Hot headed...

The more I learn about what is perceived to be the 'norms' of the gay community, the more it puzzles and perplexes me.

I was sitting in Gay Starbucks (the Church Street Starbucks that is populated almost exclusively by gays) last Thursday, minding my own business and devouring the paper. The layout of the shop is sort of interesting, since it has a second floor that accomodates couches, armchairs and the usual wooden chairs and tables.

The crowd was no different than what I normally run into there. Some older guys, maybe on their days off, dressed casually and reading a book. Younger guys typing frantically on laptops and sipping from overlarge plastic cups. Business guys having their afternoon break. A lesbian scratching on a pad of paper. And me, trying to find a comfy nook in the deflated armchair that I occupied.

I had gotten about halfway through the paper, lazily reading and enjoying the fresh coffee, when I noticed the guy across from me doing pretty much the same thing. He was a good looking guy, dressed in surprisingly fashionable office garb, and what I would peg to be mid-30's. He laughed aloud, quietly, at the occasional piece he read, something that I do on a daily basis and always wonder how crazy it makes me look. To some, I suppose, it stands next to such horrors as talking to ones self out loud and maniacally petting a cat on your lap that happens not to exist.

But, since I knew exactly what his laughter was geared towards, I found it a bit of an intellectual turn on.

That is, until I heard him open his mouth.

A few moments later, two younger guys sat at the table next to me and Laughing Boy. There we were, a triangle of tables and chairs, with the relative silence of the shop broken with the conversation of the new arrivals.

It was hard not to hear their chatting, since nobody else was really talking, and the music was faint enough to avoid all hope of drowning them out. As they talked, I learned of their mutual friend, who had held a dinner party the night before, and how he hated so-and-so who happened to be the boyfriend of one of the guests...and on and on...

As I flipped the pages, a new voice joined the conversation. It was Laughing Boy, who had injected himself in their little coffee break chat, happily discussing the merits of Montreal over Toronto.

My interest wained, and I had pretty much finished up the paper. So too had the guys and Laughing Boy almost finished up their conversation. They were discussing shopping in Yorkville, and (though I don't really recall how they got there), one of the guys said, "Oh, there's this guy who works there you should meet. I think you'd like him."

Laughing Boy paused briefly, then said, "Well, is he as good looking as we are?"

I almost fell out of my chair, not that they noticed. Their conversation ended, the boys got up and Laughing Boy left on their heels.

I couldn't believe the tone, the delivery, the matter-of-factness that Laughing Boy had mustered in the statement. He said it with such conviction; it wasn't a really flirty gesture towards the guys, but merely an affirmation that they were all, indeed, fabulous.

As I walked home, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I would never say something like that to complete strangers. Let me rephrase that, I would never insinuate that I was good looking, or preface my interest in someone with a verbal affirmation that he was as 'good looking as me'.

I wouldn't mind telling a guy, "Wow, you're really good looking!" But to be so damn self-glorifying to say, "Is he as good looking as we are," blows my mind.

The question is, does he really believe it? Is this some ploy to project a sense of superiority and protect him from his innermost fears? Or is he really so caught up with himself to say it that he really, actually, believes in his great looks?

As we all know, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. While I think Zac Efron is gorgeous, a recent poll of my friends seems to indicate that many don't see the super-attraction. To imagine that you're just naturally a guy's type is crazy to me; we all see couples that have differences in appearance.

On Friday I brought up the incident at dinner with a friend. "Can you believe the pig-handedness?" I asked. "It's worse than straight guys!"

She looked at me, and nodded slowly. "Yeah...well, that's sort of the norm for you people," she said.

"But...but how is that attractive? Being full of yourself is hot these days?"

"Well, not that," she said. "But gay guys just naturally pump themselves up in public. It's like a survival thing, it projects an image."

Afterwards, I kept thinking back to her point, that it's 'normal' for gay guys to be so outwardly overconfident in themselves. It scared me a little, thinking that I one day might wind up as abrasive as this guy, to 'survive'. And it sends a twofold message: the overconfidence in one's self also implies that other guys won't be 'good enough' for you, that the unsaid words were, "...because if he's not, I probably won't be interested."

I'm not ever one to play up my appearance. In fact, I more use more self-deprecating humour about the whole thing as a way to cover my genuine insecurities, which stem mostly from never feeling noticed or deemed attractive like so many other people I knew growing up. I don't get uncomfortable talking amongst friends about people's looks, but I don't think I could ever declare to a complete stranger (or even my friends, for that matter) that I was an attractive creature. It seems in damn poor, ungentlemanly taste.

And what does it say about me, then? I got the, "Unless you really love yourself nobody will really love you," speech recently from a friend. Does it mean that I have a healthy attitude about my looks, or am I beating myself down far too much, so much that people see the insecurities and look away in distaste? Should I be adopting a more 'fuck you' confidence, telling people that I'm for sure 'hot stuff'?

I wonder how the mysterious 'blind date' candidate really did look...