To my childhood self,
I could list off every cliché here about how you've survived 100% of your bad days, and the fact that I'm writing this now only proves that you've survived more. But right now, molehills feel like mountains and every problem is undoubtedly the end of the world as you know it. Things are moving at a mile a minute and you're still trying to comprehend mile one. Everything will be okay. The closet door was a pane of glass at best. It isn't as big of a secret as you think it to be. Everyone will still love you the same, if not more.
I'm not going to lie, it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows. You'll go through the people who think that you're only gay for attention, the emotionally abusive boyfriend, the lack of representation in the media, and so much more. But you've survived every one of those days.
Included are different writings that I've done about what I've faced, and what you'll come to face, and adversity as a whole. The best way to face your adversity is to arm yourself with knowledge and take action.
The first piece is a memoir about coming out. After being told that I wasn't digging far enough in the first draft, I started thinking more about everything that I tried to block out in high school. The whispers, the arguments, and everything else. The more I thought, the more I wrote and the more I was able to make the piece come alive.
The second piece questions the gender roles that surround our society. Written a few months after the memoir, my writing shows how I can adapt my style to more academic prompts and continue to write about topics that I am passionate about. This piece proved to be a healthy mix of analysis and personal reflection.
Lastly, I included an online discussion post that I had shared about a variety of readings all relating to the concept of happiness through discontent. This piece shows my ability to write in a fully analytical context and how I am able to compare writings while giving an opinion about the meaning behind them. While this is one in a series of online posts, this was the one that I connected to most, and thus enjoyed writing the most.
Overall, I've learned a lot. Through writing and getting my ideas on a page, I've been able to think about the adversity that I've faced and overcome throughout my life. Don't stress too much about what people think. In the end, your happiness comes down to you and how you think. Never forget that.
Sincerely,
Matt Weiss 2018
Everything Has To Be Gay With You
Growing up, the closet door was a two-way-mirror. Everyone could see in, and happily stopped to watch, but I was unaware that people even knew the door existed. When I started coming out in 8th grade, I was met with indifference and very little change. Everyone had seen it coming. In a conversation with my mom on the topic, she quotes, "We've always known in the backs of our minds that there was a strong possibility. There was never anything wrong with it, and we never saw it as an issue. It's just who you are." (Weiss). I shouldn't complain as indifference is far better than hatred and bigotry, but the attention-seeker in me was slightly disappointed. This disappointment lasted about five minutes until I was met by the swarm of tween girls all looking for their very own limited edition GBF.
The swell of attention made me ecstatic in the moment. I had people fighting to be friends with me and hang out after school. As a socially nervous and fairly nerdy middle schooler, this was the dream. My popularity skyrocketed, but it was for all the wrong reasons. These girls wanted nothing more than the stereotype. They wanted someone who would take them to the mall and dress them up in the latest trends all while listening to them complain about how awful their boyfriend is. And that's what I became. I would go with these girls, and they would take turns venting about how Jason did this, or Mark did that, only wanting a response from me. They had their best friend since kindergarten on their left, and me on their right, and they concluded that I could magically fix their situation better than their best friend.
My fifteen minutes of fame inevitably died down. People realized that just because I'm gay, I don't have special powers. I'm different in any way for that matter. However, the stereotype stuck with me. It became a defense mechanism. Even today, whenever I meet new people, I slip back into that stereotypical persona. I subconsciously live with the mindset that people either respond well to the flamboyancy, or turn away from it. So, going into a new situation, I'm far more flamboyant than usual. Only when I start to trust somebody, I let that guard down to show my true personality.
In my sophomore year of high school, I was called out for this mindset. In the mornings before homeroom, the busses would drop us off at the cafeteria, and people would sit, socialize, finish homework assignments, and wait for the bell to ring. One morning in December, I had been sitting at a table alone. Some of the other busses were running late due to the piled-up snow on the road. Maxx walked up and sat down next to me. We were never the closest of friends but we had always been cordial as we shared many mutual friends, so I tried to start up some form of conversation to break the silent tension. Quickly the conversation turned into a screaming match, hurling accusations back and forth.
