Token office gay boy
Interpersonal relationships with work collegues is its own special dynamic. These are people a lot of times don’t like and wouldn’t choose to spen time with, yet you are forced to a third of your day with them. Obviously this isn’t everyone at work but the vast majority. If you don’t think this is the case it’s because you have fooled yourself into thinking that everyone is ‘okay’ to chat with as a form of survival.
The problem in these random water cooler conversations is the amount of crap one has to swallow just to keep things pleasant. After not-too long on the job you’ll know that Janet is a racist, Michael is unashamedly chauvinistic, Todd is the religious one, Greg talks about plants too much, Anna is having problems acknowledging her 50+ age group, Colm is an arrogant twat and quite possible an alcoholic, Samantha is a gossip, etc, etc, but only one will not be so clear to you, at least not at first, and that is the homophobic. It’ll take some time to flush him or her out.
If you are luck enough never to find out who it is, or perhaps lucky enough to work in an office where there is no outright gay-hater, what you will have to suffer, and I guarantee this, is the quite possibly just as bad gay curiosity—the people who, after a few weeks or months suddenly feel free to ask you or tell you completely uninteresting and inappropriate stories. This phenomenon catches like wild fire and as soon as someone breaks the ice everyone jumps in on the action.
The heteros love this moment because they see themselves suddenly quite modern because they have a queer as a ‘friend’ and even more contemporary with their mob like courage as they begin asking all the things they always wanted to know but were afraid to ask. The questions they ask and the stories they tell are always extremely telling of a persons personality and assumptions, but the person never realises this as they are so caught up in the excitement of having made friends with a homo.
The fact is that while the superficial but very telling conversations one has with colleagues in small groups while whiling time are usually kept to a discretion even if it be to a minimum depending on who is involved in the conversation or walking near. We on the other hand have to support the onslaught of everyone and no one is discreet, everyone assumes that they can talk the most obscene nonsense thusly assuming that the gay they are talking to is as obscene.
I’ve been told about the time when two men were ‘buggering’ each on their sofa with the front blind open, I’ve been asked if it’s true that gay men fuck each other regardless of sexual attraction, I’ve been asked if my preferred position is as a top or bottom, I’ve been asked when the last time I had an HIV test was, I’ve been asked by a forty-year-old little bitter woman if I had ‘fucked’ the man I had been so excited about going on a date with the day before. It has been assumed that me and my boyfriend have an open relationship. It has been assumed that no gay relationship can last longer than the dog like sexual attraction.
Of course below these comments and heard whispered in conversations that you will never be a part of is a striking and still raw homophobia, a painful poison working it’s way out of a society.
