January 02, 2004
alieni went to a new year's eve party where i was the only woman among probably 20 gay, mostly white men. some of these guys i have known for a decade or more...most i wouldn't necessarily call "friends" (a term i think is thrown around all too loosely), but i join them every once in awhile for happy hour at a favorite spot, and have been doing so a little more regularly for the last 8 months or so. they're a fun group of guys and i've always felt comfortable with them. they call me "gorgeous," and comment on how much weight i've lost (even if no one else has), and tell me they love me (even tho i know they don't know me well enough to love me). yeah, they stroke my ego. and i admit that the attention sometimes feels good...but fuck it. my bruised and lonely little ego can use a little attention right about now.
so anyway, i'm chillin' with the boys, a couple of them in particular. it's close to midnite, so we've switched to champagne (which was actually quite good...i guess i'd never before had good champagne), and talking, and making plans for a joint capricorn birthday celebration next friday, when one of them—a guy whom i don't know all that well, but whom i've really come to like over the last few months...a guy i've been thinking i could maybe go to the movies with, or hang out with in some other non-drinking-type capacity—uses the n-word in reference to the upcoming martin luther king jr. holiday.
i was shocked. my eyes got really wide and my face got really hot and i couldn't even say anything for probably at least a minute. i kind-of moved away from him on the sofa and just looked at him. he realized that i was upset, and he started stumbling all over his apologies. i told him that using that word just wasn't cool, and he launched into the whole excuse of how (black) people where he works use that word all the time, blah blah blah...and i could hardly even believe that i was sitting there, having to explain to a 32-year-old man—up until that moment, someone i had thought i kinda liked, who perhaps could possibly become a friend—that that doesn't make it okay for him to use it. a whole big discussion ensued—also involving the words "dyke" and "f*g" (the latter of which i also avoid), and when it is and is not okay to use those words—which was then interrupted by the countdown to midnite...and i was actually glad. i was SO not in the mood for that conversation. and i was disappointed that i had to be having it in the first place, and having it with him.
a little later, another guy there—whom i've also gotten to know a little better in the past few months, and whom i'd also kind-of decided was pretty cool—wanted to ask me a question, which turned out to be: "why do you only date black women?" i explained that i didn't, that i had actually dated a number of white women in the past. which he countered with, "well, as long as i've known you, the only women you've been with have been black." which is true, but...SO?? he told me that maybe i would have more in common with white women...i guess he perceives that i've not had much in common with sandra or sherri, and that's why i'm alone again. and then, shortly after midnite, when a whole group of (white) lesbians from a neighboring party came strolling thru, he made some comment about "finding me one"...even tho i've told him more than once that i'm not even looking...and SO not interested in the dating thing.
*sigh*
to top off the evening, those whom i would call my friends (and all the lesbians) had left by 12:30 or so and, shortly thereafter, everyone else was headed off to the exile—a leather-and-levis-only club where women are not welcomed most nites, graphic drawings and photographs depicting man-on-man sex are plentiful, and the, uhhh, "furniture" includes cages, a giant "x" structure, and a rough wooden chair, the latter two of which are equipped with hand- and ankle-cuffs (which i only know because we've played darts there, on wednesdays when the cages have tabletops and the other stuff is shoved in the corner). people who had, earlier in the evening, expressed concern about how i would get home if i'd had too much to drink (which, fortunately, i hadn't) disappeared and i walked the block-and-a-half to my car alone.
could i have just read these guys totally wrong? am i making a bigger deal of their comments and actions than is warranted? or are my expectations of them simply too great? i don't know. amidst a group of people i've always been happy to be around...all of a sudden, i felt incredibly out of place. those conversations haven't quit bugging me, a day and a half later. and i feel let down. disappointed. and a little bit more lonely.
11:28 AM
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