"You're too gay. You're too feminine. You're too flamboyant. You do it all for attention, and nobody likes you because everything has to be gay with you," she shouted at me. I froze for a second before trying to respond, but we both knew that I had nothing left to say. She marched off as the bell rung, and I stood in shock as everything I had believed began to crumble. For the rest of the day, I replayed that line in my head on loop. Nobody likes you because everything has to be gay with you.
I was conflicted. In a way, she was right. While my personality was genuinely flamboyant, there were times when I oversold it to try to gain the approval of others. But it never occurred to me that this defense could have backfired so royally. I started to shrink back into my shell. I overthought everything I did. The way I walked, talked, dressed, and the way carried myself as a whole. Everything at that point was calculated to be less flamboyant and feminine. I kept suppressing my personality until one day I stumbled upon the quote, "The only constant you have from point A to point B is you. You're the only one that's going to be there the whole time. If you change yourself just to appease the people who will be spliced in the middle of point A to point B, and they leave, you're stuck with whoever you wanted to be to appease them. There's no point in changing yourself for others when they're going to leave your life.…Love yourself for who you are because you're the only one stuck with yourself. Fall in love with who you are, and if anyone wants to join in on that, more power to them" (Oakley).
Everything clicked. There was no point in trying to please a girl that would soon become nothing more than an occasional like on an Instagram post. There was no point in overanalyzing everything I did to ensure that everyone around me liked me. There was no point in trying to slip back into the closet with the two-way-mirror door just to see if my peers would appreciate me more.
I've come to accept that people will not always like me. But to the same merit, it is not my job to try to make them like me by altering who I am. I am more than the stereotype. I am more than the surface level. None of that will change any time soon.
Works Cited
Weiss, Stacey. "Interview A" Personal interview. 9 Oct. 2017
Oakley, Tyler. "Point A to Point B." (@Tyleroakley), 26 Jan. 2011, tyleroakley.com/post/2941753421/from-point-a-your-birth-to-point-b-your.
That's the Wrong Toy
Looking back, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that I would eventually come out as gay. I was the boy in the dress up corner at preschool, the one playing with a jump rope instead of a football at recess, the one guy in a friend group otherwise made up of girls, and my interests in general were never very masculine. With my coming out, I became the daughter that my mom never had. I turned into the flamboyant gay son that she could take shopping, and gossip with. I became the gay best friend who could give advice on guys because I thought like one. Yet, over time, I've found that I am only supposed to be feminine when it benefits others.
Fast food chains were a crutch for my family when I was growing up. When I had an after-school club until 4:30, my brother had soccer practice at 5, and I had to get to gymnastics by 5:30, kids' meals became a staple in my mom's minivan. I never complained as I got to eat what I considered good food, and built up my collection of cheap plastic toys. However, I never really wanted the toys. As we sat at the microphone in the drive through, the bored worker would ask whether I wanted a boy toy or a girl toy. My mom would instinctively tell them that I wanted a boy toy, even though I silently had far more interest in the girl toy. I learned not to comment on it as we both knew that no matter which one I got, it would entertain me for ten minutes before it ended up on the floor of my room or in the trash. But there was always a voice in the back of my head asking why I was lumped into a group who got a monster truck instead of a figurine. Why couldn't I choose for myself based on my interest?
My parents had latched on to every word I said, trying to find the hidden masculinity. They would push me towards new hobbies and toys, hoping that I would enjoy it more than the feminine toys that my friends had. My mom knew that I had no interest in monster trucks or dinosaurs, but I would rather sit and play with my friends' dolls for hours. In an interview with my mom, she quotes, "In all honesty, we tried to protect you. Looking back, we should have been more open with letting you try different toys, but kids can be mean. We didn't want you getting bullied over something as simple as a toy. We didn't want you getting bullied period" (Weiss). After hearing this, I started to understand more why my parents did what they did. However, it didn't stop the thought that gender roles are still omnipresent in society.
