The homosexual homophobe
My girlfriend and I are cozily squeezed in at the back of a small but busy restaurant at the Chatuchak Weekend Market when a lesbian sits in front of us to share our table. Her sagging shorts, oversized yellow t-shirt and loose fitting ball cap makes her one of those cute Asian studs I’m always impressed by. I constantly feel a little less study everytime I see one and unconsciously start walking like Denzel Washington in Training Day just to up my gay. I watch her from the moment she walks in and notice she is speaking English. We don’t invite her over, she doesn’t ask to sit, ours is the only table with space so she places herself right in front of me.
I am drawn to her confident aura as I watch and can sense that she’s been here before. She doesn’t take a long time looking at the menu like we did; she knows exactly what she wants, orders it and then politely requests a coke and ice. I think to myself, “you’ve got to talk this lady”. I can tell from her accent that she’s either from Singapore or Malaysia. I say “Hi”. She doesn’t say anything but keeps shuffling inside her backpack and I decide to wave at her face.
“Hi” she smiles, apologizing for not hearing me and taking out her bluetooth headphones.
“That’s okay. Hi, where are you from?” I smile
“Singapore” she replies and I see her eyes follow the position of my left hand that comfortably rests on my girlfriend’s leg, she looks up at our shoulders that are unnecessarily touching and I know what she is thinking…”I have found my people”.
“I love Singapore, it’s so beautiful” I keep the conversation going.
“Yeah and expensive” we laugh, because it really is!
“ You’re the 3rd person I meet from Singapore today, you guys love Bangkok”
“Oh, my girlfriend and I come here often. We have a small T-shirt business and we get our merchandise here” she smiles at just the mention of her girlfriend…love- I think.
“Where’s your girlfriend now” asks my babe
“Oh, she didn’t come on this trip, I came alone. We love it here and want to move in the next few years”
“Yeah, we love Bangkok, it’s a beautiful city and there’s everything you need” we affirm
“Yeah, you know my girlfriend are 10 years apart, she’s 81 and I’m 91”
“Oh crazy, we have the same age difference- I’m the 10 years older” we say laughing
“Really?! Really?!” she asks in disbelief.
I want to tell her that black don’t crack but I don’t think she’ll get so I don’t say it. She tells us that her girlfriend left her husband of 12 years to be with her. I call her a homewrecker. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair and doesn’t say anything to that. I wonder if she doesn’t know what “homewrecker” means or if she doesn’t think of herself as one. Either way, I drop it and keep listening to her oversharing.
“Well, me and my girlfriend live like normal people” she says.
“You are normal” my girlfriend reaffirms her and I’m curious about what our new mate is about to share with us.
“We don’t live like gay people. We live like normal heterosexual people. I do the man things and she does the lady things, you know. Even our friends are normal people, we don’t have lesbian friends or gay friends, just normal friends” she says looking at me.
I am the wrong person to make eye contact with while spewing such self hatred. I may look like I’m down with my shaved sides and purposely unkempt hair and the objectively gorgeous woman I’m holding hands under the table with but let me assure you, I AM NOT! I am the girliest, girly, stud you will ever meet. I will sit in the dark over changing a light bulb, make dinner over fixing a broken shower head, my planned mid-life crisis is to be a soccer mom while my wife runs our business empire.
All that girly stuff… Plus, what the fuck?! Did this girl just call us abnormal? Why do I feel like I’m talking to a bible belting redneck from deep in the South in America? I shuffle in my chair and my babe puts her hand on my leg. I’m not sure if she wants me to let it go or if she is as shocked as I am. I feel my body language change, and I catch myself but can’t help it. My shoulders move away from her, I break eye contact, I fold my arms and I nod. I have so many questions; questions that I think you shouldn’t ask a stranger but questions that are appropriate if the stranger just opened herself up to them.
“Does your girl say she’s gay” I ask
“No, my girlfriend is not a lesbian, she’s straight” she says with a big smile on her face
I feel every single strand of hair on the back of my head stand and I say nothing. I think of that time where I thought getting a straight girl was exciting. I remember the ego boost I would get from that; the chase and the conquering. i also remember what happens when the straight girl decides she actually truly is….STRAIGHT! I want to ask how they have sex but convince myself I can’t ask that to a stranger.
“Do you feel like you need to be “normal” because you’re scared to be gay in Singapore since gay sex is criminalized” I try to understand
“No, it’s actually not bad in Singapore, they don’t care and if they do, they won’t say anything” she explains
I tell her that I thought Singapore was okay because there are a lot of lesbians there. She says “Yes there are but ‘I live a normal life, I wake up and eat breakfast like normal people and do normal people things”. I want to scream at this point, what does she think we do…wake up and eat pussy, or fall asleep humming ‘Born This Way’?! I mean, it happens… But that’s not the point. I can’t sit with this homosexual homophobe any longer so I grab my abnormal girlfriend’s hand and we kindly excuse ourselves.
“I know you want to vent about that baby, go ahead, I’m listening to you” she says looking at a dress that she likes.
“What the fuck?! She thinks we are not normal, baby.” I say trying to find more words than that.
“Yeah she’s probably a touch me not” a new term we learnt last month, a lesbian that doesn’t want to receive during sex.
“She is the problem with the movement. Gays like her, who work so hard to fit in to a heteronormative narrative. What’s the point of being queer if you’re gonna work so hard not to be?!” I preach
“It’s so boring” she says
I take a few moments to breathe and think about why I am so irked about this conversation. Why am I disturbed by her views on what is “normal”? Why am I so angry at this stranger who I thought would turn into a friend. I realize that being gay in Asia still calls for you to confirm to some sort of heteronormativity. For people to understand your gay relationship, they need to know who the man is and who is the woman. Someone needs to sag their pants, slouch their shoulders and want to be called “sir”. A Thai lesbian friend told me that other lesbians make fun of her for being attracted to other studs. She said a few even called her girlfriend ugly because she had short hair and they demanded to know why she doesn’t get a “proper” girlfriend.
I think queerness is about not conforming to that “normal” lifestyle and her eagerness to conform rubs me off the wrong way. I read somewhere that how we respond to situation is usually a reflection of something deep inside of us. So, as I type this blog, I’m thinking about what it is deep inside of me that sent me into an emotional frenzy during this encounter. It could be that I have put in a lot of work into how I live and to have it called “not normal” by someone who lives the same way is triggering. Some of us have lost people we cared about just so we can be this “normal”.
This is what I got from that encounter; that we are not all okay with not fitting in to social norms, even though we know we can’t; we find ways in our otherness to be part of what is accepted. Therefore, instead of feeling mad at my friend who was impressed that I can say “I love you, baby” in mandarin; I extend love and compassion.
