Friday, September 22, 2006
|A splish splash of clarity. A tidal wave of change.|
(unedited because it's too damn long and I'm too damn lazy)
I'm the 1L social co-chair for OUTLaw at school.
I volunteered for the position because I decided that the only ways I would engage in the gay activities at school were if 1) I was forced to go or 2) I designed them.
And talking with the other social co-chair, I came to realize how selfish my intentions were. In my head, there's no reason to ever do anything in bar -- especially when it almost invariably breaks down into boys (and gay boy identified) on one side and girls (or gay girl identified) on the other, for the most part. What's socially harmonious about that?
But, at the same time: 1) this works because people enjoy it -- they like going to bars and drinking, even if they aren't necessarily mingling and advancing the "cause" 2) there is something to be said for the non-heterosexual law students to be able to go somewhere and just chill, even if there is the omnipresent sexual cloud shadowing overhead 3) and it's not as if I can deny the fact that it's sex that brings us together, since, really, we wouldn't be together if it weren't for our particular, though not necessarily the same, sexual interests/desires.
And I realize that, really, despite my philosophical stance, when it comes down to it, I really don't want to go to a bar 'cause I know that almost everyone there is really just looking to get some and no one is looking to give it to me and I don't want to have to deal with that. At the same time, my desire to be liked and to not bother/annoy prevents me from being able to just go and hang, because I'm thinking, "This person doesn't want to be talking to me because he wants to be talking to someone that he wants to do and I'm probably just frustrating him 'cause I won't leave the conversation so that he can go do that." Which, really, might just be me projecting my own concerns about mostly wanting to go for the hope of meeting up with some hot guy and making out and then falling in love ::coughs::lust:: and feeling guilty over that.
And while I was talking to my co-chair I was thinking about last night, when I was with an attractive, tall white med student making out and pissing on one another.
And then I realized that I'm afraid to have fun, afraid to be social. I'm afraid to go to a bar and engage with people: afraid that they'll prove me right and afraid that they'll prove me wrong, perhaps more afraid that they'll prove me wrong than anything else.
I keep saying that I need to pull a George Costanza and I think... from this moment on, I'm going to do just that.
ALL OF MY SOCIAL INCLINATIONS ARE WRONG. I'm hot(ter than I used to be) and I run the risk of guys actually finding me physically attractive. And while I like to think that no one likes me and I have no friends, as has been pointed out: could I hardly pull together 12 random lesbians or 30 other assorted individuals for brunch if no one actually liked me?
I do not deny what I know: that racism is rife in the gay community, that being fat and black and gay and relatively poor at Columbia was difficult, that most gay guys only want to become your friend if they think they want to have sex with you, you shouldn look both ways before you cross the street, young American girls should not travel solo through Calcutta, bartenders are paid to act as if they give a damn about your woes, and so on and so forth.
But maybe though those things be true, the world (read: Gay New York City) isn't as bad as I've painted it.
Or, rather, that I am not now where I was when the seeds of this view were sown. It does not make me happy that being better looking now probably means actually being permitted to enjoy myself in a bar, but, does that mean I shouldn't enjoy myself? Moreover, what about all of the happy, conventionally very unattractive guys out there who have tons of fun, in bars or wherever they are? It's as much about looks as it is about attitude, which people have told me over and over again and I only now finally comprehend.
Huh, looks like I have managed to learn a thing or two in law school. And it's only my fourth week.
(Sorry for the rambling... I dedicate this post to Heather, who is probably the only person who will read this whole post because she's just that bored at work)
(unedited because it's too damn long and I'm too damn lazy)
I'm the 1L social co-chair for OUTLaw at school.
I volunteered for the position because I decided that the only ways I would engage in the gay activities at school were if 1) I was forced to go or 2) I designed them.
And talking with the other social co-chair, I came to realize how selfish my intentions were. In my head, there's no reason to ever do anything in bar -- especially when it almost invariably breaks down into boys (and gay boy identified) on one side and girls (or gay girl identified) on the other, for the most part. What's socially harmonious about that?
But, at the same time: 1) this works because people enjoy it -- they like going to bars and drinking, even if they aren't necessarily mingling and advancing the "cause" 2) there is something to be said for the non-heterosexual law students to be able to go somewhere and just chill, even if there is the omnipresent sexual cloud shadowing overhead 3) and it's not as if I can deny the fact that it's sex that brings us together, since, really, we wouldn't be together if it weren't for our particular, though not necessarily the same, sexual interests/desires.
And I realize that, really, despite my philosophical stance, when it comes down to it, I really don't want to go to a bar 'cause I know that almost everyone there is really just looking to get some and no one is looking to give it to me and I don't want to have to deal with that. At the same time, my desire to be liked and to not bother/annoy prevents me from being able to just go and hang, because I'm thinking, "This person doesn't want to be talking to me because he wants to be talking to someone that he wants to do and I'm probably just frustrating him 'cause I won't leave the conversation so that he can go do that." Which, really, might just be me projecting my own concerns about mostly wanting to go for the hope of meeting up with some hot guy and making out and then falling in love ::coughs::lust:: and feeling guilty over that.
And while I was talking to my co-chair I was thinking about last night, when I was with an attractive, tall white med student making out and pissing on one another.
And then I realized that I'm afraid to have fun, afraid to be social. I'm afraid to go to a bar and engage with people: afraid that they'll prove me right and afraid that they'll prove me wrong, perhaps more afraid that they'll prove me wrong than anything else.
I keep saying that I need to pull a George Costanza and I think... from this moment on, I'm going to do just that.
ALL OF MY SOCIAL INCLINATIONS ARE WRONG. I'm hot(ter than I used to be) and I run the risk of guys actually finding me physically attractive. And while I like to think that no one likes me and I have no friends, as has been pointed out: could I hardly pull together 12 random lesbians or 30 other assorted individuals for brunch if no one actually liked me?
I do not deny what I know: that racism is rife in the gay community, that being fat and black and gay and relatively poor at Columbia was difficult, that most gay guys only want to become your friend if they think they want to have sex with you, you shouldn look both ways before you cross the street, young American girls should not travel solo through Calcutta, bartenders are paid to act as if they give a damn about your woes, and so on and so forth.
But maybe though those things be true, the world (read: Gay New York City) isn't as bad as I've painted it.
Or, rather, that I am not now where I was when the seeds of this view were sown. It does not make me happy that being better looking now probably means actually being permitted to enjoy myself in a bar, but, does that mean I shouldn't enjoy myself? Moreover, what about all of the happy, conventionally very unattractive guys out there who have tons of fun, in bars or wherever they are? It's as much about looks as it is about attitude, which people have told me over and over again and I only now finally comprehend.
Huh, looks like I have managed to learn a thing or two in law school. And it's only my fourth week.
(Sorry for the rambling... I dedicate this post to Heather, who is probably the only person who will read this whole post because she's just that bored at work)
promulgated by SWS2.1 at 15:56.
1 comments
1 Comments:
Yes yes yes you're right! I did indeed read the whole post. And much as you might not want to hear this, I'm proud of you. So there.
By 
, at
3:43 PM
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