wiseMusings

A few days ago, I read Hari Ziyad’s article titled “On being queer and mourning the loss of straight male friendships” which was an exploration of how he, as a gay man, no longer has heterosexual male friends but feels a sense of loss at having cut them out of his life.
I resonated with the article a lot, mainly because I have had a tumultuous string of friendships with heterosexual males over the years.

Most of them have ended, mainly because I was gay and that always presented a problem. I distinctly remember a friend I made a few years ago saying to me, ” you’re a cool guy. The only problem is that you’re gay”. And so my sexual orientation was the barrier that made me fall just short of being a full human being, and receiving the full benefits of his friendship. I understood. And I withdrew. Hence, the same individual and I cross paths these days without so much as a greeting on either side. Not because there was a fall-out of any sort, no. But because I realised that my perceived lack of humanity was seeping through the cracks and influencing every interaction we had after he had said those words to me.

And instead of telling him so (because let’s be honest, you can’t change mindsets independent of a desire by the person to do so), I withdrew further and further until there wasn’t even a “cool guy” left. There was nothing except the words that came out of his mouth one January afternoon.

To be honest, I carried that assumption with me through all my interactions with heterosexual men. Any gay person who’s ever come out knows the hidden nuances that are felt immediately afterwards. And my stubbornness wouldn’t let me stop coming out.

When I knew for certain that I was gay, I revealed myself everywhere I could. At school, to my friends, to those that didn’t know me as well, and eventually, to my family. I received pushback after pushback each time, and I have many stories directly related to that very decision that will likely never be made public until I’ve worked through them.

One story I’m interested in sharing is my friendship with one heterosexual male, a friendship that began just under a year ago and continues to this day.
I had my qualms about making him a friend, based on past experiences. I remember even telling my therapist last year about him. She replied by saying that maybe he deserved an opportunity to succeed or fail on his own merits. I mulled it over, and it made sense. Be that as it may, I didn’t explicitly speak about my sexual orientation.

As our friendship deepened and I met more of his friends (which was always an anxiety-inducing experience), he spoke about women and dating with a bit more frequency. I mostly kept quiet during these times, hoping he would stop sooner rather than later.

Then one day, him and his roommate had invited me over to shoot the breeze. I went, and the wide-ranging discussion eventually veered towards religion. He (my friend) correctly guessed that I was an atheist, then seamlessly asked me what I thought about gay people. But not without getting his licks in, and expressing very anti-LGBTI sentiments. That fired me up, and I – trying but failing to be dispassionate – spoke about equality and the discrimination faced by gay people.

His roommate asked me: “How do you know so much about gay people?Do you have gay friends?”
I replied: “Well, I’m gay myself so that’s how I know”.

I put on a fake smile to mask the enormity of the statement but the tension was palpable. The expressions on both their faces changed. I internally winced in fear, and asked to leave within about five minutes. My newfound friend walked me home, and we never addressed it. At all.

I saw him again about two weeks later. This time, he was alone. After the pleasantries, he told me that upon hearing my statement, he was upset at me, and wanted to terminate our friendship. But, to quote him, “it is none of my business and what you do in private should not come in the way of our friendship.”
I was relieved that he had the wherewithal to reflect on his feelings of discomfort. I thought he would be the exception to the rule: somebody who would teach me how to have interactions with heterosexual males. That, and because I enjoyed his company (in a platonic friendship way, I promise).

We would have giant hiccups along the way, with me avoiding him with all of my might after he would mindlessly spew homophobic vitriol for weeks at a time.
When he would ask me why we hadn’t chilled, I hit the infamous line: “I’ve been busy.”
In many ways, yes, I was busy. I was busy nursing the wounds that opened up when someone I considered a friend de-humanised me and those like me, just as my ex-friend had done all those years ago. He was re-opening not just those wounds, but creating new bruises himself. But I never said this to him. I just summed it up to ignorance. Until the next time it happened. And the next time. And the next.

It felt reminiscent of an abusive relationship, after a while. And I honestly considered doing what I always do: withdraw. (I almost called it the Withdrawal Method, but thought otherwise). Talking to him was never something I gave serious consideration to. For better or worse, my underlying philosophy when interacting with a person and their undesirable behaviour is that my words will not change their behaviour. Their behaviour will change when said behaviour no longer is desirable. And so we have constantly remained in this limbo – sometimes talking, sometimes not. But in the times we do talk, I have grown to care for him deeply.

We both have had similar childhoods, having lost our mothers relatively early in life. We both spent three years sitting at home doing fuck-all with our lives. We both came to UKZN in the year 2018, determined to make something more of our lives. And we’re both politically minded. When our discussions have this depth to them, I remember why I go back each time.

He is a cool guy. The only problem is that he’s homophobic. See the parallels?

But today, my underlying philosophy kicked in. To at least a single gear forward.

My friend has been going through a tough time. I met with him today and listened to his dilemma. I offered possible solutions, and I gave him advice. As we shook hands, I thought to myself: “it’s funny how I can hold space for individuals who could never hold space for me in my totality.”

Hours later, he texted me. He thanked me for my support, and spoke about how I have been more of a friend to him than his heterosexual male friends. After revealing that he’s often made fun of by being friends with a gay person, he said he didn’t care because “I’m proud to say that you’re like a brother to me, Wiseman.”

I was touched. I really was. Then frustrated (because I had to “earn” my humanity and the right to be seen as a complex human). Then back to being touched (that I was eventually able to bring him to such conclusions).

The truth is that the “bro code” is patriarchal in nature. It sees any allusions to femininity as undesirable and disgusting. That is because it is a product of hegemonic masculinity, which, quite frankly, is the source of most oppressions on the planet.

When a person has lived for all of his life under that “code”, he knows no other way of seeing the world but that. He knows nothing but the conception of gay people as “wrong”. He knows nothing but the conception of independent women as “somewhat problematic”. It is what he was raised to be. And my presence in his life, on its own, will not change that.

It will take deep introspection from him (and from me) for us to both find a new way of being. For him, to see other people as worthy of humanity as he is. And for me? To withdraw less and to speak more. To attempt to change people’s minds even when I’ll have no luck. To use my voice to dismantle the “bro code” and its toxic effects on the generation to come.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my interactions with heterosexual men, it is that my humanity is not in question. It is what I do with my humanity – withdraw or show my face – that matters most.