I don’t believe in Facebook, I just believe in me.

It seems like every person I talk to nowadays can’t stop talking about Facebook.  “Are you on Facebook?”, “Why aren’t you on Facebook?”, “Facebook”, “Facebook”, “Facebook”…AHHH!!!...I can’t take it anymore!

You all think Facebook is so damn great?  OK.  Fine then.  I’ll show you.  I’ll show you exactly why I’m not on Facebook.  I’ll show you how Facebook can go bad.  This is going to get ugly.

Sorry Andy.

                         

My Friend Andy is Gay and Doesn’t Know It

It was an unseasonably warm March day in 1981 when Esther decided s she’d better get to the hospital soon.  She was pregnant with her third child and was well aware of the routine by now.  Her husband Robert grabbed their other children, Jennifer 5 and Eric 10, and headed out the door.  They made it to the Chicagoland hospital just in time to see Andrew Robert open his eyes to the world for the first time.  Robert held his new baby in his arms and as he gently rocked little Andy he knew something was wrong…he knew Andy was gay.

The son of a man of German ancestry and a tiny Chinese woman, Andy had an interesting look…Mexican.   Andy had a fairly normal childhood.  He excelled in academics, and enjoyed athletics, movies, music, and video games.  He was very well-behaved, due to his Lutheran upbringing and schooling, and never caused much trouble. 

Andy’s parents never completely embraced and loved their youngest son.  They were often cold towards him both emotionally and fiscally.  Andy often blamed this tension as nothing more than his parents being cheap.  He was wrong.

One story that shows this is the Christmas in which Andy wanted one gift more than anything else in the world…a Super Nintendo.  Andy assumed his thrifty parents weren’t going to buy it for him.  Then Christmas morning came.  Young Andrew Robert ran down the stairs of his parents Chicago suburb home and into the living room.  Sitting beneath the tree was a large box.  Andy tore through the wrapping paper and, low and behold, there it was…Super Nintendo.

Andy was elated.  His dreams seemed to come true.  The one thing he wanted more than anything was in his hands.  Then, almost out of nowhere, Esther told him that if he wanted to keep the gift, he would have to pay his parents $150, citing that they spend a maximum of $50 per child, per year.  Andy was crushed.  He didn’t understand why his parents were doing this.  Andy cursed them and stormed off leaving Robert and Esther in a very awkward situation.  They really wanted to get Andy a great gift, an expensive gift, but they couldn’t out of fear…fear it would make him more gay.

His parents had tried to raise him like a heterosexual, but there were many setbacks.  One day Robert brought home a puppy.  A little, adorable West Highland Terior.  Andy, the youngest child, received the duty of naming this dog.  You can imagine the pain it caused his parents when he blurted out, “Mommy…she’s beautiful…let’s name her Princess!”  Andy’s parents, in denial, went along with the plan.  The dog was named Princess.

Andy lived a pretty sheltered life until he moved on to junior high school.  Jane Addams Junior High school opened up a world of opportunity for Andy.  There were so many new people entering his life he couldn’t keep track…his head was spinning.  Over a thousand girls and boys of his age all crammed into the brick façade building.  Boys and girls growing, changing, and forming new relationships with each other.  Andy felt overwhelmed by most of this new world…especially one aspect…gym class.

Junior high gym class was unlike anything Andy had ever seen before.  There were roughly one hundred boys, together, in tight confines, taking off their clothes.  Andy was never quite sure how much he should look at the other boys.  Every day in the locker room he would look around and think, “I feel strange.  What is this?”  One day after school Andy confronted his older brother, Eric, about his feelings.  Eric had just graduated college and was planning on moving near his parents to watch his little brother grow up.  After the conversation with Andy that day, Eric changed his mind.  He packed up his car and drove west to California.  He couldn’t handle the pain and shame of what he knew about Andy.  His brother was gay and didn’t even know it.

Andy went through more changes and started to act out.  Most boys show their emotions to girls they like by picking on them or making fun of them.  Andy didn’t do this.  He knew he should feel that way about girls, but he didn’t.  He figured he was a late bloomer and that it would happen sometime.  Instead, Andy acted this way, subcontiously, to other boys.  One example of this was in seventh grade math class when Andy stabbed the boy sitting in front of him, Aaron, in the back with a pencil.

The pencil stabbing incident was not an isolated case.  Andy began to rebel more and more.  He wasn’t sure why it all happened, but it did.  Andy became more and more daring in his antics as an attempt to impress his male counterparts.  For instance, there is the time that Andy lit the K-Mart loading docks on fire.  Most boys want to impress their friends to show their worthiness and declare themselves as a leader.  Although Andy thought that is why he was doing all this, he was wrong.  Secretly, deep down inside, he wanted something else.  He wanted to mouth-kiss the other boys.

Andy continued to grow up and soon was entering high school.  Hoffman Estates High School was even more overwhelming than junior high was.  More girls, more boys, and showers in the locker room.  Andy began to feel more and more uneasy.  One cold December day he told his father, Robert, about this.  Robert and his wife, Esther, had just started to accept his son’s sexual preference.  In fact, they had purchased Andy a beautiful dress and makeup for the fast-approaching Christmas.  Hearing Andy talk about the highlight of his day, showering and changing after swimming in gym class changed everything for Robert.  In his mind he thought he could finally accept Andy for the way he was…he was wrong.  Robert ran out the next day and returned the feminine Christmas gifts he had purchased and bought him something else…something to toughen his son up…a wrench set.  That was it.  Robert and Esther decided that their son was to never to gay.  Never!

