Dual Citizenship in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

There was something that happened while Richard was visiting that made me realize a fundamental difference between us. Richard was with me for around three days. During that three days, I took him around my neighborhood, the restaurants, shops and public halls in which I frequent on a regular basis. While I did take him to a homosexual drinking establishment, I also took him to a pub that serves mainly a heterosexual clientele. Cesar introduced me to the place, and I quite like the charming atmosphere of it.

Richard was extremely uncomfortable and that's when something clicked in my mind. I realized that in the last 10 years, since he left high school, he has always lived in a gay ghetto... First the Castro in San Francisco and now in SilverLake (which is not as famous as West Hollywood, but is just as gay, I can assure you). I suppose that that's something that couldn't be different between the two of us. Although Queer As Folk is one of my favorite television shows, my life is nothing like that show in the sense of the entire set-up. I know more straight people than GLBT people. I don't live in a mink-lined prison of constant innuendo and talk about dick.

I'm like Jesus, I'm in the world but not of it.

That's how I felt at that awful job interview. The blatant heterosexual privilege was slapping me in the face like a sledgehammer and there was absolutely nothing pleasant about it. The thing about living in the real world - the heterosexual world - is that I'm constantly being reminded that I'm different; that there are things I will see that I will not ever have the power to possess, no matter what bullshit equal rights activists try to tell you. There is a line. However, in that fantasy land of exclusively homosexuals, there is an ignorance that happens. Not only are you blind to the inequities but you are blind to the existence of another world. It becomes something that remains veiled in shadow.

The fact that I know about the inequities means that I'm not well-suited to live in that homosexual place, either. I have known and seen too much to unknow and unsee. It's like belonging to two different countries but not being able to call either of them home. It once again means that I have to invent all of that for myself.