From: nsn@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas)
Subject: Re: being "in love"
Organization: Electronic and Electrical Engineering - University of Melbourne 
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:50:32 GMT

rsr@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport) writes:
>Drakon@cup.portal.com (HARRY BENJAMIN GIBSON) writes:

Firstly, salutations to two of my irc-bi family, neither of whom I've seen
in, oh, too long :)

>->But unforunately it has been my experience that most humans sleepwalk thru
>->life, never thinking, never questioning, never feeling. I wouldn't call it
>->bad or wrong or sick, I would call it tragic.
>Oh my ... *bingo*, Ben ... couldn't have said it better ... that's _exactly_
>how I feel about the way I was up to 122 days ago ... 

Ah. Well.

In many a way, I've felt a parallel in Roy's experience... but I think I'll
swerve off here. :)

Relabelling myself bi four months ago may have involved lotsa pain and soul-
searching and stuff--- but I don't hold my erstwhile het self in contempt.
For many reasons. When I was het, I was trying to get by, understand, be
just, be worthy of love. I still am. When I was het, I had a conservative
outlook on life, which I felt challenged by forces about me --- and I wanted
to adapt to those forces, and be fair and just all through it, and better
to my peers --- and I wasn't always successful --- but I tried. I still
do. I'm queer, ladies and gentlemen; my attraction to the same gender is
real and sincere (for all the good it's brought me... but that's another
story); if anything, it's less problematic for me than my opposite-sex
attraction (which is yet another story). And yet, deep down in the gut of
me, where I was manufactured, there's lots of me (my veneration of Dead
White Men :) , my self-perception, my propensity to suits, my politics)
that is, superficially at least, conformist and het.

I keep reminding myself; I keep forgetting; I remind myself once more:
becoming bi has not made me a better person; not even much of a different
person. I still try. I'm still learning (and there's an Yvette and a Tim and
a Joe and a Karina out there who can sit back and take a fair deal of
credit for it). I recall Ciaran's posting about self-perception, and
how people would rate themselves a 7/10, rather than a 4/10, in 'goodness',
even when they then get palpably better. Maybe I was a 3, and am now a 6.
Casting aspersions on and judging my former self won't help though. The
'7/10' means "I am trying". I was trying; I am; I will be. I'm getting
to the point (asymptomatically or not) where I can live with myself --- all
of myself. The het bits and the queer bits. The conformist bits and the
rebellious bits. It's meant squirming about Joe, and sharing chocolate with
him; looking at Tim blankly, and singing Mahler with him; darkly envying
Yvette, and bouncing off the ceiling with her. And it keeps going.

And you know, them Christians you've referred to --- they can prove a 
delightful surprise at times. None of my Christian friends I've come out
to have told me I'd boil in hell (there was one where it got heated, but
her and me... well, we had other issues). They'll freely admit they don't
*understand*. Well shit, that's ok. They don't understand. *I* don't
quite understand either my Christian friends or my queer friends yet (yes,
I feel more affinity with the queers right now, but still...) Hell, I 
understand *myself* least of all. Understanding isn't the point. The point is 
respect and friendship. I am respected and befriended; that's all that matters.
And I keep going down the path, that leads... that leads to me.

I *am* babbling again, aren't I... *shrug* It just strikes me that, every
time I talk to Karina, for example, I feel good, accepted, bi-proud, and yet... 
majestically mundane, looking at the world at quite an angle from her. Part of 
that is defensiveness, sure. Part of that, I hope, is also me, using my friends
as a foil, realising myself as who I am, not who I think others want me to be. 
And it is a rare and precious gift that such friends give me, even if they 
don't realise that's what they're doing at the time; and I'm in their debt and 
gratitude now and forever.

My thanks to them (and they *are* reading :) ; and my thanks to you lot,
who've been doing me the same service, less immediately and emotively, 
(although that flamewar here... *shudder*), but hammering away and whelming
and engulfing me all the same. You are my family. Families are never ideal,
gropey-feely, perpetually kind, saccharine, together, admirable. You're no
more the Brady Bunch than my family watching 'Calamity Jane' outside. But
you are my people. And I (platonically or not :) love yez all.

%^) %^) %^) %") %^) %^) %^| %^) %^) B^) %^) %^) %^) ;^) %^) %^) %^[ %^) %^) 8)
NICK NICHOLAS!! nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au ! IRC: nicxjo ! Melbourne Uni, Oz!!!
 "I've been told that I'm sexy and cute, intelligent and witty with a great 
 sense of humour, but then people will say anything when they're about to come 
 in your mouth." Judes, idx009@cck.coventry.ac.uk <9qfmbqh5@cck.coventry.ac.uk>