Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ucbvax!decwrl!levasseur@morgan.DEC (Ray EMD & S Admin 223-5027) From: levasseur@morgan.DEC (Ray EMD & S Admin 223-5027) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Cosmic Questions Message-ID: <563@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 13:23:51 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.563 Posted: Tue Sep 24 13:23:51 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 06:39:15 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 308 Cosmic Questions of the Cosmos Answered Or Attepted Jason Ties it all Together In a few of my other articles I've mentioned; loneliness, games, liars and all sorts of other behaviors which pollute non-gay as well as gay soc- iety. One person's response to the article on bars went something like, He has only blasted and made fun of stereotypes without offering any construct- ive advice. No! I did not mean to blindly thumb my nose at the boys at the bars. I've given a lot of thought to earlier postings and through conversat- ions with many netters as well those less fortunate, who cannot communicate via a computer netowrk, I've come up with the distilled feelings of quite a few gay men. I'll shelve liars, bullshit artists and the other barracudas who give the rest of us a bad name and concentrate on why some things honestly don't work out. Toward the end of this article I'm going to chat about my personal feelings regarding "Homophobia" A few people have sent me mail stating that subjects I've brought up touched on areas that they didn't feel comfortable with. It's too bad that a lot of gay men and women would rather not give a little thought to what hurts them, but rather attempt at ignoring or denying the existance of what another has pulled. If you lean into the pain, allow yourself to feel it, take time to analyze the reasons behind it, then it loses it's sting. The trouble is that many gays have suffered so much more pain and rejection, that they reach a limit and become cold, numb and cynical. This can explain a lot of what is seen as "Attitude". The inner thought that says, "Hah! I'm not gonna talk to him/her", can equal, "I can't bear another put down or rejection, therefore I will do the rejecting first!" A lot of this operates in an almost totally subconscious mode of thinking. A lot of people have very little access to their subconscious minds; they have become experts at repressing feelings. This in itself isn't bad until a slush fund of denied feelings builds up to the point of threatening breakthrough to the waking mind. Anxiety attacks, depression, etc can all be the result of the subconscious covertly modulating the waking state. My roomate and I have discussed coldness and cynicism as a defense mech- anism against others hurting us. It does work to keep the turkeys away but it also filters out a lot of really nice people. The trouble comes when you combine my cynical behavior with that of all the other bar patrons; there is one big standoff with everyone quietly thinking, I really wanna talk to him/her, but why bother; he/she's probably a jerk. We already have a mindset that the hot clone, hot Amazon is a snob and a jerk. This protects us, we can rationalize away that we're better off not taking a chance. How many of you can admit to having been really attracted to someone, but something inside paralyzed your ability to just walk up and say, "Hello!" I've had many times where an att- ractive man stood opposite me and winked, smiled, etc and the lump in my throat kept me from going up and introducing myself. Over the years I've become less afraid of my subconscious and can query it for answers. >FIND ALL "OCCURANCES" IN SUB WHY I HAVEN'T APPROACHED 100,000 RECORDS FOUND >LIST REASONS 10,000 RECORDS "SNUBBED" 25,000 RECORDS "TOLD TO FUCK OFF" 25,000 RECORDS "LAUGHED AT" 25,000 RECORDS "CATTY REMARK MADE BY OTHER PARTY" 15,000 RECORDS "MISCELLANEOUS REASONS" So, most of us just swallow (unwittingly) each rejection without giving thought to the reason; it just feeds the already massive database of hurt. What I do now is give conscious thought to why the other person acted the way he has and let myself off the hook as being a substandard person. In- stead of adding records to your rejection base, you may consider the source, geee I wonder what his problem is? you might ask yourself. There are a lot of reasons why someone will reject you. Listed below are a few that men and women have discussed with me; both from the rejector's as well as the per- ceptions of the rejectees * You just may not be the person's type and they don't know how to tell you in a polite way. A lot of gay men have very strict guidelines in who they'll be seen talking to. It's too bad since they lock out so