as “Gay people try and seduce straight coworkers.” Not all gay people are supportive of thier friends, not all gay people are OK–a jerk is a jerk, and same-sex orientation is no real buffer against it.

I am not trying to say ‘hey, you are too still a bigot’ cause that’s not what I think. I think you typed “that I know” the first time and then dropped it. But even though all the people who posted on this thread are in agreement with you, there are likely lurkers who haven’t thought about this sort of thing much and whom I don’t want to teach that a positive stereotpye is any less a stereotype. This is sorta a knee-jerk issue for me.

19

MandaJO–you took the words right out of my mouth. Saying “gay people are OK” or “gay people are supportive” is no different from (and no more true than) saying "___ are good businessmen, “___ are great at photography” or “___ are great fighters.” (Fill in your favorite nationality.)

20

[I sent this MS to a particular friend of mine this weekend. I think it might be appropriate, somewhat edited.]

[The other] night was a rare confluence of friends I don’t often see together. Two of them were my friend Chris #1, an American-Korean of traditional upbringing, and my other friend Chris #2, a Korean-American adoptee of “normal” American upbringing. Chris #1 is a Type-A battler, a hyper agressive guy who got himself torn up pretty bad when he brought his fists to a knife fight one night and has since moderated his outlook on life. Chris #2 is a Type-A battler, a hyper aggressive guy who became an Army Ranger and got his ass ambushed in that massacre in Somalia and has since moderated his outlook on life. Oh, yeah, Chris #2 is also a gay occasional-transvestite, and he wasn’t having a really good time because he was feeling a little bit out of his own pond. Chris #1 and Chris #2 have been accquaintences with a certain affinity for each another due to a shared background, but they don’t know each other very well.

So the three of us are beyond tipsy, ogling this particular bartendress, well, at least two of us were. Chris #2 suddenly says, “so, if I were straight, I’d think that girl was the cat’s ass?”

“Hell, yeah!” I say.

“What?” says Chris #1.

Chris #2: “You know, if I liked girls, I’d be all over that girl, right?”

Chris #1: “What?”

This focused line of questioning on the part of Chris #1 continued for some time, and the conversation got more confused until I finally broke in:

“What Chris is saying is that if he were a heterosexual, he would probably find that girl attractive.”

Chris #1: “What?! (to Chris #2) You’re gay?!”

Chris #2: “Hell, yes, didn’t you know that?”

Chris #1: “What?”

Never before have I seen a man’s entire world-view erode like Madonna’s labia at an Alaskan construction site. It was like watching someone go through the stages one experiences when confronted with his own death.

“You’re putting me on.”

“But you still like girls, don’t you?”

“Whose fault is it?”

“Man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’re a fucking faggot–I mean, I didn’t know.”

“Fuuuuuuuck.”

In the meantime, Chris #2 and I were laughing to tears. Another friend, Chris #3, was in on the conversation, and was huffing so hard on his cigar that it glowed bright red–he’s known about Chris #2 for years. Poor Chris #1. He just couldn’t come to terms that fast.

Later, he excoriated me for not informing him. I pointed out that he had participated in numerous conversations where Chris #2 had admitted his proclivities, but Chris #1 had simply not noticed. That really pissed him off. Both eventually left, at different times, to pursue other venues. I staggered home, proudly sporting my Pussy Snorkel and matching T-shirt.

Addendum: if you’re ever confronted with your own death, I recommend you stay drunk, because Chris #1 appears to have regressed a few steps since sobriety hit him upside the head. Now he’s very apologetic because he thinks I’m gay, by association apparently. I was sitting next to C #2 at the bar, and I almost drowned in my pint glass when I was laughing. Q.E.D. I’m sorely tempted to fuck with this poor guy beyond the pale… but he’s my friend and I suppose I shouldn’t, unless I can document it on film somehow:

Story of a guy who might be gay but probably isn’t who’s confronted by a guy who definitely isn’t gay but who the first guy thinks is gay and therefore mortally fears the confrontation, guaranteed to be expedited in the first fifteen minutes of the screenplay in order to make for a good trailer and then filled out by Saturday Night Live actors trying to feed themselves on the off-season.

Anyway, that’s the good word from Latentsville, Anywhere. Not that it’s a bad place…