A few months ago, two of my friends that have never met before were acquainted. Location: Jakarta Fashion Week. Friend A brought her boyfriend and I brought Friend B. After they have been introduced to one another, Friend A says to me discretely, "Is he your boyfriend?" I laughed like it is the most absurd thing in the world and replied back to her, "No, he's gay."
It wasn't over then. I had to explain the situation to Friend A. There were a lot of 'y'knows' and sentences ending with question marks - like trying to describe to a Ugoslavian how to cook some poached eggs. In the end Friend A understood, but still left the room winking at me as a gesture to make a move on Friend B.
To me, who understands both of their situations, it was frustrating. To Friend A I must've looked like I was making up some massive lie to hide the fact that Friend B is my boyfriend, by using the oh no he's actually gay card. I'm not in 4th grade anymore, I can admit to whoever my boyfriend is. And to Friend B, it's not easy to come out in a country that's so conservative. I thought out of all people, Friend A would've understood better. Friend A is a model. The fashion industry is practically coated with gay men. I guess the problem here is that Friend A understood, but she did not accept.
Recently, a few days back, Friend A and I crossed paths while I was with another group of friends. Including Friend B. I went across the room to converse and she says, "Oh didn't I meet him [Friend B] during Fashion Week?" and I replied with a simple, "Yup." She could've stopped there but she added, "The one that's not normal right?"
What I should've done was paused and questioned what she meant by 'not normal'. Grill her, perhaps, as to what she thinks is 'normal'. But instead, I laughed it off. Maybe it was because of the noise in the room that I couldn't hear exactly what she said but only did I realise after, maybe it was my slow processing of the Indonesian language, maybe maybe maybe.. But really, there's no excuses for what I did.
What is normal? I'm not even going to go into any depth with that to prevent myself writing another Theory of Knowledge Essay. But surely, being gay has nothing to do with being normal. There is no correlation between that, I think. Friend B is capable of things that straight people can do. Why is he not normal? He passed IB with, I must admit, a very good result and he's going off to university doing what he loves.
Now that I think of it, if Friend A thinks like this, how many of her friends thinks the same way? And how many of their friends think the same way? It's a vicious cycle, really. And to think I could've stopped that cycle if only I had just said what I felt. I guess I was too concerned on what she would think of me if I stood up for Friend B.
Forever tolerating and pleasing,
S
