In the radical gay-lib ideology, much emphasis is placed on being a victim. It has become the core of all activist thinking these days, justifying a war on others. But cultivating victim-hood has a down-side. It robs a person from assuming a more assertive and powerful stance. Weakness comes up and the chances of reaching goals wither away. Sometimes, being a victim has an authentic cause, but more often than not, the stance becomes addictive. People who are highly sensitive are particularly prone to feeling like a victim. In this article, we will investigate that problem.
Improve the world, start with yourself
Gay activism takes on many forms. We can differentiate moderate and radical activism. Questioning yourself, your feelings, and stances is the core of moderate activism: “Improve the world, start with yourself”. Radical activism takes a different stance: “I am perfect. Improve the world, let’s start with the other guy”. Well, that is a lot of guys and a lot of improving to do. Meaning for radical activism: the sky is the limit. There are so many ‘others’ and there is so much ‘they’ need to do before little old me is satisfied with ‘them’.
Radical lesbian activist Kate Kendall wrote in her Christmas email last year: “My dears, we are in the trenches”. Yeah, tell me about it. She has 60 lesbian lawyers working for her law firm (National Center of Lesbian Rights in San Francisco) and these hallmarks of perfection have no intent to retire or call it a day. So much improving to do! If you are looking for a business model to gain easy money, then make activism your source of income. Look for the splinter in the other guy’s eye, and deny the log in your own.
A look at yourself
Let us look at our own issues, the feeling of craving for that guy, that great one, that awesome one, that one-in-a-kind. Good grief, will you have a look at that?!
Imagine you see a guy at the shopping mall and he strikes your eye when you least expect it. Or at the airport, or the railroad station, or when you sit on the bus and look outside. There he is. In the Underground Tube, or cycling on his super bicycle with flashy bicycle clothes and a physique to go with it. Isn’t it funny how getting yourself transported can trigger a Same-Sex Attraction? I have never been able to figure it out. But believe me, when you are moving from A to B, that is when SSA’s zap you in the face. Isn’t it strange?
What’s up?
It is called projection screens, yours and theirs. The guy in the flashy bicycle clothes (have you seen those thighs, by the way? I always watch thighs. Big ones. It is thumbs up or thumbs down when I drive my car and they are outdoors doing what they are supposed to do: being great. Big, luscious thighs, while I fiddle with the clutch and the cruise control. No big thighs here, but then again, there is luckily no-one to notice. But outside my car, will you have a look at that!) just happened to cross my path.
Big question is, why do I feel this? What are they doing to me? Of course, the guy is only cycling on his bike (and looking like a Greek god, and he holds the biggest secret of them all: he is always going to be that way! Yep. Me, I am trying to convince myself that those pounds will be blasted away forever, but him… No problem with pounds of fat, no love handles, just Divinity). There are Greek gods, Roman gods, and then there’s Me. Us, a collection of lousy weathered medieval statues. Even the Notre Dame has burned down! I knew it when the news came in: statues are falling from their pedestals. ‘Pompiers’ hose them down to no avail; nope: down they crash. Me!
I am (dear reader, take your pick, please) too fat, too small, too big, too ugly, too tiresome, too boring, too difficult, too shy, too much being a regular nobody. Did I ever tell you that I donated $100 for the rebuilding of the Notre Dame to crank that statue up again? Never mind.
And flashy thin-guy on his way-too-expensive bicycle joins a pack of fellow great-guys with the same flashy-outfit! They even wear helmets, as though they are going to crash to the ground at any moment. And save their skins.
Me, I do not wear a helmet. Ever. Fancy wrestling with the car clutch and wearing a helmet. Although, it may make me look just as flashy. But no, they form a group, and I am on my own. Lonely me, with feelings of being a victim that they obviously do not possess. What is up? Why do these guys give me that feeling?
Want an answer? Here it comes: nothing others do is because of you. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. It is not about you. Their actions are not because you came around. That brand of bicycles has been around for ages, not to mention the current fashion craze of glossy bicycle gear that is exploding with its trendiness. We are talking of an industry here. And with that gear, they casually swing that beefy leg over that ridiculously expensive bike, adjust their yellow sunglasses (why always yellow, by the way?) and fade into the horizon as Humphrey Bogart does at the end of the movie ‘Casablanca’. Bogart who is alleged to be a bad actor, goes on to say his immortal lines: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”. Great stuff, God stuff, but not Me-stuff. Why? Why does my jaw drop? What is wrong with me? Why does this movie, this emotion, leave me dropping my jaw a centimeter or two? Damn, someone may have noticed! I am relieved that nobody noticed my jaw, by the way. I grab my chewing gum from my pocket and stash it in my mouth. Nice and tough. Tough guy, here! Long live chewing gum! A female may need her eye-liners, and we guys just need chewing gum. What is up?
Well, it has to do with fear issues. Big ones. Those guys, who have thighs, and flashy outfits, and a physique to go with it, and a gang of mates, and a feeling of connection, not to mention helmets, modern ones just like in the new Star Wars movie (have you seen it? I saw it in 4D, yep. Even the chairs went up and down!), may have opinions, so you fear, and you feel that those thoughts are beamed out to you.
You know for sure. Behold, the look in their eyes, the smirk on their faces, their casual ignoring you, their way of feeling great about themselves until their eyes meet yours. Like a dagger, that small short gaze penetrates your soul. He can look straight through you, and he marches off, feeling great about himself. How you love him, but, at the same time, how you hate that casual way he walks away.
How the hell can some men, gorgeous men, be so casual about you?
