Ever since childhood, cliques have been a part of growing up. Being last chosen for the kickball team or having your name being made fun of is all a part of an inability to "fit in" with the other children. So you look for your own kind.
In junior and senior high, the cliques became more apparent. Geeks, Jocks, AV Crew, Braniacs, Sluts. A world divided within the cinderblock walls of a school building. To associate with someone from another group outside the realm of namecalls meant immediate banishment, forever considered a traitor...on of "them".
Think back... What group were you in? Were you one of those who got through school with your looks and charming personality? Were you the one in the taped together glasses and pocket protector, racing from class to class, trying to blend in with the rows of lockers like a mouse running against a kitchen baseboard trying not to be noticed? Were you the stoner who cut class and hung out in the woods behind the school with a joint and a boombox endlessly playing Led Zeppelin tunes?
It doesn't matter now though, does it? I mean...once you graduate and move on with your life, setting goal after goal that's just out of reach, are cliques that important? Or have we grown up not realizing that the groups we've tried desperately to be part of (or get away from) have been programmed in our minds? Have we become as desensatized of those around us as we have of violence on television? For those of us in our twenties, thirties, forties and beyond, is it still important to be accepted by those types that had gotten you through your high school years?
Cliques are and always will be a part of most of our lives, whether we want them or not. Just look around you. Especially in a world as vane as the gay community. Muscles hang with muscles, bears with bears, queens with queens and yes, jocks are still hanging with jocks. Oh sure, people are alittle more polite in their adulthood. You wouldn't hear a musclebear walk up to a bar for a drink and say to the transvestite "get outta my way girly-man." But how often do you see two guys out on a date...one having the looks of a model off the pages of a work-out magazine and the other an overweight balding man with a band-aid taped over his nose where he'd recently had a mole removed. And if you do see this couple, ask the older guy how much the muscle hunk is charging.
When cruisin the chatrooms on the net, check out some of the screen names and read their profiles. How many have the word "hot" or "muscle" or "hung" somewhere in their screen name and how many are "looking for the same" when it comes to their quest? Hell, some even are so bold as to put something along the lines of "don't even bother contacting if you're not incredibly hot and muscled". What the fuck is that all about??? Sure, we all have fantasy men, but that's what they are. A fantasy. If they're "looking for the same", wouldn't it be easier to just stare into a mirror and beat off admiring your self-centered perfect self? These people watch too much porn. (I watch too much for other reasons).
As I grow older, I've come to realize many things like: don't drink and drive, there is a reason they call it underwear, pass the deutch upon da left hand side, there's no such thing as a free drink and "job satisfaction" is the biggest bullshit line ever created. But one of the biggest things I've come to realize is that a friendship is one of the biggest and most important things anyone can give you. People come in all shapes, sizes and personalities. Sure, some you feel you can just continuously hit over the head with a hammer, but most can teach you something, whether it's a useless little tidbit of information or a mind-altering, life changing view of yourself. You never know who will walk up to you one day and guide you down a new path. And it's your judgment that needs to decide if it's worth the trek, but get this...
...the biggest influence in your life you may have yet to meet, and it just might not be the guy you've been drooling over at the other end of the bar or in a magazine.
Now, I know some of my friends and readers are asking the question, so let me just answer it now. No, nothing happened recently to make me go on this rant. In fact, this posting was supposed to be about something else altogether, but I just got started down this path.
(damn...this is the second time I'm writing this post because I didn't save the last half of my writing before the admistrator cut in and shut down the site for maintenance....I'm VERY pissed!)
Anyway, I don't really care what the general public says or thinks of me. I'm not out to impress the world. Those days are LONG behind me. I know what kind of a person I am and my friends know what kind of a person I am (and they still put up with me). I'm shy, but like meeting new people. With my true friends, I would bend over backwards to do anything I can to help them.
You can learn something from anyone and realize that anyone might just become a lifelong friend if you could just see beyond the here and now.
Wouldn't it be sad to realize that the little slice of time that could take you down a new and rewarding path in life was completely ignored because the person who might have started you down that path just didn't fit into your "clique"?
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