many other interest- ing folks. Maybe it would help if these people wore Tee shirts that read, "I only talk to blonds","Bodybuilders","men with Roman noses" etc. Just remember that you're no less a good person because Mr Wonderful snubs you. * The person may want to be alone but want to be among others. * The other person could be somewhat closeted, even though they're at the bar. There are a lot of closet cases who frequent the bars but they're too shy to accept your offer to chat. * They may have a lover and only dropped in for a drink with no intention of chatting/going home with anyone. * They could be carrying around a much heavier load of emotional baggage than you are. Trouble is that you cannot look into someone else's mind. * They may actually have a Narcissistic hangup on themselves. In this case, you're better off alone. * This reason is pretty weak but common in gay men's bars, they may be afraid of what their friends will think if they're seen talking with you. I have had many occasions where someone has walked up to me at a store, on the street etc and said they always wanted to talk to me. I had seen them many times and they always seemed very cold and remote. The honest ones admitted that their friends were judgemental and were afraid of criticism by them. * The person may have had a really bad day, etc, etc or a whole host of other reasons. Bottom line is, don't let it bother you, but don't be afraid to feel the little ping of rejection either. Another form of rejection can hurt more. It's this one that bothers me. I'm sure that many of you have met people (not just bed partners) who's company you've really enjoyed. They tell you all kinds of flowery things which lead you to believe that the feeling's mutual. I can't count the number of times that I have heard, "Geee I really enjoy your company, you're just so nice", " we have a lot in common, I hope we become good friends", "I really want to see you again, I'll call you on Tuesday", etc, etc. Funny thing is that most of the time, the friendship never developes, the phone call never comes and you're soon forgot- ten as another pleasant aquaintance for the evening. Instead of letting all these lines seep into your subconscious rejection database, run them through a filter first. Think about where the person is coming from. Do they seem sin- cere? The test of time will tell you if there was any real sincere offer of frienship. Most of the real friends I've met over theyears were not found in the bars. I've found that the bars are good for partying with people you already know, but not very conducive to making true friends. What follows are some of the reasons I and others believe that the pther party never reciprocates. * They may have truly enjoyed being with you on Saturday night. The emotional high may have prompted them to say things that, at the moment, they really meant. After you part company they "Sober up" so to speak, and don't feel the same way. * Booze and drugs can do much the same as the above. They may feel so good from the intoxicant as well as your companionship, that the warm fuzzy feelings make them say things they may not really mean. Some may not even remember who you are. This doesn't have to be interpreted as an affront on your self worth; just that the drug/alcohol blotted out the memory of the time they spent with you. If this is the case, then you're also better off without them. They may really have meant all the nice things they said while high. It's pretty well known that drugs and alcohol lower inhibitions. Yeah! that's right, the things that the guy may be too shy to say when sober come rambling out while sloshed. They may also feel a little guilty about spouting out all these nice little compliments to you afterwards and feel funny about following up on their off- ers. * There are those guys who's social/business calendars are busier then the Pres- ident of the United State's. You may have been a refreshing respite from their harried schedule and they were just expressing the fact. Once the two of you part, they just don't have the time to get together again; you're soon forgot- ten as more pressing issues take up their time. * There are also those poor dizzy souls who tell everyone how wonderful they are. They flit from flower to flower reciting a rote memorized list of nice friendly things; not remembering who's who. * It's hard to pin this one down but you may encounter a guy who seems so nice and truly seems sincere. He tells you how wonderful and interesting you are and really wants to develope a friendship or more. He may suffer from an ex- tremely negative self image but won't verbalize it; he may not even be quite aware of it. He really wants to get to know you but doesn't feel adequate to bask in your