Joms: To clarify sir, when you say unrequited love, diba yun yung you love HIM...
Professor: Uhrm...
Joms: silent...
Joms: silent...
Joms: Fine! Diba sir, unrequited love is when you love someone and HE doesn't love you back?
---
And so, I had an embarrassing slip in front of the class.
It all started when our professor asked us to have a writing exercise. He mentioned some abstract ideas, which, we have to supply with a concrete and creative sentence.
For example, he said "what is the color of unrequited love?" Each and everyone of us had a different answer. Mine was "a green colored gunk from a mouth with halitosis." Since my professor found my sentence too gross, he asked me to explain what it meant. That's where the trouble began. I had mistakenly used the male pronoun in my explanation rather than the female one.
I could have gotten away by saying that it was just a mere lapse in grammar. However, it was the class of J. Neil Garcia, the authority in all things gay in the country. To deny my homosexuality, knowing that I outed myself in his class last semester, would be a great insult to him.
Therefore, even though I wasn't prepared to out myself in his class, I spilled the beans nonetheless, which obviously pleased him very well. Fortunately nobody made a comment about my outing - except Neil of course, who was glad that "I let my hair down finally."
---
Actually, outing myself is not a big issue anymore. But to out myself with a straight guy around, which ironically I find quite challenging to get along with, is something I am not yet comfortable in doing. Besides, the class is still in the state where everyone is just getting to know one another. To have such a premature revelation like what I did tonight is somewhat anti-climactic. I should have done it through one of my essays.
After class, Neil was laughing at me. He complained that he was just about to out me, when here I am, stealing the opportunity from him.
"Don't tell me you will live in the closet this sem, you're in Creative Writing for Christ's sake," he said while we were walking at the lobby.
"Of course not. I just wanted to do it when I'm already comfortable with everyone."
"You mean you will pull a trick again like what you did last semester?" He asked.
"Sort of like that," I replied, while still blushing at the thought of having a slip of the tongue in his class that evening.
---
To pull a trick like that, especially now that I tend to associate myself more with the masculine and paranoid non-straights in the community feels awkward, to be honest. Now that everyone in my league tends to disassociate themselves from the gay center, somehow it feels like I am left in the middle, alone and nowhere to go.
But to be acknowledged by an icon, even if you are not part of the mainstream is already an honor. To see him once a week and exchange ideas with him about your sexual orientation can already be considered a divine experience, if you think of it in an earthly perspective.
The cat is finally out of the bag, as the saying goes. But I have no regrets that I did stand for my Pride, knowing that a respected gay icon is watching, anticipating my next move.
Professor: Uhrm...
Joms: silent...
Joms: silent...
Joms: Fine! Diba sir, unrequited love is when you love someone and HE doesn't love you back?
---
And so, I had an embarrassing slip in front of the class.
It all started when our professor asked us to have a writing exercise. He mentioned some abstract ideas, which, we have to supply with a concrete and creative sentence.
For example, he said "what is the color of unrequited love?" Each and everyone of us had a different answer. Mine was "a green colored gunk from a mouth with halitosis." Since my professor found my sentence too gross, he asked me to explain what it meant. That's where the trouble began. I had mistakenly used the male pronoun in my explanation rather than the female one.
I could have gotten away by saying that it was just a mere lapse in grammar. However, it was the class of J. Neil Garcia, the authority in all things gay in the country. To deny my homosexuality, knowing that I outed myself in his class last semester, would be a great insult to him.
Therefore, even though I wasn't prepared to out myself in his class, I spilled the beans nonetheless, which obviously pleased him very well. Fortunately nobody made a comment about my outing - except Neil of course, who was glad that "I let my hair down finally."
---
Actually, outing myself is not a big issue anymore. But to out myself with a straight guy around, which ironically I find quite challenging to get along with, is something I am not yet comfortable in doing. Besides, the class is still in the state where everyone is just getting to know one another. To have such a premature revelation like what I did tonight is somewhat anti-climactic. I should have done it through one of my essays.
After class, Neil was laughing at me. He complained that he was just about to out me, when here I am, stealing the opportunity from him.
"Don't tell me you will live in the closet this sem, you're in Creative Writing for Christ's sake," he said while we were walking at the lobby.
"Of course not. I just wanted to do it when I'm already comfortable with everyone."
"You mean you will pull a trick again like what you did last semester?" He asked.
"Sort of like that," I replied, while still blushing at the thought of having a slip of the tongue in his class that evening.
---
To pull a trick like that, especially now that I tend to associate myself more with the masculine and paranoid non-straights in the community feels awkward, to be honest. Now that everyone in my league tends to disassociate themselves from the gay center, somehow it feels like I am left in the middle, alone and nowhere to go.
But to be acknowledged by an icon, even if you are not part of the mainstream is already an honor. To see him once a week and exchange ideas with him about your sexual orientation can already be considered a divine experience, if you think of it in an earthly perspective.
The cat is finally out of the bag, as the saying goes. But I have no regrets that I did stand for my Pride, knowing that a respected gay icon is watching, anticipating my next move.
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