Homosexuality and me

I was describing to two of my female friends a single guy that I would be glad to introduce them to when I made a tragic slip of the tongue. The man in question is a graduate, classical musician and all-around nice guy; I met him through a mutual friend at a birthday party.

The mistake I made as I described this bachelor was to refer to him as "sexy." They giggled as they took this opportunity to make fun of me.

"Oh, do you want one of us to date him, or are you keeping him for yourself?" one of them said, barely holding back laughter. The second reached forward and put her hand on my shoulder saying, "I am so glad you finally came out- this is an important moment in your life."

I tried to defend myself; after all, what is wrong with saying another man is handsome? I was just saying it to score him a date, it's not like I was fawning over him. Plus, I will readily admit that he is better looking than I am, but apparently the moment the word "sexy" left my mouth, I started a new game for them to play. A game called: "Let's Make Everything Zac Says Seem Gay."

Unfortunately for me, we were on a five-hour trip, the majority of which was spent asking me questions with no right answers. "What's you favorite Brad Pitt movie, Zac?" As we ate fried chicken, I was asked which meat I liked better: "white or dark?" Every thing I said was twisted and turned, the decoded message always leading to me saying "I like boys!"

They were so good, that by hour three they had me questioning my orientation myself.

"Wow," I thought. "If I like Broadway musicals and carrots that much -- maybe I've been wrong all these years." I made a conscious decision to point out every strip club we passed and to loudly discuss how "bangin'" Scarlett Johansson is.

Their fun didn't stop after the trip was over. When we returned to campus that night I made the mistake of inviting a friend from my dorm to eat with us ("Asking boys out already, Zac? But you just came out!"), and by some cosmic conspiracy that night, Clark Dining Hall decided to serve bratwurst ("Oh look Zac, your favorite!"). Bratwurst does happen to be my favorite food, and I wasn't going to let any innuendo keep me from them. So I endured the giggling that came with every bite.

To make matters worse, my friend didn't get what was going on at all. He was clueless when they allowed me to sit down first ("Ladies first!"), and when he didn't like the bratwurst, he offered me his sausage, oblivious of how my female friends almost peed themselves. The situation reached its metaphorical zenith as he passed the sausage to me over the table and accidentally dropped it on his carrot cake, covering it with white frosting.

"Oops," he said and plopped it next to my half-eaten one on the plate, adding "now it has a friend." He chuckled at his food humor, and they screamed with laughter at what was almost a pornographic image. I felt my face burning red and sighed with relief when he got up to fill his drink.

"This is too much," I muttered as I moved the two bratwursts a good two feet apart from one another. I felt a strange feeling I had never felt before. I had never known anything like this being a straight, white American male, but now, as a faux-gay, I had a small taste of being discriminated against.

It's called "Tootsie Syndrome," after the Dustin Hoffman movie, a common literary device that makes it seem like a brief walk in someone else's shoes can be "life changing." Like when Tyra Banks put on a fat suit and started crying because no one was paying attention to her. When I heard about that stunt on the news, I laughed, it was a ridiculous concept. An hour in a fat suit, and she thinks she knows what it's like to be laughed at, but when it gets to be too much she can just unzip the costume and go back to being a hottie.

But, this is how I felt after my foray into homosexuality. I was the Tyra Banks of gay men. It was just a joke between friends, there was no malice intended. In fact, most of the time I was laughing with them, b ut as the sausages snuggled, I couldn't help but feel as if they were laughing at me.

I was "Tootsified."

E-mail Zac your thoughts at viewpoint@technicianonline.com.