Page 58 of Looking for Group
“Poor choice of words, mate.”
“Sanee!” chorused Drew and Tinuviel.
He held up his hands. “Oh come on, you walked into that one.”
“Look,” snapped Drew, “something mildly upsetting happened to me. I just want to take a day to feel sorry for myself about it. I don’t need you making gay jokes, or you telling me that’s it not a big deal, because, I’m sorry, we weren’t all raised by polyamorous hippies. How am I supposed to tell my mum I’ve suddenly started dating a boy?”
“You could try, ‘Mum, I’ve started dating a boy,’” suggested Tinuviel. Unhelpfully.
“Or just don’t tell her.” Sanee stroked his chin thoughtfully. “But, you never know, they might be cool. Steff was convinced her mum would freak out at her dating a South Asian guy, but either she was actually fine about it or she was really, really scared of looking racist.”
“So you’re basically telling me, I have to hope my parents are really, really scared of looking homophobic?”
“Or,” added Tinuviel, “they’re just not bigots.”
Drew put his head in his hands. Tinuviel leaned over and patted him gently on the shoulder.
“Can I just point out,” she said, “that your main issues have been that Sanee has laughed at you, and that your parents might not like it.”
“So?”
“Well, this is obviously quite hard for me because, as a pansexual, I really don’t understand people whose sense of attraction is informed by gender identity or biological sex. But I think if I was monosexual, my main objection to a relationship with someone who was not of my preferred gender would be that I just wasn’t into them. Maybe I’m wrong, but your problem doesn’t seem to be that you’renotinterested in this person, but that you still are.”
While Drew was sorting through that, Sanee steepled his fingers like a supervillain. “Mate, are you gay?” There was a pause. “Like, it’s okay if you are.”
Drew glared at him. “I think I’d have noticed.”
Tinuviel raised a hand. “I suspect you’ll think this is a weird question, but what would you have noticed?”
“Well…” Drew hated it when T did this. She’d ask you something to which the answer was so screamingly obvious that you’d immediately start second-guessing yourself. And, right now, that was the last thing he needed. “Fancying guys for a start?”
“Maybe you just haven’t met any guys you fancy. I mean, I’m pretty sure you’re not attracted to Sanee…”
Sanee made a valiant attempt not to look horrified. “You’re not, right?”
Drew made no such attempt. “I’m really not.”
“Okay,” Tinuviel went on. “And you don’t fancy me either.”
“Jesus, just because I don’t fancy every girl I meet, that doesn’t make me gay.”
She looked smug. “And, by the same argument, not fancying every boy you meet doesn’t make you straight.”
There was a really long silence.
“Holy shit,” gasped Sanee. “That’s a really scary thought.”4
“I can imagine it would be to a lot of people, but actually there’s nothing scary about rejecting heteronormative notions of binary sexuality.”
“So you’re saying,” said Drew slowly, “I could be gay and not know it? Because that sort of sounds like bollocks.”
Tinuviel pushed her hair out of her eyes. “No, I’m not saying that, Andrew. I’m saying that, for many people, sexuality is more fluid and less clear-cut than they’re taught to assume. You might, in fact, be completely straight, but it’s also possible that you’renot. And, even if you aren’t, you might have gone your whole life completely happy and not caring and not knowing. And that’s fine. But it seems to me that right now you have an opportunity to have something with somebody, and it might work or it might not, but if your only reason for not trying is that you’re frightened by the idea of being gay, then that’s probably quite silly and a little bit sad.”
Drew frowned. “Is this your idea of cheering me up?”
“Fuck me.” Sanee spread his hands in abeats mesort of way. “I think she’s got a point. Somewhere in there. If you still like this guy, even though he’s a guy, then you should probably at least talk to him. I mean, you drew him fanart. And you’ve kind of been all happy and annoying for the last week.”
“Okay.” Drew pulled his duvet back over his head. “This has been very helpful. Now will you please go away? I want to continue freaking out, and I’d like to do it in private.”