More often than not, you admit feeling dismayed, looking at the floor. You do not dare to look at him any further. And then you walk away, as you have always done, feeling strange, feeling like you are dangling in mid-air. You are where you always were, you are the Mayor of Nowhere Land. Expert at being a Nobody. Or, sorry, at least, it feels that way. ‘Trapped’ is the right word: the fishnet of estrangement. The more you move, the more you know there is no way out. Lonely and betrayed. “Is there anyone out there”, so your deepest emotion cries out to become part of mankind. ‘See me, touch me, hold me’.
Here is a secret.
The biggest vice is self-pity. But then again, it serves a purpose. And it is horrific if someone comes around to take it away. Let us acknowledge it, but now take a more positive stance. Self-pity is a coping mechanism. If I do not caress or soothe my aching soul, who the hell will? After all, who knows? Who understands? Who will take care of me if it isn’t me?
If I am a loner and in need of friendship, companionship, and a hug, who will cross the borders of loneliness that have grown around me, that have become who I am, that have apparently insulated but also isolated me from harm, and from love?
The child in us grieves, but his tantrums and despair need to be contained because we need to proceed on with life. Like a candle, life burns away. We need to hurry up.
As we grow up, we turn our life into a narrative. Because we feel no-one is listening, we tell it to ourselves. Every child, who has accumulated same-sex attractions as an adult, has felt the lonely pain of not having genuine emotional needs of being a real boy, of becoming a real man, met. It is a genetic drive, but we felt that it was not noticed. Not by a man, at least, not by a comrade in maleness. But the urge lingers on, and it feels as if we are in a play. Before you know it, it lingers on into boyhood and perhaps into adult life. The drama lingers on, like an echo from the past. We have become a regular Shakespeare, but we have few words. We only have vague experiences from way back when. It becomes an inner narrative with no audience except me. It becomes the stage world of our true feelings and longings, with no connection to others. The drama will become our downfall if we do not come to grips with it.
What does self-dramatization look like? Take a load of this. It starts by acknowledging the drama of being me. The horror of it all. Who wants to go through such a life? If I were to write a book, it would be volumes and volumes. Even for me, it would be too much to write it all down before I die. It is too painful, too much. I will spare you as a reader, the further details. Some say that I wallow, but is that fair? Is it fair to judge me? Is it fair to disregard what I have been through? How on earth did I ever get through all of that? And what awaits me? I ponder over all these matters often, in fact, every day. A day not wallowed is a day not lived. The drama of being me.
It’s a habit, you know. It becomes a good-feel feeling. It gets ingrained into your psyche, and it serves a purpose. The same old routine, like a clumsy computer program getting stuck in a loop. Poor old me, there I am, and no-one around to see me, to feel me, to comfort me. I am lonely, and I fear I will always be in that stance. I soothe myself. If I do not do it, who will? The loneliness of being me.
No-one sees me. Never happened to me. Other chaps are boisterous, making noise, being present, being themselves, gaining attention. I have no clue as to how to do that. Imagine me being the center of attention. Me, clumsy-me, ugly-me, big-ears-me, big-belly-me, small-penis-me, even smaller-balls-me, and way too short. No ball games for me. Always missing the target. Ball-game loser-me.
The problem is that you feel too much. You process information deeply, due to a highly sensitive nature. This means you do plenty of reflecting on your experiences — more so than other people. Unfortunately, this also means you’re more prone to negative overthinking. Sometimes you obsessively play events over and over in your mind or spiral into anxious thoughts. Due to your deep processing, you have a rich inner world. As a child, you may have had several imaginary friends, enjoyed fantasy-based play, and were prone to daydreaming. As an adult, you may have vividly realistic dreams.
All of this leads to envy and admiration of those guys who do not appear to have all this, and who can just be themselves without a worry in the world. That fascination becomes an obsession, and it strikes you over and over again. Traveling can be quite difficult because of a bombardment of the senses with so many new stimuli. It is then that men who appear not to be affected by all this, provoke amazement and awe.
How to get over this
There is a simple mind game that you can perhaps play. Every time you feel awe or romantic attraction coming up out of nowhere in the streets, say to yourself: “I just feel too much, that is all there is to it”.
This simple realization does magic to counteract the mixed-up and disheartening emotions that seem to emerge in these situations. “I just feel too much” offers an immediate explanation, preventing you from beating up on yourself, and it also gives a simple solution. The moment you pronounce these words in your mind, the fascination in the other person diminishes instantaneously. You notice the other person of course, but the crippling emotions fade away.
Highly sensitive men crave deep connections with others. They are annoyed with contacts that lack meaningful interaction. A simple surface-level, give-and-take relationship will simply not cut it for them. They want to dive into the soul and connect deeply. If you find yourself doing that, then say once again: “I just feel too much, that is all there is to it”. The sadness disappears on the spot, as you realize that it is your highly sensitive nature playing tricks on you. The phrase offers an instant explanation, and its effects are very soothing. The phrase gives you a tool to rearrange your inner narrative.
15 to 20% of all people are highly sensitive, and this genetic condition has its advantages and drawbacks. Once you realize that your yearning for, and being disappointed in, the contacts with others is a result of this genetic trait, then you may notice calmness descending on you.
“I just feel too much, that is all there is to it” may lead to grief, but then again, it offers the opportunity to move on and stop doubting about the rest of your mental make-up. Above all, it will stop feeling inferior to others. Do not take things personally. Nothing others do is because of you.
To be continued
Job Berendsen, MD.