I set out to write stories with pithy, veiled meanings, thinking I’m almost 50-years-old and have as much right as anyone to put my experience down. Apart from the ugly egotism, the persistent naivety, and the dubious craftsmanship, I’d like to think I’ve done okay. But recently things took a turn for the worse.
I was sitting outside a pub holding forth on one of my favourite subjects, Fatherhood, and had just got through telling a gay friend about the three ages of personal development:
1. Child - being looked after;
2. Adult - looking after oneself, followed by;
3. Parent - looking after someone else.
When I was gently but fundamentally chastised, learning that his mother had been an alcoholic when he was little and often this foisted on him the role of child-carer. My shoulders sagged and I slid into my pint, and stayed there for the remainder of the evening. Feeling glum, I lamented the demise of this pet theory to Poz’s mum when I got home, asking her to adopt a classically unfair partner's role and ‘please tell me when I’m being a pompous arse’.
“Really?” she said, dropping her book to the duvet and peering over at me.
“Really,” I said, toeing off my shoes and flipping them into a corner.
“Well I could start by suggesting you leave off your lecture on fatherhood to gay men. You know what I mean?”
It all started out so well-meaning, how did I get it so wrong? I pretended to tidy up my clothes by moving them from one place to another as I absorbed this double blow. And then I’d only made it worse by fessing up to my stupid stupidity. Three strikes and you're out. Looking for vindication but I just kept digging that hole.
It’s fortunate for me that a lot of gay people have had a lot worse from supposedly liberal heterosexuals. I remember once telling a female colleague about the changing rooms at Brixton Leisure Centre:
“I have nothing against gays," I rounded up emphatically, "as long as they’re not waving their cocks in my face.”
My colleague smiled a knowing smile, at the clear them-and-us demarcation, and came out the following week.
