Abnormal

A fortnight ago I was unnatural. Tonight I am abnormal. Abnormal and pissed.

Mum and I are watching Everwood, our new favourite show; Mum in the loungroom and me in bed (the loungeroom is next to my bedroom so we can call out comments to each other). There was a story line of a fifteen year old boy, Kyle, who was socially awkward, moody and had no apparent interest in girls. Sound familiar? Like me perhaps? So Ephram, the boy's piano tutor/mentor/friend, thinks he might be gay.

"Is it gayness?" Mum asked.
"Is what gayness?" I asked.
"Kyle. Is he gay? Mum asked
"Just watch and see."

The show continues. Ephram talks Kyle into asking out the hot girl and then Kyle goes on the date. The girl starts drinking and tries to grope the poor boy, who gets uncomfortable and calls Ephram to pick him up. The next day, Ephram talks to Amy (his on-again-off-again girlfriend) about the whole thing. The thrust of the conversation was that Ephram was wrong to force Kyle to ask the girl out, that he was being a homophobic jerk, and who cares if he's gay anyway? There's nothing wrong with it. Ephram goes to Kyle's place and finds him in bed, crying:

"There's nothing wrong with being ..." started Ephram.
"Don't say it. Don't say that word. " Kyle interrupted.
"...gay." Ephram continued.
Kyle doesn't want to be gay and thinks that if he doesn't want it strongly enough that it will all go away (wow, this kid is me). Ephram tells him it doesn't work that way. It's normal. If you go on denying it you'll be miserable.

"There you go," I called out to Mum. "If you're just patient then you'll find out what happens when it happens!" Mum and I have this private joke about her always asking me questions when I know what happens.
"What a shame." She said.
"Huh?"
"I thought it might be this."
"Well then why did you ask?"
"Because I didn't want him to be gay."
... silence ... (wracking my brains for something to say).
"It's so sad and hard. Such a hard life. And what Ephram said was wrong. It's not normal."

Two words I hate--normal and they--spoken by my own mother. You might wonder why I hate these words so. I hate them because they allude to difference, to an "us and them" dichotomy. If being heterosexual is normal, then logically everything else is abnormal. The same goes for illness or disability. If being able to walk unassisted is normal, then logically not being able to makes you abnormal. When describing people in these groups--the abnormal, disabled queers--the pronoun they is used. There is separation from the speaker. Whether they mean to or not they are creating distance, telling the listener that they are not different. The show continued as I stewed a little.

"Don't let anyone ever tell you that being gay is normal." She called out, a kind of post-script to the last conversation. I think I made some non-committal noise; I was too busy not believing my ears to formulate any actual words. She continued: "I'm not saying that they're not wonderful people, but they're not normal. I mean it's not like 10% of the population are left-handed, sexual preference is at the core of your identity."

Third word I hate: preference. It implies that non-heterosexuality is a choice. I don't think I need to elaborate on this one.

So anyway, where does this leave the whole grand plan of outage? Fuck, I'm confused. To be honest I still have the resolve to go through with it, so it's not like I'm going to give up. I'm just acutely aware of the difficulty I'm going to face. I'm also mad. Who the fuck does she think she is? Dictating normality. I also feel like shit after a long week. My legs feel like they're full of water, I'm tired, my eyes ache and my head hurts.

Maybe I should print out a picture of five guys fucking and leave it on the coffee table. It'd certainly save time and preparation.