Anyone who knows me outside of Facebook, my notoriously bad first impressions, or instinctively defending a friend without knowing all the details knows that once you break through the deliberately placed initial sour taste you get in your mouth, I ain't such a bad guy. In spite of me, it must be true. I still have friends or so they tell me.
Free loving, tree hugging, nauseatingly tolerant expectations I may drudge up in your imaginary flower child scenario's be damned. I have few shades of gray when it comes to belief's I hold dear so far as morality, manners, and loyalty. I see things in black and white, right and wrong, and yes and no. No gray, no ties, no maybe's. I can be a rigid son of a bitch <what did you call my Mom?>.
I'm not a saint by a long shot, and I also make mistakes on a regular basis, so much so that it'd be easier to say 'wow, I really Brian-ed that up, huh?' but in the moment, and when it comes time to act, I'll grant as much time to logic as I can possibly muster, try to be more like 'Touched By an Angel' than 'Judge Judy', and will react in appropriate time with an apology or justification of sorts.
I have to confess that I've felt the sting of being judged wrongly without prudence, been excluded based on appearance <which always amazes me, considering how highly I regard myself>, and feel like from initial introduction, which is the easy part, that it's an uphill climb for me to overcome whatever subconscious message that's harbored in your hippie fantasy. Yes, I have tattoos, No, I haven't been to prison, capisce?
Let's face it, when someone says 'My gay friend is coming over, and he's smart, funny, and cute' {assuming that's what people say, it tends to be what I hear in my head, ha ha} I'm pretty sure the last person anyone expects to walk through the door would be a guy who represents as a tattooed, long haired, fat guy. I'm hardly your conventional looking person and I make no apologies for this. As a gay guy, I right off the bat offend many a straight friend or stranger in a party environment, and have learned to counter every request right out of the gate- such as <"Don't be starin' at my ass, dude, I'm not a homo'> with a quick retort. 'You don't have to worry, I'm only interested in men' is one of my favorites.
What you may not know, unless you're a gay guy, is that gay men turn selective thought and stereotyping people into an art form. There's no winning a room over when the wheels of a witch coven starts churning the pot. What's worse is you can't beat those people up; mentally you're too buzzed or caught off guard to be quick with words, and fisticuffs is not an option; These people have been tortured in gym class for years and know how to dramatize and over dramatize for drama's sake. My nightmare is having to defend my sexuality on a stand in court, trying to convince a jury that I'm 'gay enough' to not be eligible for conviction of a hate crime, and 'THAT queen deserved a smack and noone who was there would deny it' is kind of a weak argument unless you're lucky enough to have a gay jury. If I could dream a dream, my jury would be in complete drag, comprised of Tanya Tucker's, but that's a story for another time.
Having confidence in the face of adversity takes many years of overcoming having no confidence in the past, and I'm lucky enough to know a handful or so of people who remember me as the quiet guy who just wanted to be left alone throughout my scholastic career who can appreciate my evolution to sarcastic smart ass that defends not only himself, but causes of a personal nature. I tell John all the time that I'm not right about a lot of things. We can agree on that, and I don't need to close my eyes to see John's head nodding with that expression that says 'if you only knew how often and how wrong you can be'.
I've also told him that when in a crowd, I may tell everyone the sky is green, and that regardless of it being correct, it's his duty to concur. I have agreed to reciprocate. There's plenty of time to be wrong, like when we're at home and he can explain to me why I'm mistaken, preferably over white wine.
What's your perception? We could be seen as the 'distorted facts couple' but I like to think of us as 'blissfully and idiotically united'. The way I see the world because it always makes sense to me and no one gets hurt. As soon as John surrender's to my logic, it will be utter harmony.
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