Dear Sir,
I hope your semester is off to a great start. Despite the burgeoning winter chill, your hair has not lost its radiant sheen! What do you use? Pantene pro-Viv? Garnier Fructis? Anyway, keep up the good work.
In case you have forgot, in the wake of the joy and excitement of the Christmas season, the bottles of conditioner and salon gift certificates you surely received under the Christmas tree- on the night before Winter Break, you stormed into my house in an intoxicated rage (mistaking it for your own), called me a ‘faggot’ when I kindly asked you to leave, and then hid in my housemate's closet.
Unless you routinely hurl homophobic slurs at the strangers whose houses you enter at 1 in the morning, it is likely that you chose to call me a faggot because you passed my enormous rainbow flag on the way to my housemate’s closet.
Hey, man, I get it! In the winter, one’s already fragile masculinity has the tendency to crumble and crack in the harsh Saratoga cold unless you condemn the sexual orientation of total strangers. Also, it was the last day before Winter Break, and you were celebrating! Nothing caps off a crazy night downtown like spewing hate speech into the home of an unsuspecting young man who might have simply been in the middle of a self-masochistic marathon of Dance Moms on Lifetime.
But I want to take a moment, before Abby reveals this week’s pyramid, to explain to you why your words made me feel like crap. Although I have had it relatively ‘easy’ in comparison to most other LGBTQ people and their coming out experiences, I have still struggled to come to terms with and accept my sexuality.
By the time I reached 8th grade, it was pretty clear to my classmates that I had a few extra marshmallows in my Lucky Charms, if you catch my drift. This wasn’t really a problem during the day, but it became an issue after-school because it clearly affected my ability to play sports.
“Pass the ball, Brokeback!” they used to taunt during basketball. “Shoot it, High School Musical!”
“The protagonist of High School Musical is actually very good at basketball,” I retorted. “So who’s gay now? … oh, still me.”
In lacrosse, I remember lining up for a drill when I felt an alarming poke in my backside. I spun around to find the sneering face of the team captain, who was poking his lacrosse stick against my butt.
“Ramsey likes ting tings in his bum bum!” he shouted, to riotous laughter.
“Maybe I do,” I replied. “But you are the one probing my ass with a lacrosse stick of your own volition.”
Once he googled ‘volition,’ I was toast.
After struggling to fit in on the sports teams, I decided to take things in the complete opposite direction. Christian Siriano from Project Runway seemed to have a lot of friends; I just needed to pump up the glitter on the gay meter and I would find my niche. I made some girlfriends at school, but it wasn’t long before this started causing problems in my home life.
“Yassss, bitch!” I recall shouting at my mother as she bent down to get ketchup out of the fridge. “Back that thang up gurl! Show my daddy whatchu workin’ with boo boo!”
My daddy was not too pleased with this new development in my personality.
“Son, why are you acting so different lately?” he asked.
“Bitch, please” I told him. “I was born this way, honey.”
My father calmly pointed out that I was actually not born as a grotesque, offensive caricature of a sassy black woman.
So as you can see, my long-haired man of the night, it took me a while to feel comfortable in my own skin as a gay man. But here at Skidmore College, I have finally felt comfortable to be my true, honest self. During my Sophomore year, I officially ‘came out’ to all of my friends, and was met with nothing but love and support. I found a group of guys to play basketball with here, who hate me not for my sexual orientation but for my short temper and tendency to commit egregious fouls when someone is about to score on me. After one unfortunate living situation (I bought the rainbow flag to hang above our TV after my housemate fast forwarded a gay love scene), I have finally found three cool dudes who don’t mind. So my time at Skidmore felt like a happy alternate ending to Brokeback Mountain until that unfortunate night before Winter Break.
I write this letter to implore you, that the next time you get drunk and feel the need to assert your masculinity, do it in your own damn house. Because in spite of your unfortunate attitude towards homosexuality, Skidmore is a pretty great place to be gay.
Yours Truly,
Ramsey Daniels
P.S. I hope you do not miss the profound irony that the first thing you did after calling me a ‘faggot’ was to go hide in the closet.
