I'm not a superstitious kind of guy. Sure, I don't step on the sidewalk cracks, I never walk under ladders and I routinely kill newborn twins on the off chance that one of them is evil. But I do these things more out of childishness than superstition. So imagine my surprise at being so distraught by this fortune cookie, containing this simple slip of paper:
"You will soon meet the man you will marry."
Funny, I thought, I didn't even know I liked men. Maybe it's just going to be like one of those hilarious I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry type deals, where I have to marry someone for tax purposes. Is that what Chuck and Larry was about? I didn't actually see the movie.
Thinking quickly, I considered swapping fortunes with my dinner guest, a woman, who would not have to reevaluate her own sexuality as a result of this delicious folded cookie. However, since this woman was my mother, and since she was still married to my father, I thought better of my plan. I didn't want to be the one responsible for their divorce. Not again.
Having resigned myself to my fortune, I weighed the pros and cons of being a homosexual.
Pro: It's much easier to sneak into the men's locker room than to dress up like a girl and infiltrate the women's.
Pro: If I decide to dress up like a woman anyway, it's not as much of a problem.
Pro: Maybe I could finally get into a club other than Sam's Club.
Pro: I could stop hiding my love for My Own Private Idaho.
Con: I don't like men.
With four pros and only one con on the list, I decided it was best to just go with the cookie rather than try to fight it. We all know how cookies can be.
So then I was gay. I'll be honest -- it didn't feel that different at first. No one was persecuting me or giving me strange looks. Of course, no one was coming on to me, either. It was then that I realized that people probably just didn't know I was gay. There was that whole "coming out" thing that I had completely overlooked. But I never before announced that I was "straight" either, so why should people have assumed?
Finally I figured out a compromise: I'd remove the "interested in women" line from my Facebook profile. I figured that would be sufficient, but I really wanted to go all the way with this one. I looked up some of my fellow gay friends to see what they had done. Only one had put "interested in men," so I figured I was still going with the majority by leaving it blank. Many, though, were in "relationships" with girls who were their friends.
So I sent a girl I am friends with a relationship request. A few confused phone calls and a whole lot of sobbing later, she accepted, and I became gay. Officially.
After that, things started to change. The girls that used to hit on me were suddenly silenced and disheartened at discovering I was gay. As of yet, however, no male attention.
Then a horrible thought came over me: What if I'm not attractive to men? What if I'm not "man pretty"? I mean, I know the ladies love this, but what if men are after something, and I'm not it?
Luckily, this is one situation when being gay is quite useful. While I might not have any idea what women are thinking, I know exactly what men are thinking. So I went to the mirror and examined myself closely. Am I attractive? Would I do me?
A resounding yes. I'm so gorgeous.
But after some time, I still had not mastered the illustrious lisp, and my sense of style remained unchanged and un-gay.
You might think there's some book that comes with being gay that teaches you all the gay info: where to meet other gays, which words are gay besides "fabulous," how to tolerate Cher, etc. But there's not. It's a very lonely existence indeed.
Soon, the questions started to roll in: Why are you wearing cutoffs in the middle of January? Why are you talking like a fourth-grader with a new retainer? When did you get back together with your ex-girlfriend?
Eventually, I decided enough was enough. Maybe, just this once, the sage fortune cookie had made a mistake. Perhaps I was not destined to meet a man after all. And maybe, if I were, he would only fall for me as a straight man. Too many questions, no book of answers.
Finally, I decided to call it quits. I fixed my Facebook profile and started wearing full-length pants. Now I'm giving this straight thing another shot, but I can honestly say I have a newfound appreciation for the dedicated and determined gays out there.
Fare onward, gay voyagers.
Justin Hook, a junior in the College of Communication and the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at jbhook@bu.edu.
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