Oh Messy Life #8: Boy, so confusing
Plus, Robby in Milan, Jason chats with Conan, Meaghan on Popcast, and Kate returns to Wild Rose Country
Welcome to Oh Messy Life, the column that asks: What if there was a Brat-inspired essay on boyhood?
Bethany thinks I stand like a homosexual.
She tells me this in the hallway outside of our fifth-grade classroom.
“Why are you standing like that?” she says.
“What?”
“Why are you standing like that?” she repeats, eyes unwavering. “You look gay.”
She says this as if it’s indisputable; a fact, not an inference.
I straighten my body and stare at her beneath the dim fluorescents, my face flushed with a wave of sudden self-consciousness.
For the next decade or so this will be something of a recurring issue: relative strangers assuming I want to fuck dudes.
They will think this for entirely arbitrary reasons. The way I stand, the way I dress, the way I run in gym class.
Sometimes they will call me gay when really they mean weird. Other times, they’ll call me gay and really mean it.
Currently, I’m not sure which category Bethany falls into. She’s too young to fully comprehend gayness, or sexuality, for that matter, and yet she’s old enough to identify a divergence of some sort. To register a variation from the norm.
And, to be fair, I was standing a little fruity.
At 11 years old my posture is already of utmost concern. I slouch a lot, resting my weight on one leg until my hip pops out to the side. The result is that, while I am debilitatingly straight, I stand crooked. In northern Alberta — where men play hockey and eat meat and like pussy — this slightly effeminate stance is apparently a signal, a tell, revealing, if not an outright queerness (sadly, no), than a failure to uphold a traditional model of masculinity (sadly, yes).
I stare at the floor and tell Bethany I’m not gay, but I realize whatever signal she thinks she’s picking up on is likely amplified by the fact that I spend so much time with girls from our class. Since school started, I’ve spent time with Erin and Jaclyn and Brittany, watching movies, shooting the shit. I have a secret crush on all of them. I can’t tell Bethany this, though, for fear of ruining the few genuine friendships I seem to have. So I say nothing and the moment dissipates.
Bethany opens the door and steps into the classroom. I don’t have the vocabulary or the awareness to discuss what just happened. But I can feel that something has shifted, albeit slightly. I had not previously considered how my classmates perceived me. Now, I do.
And I will spend more of my life than I care to admit oscillating between these two poles – between craving and resenting their acceptance — until, eventually, my confusion passes and I wake up a 33 year old man who feels certain about himself.
And I will take the bus with my fiancée to buy our marriage license, before attending my own Taylor Swift-themed bachelor party, and when a co-worker’s husband hears about the theme and asks “Is he gay?” I will laugh with the girls and say “No but I can see how somebody might think that.”
Oh Messy Life
If you want an energized debate, skip CNN and go straight to SSENSE. Specifically, Robby Kelly’s recent report from Milan regarding the future of menswear, and the timeless question “Are no-show socks ever chic?”
Back in the U.S. of A, New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman did his best to capture the frenetic, freewheeling energy of Conan O’Brien. What I like most about the profile is that it leaves room for Conan’s confusion. It’s funny but not HAHA funny.
Speaking of the Times: 365 party girl
was on Popcast this week talking Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ Breakthrough.And Kate Black is once again in the land of Big Malls! She writes:
I'm in Edmonton, trick! Well, technically I'm writing to you from my parents' house in St. Albert. Last week, I was flown out from Vancouver to receive a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award (not to brag) and decided to stay an extra ten days because my cousin is having her bachelorette party on Whyte Ave. this weekend. This makes it my sixth trip to Edmonton in less than a year (again, not to brag).
The highlight of my trip so far has also been the lowlight: watching the Oilers lose to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 on Monday. Devastating! My siblings and I snagged tickets to the remote Rogers Arena screening, where we watched and cheered a safe distance from the pandemonium unfolding at the so-called Moss Pit outside. I was sad to see The Boys fumble their last bag, but felt moved by the energy in the heart of Oil Country on that day. It was as if a mega-church sold $20 pints of Coors Light.
Proper Chune
If it wasn’t obvious, this week I finished Bret Easton Ellis’ closeted slasher novel The Shards. Chunes play a central role throughout the novel, but I think "Icehouse” perfectly encapsulates the mood. Deeply chilling. Expertly crafted.