SEPTEMBER 1, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 29

BIG TIPS

Why do my friends keep saying I act too straight?

by M.T. "the Big Tipper" Martone

All right, I'll go to the doctor. I've been hacking up a lung for the past few weeks, and my friends' helpful offerings of vitamin C, echinacea, and a bootleg course of penicillin have been gathering dust on my desk, neglected for my personal health regimen of Rice Krispies squares and creme soda. (And I'm giving you advice?) Dear Big Tipper,

I am a 25-year-old gay man. I am out to my family and friends, and am very comfortable with my sexuality. Yet, I am having a slight bit of a problem.

On many occasions now, several of my friends, both gay and straight, including family members, say that I "act too straight" and this is why I have a hard time meeting other gay men. One gay friend said I “dance like a straight guy" one night while at a club. I have also been asked over and over again by both straight and gay friends if I am really "bisexual instead of gay" when everyone knows I have never been with a woman and have expressed how much I like men.

I let these comments go at first, but since they keep coming up, I am starting to feel somewhat insulted and very stereotyped. I am especially feeling this way toward my gay friends, who I think should be a little more enlightened by how stereotyping affects a person.

I do have problems meeting other gay men, even though I am a beacon of gay pride with shirts, bumper stickers, freedom rings, etc. I do get hit on by straight women frequently. The first words that come out of my mouth are that "I am gay." So my boat is pretty much full with straight female friends. But why is it that I am so open about this and I keep getting "you should be straight" comments like this? It's having a serious effect on my love life.

Really! I'm a fag!

Dear Big Fag (I believe you!)

Okay, get your mouth ready to make lots of big, round "O" shapes: That's right, homophobia.

The insult here isn't that your friends think you seem too straight, whatever that's supposed to mean, but that they won't listen to you when you tell them to knock it off. It's also annoying that they think if you can't possibly be gay, perhaps you're a wannabe: bisexual. (Aren't the "fencesitter" stereotypes gone yet?)

Now bear with me, I'm going to lay a little lesbian culture on you. The first time I went and worked at a women's music festival, I had just graduated from a women's college, and all the lesbians I knew were clearly identifiable, from their two-toned hair, tails, safety pins, ragged Converse high tops, blahde-blah-de-blah.

The first people I saw on "the land” were two women with matching pink velour jumpsuits, carefully teased hair, lo-o-ong pink nails, and their daughter, a miniature pink vision herself, being pulled along behind them in a wagon. Whoa. That one couple knocked about a lifetime's worth of sense into my head about "what queers look like." Now, I practice on the bus: I look at old people, people with children, men and women

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sitting together, and picture gay lives for them. It helps to make up for all of the assumptions of heterosexuality that go unchecked every day.

Unfortunately, it's easy for sexual identity to seem more negotiable before you've done the confirming deed. I'm in no way saying you're not queer 'til you do it, but it sounds like you're looking, so keep going to clubs, dancing with boys, maybe try a personal ad (or volunteering at some queer group). Get some boy booty, since that's what you want, and meanwhile, let your comfort in who you are be a stronger voice than other people's wienie-headed remarks. Oh, and by the way, there's a long tradition of straight women hanging with fags, even asking them out and being thwarted. Feel free to maintain your entourage, as long as they know the score.

Dear Big T.,

Howdy. I'm not exactly sure why I am writing this letter to you, other than the fact that there is no one else to whom I could. Haven't you at some time in your life just needed to tell something to somebody because holding it inside was just too much to bear?

Due to the stress involved in my coming out process, namely, taking a year to convince my sweet, caring, giving husband that I need a divorce, I have been unable to undertake employment for this year, so I am financially dependant on him, and can't afford counseling. (For the previous four years of our marriage, I made more money than he did.)

After a full year of waffling and dragging us both through an emotional hell, a call from a friend (who has been there for me from tricycles to teens to today, and has been a literal lifeline for me although I can't ever really tell her how bad it is) helped prompt me to make the final arrangements necessary to move out. This involved talking to my parents to let them know when I would be moving back in with them.

I had decided that before I returned home, I would need to come out to them. I couldn't ask for their help to get me back on my feet under false pretenses. I knew they would not approve, but they would never turn me away... Dad and I never really got along, yet we never really argued. My brothers, significantly older than I, had come to terms with their anger and accepted him for who he was, knowing they could never change him. I hadn't quite gotten that far. Yet I knew when I went to visit them, I would be asking them both to accept me for who I am, and not for the person I had pretended, and like my dad, continually failed at trying to be.

It was the week before my 26th birthday that I went to see my folks. We sat down and talked about my plan for the future, my divorce from my husband, etc. I couldn't bring myself to come out to them that night. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Dad had a heart attack in the middle of the night. The heart attack caused a stroke, and he never woke up.

By midweek, we knew he wasn't coming back. Everybody took turns sitting with him... saying what they needed to say, that they couldn't say to him while he was “alive." I wanted to talk to him, to tell him who I really was. That I had figured a few things out and

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that I wasn't going to be a screw-up all my life. That I was finally honest with myself, and on the right track. But how do you tell a dying man in a coma that his daughter is gay, and that this is a good thing?

At 6 am on August 6, my 26th birthday, my father died. I haven't cried yet... how do you mourn a man you couldn't respect? How do you ask him to approve of your life when you condemn his? How do you grieve for someone when your own life's details crowd out your heart, and you don't have room for it? Everything is such a jumbled mess. Some days I think it's time to begin another, better chapter of my life. Other days I feel like I just can't take another step and I just want to fade into the background. I wish I could close my eyes and magically be all grown up, smart and together. Well, if nothing else, I can look at it this way. It couldn't get any worse. Thank you for listening, Big T.

Dear Confused,

Confused in Kent

Boy, you're losing everything at once, aren't you? You gave up your job, are letting go of a socially sanctioned relationship, are moving into someone else's home, and your dad just died. Coming out to yourself and to the world is difficulty enough when you're coming from a position of strength, much less when your patch of solid ground seems to be eroding.

Things are rarely neat, and your dad's schedule for departing this earthly plane didn't mesh with your state of readiness to tell him about who you really are. Even if you had been able to say the words to him in the hospital, you wouldn't have been able to

make sure that he really understood that you're sure of this and that it is a good truth.

What you can do, is make good on what you would have told him. Come out to the rest of your family. Get a divorce in as speedy and friendly a way possible: your husband sounds like a nice guy, try to keep him in your life. Do whatever you need to stay grounded, whether that's exercising or meditating or praying of hanging out with people who love you. Rather than "living well being the best revenge," in your case, living well can be the way you move beyond what your father was able to do in his life.

Here are a few tips and projects to keep you moving forward:

• Get some job, preferably with insurance so you can afford counseling if you want it. If you can't work full-time, get a part-time gig. It'll get you out of the house, give you more financial independence, and bump up your self-esteem.

• Really work your friendships. It can be hard to ask for help when you feel like your needs are so enormous, but they'll need you in the future. Tell your “lifeline" friend the whole story.

• If you're not out to your brothers, practice on them, before you come out to your mom. Sibling relationships can be less loaded than parent-child ones, and if they're cool, they can back you up when mom wigs out. Good luck.

Send your questions to M.T. Martone, care of the Chronicle, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, 44101; or e-mail to ChronOhio@aol.com; or fax to 216-

631-8646.

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