Gay men love me
I'm serious about this. If I were gay, my dance card would be full. S'all I'm saying.
The scenario runs a little something like this: I start saying hi to someone in the hall, you know, because I'm the kind of person who says, "hi," to people he recognizes. After awhile, I'm sitting in the graduate student lounge with our 486 computer and the fridge that hasn't been cleaned out in months, and the coffee machine that has reeds growing out of the filter part, and I'll saying something like: "Dude, Foucalt was an asshole." And they'll say, "totally," and then it's on.
The problem, I think, is that I'm really well read. Now, I don't like to think of myself that way because I recognize all that I haven't read, and there's a lot of that too, but when it comes to conversations about things that have been put on paper, I can hold my own.
So, whether their reply is, "you know who I really like is Donna Harraway" or "Yeah, whatever happened to Thomas Hardy," or "what's your take on Sumerian love poetry," I have an answer and all of a sudden, I'm the one guy in the department that will discuss the presence of rape in the fables of Marie D'France. In short, they think that I share their special academic love.
Now, the fact that I say "hello" in Massachusetts pretty much makes me that social Maverick whose always finding love in the movies. Couple that with an intense knowledge of subjects which you yourself think to be the only expert, and whallah, Amore!
This doesn't happen with women, of course, because I'm married and so I'm either creepy or I begin to see the stirrings of interest and so I shift the conversation to clown pedophile jokes, but with gay men it's different, mainly because I don't have the slightest bit of Gay-dar.
For instance, not too long ago, I'd been talking to this guy with a Connecticut accent (long drawn out syllables and a lisp) whose office was across from mine. Since we both had the same office hours and because students never show up, we'd get into conversations. Now, he started talking about "queer theory" which is a kind of socio-literary theoretical framework which centralizes problems of gender/sex/oh there's a third term but I can't remember it. Mainly its gay people railing against a world that's trying to straighten them out. Now, I've read some queer theory--I'm a Ph.D. candidate in English so it's kind of my job to know about the cutting edge theoretical B.S.. I'd read Bodies That Matter and History of Sexuality, vol. 1, and those are the big texts. I'd also read numerous quasi-feminist texts by Judith Butler (Queer theory is an offset of Feminist theory), as well as the thing on Queer and Body theory in Post Modern Pooh (which is f'ing hilarious). So, we talked.
Then one day he walks into my office, picks up the magic 8 ball I have there, gives it a shake, and says, "Will Monstro leave his wife and child to come have sex with Connecticut Roy" (Roy is not his real name.
So, that was uncomfortable.
Anyways, the newest gay guy in my life I managed to realize was gay just the other day. He has a Harvard accent (long drawn out words, haughty pronunciation, lisp). We were talking about the fact that I'm absolutely beige on paper and that I have nothing that will get me a job above and beyond the veritable army of other experts at 20th century American literature, and I said, "the problem is I right like I'm trying to prove people wrong. People don't do that anymore. People haven't done that for two hundred years. Now someone writes that our ass is the seat of our intelligence and no one says, 'you're wrong. It's our brain.' You have to qualify everything you say as if any idea, no matter how crazy is worth knowing if it's been published. You can't sell your stuff unless you acknowledge that you've read every nut job that's come down the pike. "
Now, maybe this was a sign of vulnerability or something, but I look over and the man from Harvard is undressing me with his eyes.
It's karma. It seriously is. When I was young, the "let's just be friends speech" was pretty much a good reason for me to never talk to that girl again. Why, I figured, should I be friends with someone whose been leading me on. And now, NOW, I am the leader on forcing gay men to crave me, and it is I who now has to give the "let's just be friends speech." I have to be like, you know I really don't like you in that way--cause I'm straight....no, no... not even really curious. I don't even really like it when my ass itches a bit, so things going up it... No, not that either. Here's what I'm saying, if I were gay, hey who knows, but even then, you know what I mean...my life's pretty hectic around now. Look, you're a great gay guy, but I'm...not."
"Nope...not even curious....well, yes I do think that Caligula was Malcolm McDowell's finest role."
The scenario runs a little something like this: I start saying hi to someone in the hall, you know, because I'm the kind of person who says, "hi," to people he recognizes. After awhile, I'm sitting in the graduate student lounge with our 486 computer and the fridge that hasn't been cleaned out in months, and the coffee machine that has reeds growing out of the filter part, and I'll saying something like: "Dude, Foucalt was an asshole." And they'll say, "totally," and then it's on.
