No Longer

After going to a gay club tonight, I've noticed a few things. These are things that have been on my mind for a long time.

For some reason, it's okay to ignore other gay men for xyz justification. It's okay to treat men as invisible. It's okay to carry on your life with an air of 'civility' that is really just 'being an asshole' under the guise of something more pleasant.

I'm tired of being invisible. I can't keep pretending that there is something wrong with me that keeps other gay men in the masses from noticing me. Yeah, I'll dress to impress, but only if it falls within my aesthetic and my love of my current wardrobe. I'm tired of being looked over and side-eyed. I'm tired of doing this to other gay men.

I'm not exactly sure why, but gay men in my area seem to adhere to a clique-ish philosophy, one that dictates ingroup vs outgroup members. I've always been in the outgroup, no matter what, but I'm tired of wasting my time wondering if I'm invisible. I work on myself, I build myself to be the person I want to be, so, if you're missing that you're just missing it. I don't want to spend any more of my time wondering 'Oh why won't all these other men notice me?'. I don't want to go to nightclubs on the 'hunt', in hopes that I will luck out and find a man who is willing to sit down and actually have a conversation with me.

I feel like what I'm setting myself up for is a lifetime of loneliness, but why is that even a negative alternative? It's about damn time I started looking in the mirror and saying 'Allen, you're fucking great, and someone needs to tell you that.' It's also about damn time to find a man who is willing to fall in line with that, who is willing to see me for who I want to be and who I am working to be, to see me for my potential and not much else.

Every time I go out, I am reminded of my dislike for most of the gay men here, because I feel like I am an outsider to this culture. But the cattiness, the lack of acknowledgement, it's not for me. I want to treat other men better than what our gay culture dictates. I want to treat other gay men with respect. Using our current paradigm, I'll only leave the most beautiful as objects of affection, but others actually worth my time as invisible. It's about time that we shed these images the media have helped create and realize that gay men aren't a monolith. We read comics, play video games, and have tastes just like everyone else.

I'm refusing to buy into what 'gay' should mean. Popularity should be the last thing on my mind, so, instead of searching for a ticket to the in-group, maybe I'll make my own.

A Beautiful Brown

Blue is my favorite color. Maybe I'm not as willing to attribute the qualities that blue has to other colors, but I feel that it reflects a wide range of emotions. Sadness, happiness, serenity, buoyancy. It is the color I most resonate with.

When I was younger, I wanted blue eyes. Not for the aforementioned reasons, but because I didn't feel the brown was enough. 99.9999% of all the little Black children I knew had brown eyes (I remember seeing only a small number of those without brown eyes). All of the little Asian children I knew had brown eyes. But all of the little White children? Green, gray, blue, hazel. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to dye my hair and have it not look unnatural. I wanted options. I did not have those as a Black boy. Not like the White kids.

I do feel that part of my desire for blue eyes is that blue eyes are often treated as a standard of beauty. You more often hear about 'beautiful blues' than 'beautiful browns.' Why did I have that message? Where did I get it from? How could I be spreading it to people around me? Without any analysis, we do treat White, and the qualities attached, as the norm and as beautiful. And I tell you that just because White people are the majority here does not mean such views are justified. We have a standard of beauty and appeal that is based on White norms (straight hair, lighter skin), and that is only multicultural or ethnic when such things are appropriated, rather than truly accepted, rendering them caught in a cycle of trendiness.

Despite all this, I, one day started to love my kinky hair (it is the perfect length right now, one that feels magical inside and outside of the shower). I loved the color of my skin (except under fluorescent lighting, which makes it appear dull and lifeless), especially in the summer. And now I look in the mirror and I see that my eyes are a beautiful brown. And, honestly? I really don't think I'd change them.

You see, I came to understand that, despite the more overt variance you see in eye color of White people, the eyes of Black people have their differences. Mine and my father's are lighter than my mother's and my siblings. The darkness in their eyes is solid and strong. We vary in skin tone. Our hair isn't all jet black. Basically: there is far more to us than meets the superficial eye. We are transformers. Our eyes glow in the sunlight, too. Our skin becomes beautiful in the sunlight. We are the color of the nurturing earth upon which civilization has built a foundation. Though many of us have been abused as the earth has since the dawn of man, we are a strength that has endured and continues to.

I do not know the subtleties of skin and eye color that exist within other cultures. Yet, I know it is there. I know that Middle Eastern men and women aren't all a phenotypical monolith. I know that there is nuance in the features of each Asian man and woman. Why have we, for so long, done ourselves the disservice of blindly assuming 'They all look the same,' whoever they may be?

Why can't we step back and realize that our eyes are a beautiful brown or blue? Why can't we appreciate the differences in each others bodies and start building there? I'm not advocating colorblindness. It's much more like color appreciation, seeing my Black, Native American, Asian, Latino, Arabic, Jewish and White brothers and sisters as beautiful variations of the same species?

I am going to take the time to look, and see, what the differences are and teach myself to appreciate them.