My Social Network

I hated Facebook. For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out.  What was I supposed to do with it?

This was pretty early on in the Facebook timeline. I remember two things that set the initial impression. The first was a standard 'Take a Movie Quiz and See How Well You Do Against Your Friends" kind of thing. I completed it. Whoop-de-doo. The second impression came when a friend posted on my wall, something having to do with predicting my death, one of those worthless apps that amazingly sees the future with just the minimal amount of personal information and a few animated gifs. I didn't get. It wasn't changing my life. So I deleted myself within the week.

[queue montage. traveling music begins and brief scenes from my life pass in front of your eyes as three years elapse.]

My better half says, "Did you see the photos from Shane's trip?"

"No. I didn't get that email, I guess."

"It wasn't an email. It's on Facebook." Then he told me about someone else's post. Then another. And another.

I have to say, I was feeling left out. So I went back and signed up again for no other reason than all the cool kids were doing it and I was the uninvited band geek. It's shameful really.

Gay High School: It won’t make a man out of you

Queer boys don’t experience real high school; at least, not the kind the straight boys do.  The general roughhousing in the locker room is reserved only for the guys who actually require a jockstrap for athletic purposes, not aesthetic ones.  The wild parties, the drinking games, and the shoulder slaps are sacred among those who treat guys like guys, which sadly leaves little Josh in the back row of the choir with nothing to do but nudge the erection under his robe.  For some, even the gay college life lacks total fulfillment of the masculine kind.  Crushing beer cans against one’s forehead isn’t one of the most logical rites of passage, but it is one, dammit!  

I would have given anything to ride around the back roads of my small hometown in the pickup truck of the seventeen and stubbly and straight Jason Tessero.  We’d toss empty, generic beer cans into the back and say things like, “Hell yeah!”  Instead of this type of manly pursuit, I lounged around the speech and debate room practicing my dramatic interpretation of some long forgotten piece of tragic nonsense that would ultimately leave me with nothing more than third place in the tri-county tournament for the hopelessly geeky.

I was bettering myself, or so I thought.  I was convinced that while they were tossing the ball back and forth and hanging each other’s underwear from the flagpole, I would make something of my life, something great.

And I did.  Really.  But I still felt slighted.

What’s a gay boy to do?  Where was I to find all things masculine?  When could I get my share of the “dude life”?  All I seemed to have were my girlfriends, my sisters, and a whole slew of Marys.  Where were my buddies, my amigos, my homies?  There didn’t seem to be an answer to this, just another question: Why did I care so badly?  But since enlightenment wouldn’t come untilmuch later in life, I unconsciously enrolled in gay high school.