The problem, I think, is that I'm really well read. Now, I don't like to think of myself that way because I recognize all that I haven't read, and there's a lot of that too, but when it comes to conversations about things that have been put on paper, I can hold my own.
So, whether their reply is, "you know who I really like is Donna Harraway" or "Yeah, whatever happened to Thomas Hardy," or "what's your take on Sumerian love poetry," I have an answer and all of a sudden, I'm the one guy in the department that will discuss the presence of rape in the fables of Marie D'France. In short, they think that I share their special academic love.
Now, the fact that I say "hello" in Massachusetts pretty much makes me that social Maverick whose always finding love in the movies. Couple that with an intense knowledge of subjects which you yourself think to be the only expert, and whallah, Amore!
This doesn't happen with women, of course, because I'm married and so I'm either creepy or I begin to see the stirrings of interest and so I shift the conversation to clown pedophile jokes, but with gay men it's different, mainly because I don't have the slightest bit of Gay-dar.
For instance, not too long ago, I'd been talking to this guy with a Connecticut accent (long drawn out syllables and a lisp) whose office was across from mine. Since we both had the same office hours and because students never show up, we'd get into conversations. Now, he started talking about "queer theory" which is a kind of socio-literary theoretical framework which centralizes problems of gender/sex/oh there's a third term but I can't remember it. Mainly its gay people railing against a world that's trying to straighten them out. Now, I've read some queer theory--I'm a Ph.D. candidate in English so it's kind of my job to know about the cutting edge theoretical B.S.. I'd read Bodies That Matter and History of Sexuality, vol. 1, and those are the big texts. I'd also read numerous quasi-feminist texts by Judith Butler (Queer theory is an offset of Feminist theory), as well as the thing on Queer and Body theory in Post Modern Pooh (which is f'ing hilarious). So, we talked.
Then one day he walks into my office, picks up the magic 8 ball I have there, gives it a shake, and says, "Will Monstro leave his wife and child to come have sex with Connecticut Roy" (Roy is not his real name.
So, that was uncomfortable.
Anyways, the newest gay guy in my life I managed to realize was gay just the other day. He has a Harvard accent (long drawn out words, haughty pronunciation, lisp). We were talking about the fact that I'm absolutely beige on paper and that I have nothing that will get me a job above and beyond the veritable army of other experts at 20th century American literature, and I said, "the problem is I right like I'm trying to prove people wrong. People don't do that anymore. People haven't done that for two hundred years. Now someone writes that our ass is the seat of our intelligence and no one says, 'you're wrong. It's our brain.' You have to qualify everything you say as if any idea, no matter how crazy is worth knowing if it's been published. You can't sell your stuff unless you acknowledge that you've read every nut job that's come down the pike. "
Now, maybe this was a sign of vulnerability or something, but I look over and the man from Harvard is undressing me with his eyes.
It's karma. It seriously is. When I was young, the "let's just be friends speech" was pretty much a good reason for me to never talk to that girl again. Why, I figured, should I be friends with someone whose been leading me on. And now, NOW, I am the leader on forcing gay men to crave me, and it is I who now has to give the "let's just be friends speech." I have to be like, you know I really don't like you in that way--cause I'm straight....no, no... not even really curious. I don't even really like it when my ass itches a bit, so things going up it... No, not that either. Here's what I'm saying, if I were gay, hey who knows, but even then, you know what I mean...my life's pretty hectic around now. Look, you're a great gay guy, but I'm...not."
"Nope...not even curious....well, yes I do think that Caligula was Malcolm McDowell's finest role."
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
7:36 AM
2 Comments:
You should maybe quit wearing the t-shirt that says, "I like Rainbows, So give it to me from behind" In a multicolored font with glitter over it. I think that is considered a form of teasing...
I fell victim to Queer Theory back in '92 or so, during my own brief stint in a "gradual school" environment. It was at work, though I didn't understand it at the time, in my classmate's (dubbed "Diego Rivera" in a post of mine last March) infamous poem containing the words "tawdry anus" -- my unfettered criticism of which shocked an entire classroom of third-year Frankfurt School Marxist MFAs. But, hey, I was loaded at the time, and hadn't read Foucault. Coulda happened to anyone.
BTW, I bet that guy totally blogged about the 8-ball thing. He probably gives guys Magic 8-balls just so he can work in that smooth move down the road sometime.
Here's to rectal integrity.
-PH
(ps that was a Pynchon joke)
Post a Comment
<< Home