Politically Correct Pickup Lines

So I'm in a bar and this adorable but completely wasted college student chats me up. He's effusive and fun but a bit too messy to take seriously. I talk to him anyway, though, 'cause it's entertaining. And he lays this line on me....

"Great beard and buzz cut. You're so heteronormative."

"Um ... you're a women's studies major aren't you?"

"Oh my God! How did you know?"

Just a hunch, sweetheart. Just a hunch.

---

I barely know where to start with this comment, so I guess I'll just do what I usually do ... rant.

Heteronormative.

I am soooooo anything but.

(OK, I just had to stop writing and teach my spellchecker "heteronormative" so it'd stop bugging me. Do we even count stuff made up by women's studies majors as real words? Sheesh.)

I am a huge nerd and a huge fag. My beard and buzz cut are an affectation, a "look". They do not mean that I represent anything even vaguely related to male or heterosexual norms.

"Normal" is a fantasy ideal that people use to feel insecure and to denegrate themselves and others.

And here's my rather bold opinion about it....

"Normal" does not exist. There is no such thing. Absolutely no one is "normal". We are all different.

"Normal" means conforming, average and expected. I seek to be none of those things and neither should you. As far as I'm concerned the word is a pejorative. Having spent my whole life trying to get comfortable with my differences I'm now rather fond of them.

What matters is whether we're different in good ways or bad ways. Bad ways of being different include alcoholic, self obsessed, abusive and afraid. Good ways of being different include artistic, goofy, nerdy and impulsive.

The concept of normality is a way of encouraging conformity. It's a way of censoring differences in others which confuse or offend us. "That's not normal." "I just want to meet a man who is normal."

And it's a way of censoring our own differences. "Am I normal?" "Everyone wants to be normal." "Help! I'm worried I'm not normal!"

So I guess my point is this.

Fuck normal.

---

/// deep breath ///

OK, so that rant had almost nothing to do with the comment of "heteronormative". It's just "normal" has been on my mind and I guess I just wanted to get that off my chest.

So what my little buddy obviously meant was "your look appeals to me because it is a male archetype."

Which is what it's intended to be.

Problem is ... as previously mentioned ... I'm a huge nerd and a huge fag. And sometimes I forget that I've reshaped my outer appearance to be this male archetype 'cause I feel the same on the inside.

The first problem is my voice. I have the voice of a nerdy fag. I wish I had the voice of James Earl Jones or George Clooney. Every guy does. But hell, I'd be content with the wonderful, deep, resonant voice of Kathleen Turner.

So my voice causes some problems with my new look. I've actually had guys come up to me and then almost immediately walk away when I start talking. And when I think back on what turned them off I realize that my topics (nerd) and the pitch of my voice (fag) failed to deliver the fantasy offered by my look.

And I wanna squeal, "No, wait, come back! Gimmie a 'do over'. I can be butch."

So I have to remember that having adopted this affectation, I have to at least try to maintain it. There are a few things that help.

The first is a mirror. (Yes, yes. Excuse me please while I drown gazing at my own reflection.) Looking in the mirror reminds me, "oh yeah, I'm that guy now." A quick glance resyncs the inside to the outside.

The other thing that helps is something that works for the creation of almost any persona and is also helpful for seduction. It is simply this.

Talk less.

As we speak, we move from being someone's fantasy of who we are to being our real selves. So if you say less, you retain some mystery and keep a portion of yourself in the realm of fantasy.

Now I'm not suggesting being a deceptive, withholding prick. Just pace yourself. Reveal yourself slowly and it'll make your target hungry for more. Talk about your ex for twenty minutes in the first conversation and you're done.

Now if all of this sounds false, dishonest and manipulative let me say this in my defense.

I enjoy playing with archetypes and stereotypes. Because there are a thousand ways that I fit into nerd and fag stereotypes. And there are a thousand ways I contradict them. I enjoy playing into a cliché and then breaking it. Confirming it. And then breaking it again.

So my new look is just more of the same. It's me playing with different parts of myself. None of it is a lie. It's just me showing a different side of myself to the world to play with people's perceptions. Try it sometime.

Life's too short to be normal.