Re: OT: My buddy goes 'Brokeback'

L.A. Purple wrote:
bryguy <bryguy58@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:gusSf.217$Sf.61@xxxxxxxxxxx

"RMJon23" <rmjon23@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1142546894.995972.247040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Reading this thread - which started off on a
fascinating topic and has suffered a great deal since
then - I recall my "best friend" from when I was 13-15.

Unlike my brothers, who were very "popular" in school
and socially adept, I always had ONE best friend, and we spent many
hours together after school, shootin' hoops, watching
TV, talking, riding our bikes around, shoplifting for
kicks, etc. A lot of times we just sat around in the same room for a
couple hours, barely saying a
word to each other. It was good just being together. His dad got a
better job in Florida (I grew up in the San Gabriel
Valley), so he had to move, but for our last xmas he gave me a 45rpm (in
those days a
"single"; we collected those things!) of Olivia
Newton-John's "I Honestly Love You." It was a current
hit in the Top 40. I thought it was sort of a bad choice, but it was the
thought that counted. We were both late bloomers, and
if we talked about girls it wasn't a main topic of our
conversation. We talked more about Nate Archibald,
probably. At that time I was - I am not bullshitting at all -
pretty oblivious to homosexuality. When we said, "How
gay!" or "You ***!" I believe we had almost ZERO
inkling about what that implied. It was simply an
epithet we picked up. I certainly knew of no one who was gay. I
think I had only the fuzziest notion of what that meant.

When I was about 20, one day I suddenly recalled the
trauma of my best friend moving to another state...and
that single...And have wondered ever since.

I grew up - physically if not mentally - and was one of
those males who preferred females exclusively. (Perhaps
"preferred" is a bit of an understatement. "Craved
every waking minute"? These things can be a curse too!) BUT: I have a
lot of gay male friends.
Good, close friends who are gay. Why this is seems too
complex to go into now, but the shorthand version is:
I've always felt alienated from the mainstream, and I seem congenitally
anti-authoritarian. "Consensus
reality" seems absurd to them, as it does to me. So
there's some harmony there. Bryguy: on a different tack and related to
the Jared
Diamond-Edward O Wilson- jews who popularized
sociobiology thang: check out this book called
_Biological Exuberance : Animal Homosexuality and
Natural Diversity_, by Bruce Bagemihl, 1999, 751 pages.
Bagemihl finds homosexuality throughout the animal
kingdom. It's pretty hardcore physical science, but as
a social idea apparently it's still avant, regrettably.
One of you guys (Dewey?) recently wrote that the
fascisti will hammer on and on and on about "the gay
adoption agenda" to derail the Red Staters in the next
election. Will it once again be enough to make them
forget about their own true interests: better, more affordable
education, health care, the environment,
rebuilding the infrastructures of our cities, Oil
Pirates starting wars and spending so much it drives up the deficit and
put their kids'
kid's kids' lives in hock, etc? Probably.

Great story about your friend. Poignant. I was lucky
enough to have a few friends in my teens that I shared
that kind of closeness with. I'll check out this book
when I get the chance. (I love book recommendations--so
keep 'em coming.) Yes, I liked how this thread was going before petty
score settlers got hold of it, and was enjoying the many
views expressed--so thanks for bringing some more
worthwhile commentary to it and lifting me out of the
crap I fell for (old flame throwers never die, they just fade
away). Bryguy


Good luck to you and your friend. Presumably the
situation will all work itself out after a period of adjustment. Sudden
change certainly has a way of taking one out of stable, familiar
comfort zones. Hopefully sufficient time will allow it to all be
sorted out. As asbnll-er Johnny is wont to quip: "Time wounds
all heels."

Update to all that: Mark was by my work yesterday and
first thing he said was "I've been thinking about Tom, and
I realized it doesn't make any difference." Mark is leaving
for 18 months (lives abroad with young broads in Kiev) and felt
good about himself for arriving at this so quickly. And that
is how it will play out, methinks.


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