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.