Opinions Feb 25, 2005 I’m Not Gay, but My Boyfriend Sure Is

I am not the sort of guy who pushes his opinions on others, but even I have limits where some behaviors are concerned. I absolutely draw the line at gays. If they’re not prancing around in clothes that are way too tight in an effort to draw attention away from their biker mustaches, they’re wearing leather chaps designed for bikers to ease their pals into accepting the new Prince Albert. Homosexual behavior is about as unacceptable as you can get. Not being gay myself, I just can’t understand why the gays have to be so over the top.

Take my boyfriend, for example. There is no reason for him to be so gay. Almost every nook in our house is packed with gay pride. His incessant swishing has tainted every aspect of my life. I’ll just be sitting around, watching the ball game (go Saints) and having a beer or two (go Oly) and here comes Brett, prancing in like some nancy boy and trying to put a coaster under my drink. Give me a break. Why not put the chips in a lacy nacho cozy, Brett? I can’t say that out loud, though, since he threatened to kick me out of the townhouse after the tomato incident: He was cutting up a Costoluto Fiorentino or something for a little shindig we were throwing with a couple of guys we met at ArtWalk. Captain Drama cut his index finger with the fillet knife, saw a drop or two of blood, and started dancing around, shrieking, “Get me some ice and a towel!” Come on, ladies. Why not throw in a kick turn, shuffle/ball/change, jazz hands and be done with it? I tried to calm him down. “Maybe God wouldn’t punish you like that if your very existence weren’t an insult to him.” Long story short: He got the stitches, kept the finger and somehow I’m the bad guy.

I guess I don’t have to tell you how little it takes to make Princess Brett flip one of his many wigs. What a fag. I will never understand what goes through the queer mind if I live to be 100.

I try to appreciate his “in-your-face gay pride,” but it’s not my face he should worry about. He should think about the biggest face possible, that of the Almighty. I hate to think of my boyfriend, who is a loving and compassionate man, going to hell just because he is gay, but that’s what’s going to happen if he doesn’t straighten up, and quick. Brett is always telling me, “I was born this way. Get over it!” Sometimes I think I should just accept him as he is, but then I remember, “Whoa! He’s a fag!”

I had no idea Brett was gay when we started dating. He just seemed like this great, and completely normal, guy I happened to think was attractive.

For instance, shopping with Brett is a nightmare. If I have to shop, I do it like every other red-blooded American male. I am a hunter, so I look for what I need, I get it, and I go home to use it. Not my man. No sir. After recoiling in mock horror when I suggest that Wal-Mart sheets are just as good as that fluff he likes at Linens ‘n Things, he proceeded to drag me around the mall with those limp wrists of his for three hours looking for just the right piece of chintzy crap to put next to the painting he bought for the conversation pit. In Queerspeak, “The perfect objet to offset the brutal ambiguity of the Nagel.”

Gays in general should be more honest, and quietly honest if they can manage it. I mean, I had no idea Brett was gay when we started dating. He just seemed like this great, and completely normal, guy I happened to think was attractive. After a few weeks, though, it became pretty obvious that things were not as they seemed—it was the way he walked, the way he talked, the way he kissed me…just everything. Finally, I decided to put an end to the trickery. I had to know the truth. Was the man I considered a part of me in fact a commie pinko limp-wrist? Was I spending my evenings holding hands with a creature so foul that 2,000 years ago his days would have been spent dodging fist-sized chunks of granite rather than tricking regular men into loving him? Not wanting to beat around the bush, I confronted him at dinner.

“Are you now, or have you ever been…wow, you’re right, this Poliziano is delicious…gay?”

After what I can only describe as convulsions of laughter, my flippant man-friend suggested I meet some pals of his. Actually, he threatened to leave if I didn’t. No doubt this was all some plan of his to hunt down and bed some other unsuspecting guy. The last thing I want is Brett being with someone else, since that would mean another heterosexual man had been hoodwinked by the Gay Agenda. I agreed to meet these people, if only for the good of other Breeders.

Evidently, these were men in straits as dire as my own. They meet once a week to discuss the problems of dating gay men. Men in Love With Gay Men has given me an outlet for all my concerns, free of any judgment. To be honest, I’ve learned a lot.

First, if I want to keep Brett, I need to be less horrified by his moral failings (or as I now call them—genetic predilections). Since it’s obvious to me now that homosexuality is not a sin, but a disease, I have to be more understanding of the convoluted logic that must go on in the equally convoluted gay mind. Anyway, what kind of monster would stop loving his boyfriend because of an illness? Not me.

Second, I need to become comfortable with my boyfriend’s tendency toward gayness. To help me adjust, Brett has agreed to teach me to recognize gays in everyday life. He points them out as we walk to my meetings with aMaLGaM, or “the Queens of Denial,” as he calls the men who help me cope with his unfortunate sickness. I go to the meetings, and he shops, prances, or whatever gay men do when they’re alone. I want to know what drives Brett and, by extension, what motivates all gay men to be as they are. If I can spot these strutting abominations with even 90 percent accuracy, I will be better prepared for Brett’s wacky behavior (and less likely to fall for another gay man in the future). I don’t mean to imply anything politically incorrect like gays should know their place or queers should stay out of the paths of decent people, but they absolutely should.

But as I get better at spotting gay men, I feel like Brett’s not as good at it as he led me to believe (hardly the first time he’s fooled me, haha). For all his “Let me show you this” and “Here’s how you spot that,” Brett’s far from perfect. Plenty of the guys he identifies couldn’t possibly be gay. They’re way too hot.