John Y’s Musings from the Middle: A Hetero Thing

“Oh my gosh. That is such a heterosexual thing to say.”

No one has said that to me yet. But I think one day it will be commonplace phrase in our culture if we heteros don’t get it together. And quickly.

I just walked out of a coffee shop where four well groomed, physically fit , articulate and nice looking men were sitting having a serious and substantive discussion. And I was envious. I thought to myself, “Part of me is jealous and wishes I was one of them.” Not a practicing gay, of course…but just gay in the other ways that my sexual orientation seem to be falling so far behind.

Oh, you are probably thinking to yourself “John is stereotyping gays by ‘assuming’ this group of men are gay because of the way they look and talk.” No. Not really. Think about it for a minute. When was the last time you saw four well-groomed, physically fit, articulate, nice looking heterosexual men having a substantive conversation about anything?

Oh sure, we heteros were represented at the coffee shop, too, alright. Don’t worry about that. Two of us were spread out at a table bitching about politics and why they couldn’t catch a break, in work or in romance. I couldn’t hear specifics because I was only in line for a few minutes. But it appeared they had a lot of misfortunes to cover today because it looked like they had been there most of the morning. And had enjoyed breakfast and a follow up snack. Put it this way, if the average male waistline is 34- 36, my two hetero colleagues were doing their job of balancing out the 4 other men’s trim waistline in the coffee shop (with a little help from me, size 38).

I was so embarrassed I almost wanted to say, “Hey guys. At least fix your hair and speak in complete sentences. You’re giving us heterosexuals a bad name.” But, of course, I didn’t. My hair was unkempt too. And I was eating a cake pop with my coffee.

As I walked out I remembered kids when I was younger saying things like, “That’s such a ‘gay’ thing to say” and meaning it as a put down. Heck, I am sure I said it myself. But today, if someone said to me, “That is so gay of you, John.” Well, I think it would be about the nicest thing anybody said to me all day.

And I wouldn’t even correct the person offering the compliment by telling them I was really heterosexual. I would just let them think I would not be out of place in a group like the one I saw today at the coffee shop –and most everywhere else for that matter.

And that’s when I worried about the next step after that. When someone accuses me of sounding hetero for the first time, and meaning it as a put down making the point that I am overweight, lazy and unimaginative or have no taste in clothes or don’t understand movies. As in, “That is such a heterosexual thing to say.” It could happen. And these days, when we heteros can’t seem to stay fit, keep married, stop complaining or come up with anything interesting to say outside of rattling off some sports scores, asking if there will be a Porkies III, and deciding when the next game of fantasy baseball will be, well, them are darn near fighting words, if you ask me.

And the worst part is, we heteros aren’t even very tough any more. I’m afraid we’d lack the energy to even fight back or have the cleverness to come up with an adequate “retort.”

The more I thought about it the more I thought of this video clip, imagining what our retort to the hetero put down might look like.

Then again, uhhhh, well, that’s just my opinion, man.