Or, On being hated...
Being weird and different from everyone is difficult enough our here in the real world, where I'm finally far enough away from high school to think about it. High school can be an unforgiving atmosphere where you are made to conform and if you don't your life will be miserable for the next four years.
If your differences leave you unable to conform, say you're gay or crippled or both, well then, your loss. Better stay out of everyone's way. Like someone awesome once sang, "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool - til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules..."
So imagine if your school administrators canceled your prom because you're gay and then blamed you.
Constance McMillen says, "ninety percent of the student body hates me right now. ... They're not gonna be nice..."
I have to imagine that's an enormous understatement. People can be insane and unaccepting to me even now and I'm twenty-six. Being crippled and gay doesn't get you the opportunity to have many friends.
Juin Baize only lasted in that same school for four hours before he was kicked out and chased away from town - for being transgender.
Constance was there and says, "People were talking about him all day, trying to get a look at him...It was insane, it was ridiculous, it made me so mad. They said he was causing a distraction with what he was wearing but it was a half day of school and people didn’t have time to get used to him."
This is a person, here. Both of them. With flaws and all. I'm a person too. Before you start to think that it's just a problem with that school, or Mississippi, or kids, it's not.
We can't write off this problem and talk about it in terms of "good" and "bad" people or regions. We shouldn't even address it in terms of age.
Most of the people who stare at my wheelchair are in their forties or older. A few people my age stare at me and avoid me awkwardly but it's simply untrue to say that kids are just scared. Younger people are the most accepting of me - they tend to either ignore me because that's what they'd be doing anyway, or talking to me like I'm human.
Living through the things I've had to deal with makes me hate it even more than the only barrier to my being equal to others is THEIR acceptance of me. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm crippled and gay but at least I don't stare at people like they are aliens, nor do I talk to them as if I don't really think they'll understand what I'm saying and I'm wasting my time.
Some people like to hear their own voices, I guess. Maybe they like their annoyed tone.
The thing is, being different from everyone might make me weird, it might make me a freak, but I've never had any problem with weirdos or freaks. What scares ME is the idea that you have to be like everyone else and do what they do, say what they say and think what they think.
And the people in the houses
all went to the university
where they were put in boxes
and they came out all the same.
and there's doctors and lawyers
and business executives -
and they're all made out of ticky tacky
and they all look just the same.
My idea of a nightmare is to wake up one day and do what everyone else is doing without any thought processes going on whatsoever. It's terrifying.
After my surgeries and after the rehab facility, the first time I was stared at was a huge problem for me. There I was relieved I'd made it through everything and I was even a little bit proud of myself, and then, pop. It was an older couple and they had the saddest look on their face, as if I was puppy roadkill and they were about to put on their black dress and tux and mourn me in front of everyone.
Then when I held the door open for them, they realized I'm not entirely helpless. Then they looked at me sadly again, because they felt bad for staring initially.
Really, it would make a great silent movie, with all the facial expressions.
Then I started losing friends, I'd go out and get stared at, lose more friends, go home and sit in my room alone. Nobody should have to deal with abandonment and alienation. Least of all the people who aren't doing anything wrong.
Rapists and murderers and child molesters get more attention and respect than some of us. It almost seems like people think it would be better if people like me just disappeared. They wouldn't be faced with their mortality. They wouldn't have to look at me and see that bad things happen to good people and they might end up paralyzed like me. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.
And people don't want to think about the fact that yes, people are gay. Yes, people are transgender. Even those that you know. The people you've seen around town and you think they've always been "such a sweet boy" and their parents are so great. They can be gay too. It means that your parenting won't prevent your kid from being gay, if you know for a fact that they have good parents.
People really think that by seeing me as a one-dimensional caricature it makes me less real, and that makes the chances of it happening to them less real.
In the meantime you're destroying real people and making their lives that much more miserable. You're making them feel hated, persecuted, not "normal" - whatever that is. For the longest time I wished I were someone else.
I don't go out a lot because I get so tired of the staring. I get tired of being left alone. There have been times I'd go to the bookstore where everyone hangs out, and sit down with a book or coffee or both, and sit there all day long reading and people just stare and ignore me. People here in this community have asked me why I don't seem to have any confidence and that's a big reason why. It's not that I want compliments or ego stroking - in fact my issues are so inherent psychologically that those won't even work.
It's nearly impossible to have confidence in this type of situation. I've given up on local friends or a boyfriend. I gave up on those years ago. People are too preoccupied with the "weirdness" factor, "oh wow he's sitting down, how novel!" to think of me in a friendly or sexual way.
A funny story: last night I checked my email and they had informed me that I have a message on one of the two (free) dating services on which I'm a member. On my profiles on both of those, I'm as darkly humorous as I am here. I refuse to be fake and try to write this intensely nice profile without any jokes because that's not me. So I mentioned being a cripple in a self-deprecating way.
Obviously someone didn't understand that I was making fun of myself because they wrote "Excuse you, it's rude to make fun of handicapped people." Now, okay, that's fine if this person is offended because handicapped people are people too. The thing is, in my experience, this same person wouldn't speak to me at all if they met me. If he knew I'm in a chair he'd probably stop sending me messages. He likely was implying "don't pick on people who aren't equal to you!" and to me that's wrong. This is a guess, of course, but this type of behavior from others is typical.
A lot of people just stop talking to me once they realize I'm in a chair. And I get a lot of comments like, "that's not the type of thing I want in my life, sorry."
Gay people, both on those dating services and on gay fiction sites for which I've written, receive threats and hate mail for being gay and expressing that to others.
If I'm not accepted for one thing, I'm turned away for another thing. We need to learn how to embrace weirdness and prop up our freaks. They can be the best people on the planet.