The first time I was called “Gay” was my freshmen year of high school.
This bullying was based on the fact that I was hanging out with girls a lot of the time. This logic made no sense to me as I knew that I was straight. I was very aware of my straightness and my sexual attraction at this age, so I had no doubt that I was not a homosexual, but I also knew that it was girls who made me feel good about myself in the platonic relationships I shared with them. As much as I wanted to do something to keep these bullies at bay, having friends was not really something I was willing to sacrifice to be “cool.”
I tried to socialize with other boys. I could talk video games, and throw around insults and other jokes, but there was a lack of depth in our conversations. Also, there was so much that the other boys, namely sports, talked about that I wasn’t interested in discussing. While there were things that girls talked about that weren’t my interest like fashion, their conversations about these topics didn’t seem as exclusionary as the ones boys talked about.
Even though I knew that my relationships with my girl-friends were abnormal, there was enough space in high school and college for me to foster these relationships. As I entered adulthood, a door seemed to shut. One reason I love being a teacher is that I have the space to become friends with women, as the in schools there is proportionately higher amount of women in the field than in many other industries. However, like I mentioned before, the extension of girl-friends from the work place to hanging out outside of school is tricky.
Didn’t sex get in the way of these relationships with my girl-friends? This is one of those things that I have found as an interesting point of discussions. One of the main arguments ala when Harry Met Sally is that men and women cannot be friends because of sex.
The idea is that a guy can’t have a conversation with a woman because he will be thinking too much about having sex with her to focus on other aspects of her humanity. And without a sexual aspect of the relationship to somehow manage this tension like in a marriage relationships, two people of different genders can’t engage in a meaningful relationship.
This idea sets low expectations for men. It excuses them for mismanaging expressions of their own sexuality, and sets up for failures in their relationships with women. Men in this model are excused for not developing ways of acknowledging all the facets of a women’s identity. Also, the idea that a sexual relationship is somehow essential sets people up for strange relationship dynamics. Yes, sexual compatibility is very important in a long-term partnered monogamous relationship, however a strong sexual connection cannot overcome other issues in a relationship.
Did I think about my girl-friends sexually at times? Yes. Did I ever have crushes on them? Sometimes. However, for the most part I didn’t act on these feelings. Some of this had to do with a lack of confidence but moreover it was because after a while, like a sister, I didn’t see them that way. Mentally acknowledging sexuality does not have to lead to action, and there was simply more important parts of my relationships that was worth maintaining without a sexual expression.
We seek in our friends things that we see in ourselves. As an Asian boy, I didn’t see a lot of me on the surface in my peers, so I looked for people like my own mom who were interesting in talking about how they saw the world.
Women and femininity have always fascinated me. I remember putting on my mom’s jewelry, trying on her make-up and playing dress up with her clothing. When I was kindergarten age, I learned through society that there were gender roles in society that I had to abide by. So I sought out other ways to explore femininity.
There were limited outlets for this. My main extracurricular activity was music lessons, which were not very social. The popular culture that I enjoyed, comics, books, and sci-fi/fantasy were from male perspectives, created by men, and most often focused on male characters. Then the 1990s Disney animated film renaissance came, and I had a way to explore women in our culture. Film like The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and The Beast were by no means ideas ways for me to explore and thinking about women, however it was what I got. Because the films were so popular and omnipresent, it wasn’t weird for me to be into them. Okay maybe it a was a little odd for me to buy the The Little Mermaid song book and sing those songs until I had them all memorized. However, it didn’t feel as much a push against gender expectations as wearing a dress.
I’ll never forget being in a book store in New York and seeing The Little Mermaid song book at the endcap of a shelf. It was a beat up copy but I was still so excited and surprised to see that such a book even existed. I treasured that thing, using it to learn all of the lyrics and eventually play the song son the piano.
I watched this generation of Disney films as much or more than I watched the Star Wars films….which I watched all of the time.
As I got into high school the way to explore the female experience narrowed to the point that the only way to understanding myself as well as others was through girl-friends. There were a few books I read in high school which ended up being some of my favorites like I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and The Color Purple, helped me betters understand women, but the vast majority of the books, and the curriculum I learned were from male perspectives.
I am so grateful to the girl-friends I had in high school for going outside of the norm to be my friend. I'm sure their boyfriends and other people made comments to them about hanging out with me, but they never told me about these issues.
I don't know what my life would have been like without these girl-friends but what I do know is that they were the friendly faces who said hello to me in the hallways, made me feel needed by valuing my advice, and supported me through those years.
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