i'm not there

i hate going to gay bars. this statement has made me sound like a self-hating, indignant, snob for a long time now. people will ask why, and i'll give them the answers they want. and sometimes, most of them are true. i do hate homogeneity. i do feel like gay bars are the adult equivalent of high school cafeterias. but the real reason is much harder to articulate in conversation. sometimes it's so hard to be easy.

i have a hard time with objectification. i have a hard time when people say i'm pretty or sexy or hot or handsome. i think, for me, it's because the two worst things to ever happen to me, happened because men thought i was pretty or sexy or hot or handsome. or whatever word you want to use. a pretty piece of meat.

as a child, i was molested for years. and for years, i felt like a total lunatic. i didn't trust anyone. i didn't know how to make and maintain relationships. i couldn't relate to people. and being alone with a group of men was the scariest thing in the world to me. hell, sometimes it still is.

as an adult, i was date raped and given hiv, as a result. the whole time it was happening, he kept telling me how sexy i was. so it's hard to feel good about feeling sexy. it's hard not to cringe when you hear the word.

and so, i hate going to gay bars. places where you're surrounded by men, looking for a pretty piece of meat. looking. ready to pounce. it makes my skin crawl, even though i know it's not quite so nefarious.

they make me feel like a ghost. an apparition, with no name or story or history. like i'm there, but i'm not.