In light of Helen Suzman

Concerning my title, if interested, we can have a long talk about the importance of a moderate viewpoint and if moderation is a fantasy?

So tonight, I was in the kitchen (brief recap: two nights ago I found out my roommate from Cape Town was gay) and a powerful realization/emotion him, I felt for him, what is must feel like to be confused and unsure how to be when ur family and the religion of ur family and ur religion discludes your sexuality. And then I felt weird because I felt seperate from him and his struggle, that is not my struggle, I forgot what that feels like or if i even ever felt that (in my case religion should be replaced with Parent's beliefs). Then I thought about how I concentrate on African-American struggles and identify with that, and how there is no gay struggle or if there is it's not a shared experience or one that i am not privy too.


Jason, my roommate talked to me one of the first nights, it was late night drunk talk and he was talking about his feelings on relationships and he kept on saying whether it be with a male or female, and I thought he was being political correct lol (feministing around, also might have been his way of telling me he was confused) and then throughout the semester I was upset by him because I felt he was lying. And one night on the mid-semester trip I had a conversation with him about his sexuality (not about him being gay but it seemed to me that he was suppressing his sexuality, i thought he needed to not be so repressed, but it never crossed my mind that he was gay lol). and then on one of the last nights before we left we went to the monument and I felt moved by something to tell him that i felt he seemed that he was on a different boat from everyone (that he seemed disconnected and prohibited himself from human connection).

1. These are classic signs of someone being gay, but it's like I erased that possibility from my mind. Why did I do this? I kept on saying when people said he was gay, I said I would know, I still feel that he is not gay, the feeling isn't or still isn't there for me (but then I realized I also told him at the mid-point in the semester that I never met anyone who was so confident in their gender) Maybe I don't understand his gayness or didn't want to see it because I feel that my own gayness is intertwined so much with my gender (being gay includes my "gay" gender roles), but I say Jason as the guy who was straight but had every gay characteristic. I mean he would go to gay bars and put on a tank top but i thought he did that because he was fucked up and thrived off the attention.

2. I feel super disconnected with gay men, i lost my one gay best friend and the other ones at fordham I sexualized them and did not make friends with them.

3. In South Africa though I got empowered about the seperateness of my gender from my sexuality and the fact that I am not defined by my gayness.

4. But being back home, I feel that I am back where I started with my sexuality stuff.

5. But writing all this down reminds me of what I have learned, I move forward. In summary, I feel for Jason (I think I understand what that feel like), and now i get why i wanted him to be straight (it reminded me that life isn't study abroad growth, but what I learned about myself is true, that i am not defined by my gayness, but that I am human... that is actually how my monolouge for this theater thing i did, i will tell you about that).

Love,

Stuart