Bad Day: 2008-08-25

I started doing social freedom exercises. At the one where I talk to a store clerk for two minutes, I wound up getting schooled in how to wear eyeliner for about an hour. By the time I got out, it was dark and many people were gone. My anxiety also shot all the way up. The rest of the night I couldn’t talk to anyone.

I wound up having a score of 81.

Afterward I wound up in a conversation with someone close to me. She saw my eyeliner and asked if I’m turning gay. I asked, “If I were gay, would you abandon me?” She said no, she’d just kill me, half jokingly.

Later on it turns out she was really upset and crying. She didn’t like that I was no longer “normal”, and was worried that I was veering off the normal, safe path and onto a strange, dangerous path. Our arguments came down to this: she wanted me to be more normal, and I didn’t see why I should be normal.

I guess for me, the way I dress or whether I’m gay is just another attribute of mine, one that shouldn’t affect other people. It’s like her finding out that I’m 6’10″ instead of 5’9″ and suddenly freaking out because I’m too tall. To me, it’s like, um, okay. What’s the big deal? I am having a tough time explaining to her that it’s not that big of a deal.