March 82002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
bigtips
'Let's still be friends,' he said, but he won't talk any more
by M.T. "the Big Tipper" Martone Dear Big Tipper,
My boyfriend of six months just broke up with me. The night he told me, he said he wanted to keep me in his life, that he loved me but he didn't think we worked as lovers, and he felt very close to me and wanted to keep that.
The next day I called him and he wouldn't even come to the phone when his roommate told him it was me. I've been trying not to bother him, but I've called a few times, and he still hasn't talked to me.
I'm heartbroken about the breakup in the first place, and his behavior is making me feel even worse, if that's possible. Why is he doing this? Why would he say what he said? Hanging on the Telephone
Dear Hanging Up on Your Every Word,
People say what they have to say to get from point A (in a relationship they want out of) to point B (out of that relationship).
The lazy and the heartless deal with that stress by breaking up on the phone or by e-mail. People who are brave enough to do it in person may still try to make the conversation easier by smoothing the transition: It won't just be like diving off a cliff into a relationship void, it will be just like being together, except that we won't be living together, or having sex, or be together. We'll talk. We'll be friends. But in the aftermath of that conversation, maybe some guilt kicks in, or relief, and the breakerupper realizes that the emotional commitment required to someone who is no longer his partner can be pretty minimal.
If he is the kind of guy who treats his friends with love and respect, and if you saw evidence of any of his former exes in his life, there's probably a good chance that he'll come around in time and you can stay in touch.
If he's always on to the next thing, and doesn't have any long-term friends, and you never witnessed evidence of his romantic past except through horror stories, you may, sadly, need to Let It Go.
For now, stop calling, and do what you need to do to get through the breakup. Be sad, go out with your friends, watch TV with a Biore pore strip on your nose and a big pink box of Almond Roca on your lap. Your job is to equalize your life. If he comes back into it when you're feeling more together and have moved on, then that's a can of frosting you can choose to open if you wish.
Dear Big Tipper,
I'm so excited that Rosie O'Donnell's coming out! What do you think about this?
Never Really a Tom Cruise Fan
Dear All Over But the Outing,
Hey, that's not a request for advice.
Jones University. Maybe she'll end up, in her twilight years, playing the lesbian borscht belt of Olivia cruises. So what? Her empire will not collapse. I predict that her groaning shelves of Happy Meal toys will not even shiver in the wake of her announcement.
BIG TIPS
To her credit, I've never heard her deny that she is a lesbian, but I've been pretty unimpressed with her not just being out during the whole tenure of her show. Then again, it's everyone's personal choice whether or not to be out, blah blah blah, and I haven't been in the market for a celebrity role model in a long time, so it's no skin off my dimpled lesbian butt.
I think she'll be much happier and more relaxed. I think her partner will be featured in more newspaper "Lifestyle" spreads. I think her kids will have a much easier time understanding that it's no big deal to be gay now that mom isn't in the closet.
I think that a lot of people who weren't raging homophobes, but didn't think they knew anyone queer, will stifle gasps of surprise, then move along with a more illuminated sense of how ordinary it can be to be a lesbian. (And that apparently not just gay men are obsessed with show tunes.) I certainly hope that other famous people will see that it's never too late in their career to come out. Keeping that closet door firmly shut is a sad, stifling waste of energy and emotional health.
*
Maybe she'll lose a speaking gig at Bob
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More important than the lack of an outcry is that lots of (albeit oblivious) Rosiewatching folks will realize that they've been listening to a lesbian talk about diaper rash and Koosh balls for six years. Their heads didn't spin off their necks from the influx of radical misinformation promoted by some homosexual cabal. Shocking. So, right on,
Dear Mary,
Rosie.
My girlfriend says I'm too old to henna my hair. I cut off my tail for her last month. What's too old? I'm 48.
Red-y to Go
Dear Dyeing To,
Your girlfriend's a manipulative shrew. Just kidding. Sort of.
I'm assuming that you didn't have the abnormal excess length of your spine surgically removed for her, but that you got a rattail-ectomy. That can hurt, but people do fall into pretty extreme camps in their opinion on tails. If you were willing to lose it for her, you may want to let that one go, and chalk one up for fashion sense. Or at least hers.
On the other hand, if you aren't going to lose the job that feeds you and your loved ones, dye your darned hair. It's an inexpensive way to have fun, and change how you look and how you feel about yourself in the world. May we never be too old (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) to play.
Burning questions? Contact me at the Chronicle, attention Big Tips, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland 44101, or fax to 216-631-1052, or e-mail to mårtone@drizzle.com.
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