Sunday, February 1, 2009

Gay Drama


One thing I hear a lot that really bothers me is that there is so much drama in the gay world.
There is a lot of drama in the gay world but I am very quick to point out that there is just the same amount of drama in the hetero world too.
People break up, they cheat, they fight.
The gay world is a much smaller community so it travels faster and sometimes seems to hurt more.
When I was playing in the hetero world, I got hurt-but not nearly as much as I do in my openly gay world.
I have many theories as to why.
First of all, many of us gay people have been told a lot throughout our lives that what we are is unnatural, is wrong and should be hidden.
So when we do decide to come out and live our lives regardless of what others say, we take with us all the resentment and shame into our relationships.
For me, I become very emotionally unstable in my gay relationships because we give up so much in life to be true to ourselves and in the hetero world, not all of my heart was there.
People didn't have the power to hurt me like I can get hurt now.
The key for me is to be true to myself and to the people in my life.
Life can be so unfair sometimes that we tend to continue the unfairness in our relationships.
Sometimes we have been told so much that we are wrong in how we feel that we carry that over to the people we love.
Anyone who watches the L Word and has seen the chart can see how the gay world works.
Because so many people stay in the closet and are not true to how they feel, it makes our community small.
When I started dating a girl, lets call her Sally, she asked if I knew Loni, who is friends with Carrie, who hangs with my friend Kelly. Sally dated Loni, my ex girlfriend is friends with Carrie and Kelly, so the person I did not know at all because the focal point in my life and relationship.
Yeah, I know, confusing eh?
When I make a new relationship with anyone within the gay community, there are so many ties, to so many people that it becomes a tangled web.
Sally talks to her friend about her new relationship, who tells her friend, who goes to Sally's ex, who contacts my ex and the story becomes so poisened by then that ten people end up hurt over something that didn't happen. Or becomes hurt by what other people perceive to be happening.
So, yeah, there is a hell of a lot of drama in the gay lifestyle.
There is the same drama in the hetero life but it has so many more channels to go through and by the time it gets back, it doesn't matter anymore.
I don't like drama, but I love life and I love women so the drama will come with it.
The only thing I can do about it is change how I react to it and how I handle it.
The first time I had my heart broken by a woman I went back into the closet for many many years.
I am not prepared to hurt myself so much by doing that again.
My job now is to change how I act and react.
The only way to stay out of the drama is to not react to it.
We already are such a small community, we have to do everything in our power to maintain our friendships and relationships so as not to disturb the progress we have made.
We need to stick together and show the rest of the world that we are the same as them.
We will never progress fully until we accept ourselves as a community and grow and be proud, celebrate with each other instead of fueding.
My job right now is to accept myself for who I am and be able to accept all the rest of the world in the same way.
It's a new day!

1 comment:

  1. I have the same job also Lori. I have to learn to accept my self and not change for anyone, Family, friends, or lovers. Thanks for writing such a great blog.

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