From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli)
Newsgroups: soc.bi,soc.motss
Subject: My 5-year HS Reunion... the results!
Date: 29 Dec 1992 00:21:43 -0500
Organization: Mentor Graphics -- IC Group
NNTP-Posting-Host: sdl.warren.mentorg.com

Well, the executive summary is:  Donald promised to call when he got
into the area.  He didn't.  I went a alone :-(.  I had a *blast* :-).
I came out to everyone that asked what my "two men" button meant and
anyone that asked me if I was married.  When asked about my job I said
that I had a full-time job in the computer biz but I spend all of my
free time doing activism.  Afterwords one other queer alum and I went
to a gay bar.  It was a great time!  Definite WIN!

------------------
The long version:

The plan with Donald was that he was going to be in NYC to visit his
mother for Christmas.  He had my phone number(s) and I had his mother's
phone number (which wasn't a valid phone number, I assume I wrote down
a wrong digit or something).  He was going to phone me as soon as he
got into NYC so we could arrange a place to meet, and I'd give him
instructions on taking the train from NYC to New Jersey.  (for those of
you just joining, he was going to be my date to the reunion; so I could
make a statement by showing up with a beautiful man by my side)  Well,
he never called.  I called, only to find out that the number I had
didn't work.  I kept checking my email to see if he had written to
cancel, but no luck there.

In a mad rush, about 4 hours before the reunion I started calling every
man I could think of.  I didn't want to go alone.  Well, I did go alone
and I'm glad I did.  The place was so noisy that people could only have
conversations in pairs (talking mouth-to-ear) so a third person
wouldn't have worked.

The event was at a popular bar in the same town as the HS.  I graduated
with 450 other people, and about 140 people were there.  Though my
school was 35% African-American, out of all the people that showed up
only about 10 A-A people showed up.  I find this strange since,
demographically, alumni of my HS are more likely to leave the area if
they are white.  (the racial lines in my town were also the economic
lines, but that's another story).

I wore a tiny button which has a drawing of what looks like two
greek-statues (both male, naked) holding each other.

Just about every conversation began with:
Them or me: "Great to see you!"
Me or them: "Great to see you too!"
Them or me: "So what are you doing now?"
Me or them: "[stuff about my/their job]"
Them or me: "[stuff about their/my job]"

When I got to talking about my job, I would explain that I work in the
computer industry in Central Jersey (proof that I was a total nerd back
then: everyone replied with, "Oh you were always so good with
computers!") and that I spend my nights doing activism.

If they asked, "What kind of activism?" I told them flat out.  I got
really good reactions from everyone.  It always was that smooth
"matter-of-fact" coming out that is always accepted really well.  If
they bragged about being any particular position in in their company, I
bragged back that I was just elected VP of the New Jersey Gay and
Lesbian Coalition, the group that I do a lot of work with.

If they asked, "Are you married?" I told them that my BOYFRIEND
couldn't make it.  "Do you live alone?", "No my BOYFRIEND and I live in
Central Jersey." that kind of thing.  Again, all positive outcomes!

A couple people asked about my button.  It went something like
this: (same way each time)
"Is that two men on that button?"
"Aaaaa-huhhh!!!!"  (with a very "You're getting closer!"-look on my
face)
"Are you making some kind of statement?"
"Aaaaa-huuuuuuhhhhhh!!!!"  (repeat "You're getting closer!"-look)
"Oh!"
<insert generic post-coming-out conversation like the ones above>

All the "proud crowd" (the nickname for the popular clique) was there.
Some of them were really confused by my button.  Finally someone (Amy)
came up to me and said, "Doug and those guys want to know what your
button means and I told them that they need to grow up." She then came
out to me :-) and we had a grand old time talking about things.

Finally my friend William arrived.  He was out to some people when we
where in school, and we see each other at various local gay/bi
hotspots.  He immediately wanted to know who was setting of my gaydar
and we toured the crowed hunting for other "family".  At one point he
ran up to me and asked if I had seen one guy.  "He now lives in San
Francisco and didn't mention any girlfriends!", William exclaims.  So,
we run over together and talk with him about how we just LUUUUUUVE San
Francisco and how we can't wait to go out there some day.  I don't know
if he got it.  He didn't take the bait.  Could he be.... STRAIGHT???

A couple times I overheard people talking about the Colorado boycott
(supportively).  That was pretty shocking.  It was interesting how many
people brought up the Colorado boycott when I was talking about my
activism.  I guess it shows how far lesbigayqueer-activism has come in
all these years.  People know that things are happening and aren't
terrified to talk about it.

The biggest shock was one friend told me that he is now teaching
freshman english and is including a lot of "queer theory".  He said
that he is straight but he really likes a lot of the radical queer
politics and he making his students read a couple books on the topic (I
can't remember the authors he mentioned, but I they all sounded
familiar when he rattled them off).

The number of people that asked me about my older sisters and brother
was less than I had expected.  Of all the people that I was afraid of
meeting up with, the ones that I really didn't want to have to face
weren't there!  (bwwaaahaha!  Score!!!)

I got to talk with Amanda Zwacky, who I met in kindergarten, and was in
classes with until graduation.  I was sort of psyched that he too
noticed that we had gone k-12 together.  She looked really good.  She,
well, was from a rich family and we had a great conversation about
liberal causes like gay rights, all very supportive.  She also confided
in me that she voted for Clinton (unlike the rest of her family) and
how she felt like she was finally owning her own politics and doing
what was right, instead of what was more profitable (economically she
sided with Bush, but every other issue she disagreed with him).  We
talked about other things too, and it was just a wonderful
conversation.

Sadly, some of the people that I had really hoped would be there
weren't.  One friend didn't show up because she was 6 months pregnant,
had just gotten married, and felt too embarrassed to go.  That's a real
shame because I think that people would have been supportive.

I did spend a lot of time talking with a friend Steve and a friend
Courtney.  That was really interesting.  So, yes, I did talk with
friends; I didn't spend my whole time just doing my queer visibility
thang.

On the queer front, Amy, William, and I had a great time talking about
being queer, about anti-bi shit that we've gotten from people in the
past few year, etc.  It was a blast.

Afterwords William and I went out to a gay bar (The Yatch Club) to hang
out.  I hadn't been there in about a year, so it was night to see those
friends again).

And that's about the whole evening.

I'm really glad I did it.  I've posted my tirade about the importance
of lesbigay visibility to the net before (and it isn't anything that
hasn't been said on soc.motss/soc.bi many times) so I won't repeat it.
I think that it went well, accomplished all of my goals, and I open a
number of people's minds.  I felt great afterwords (except for choking
on all the cigarette smoke, YUCK!) and I made some new connections with
people that I never had made before.

All totalled, it was a very positive and energizing experience!

Two snaps up!

Tom
-- 
Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.uucp (play)

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