shadow. He may be afraid that you'll see this and choose not to follow up before you have a chance to reject him. You may in fact, be much more well adjusted than him. For the two of you to become friends may actually increase his sense of worthlessness, so he cuts off any further developements. * There may be the person who has been burned by others too amny times to count. You may be actually much nicer than anyone he's ever met. There may be an hon- est offer to get to know each other better on his part. What will sabotage any further intimacy is his fear that you'll turn out to be like all the other jerks he's ever known. * Then there's the guy who's company you've enjoyed and plans were made to get together on an ongoing basis. It all ends as soon as it started. From the ab- ove list; when you met he may have been alone and he's afraid the time will come to meet his friends who may not approve of you. He may also have a lover who's out of town. The lover may be jealous and he doesn't want him to know that he's even been talking to others when lover boy returns......budding frienship truncated! There are just a lot of guys who don't want to jeopard- ize what they already have. To me, a friend who will criticise me for who I chat with isn't much of a friend in the first place. * There can also be the guy who's very afraid that he'll fall in love with you. He wants your company a great deal but amy be afraid of his emotions. He may be afraid that you won't return the feelings he fears in himself. I'm sure there are many other reasons why gay men don't follow up. This can leave the person on the recieving end of these promises feeling pretty hurt and bitter. I've opened myself to many letdowns and false expectations based on the claims of others that, "I really like you, let's be friends". I guess I try to take a much harder look at what's being said. It would be much easier if God, in his infinite wisdom had equipped each of us with an auxiliary port. We could link our minds via an interface cable; each knowing what was going on in the other person's mind, but we don't have that luxury! I always felt that these other men were all in some ways assholes. Now I just say to myself, they may be stoned, have problems handling rejection, be afraid, etc. I waste a lot less time pondering why so and so never called. If he calls he calls, if he doesn't then a friendship wasn't meant to be. HOMOPHOBIA! A relatively new word in the English language is "homophobia". This word seemed to come on the scene when I first came out. Since a phobia is an irr- ational fear of something, then homophobia is a fear of gay people with no basis in reality for the fear. A lot of people we label as homophobic are not really phobic; they just don't like gays. They may be quite conservative and are just exercising their intolerance toward diversity. They want everything to conform to their expectations. If they have 2.7 children, attend the First Parish Church, belong to a certain Country Club, live in Wellesly, drive a BMW; they may feel that everyone else should do the same, otherwise they're suspect as deviate. There are those who are just plain RIGID! In a way they are phobic of anything they don't understand; it's a threat to their belief structure and values. Phobias on the other hand, are a lot more tricky and insidious in operat- ion. As my dear ol therapist told me years ago, "The fear can often mask the desire". He also told me that a phobia is a fear projected on something that is loosely connected to the trauma which caused the phobia. He helped me un- cover the real issues which caused the fears. After getting a lot of my own emotional baggage unloaded, I had a much better understanding of my Psyche 101 classes. Here's a hypothetical phobia. A guy is in his 30's and is deathly afraid of the dark. He doesn't know why, but if he's keft alone in a darkened room he gets very uneasy; sometimes to the point of panic. When he was 2 or 3 years old his alcoholic father may have beaten him unmercifully for no reason in his bedroom. His young mind was not mature enough to understand why this was hap- pening. All that he knew was that his daddy was causing him great physical as well as mental pain. The pain may have been so great that he REPRESSED in into his subconscious. Ok! all this psychic energy has to go somewhere. The boy's mind submits it to a subconscious batch job as a means of coping. The mind says, "I cannot bear the pain of knowing what's going on so I'll just project this pain onto something convenient....Ah hah! the dark! That's it, the fear has nothing to do with my dad beating me at all, the dark I can cope with". The trouble with this is that this phobia will eat away at the guy until it gets resolved. Until he