As I may or may not have referenced on here, I live in a building full of Sex & The City women. They are the type who wear everything as an accessory from shoes to bags to gay best friends to boyfriends. (They also have this annoying "upspeak" that annoys the living daylights out of me.)
I don't like them, just in case you were curious.
One of them was apparently having a birthday tonight, and as I walked out I noticed one thing: they all seemed to be walking East. East is towards the straighter quasi "hipster" lounges owned by sublebrities that get written up by columnists in Page Six. East, in a metaphorical way, is towards 15 minutes (or centimetres) of fame, which one would assume validate their lives which are constructed around being known in order to fill up the void left there by meaningless Myspace conversations and unanswered text messages.
I always walk West.
West is towards the gay heartland of Chelsea. For all my FG diatribes, I give the majority of them one big compliment: they are at least making the attempt to appear that their lives are not self-absorbed, and that's a big thing in this day and age: The whole world is constructed so that a person sees themselves as being front and centre at their own commemorative ceremony.
We all listen to mp3 players with our own personally selected soundtracks. We all rush to our cellphones to talk or type messages that broadcast our id to others in the belief that maybe someone else is so into our minutiae that they'll respond. If that isn't enough, we have blogs to do the same.
I'm just as guilty.
It's just that I wonder if it's all going too far.
When the SATC clones have no trouble elbowing others--including myself--in the elevator (and looking like they should be lucky to be in their presence when confronted by it), or obliviously tossing their hair in others' faces while ordering a drink, then we have a problem.
You see, we're living in a nation where quick apologies are believed to soothe all wounds, even if the sincerity isn't present. As long as we can robotically say "I'm sorry," then it is like the transgression never happened. Ironically, we're also living in a country where nobody is the transgressor: We all think that we're oppressed and because of that, we can automatically feel "your" pain with sincerity.
No, comrades, it doesn't work like that.
I've probably said this before, but I believe it bears repeating: no matter what you think, no matter how many idioms you can trot out: we are not islands. Just like the love that you send out will be returned to you, so will the brusqueness and vanity be returned...by the bucketloads.
I think that there is still some shread of camraderie within the gay community beyond all the tinsel and faux attitude. That beyond all the fronts and narishkeit (silliness) that we use to keep our armour up, we can find something to welcome a fellow lantzman (comrade..for lack of a better translation).
And that is why I will do my damnest to always walk West.
2 comments:
I try and walk against the flow of traffic just to piss people off.
I've loved the last few posts of yours but just now getting around to actually commenting.
Hope everything is going swell in your part of the world.
Karma, my friend. It's all about the Karma.
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