Weird, right? You're probably saying to yourself, "But Friday nights are great! It's the start of the weekend, you can go get trashed with your friends and sleep in the next morning!"
And I agree. Friday nights can be some of the best times of your life, especially if you're like me and stressing over school and have withdrawn until you have no social life whatsoever and you realize, six months later, that your friends haven't heard from you in months and may be wondering if they missed a funeral or a hospital visitation or a going away party.
I took a leap back into the real world yesterday and went out to dinner and karaoke with a big group of friends. Don't worry, I did not actually do any singing. Everyone's eardrums are intact and functional. Or if they're not, it's not a result of my ghastly singing skills.
I love this group of friends. I got to go out with Invader Zim Friend, who I hadn't seen in quite a while due to me having vanished after starting grad school.
Invader Zim Friend and I met up with a group of folks, including her special someone. We amounted to a group of ten. Now, this group is very LGBT-friendly. About half the group, in fact, was made up of fantastic homos.
We went to dinner and then across the street to a karaoke bar. Everyone got along wonderfully and, for the first time since my vacation, I actually got to relax and enjoy a night out.
The problems began when I left the group and went home.
I've mentioned before what a catastrophe sleeping is for me. Mostly because it hasn't been happening lately. It doesn't seem to matter what time I climb into bed, I still toss and turn, have nightmares, wake up repeatedly, and in the end get maybe a few hours of restless sleep. A few weeks ago, I gave up trying to make myself sleep and just kept staying awake, figuring that the lack of sleep would catch up to me sooner or later.
I left the karaoke bar early last night. It was only about midnight, but I was exhausted and it was looking like sleep might actually happen.
I did the smartest thing I could and parked in a lot five or six blocks away from the karaoke bar. Screw the walk. Parking was free.
The karaoke bar is smack dab in the middle of the city's bar section. I walked by at least eight bars, outside of which people were lining up to get in. Remember, it was only midnight. This is still early for most normal people. Especially college students. And my city is a college city. The biggest university in our state is located in my home city.
The sidewalks were packed with people lining up to park their cars, stand around and talk, get into the bar, and generally get in everyone's way. Seeing as there was no space to walk around anybody, I wound up trying to squeeze my way between groups of people.
One of the first things I heard someone say, as I went by them as carefully as I could and not shove them or knock them over, was: "What's your name?" in a very suggestive tone.
It was a young man who had said it. I ignored him, disinterested. He almost certainly thought I was a woman and I didn't feel like outing myself and causing a conflict when I could be on my way home to sleep.
I heard several muttered comments as I went by people, none of them audible and probably none of them worth my attention. What did catch my attention was one particular young man, as I tried to squeeze past him, his male friend, and their two girl friends. They were standing in a group smack in the middle of the sidewalk. I tried to work my way around the group but wound up being shoved directly into the middle of the group. I apologized and hastily worked my way out of the crowd. As I was leaving, I heard the young man say, "Hey, hey! Let's be friends!" to his group, in a mocking tone and with an overly exaggerated lisp.
This person thought that I was a gay boy.
Hey, I love men. I love women. I love everybody. I don't care who knows. What upset me was that this young man, like so many young, vain, self-pleased people, had decided to openly mock someone. I didn't care that I got made fun of. Hell, that's every day for me. But this kid seriously thought it was okay to make a comment like that, meant to make fun of gay folks.
I just have to wonder. In our vastly and rapidly changing society, it is absolutely NOT okay to make fun of people for their race, religion, class, ethnicity, etc. because if you do, you're labeled a f***ing racist or some other kind of horrid prejudiced douchebag, and also because it's now okay to be that kind of different in our society and most people don't want to offend anybody else, and because now the feelings of most of the minorities in this country are actually taken into account and all of a sudden people are like, "Hey! How would I feel if somebody mocked me like that?" It's taken this long for people to realize that other people are actually human beings with feelings and emotions that can be hurt in real life.
THIS LONG.
It is 2012, folks.
I am strongly reminded of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which references Jesus in this way: "Some guy got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change."
According to mythology and timelines, this guy was supposed to have lived two thousand and twelve years ago.
TWO
THOUSAND
AND TWELVE
*YEARS*
Folks, that is two millennia.
That is TWENTY centuries.
That's a long f***ing time.
Just recently, it has all of a sudden become a massive realization that we should be nice to each other.
The exception to the rule, of course, is the LGBT community.
It's still okay to pick on us. The law isn't entirely on our side yet so we're still not real people who are worthy of respect.
Two thousand and twelve years, people. Come on.
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