understands the cause and resolves it, the fear can eat away at a person as long as they live. If the denied feelings are severe enough and stored long enough, a breakdown can occur. The person can no long- er use the phobia as a crutch as the conscious mind becomes flooded by the ocean of buried slush. It ain't pretty, I went through it many years ago and have quite a good feel for what makes phobias, homophobia included operate. Before coming out, I had quite a ten year bout with internal homophobia. I was raised in a strict Catholic family where Homosexuality was the sin that read off scale on the continuum of sins. This was coupled with the very real pressures "to be a man", "queers were evil wicked people", etc. This all started at a very early age and was duly recorded in my "you know where". The trouble was that from the age of 4 I can admit to being attracted to members of the same sex. I had an obsessive interest in the sinewy semi naked bodies of men at the beach but also a repulsion. These two forces yanked me back and forth for years. The dialog between my ears musta been something! "geee I feel all warm and fuzzy below the belt whenever I see a man" "HEY WHAT DO YOU WANNA BE SOME KINDA HOMO??" "well really I can't be a homo. I don't wear women's clothing or hang around in schoolyards with bags of candy. But why do I want to see X naked". "EVERYONE ELSE IS DATING GIRLS, WHAT ARE YOU, WEIRD?" "I know I'm not one of them, I can't be" "BUT YOU ARE, YOU'LL SURELY GO TO HELL WHEN YOU DIE IF YOU ADMIT IT" "God! I must be the only person who feels this way" "YOU'RE SICK, PERVERTED, A DEVIATE IF YOU GIVE IN" "oh no, I'll date girls, that way I can't be one of them" etc, etc, etc on and on for years. I'm sure what I went through is common to a lot of fag bashers; these guys who have this obsessive need to lurk near places where gays are known to freq- ent, only to beat up, even kill to justify that they're not themselves "QUEER" When I started college the feelings were very close to conscious recognition. Right away I started putting heavier and heavier lids on the feelings until they became like a pressure cooker. I started driving by the only gay bar I knew of and would holler "FAGGOTS!","QUEERS!" then speed off. The funny thing was that I got quite excited doing this. I also started getting into fist fights with guys I heard were gay. The revelation was that I wanted the physical contact with a man and this was a way of simultaniously denying the fact that I was gay as well as satisfying the need for contact, the fear was masking the desire! The phobia allowed me to blame something that I wanted but couldn't deal with on them "da faggots". When I did finally admit to myself what I was there was a lot of pain "PLEASE I CAN'T BE ONE OF THEM". Facing a hidden truth that has remained buried all of one's life can be almost catastrophic at first. It took the new gay friends who I had slept with to convince me I was not alone and it was all right to be who I was., This was also a time where I had to do a lot of re-structuring of my life. Some of my old friends would certainly beat the hell outta me if they found out I was gay; they were avoided. If a really closeted homophobe does admit to himself and accept who he is, he runs a great risk of loosing everything; friends, acceptance, status, etc He can also stand to gain much more; self acceptance, integrity, emotional health. These can also be some of the same guys who will fag bash on Friday, get really drunk on Saturday and let a man fuck them. I knew two very close friends in the Navy who were like this. Both got great joy from letting a gay man pick them up in a bar, take them home and then beat them half to death and rob them. On separate occasions I got really drunk with both. Both of them wanted to go to bed with me, one asking, "I want you inside of me" This was no setup; trust me. I knew both of them quite well. Of course, the next day would bring denials that anything was said, "geeeeeze! I was soooo drunk last night. You puttin me on man? Some guy try porkin me, I'de put his lights out!" Well, again alcohol can lower a persons inhibitions and blackouts can be ever so convenient. I'm not claiming that all people who dislike gays are closet cases in the least but there are those who do suffer a form of neurosis linked with their own repressed feelings. Geee now! doesn't fear account for a lot of really self defeating/destructing behavior. For gays it's fear of rejection, for the closeted homophobe it's fear of acceptance. What am I afriad of? lemmee see. If some mugger comes up to me, sticking a gun to my head, I'de shit my pants, I'de be so afraid! Now that's a real rational fear! Ray (aka) Jason Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com