At the age of three I began to feel the influence of gender roles. I hadn't learned how to read sight words, but I learned that only the girls were supposed to use the purple markers. I hadn't learned to add single digit numbers, but I knew that I was supposed to be a "strong guy". The girls were able to use any color they pleased, and could be as strong or soft-spoken as they liked, but I was policed into being "more of a boy". When I entered elementary school, there were more masculine girls in my classes who would hang out with the boys, playing football and soccer, consistently coming in from recess with scraped knees and grass stains to match the boys. Yet very few teachers told them to stick to jump ropes and swing sets in the same way that they told me to join the boys.
A study was conducted that answered this question. They surveyed a group of people to see what adults thought about children who displayed traits of the opposite gender. While children whose behaviors counter standard gender roles are viewed negatively, boys who engage in feminine activities are often considered to be worse than girls who engage in masculine activities (Martin 151). The study goes on to explain theories as to why this mentality exists. They state that there is a fear of what the child's future will entail. There is a belief that girls will girls will grow out of masculine behaviors, whereas boys will not grow out of their feminine behaviors (Martin 152). This calls into question the ways that society views both homosexuality and femininity.
As I grew up, not much changed about my personality or the way I carry myself. I was never afraid of expressing my femininity or sexuality. Yet society was scared for me. They looked down on me and took pity as I walked the halls of my high school in heels or showed up to prom with my boyfriend. Why are we so afraid of what deviates from the norm? Why are we scared for our sons who act more like our daughters? It's time that we change this mentality. It's time that we stop policing the concept of gender and let it be an expression of personality rather than force it to directly correlate with the sex we are assigned at birth. There shouldn't be any more boys' toys or girls' toys. There shouldn't be any more boys' colors and girls' colors. The less we tell our children how to act in terms of their gender, the more expressive and open society will become in the future.
Works Cited
Martin, Carol Lynn. "Attitudes and expectations about children with nontraditional and traditional gender roles." Sex roles22.3-4 (1990): 151-166.
Weiss, Stacey. "Childhood Interview." Personal Interview. 21 Jan. 2018.
Happiness Through Dissatisfaction
The ways through which people better their lives and discover happiness is not an exact science. There is no formula that is guaranteed to work for everyone in every scenario. However, throughout the readings, I found that there is a common way to achieve unhappiness and dissatisfactions.
To begin with The Antidote, the white bear experiment (pg 12-13) explains the difficulty that people face in trying not to think about the white bear after being instructed to do so. Applying this logic to the concepts of happiness and contentment, affirmations have a similar effect. Burkeman quotes, "They didn't feel particularly loveable to begin with – and trying to convince themselves otherwise merely solidified their negativity." (pg 17). By reciting the affirmation "I am lovable", people are forced to come to terms with the idea that just by needing to recite this affirmation, they do not truly believe that they are completely lovable.
In terms of Positive Education, the same affirmation style is shown in the positive psychology curriculum. In the Three Good Things exercise, students are instructed to write down three good things that happened each day for a week. Students are encouraged to list anything from the mundane to the extraordinary (pg 301). While this fosters intrapersonal communication, the students may begin to realize the mundane nature of their school days. The constrictive nature of routine allows for little room for extravagant reports of good things that may have happened over the week. While beginning this practice at a young age helps to encourage a positive thought process in valuing the small good things that happen, it may also begin to show the boring nature of routine and daily life in comparison to the student, but also in comparison to their classmates.
Siddhartha also shows this discontent. Introduced as a well-educated, and well-liked individual, he still is unhappy with the status of his life (pg 4). While it is good that he has the drive to continue his education, he shows it through discontent in what he already has. He believes that the people around him have very little to offer him. Those who have surrounded him for his whole life have seemingly exhausted their value to him.
Overall, the overarching theme of discontent is brought on by the concept that there is a pressure to be happy. There is a pressure to tell ourselves that we are happy. There is a pressure to remind ourselves why we are happy every day. There is a pressure to be happy and content with what surrounds us. However, once we start to analyze and dive deeper into these ideas, we find that we can't have happiness without knowing dissatisfaction to compare it to.