The Case of the Two Gay Roommates Part I: The one with the cleaning

I have always considered myself a very open minded person. I am a very liberal person; I really do not see anything wrong with virtually any life style. I do not see people as what they are, but instead who they are. In a previous post, Coming to accept the gay man, I wrote about my first experience with a gay person. To me the only thing wrong with being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is if you try to hide who you are. I know that it is hard to come out and I, as a straight male, can never truly understand what it is like to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Although I do not understand this, I do not think that I have to. No matter what your sexual orientation is, it is only a fragment of the many characteristics that make you a person. I have developed a creed that I try my best to live by everyday: We are all human, and deserve to be treated as such. Once you realize that we really are all human, it is much easier to come to accept any minute characteristic that a person may or may not have. Sexuality, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, anything else just does not really matter as much. All these things become a secondary characteristic to the main characteristic of being human. There has been one event in my life that made me question this view more than anything else in my life has. It was the case of the two gay roommates.

It was my sophomore year in college in Savannah. My freshman year had ended without a hitch, and I had spent the summer working my ass of and going to class. I had signed up to live with one of my roommates from my freshman year, Zach, and two other guys. I had always been a bit of a loner throughout my entire high school career, which resulted in me not having many close friends. I have always had many acquaintances, but none I was willing to call my friend. Zach was the first person in a long time that I considered a friend.

We also were to live with two other people, Carson and John. Carson and John had lived together their freshmen year also, in the apartment that we were to share the next year. I moved in with Carson and John at the beginning of summer. Zach had went back home, then John followed suite shortly after. I spent all summer with Carson and the other roommate named Cody, who I really don’t know too much about other than he really liked reptiles.

The Savannah summer was long, hot, beautiful, and terrible. It was terrible because I was working all summer and going to classes, and did not really have hardly any time to relax. When I was at the apartment relaxing, Carson’s family was always there. At first, I just thought they were staying overnight, or whatever. Then one night after they had ‘left’, I ran into his mother coming out of the bathroom. It turned out that they had nowhere else to stay. So I told her that they could stay there as long as they needed to. They really did not bother me, Carson on the other hand did. He is quite possibly one of the most self-centered individuals I have ever met.

Carson’s friend Hunter used to always come by. I picked up on him being gay the moment I met him. I did not say anything to him because 1) I really do not care and 2) it is rude to just ask, “Are you gay?” without really even knowing the person. I did however ask Carson if he was, and surprise surprise he was. Later in the summer it eventually came about that Hunter realized that I knew.

Toward the end of the summer, I got fired from my job at Target. I would like to say that I was anything but thrilled, but that would be lying. Target is the killer of souls. After I hesitantly told my mother about this, I arranged for me to take a break from Savannah. My brother drove down to Savannah on a Friday to pick me up to spend the last two weeks of summer back at home. I would have drove my big blue minivan, affectionately named Big Blue, home but my dad had taken her out of service when I went home for Fourth of July.

My brother arrived in Savannah in the evening, and we went out to eat at Jalapeños, a local Mexican restaurant with amazing fish tacos. Just thinking about them now makes me realize a visit to Savannah is way overdue, and that Ivan Pavlov was correct.

It was late so my brother bought some beers and we headed back to my apartment, planning to chill with the cute neighbor girls for a while before turning in for the night. When we got back to my apartment, Carson was there rambling on about how he, “just had the urge to clean” and had been scrubbing down our bathroom. I don’t know what exactly it was, but as we left my brother said, “That dude is gay.”

We went across the hall and hung out with some friends of mine. I tried to tell him Carson was not gay, instead just a little weird. My brother kept insisting that he was. That night my brother slept with his ass pressed against the couch cushions, because he is a bit of a homophobe and was afraid that a midnight snack for Carson may turn into a midnight raping for him.

Still I was not convinced that Carson was gay. I just kept telling myself, he was just weird, odd, and eccentric. It took me a while to finally agree with my brother. Not that I really cared if he was gay or not, but a little heads up would have been nice.