Day by day Andy’s parents became more and more alarmed with their son and his homosexual actions.  One day his mother, Esther, came home to find Andy in his bedroom, hanging an oversized Goodfellas movie poster above his bed.  She panicked.  Esther couldn’t help thinking, “Why Lord?  Why does my son want to wake up to the faces of men?”  She snapped.  Esther began yelling at Andy, “What is that?  A poster?  How much did it cost?  Five dollars?  It’s a poster…they should have just given it to you.  You’re stupid!”

Andy decided then and there that he would never become like his parents…cheap.  Little did he know he would never become like his parents in another way…heterosexual.

His parents grew more and more concerned with Andy’s actions.  First, Andy joined the gymnastics team.  Next, he became a cheerleader…a male cheerleader.  The distance between them and their son had grown.  The baby they once held so lovingly in their arms had started listening to techno music and speaking German.  Robert knew why Andy was doing this…he knew of Europe’s “anything goes” policy.  One thing Robert didn’t know was whether Andy was really aware of why he was changing.

Andy had several girlfriends throughout his high school years, but could never quite “seal the deal”.  He became increasingly frustrated by this and sought comfort and support from his male friends…they did not comply.  His friends felt helpless.  They knew he was gay…why didn’t he?  Andy’s friends would discuss, without Andy being present, his sexuality.  They thought he just needed a change of scenery.  College…yes, college would surely change him.

Andy wanted to go to college but was burdened by the task of paying for it.  He asked his parents for help and they desperately just wanted to say, “Pay for it yourself, faggot.”  They didn’t.  Instead they told him he had to pay for it by himself, however possible.  Andy then looked towards the military, claiming to others that he would use them in return for tuition money.  No one believed him.  His friends and family knew he just wanted to be around more and more men.  Andy’s fate changed suddenly when he received a scholarship to a major university, Iowa State.

Andrew Robert soon graduated high school and moved on to college.  Iowa State University would open new doors for him.  He almost immediately joined a fraternity and tried to fit it.  That didn’t work.  Then he went back to his old habit…male cheerleading.

Andy joined the squad and found a subconscious comradery with the other men…most of them being openly gay.  Andy often thought, “It’s OK to have gay friends.  I’m not gay.”  Boy was he wrong.

The school years seemed to drag on forever, the summers went too fast.  Andy finally got the chance to follow his dreams one summer…he went to Germany for the summer, alone.  Things started changing.

Andy’s friends knew exactly what was going on.  They hoped he would come back from these trips and finally have a grasp on himself and his sexuality.  They were wrong.

Andy returned from Germany at the end of one summer with stories and more stories about his new friend, Sven.  He showed everyone pictures of him and Sven holding hands walking down the street, the bed that they shared, and the “enema” (a large, black dildo) they used for…well…he just called it “cleaning”.

That was it.  His friends couldn’t take it anymore.  They finally asked him, “Are you gay?”  Andy erupted in anger and rage, screaming things like “What the fuck are you talking about?  I was in Europe!  That’s how things are done there!  Fuck you guys!”  He was still in denial.

Andy went on to finish his education at Iowa State.  During his time there he would travel back to Germany more and more.  No one was really sure what he was doing there.  He pretty much kept things to himself.

After graduation Andy took a job with Toyota in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Working for Toyota was just what Andy needed.  He worked on a team mostly consisting men and would have opportunities to travel to the uber-erotic Japan. 

On one trip to Japan, Andy met a man named Akiro.  Akiro was gay and immediately took a shining to Andy, sensing he was gay.  Once again, Andy would return home and see his friends and show pictures of the two at erotic video arcades, karaoke bars filled with men, and the bed he shared with his new “friend”.  Once again, his friends questioned, “Are you gay?”  Once again, Andy erupted in anger and rage, screaming things like “What the fuck are you talking about?  I was in Japan!  There are men everywhere because the women aren’t allowed to go outside!  I shared a bed because they are grossly overpopulated!  Fuck you guys!”  Again, denial.

Andy continued the heterosexual farce.  He seemed to always balance the gay with the straight.  He joined a gymnastics gym, he had his girlfriend move in with him.  He bought a greatest hits CD of The New Radicals, he asked his girlfriend to marry him.  And so on.

So there you have it.  A tale of man who never really learned or accepted who he was.  A homosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that) caught up in the life of a heterosexual.  Confusion.

Photo courtesy of Facebook.

 

The Moral

So there you have it folks.  You can’t trust Facebook.  You sign up for Facebook, make some friends, post some pictures and then shit like this happens.  David finds homosexual-esque photos of you, forwards them to me, and so on.

With that said, all of you, please, please never ask me again to join Facebook.  

Random Jams

“Freedom! 90” by George Michael

“Mastermind” by Deltron 3030

“Night Time is the Right Time” by Ray Charles

“All My Ex's Live in Texas” by George Strait...dedicated to Mike Batina

“Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers