oh good lord

[maevele]

so, yeah, there's this guy who was kinda my best friend for a while, but being a drunk asshole made him fuck us over enough that he's now someone I put up with because our kids are friends, and I enjoy his company sometimes but count on him for nothing. I don't have a word for that relationship. other than maybe Family?

anyhow, he came and hung out tonight because Z didn't realize he was drunk when he went to pick up his kid, and we hung out and talked and so on. And one of the things we talked about, at great length, was his fucking homophobia and what it would mean if his son is gay. And he said, y'know, he'd still love him even if he was "fruity" and I told him that if he hasn't explicitly told the kid that, what the kid actually knows is the homophobic bullshit he's overheard his dad say, and he would probably never fucking tell him.

But he's like freaking out about trying to have this conversation with his 11 yr old, and I'm like 11 years old and you've never mentioned that you'll love him no matter who he falls in love with? And he's still like "Do I HAVE to talk to him?" and I'm like, "well, I could, but you're his dad, dude" and he's all, "Oh, you'd do that? awesome!"

And since dude would make a mess of it, I'm going to try to work conversation around subtly to "So you know how your dad is kinda an ass about queer people? Even so, he'd still totally love you if you liked boys. And if he acts like an idiot about this or anything else, you can always come here."


BUT I HAVE HANDHELD THIS MOTHERFUCKER THROUGH SO MUCH PRIVILEGE, AND JUST WANT TO PUNCH HIM.

Comments

[brainwane]

This might come across wrong, but I totally want to applaud and thank you for stepping up here and helping out this kid, and for confronting your acquaintance's fail.

[maevele]

Thanks. fucked up as this kid's situation is, I want him to have like, one safe place, even if it has to be my place. He and I have had other hard conversations, so he knows he can talk to me if he needs a grownup ear. I've never in my life hoped someone wouldn't be queer before, but for this kid's sake, with his parents, he's gong to be better off straight. But if he's not, he'll know I have his back, and that I'll keep his dad in line.

And I have been confronting this guy's fail for what now must be 15 years. He used to be worse. We've had fights about sexism and homophobia that left me crying and ready to actually kick his ass. So like, this was big progress for him, in that he saw his homophobia as a problem and asked me for help, knowing that I will bust him for bullshit and not care anymore if I hurt his feelings. But I'm still like "OMG, WHY DO I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS WITH QUEER PEOPLE? HAVE WE MET?" I never signed up to be straight people's sounding boards for their problems with queer people, but it keeps happening. I should get paid for this shit.

[jesse_the_k]

Paid large sums, in fact.

Smart choice: if you have a limited amount of energy, spend it on the kid, not his dad.

I wouldn't say "family," particularly re: the dad. I would say "circle" or "community."

[trinker]

I grok.