When I Know That They Know

After leaving the fire department this morning I decided that I would be on pager. But so far there has only been one call and it is one that the guys on pager don’t respond to.

I washed my rig this afternoon. I got the weedeating completed. I also got my garage swept out and the driveway washed off. It was a productive day and it felt good to get those things completed.

This evening I was doing some ego-surfing. I think that is the term for it. It is where you search yourself out on the web. I was looking for references to me out there. Then I wanted to see if there were any references to me and being gay. I didn’t find any of myself, but I did find one where a guy named Scotty was killed, and it is thought his sexuality was partly to blame for it. I started to go down that path.

Then I decided to look up gay athletes. On outsports.com they had a listing of gay athletes. I was reading about some of them. They had two stories that took place about ten years ago. In one case a co-captain of a high school football team was outed and his life was made a living hell. He dropped out of school. The other story was about a high school football player who was accepted and life was good.

I started to read about a college-level football captain who also was outed. Things went well for him. There were many other stories I was reading about athletes who have had their share of success and failure after being outed to their team.

The gay college football player said one of his biggest concerns was that he felt the others guys might be uncomfortable in the locker room around him because they know he is gay.

It is funny, I am the same way. When no one knows you’re gay you can blend in and no one is uncomfortable around you. But for me when I know that someone else knows that I am gay, that makes me uncomfortable around them. I think about what they might be thinking about me.

Every time something happens, I wonder if they think I did it because I was gay. I have found most guys don’t think about it most of the time. Many times they don’t remember that I am gay at every moment of the day. But living the life of a gay man it is always something that is on your mind. It is sort of like living in a fishbowl. I always think that my actions are being judged by the others due to my homosexuality.

The funny thing is that even those who are “okay” with me don’t fully understand homosexuality. They think it is a choice. They think that it is cool as long as I don’t hit on them.