friends. I’d just said something not very straight (minus 32 points), and I
wondered, since these were fairly new friends, if they knew that I wasn’t
gay. Then I thought, “Wait. Why do I care?” It’s not offensive if they
think I’m gay. It doesn’t change anything. But people do care; straight
dudes like for everybody else in the room to know they’re straight. I could
post pictures of me kissing a girl on Facebook and that would be totally
okay. Plus 46 straight points. Everyone is comfortable. My once-appalled
friends would give me a high five. But a dude in makeup? That’s just
horrifying. Even when we were little kids, we thought it was bad to act
girly.
I wish we could all just do what makes us happy and determine
on our own what those things mean about ourselves. I wish everybody
was valued the same and that this gross “no-homo, look how straight I
am” mentality didn’t exist. I’m glad I found Marie because she lets me
explore sides of myself that I was never comfortable expressing around
other people. A little while ago we went back and found some of the first
messages we sent to each other. One of hers says, “Woo! Having friends.”
“NEW AND EXCITING,” I replied. And it has been. Marie
is my eyebrow salon buddy and the Meat Loaf to my Ellen Foley. I can’t
really blame my friends from middle school for feeling like they did.
They’re not bad people; they’re still my friends. I’m just disappointed
that my oldest friends chose to be disturbed and horrified rather than
accepting and supportive. Why take something pretty and turn it into
something ugly?
Marie and I sat around in our makeup and scrolled through their
disappointing reactions. The worst one—our favorite—was this: “The
only and I mean the only reason I would accept this is if you get pussy
tonight.”
In other words: “You’ve got to no-homo your way out of this
situation.” All we could do was laugh.
And that’s where I was when it was time to wash the makeup off
at the end of the night: I was the man in makeup, but everyone else was
ridiculous. Marie brought me my phone as I was scrubbing my face in
front of the bathroom mirror—mascara ain’t easy to get off. “It’s your
brother,” she said.
Oh, good grief. Here we go again.
“Bro,” he said. “You have to take those pictures down right now.”
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