I'm Not Gay

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a sitcom. The people in my life are evidence enough for that. I have the OCD/clean freak sister and the sarcastic, can't stop making jokes brother-in-law who mirror Monica and Chandler from Friends. I have a really nerdy sister and brother-in-law that could be anyone from The Big Bang Theory. I have the forgetful - sometimes crazy - mother who reminds me of Franky Heck from The Middle. I have the up-beat - sometimes embarrassing - dad who reminds me of Andy Bernard from The Office. My brother-in-law's brother is a guy who thinks he's the best with ladies, drives my sister nuts, sometimes says dumb sounding things, and often borrows money from people; who reminds me of Joey Tribbiani from Friends. I have a friend that. . . well you can't really explain what he's like, you can only compare him to Dwight Schrute from The Office. My best friend is a very indecisive person who reminds me of. . . well no one, but I could write a ten season sitcom just about her. And lastly, I am the romantic minded, lonely guy with a love life as eventful as a snail race. So, I guess I could be either Ross Geller from Friends or Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, but the fact that I haven't been divorced three times indicates I'm more of a Ted. Sometimes I like to treat my life like it really is a sitcom. Whenever someone says something incredibly stupid, I like to turn to one side and break the fourth wall like Annie Hall; usually giving an imaginary camera a haughty head shake of derision or a classic face-palm. I made up a diagnosis for this. I call it Sitcophrenia. It's like Schizophrenia, but instead of hearing voices, I hear canned laughter. I've been in my share of sitcom cliché plot lines as well, but one day I got stuck in one of the most common: The Gay or Nay cliché.

     You know this one: a strait guy is mistaken for being gay. It happens on a lot of different sitcoms. On Seinfeld, Jerry and George were thought to be gay by a reporter in The Outing episode. In The One Where Nana Dies Twice episode of Friends, Chandler finds out a lot of people think he's gay. And though the names of the episodes escape me, Ted was thought to be gay in three or four episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Well, the same thing happened to me at work one day. Rashaell and I were facing the isles of the store (facing is when you pull the items up to the front of the shelf to make it look full.) We were talking to help pass the time. We talked about things like how I went to see the Kansas City Symphony once and how she built a motor for school. Then I thought, "Holy crap. She's more of a dude than I am." I don't know how we got onto the next topic, but it eventually came to this: "Actually, I've never dated before." I said.

     "Yeah, I can she it being hard to find a guy in thi-"

     "Wait. What? Guy?!" I interrupted. *Que canned laughter*

     "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you... I just... Uh, I-" She began.

     "I'm not! I'm not. No, no, no, no, no." I said. As much as I wanted to prove it by telling her that I had a crush on her, I felt it was best to just leave it at five "No's" I had just said.

     After a few minutes of awkward silence, I started to laugh. She turned to me and have me a puzzled look as if wondering why on earth I was laughing. "So," I finally said, "What, exactly, made you think that I. . . bat for the other team?"

     "Well, you have a certain. . . Quality." She said.

     "Oh, good. I was worried you were going to be vague about it."

     "Well I guess it was because you said that the vast majority of your friends are girls, you've never dated, oh and you went to a symphony." She said.

     "I see." I said, "Well, the vast majority of my friends are girls because I don't have many friends. I'm not a very outgoing person, so a lot of people think I'm a jerk on first impression. You kind of have to be around me for a while to get to know who I really am. The only friends who have been able to do that are my neighbors and they are all girls. The reason I've never been on a date before is not because I don't like girls, it's because girls don't usually like me. As far as the symphony goes, do you know who else was at that symphony? Your boyfriend! Ha-BURN!"

     You remember the story of the light bulb and my head right? Landon, my sister, my mother, his brother, and I were all getting pizza. I pulled a prank on Landon which ended up with my head crashing into the light above me. Anyway, that happened right after a field trip to the Kansas City Symphony.

     After this incident, I decided I needed to be more manly, so I decided to grow a mustache! And then shaved it after being called a porn star. So I've been mistaken for being gay and a porn star, the only thing left is for me to date two girls at the same time and my life will make the final transition from reality to TV comedy.

My Best Friend's Girl

I don't know exactly when I began to develop feelings for Rashaell. It kind just sneaked up on me. For at least three months I only saw her as a good work friend, until one day. . . We were just conversing during some slow business time at work when I started to see her in a new light. It wasn't anything she said or did particularly, it just happened. It went from "she's kinda hot" to "I really like this girl" at the snap of a finger. It's possible that the feelings were there the whole time, tucked somewhere in the back of my mind just to surface now. But even now that I knew I had feelings for her, I still couldn't admit it to myself. I didn't want to like her in that way.

     I continued to bury my new found feelings for her for several weeks. I didn't feel right about it. I still liked Kayla and it didn't settle right in my mind to have feelings for two girls at once. I guess I'm just not wired that way. It's a situation my mind can't easily sort out. Despite this, I still couldn't deny that I liked Rashaell. Then one day in January I decided that I couldn't fight it anymore. I finally admitted to myself that I had feelings for her and now I was going to do something about it.

     Now, what happens next seems to happen to me a lot. Off the top of my head, I can count five times: once with Kayla, twice with Rashaell, and three other times with girls that I won't mention yet because they aren't in this story yet. What am I talking about? Well the best way to explain it is with this example. I had finally decided I was going to ask Rashaell out. I was determined. Nothing would stop me. . . well just about anything could stop me, because I was so scared of doing it, but still. I finally got her alone and was about to ask when she said, "I heard your head and light bulbs don't get a long well."

     "What?" I asked.

     "You know," she answered, "you broke that light bulb in Pizza Hut with your head."

     "How do you know that? Have you been talking to my mom?"

     "No," she laughed, "Landon told me."

     You remember Landon. The bro I wrote about last week who was at Pizza Hut with me when I smashed the light with my head. I had also found out that he had gotten a new girlfriend and he wouldn't tell me who it was. I told him I would find out who she was weather he told me or not. I was about to get my answer.

     "Oh? You know Landon?" I asked.

     "Yeah," she said, "He's my boyfriend."

     This has happened a lot. I'll finally decide to do something about a crush I have, and then I find out they're dating someone. I'm thankful for this, however. Otherwise I would have made a total ass out of myself several times throughout the years.

     Anyway, back to the story. I was shocked, though I shouldn't have been. She did live in the same town as him, after all. All I could make myself say was, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." While my mouth was saying the very long "Oh" my mind what racing. "Oh, no!" I thought, "It's happening again! It's going to be The Summer of Darkness all over again!" But strangely enough, it wasn't. I mean, I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed, but I wasn't at all depressed like before. I guess I had matured since then. I may not have been feeling depressed, but I did feel something else. Guilt. I felt really guilty. All this time I had been going after my friend's girlfriend. This felt wrong to me, so I told myself that I would try and get over the feelings I had for her. How hard could it be anyway? It's not like I had been in love with her for years or anything. Boy, was I wrong about that. Getting over Rashaell is much easier said than done. . .

Pizza, Bros, and Burned Hair

Now, to explain what happens in the next few posts, I must introduce a new character in this narrative. Landon is probably the closest thing I have ever had to a bro. We were both home-schooled as kids and were the only two guys around the same age in our home-school group, so we became friends fairly quickly despite the fact we were very different. For instance: he loves Country music while I want to shoot every Country star in the face so that we can be rid of the curse. He loves fishing and a bunch of other outdoorsy stuff while I laugh at people like that from my comfortable couch. But we became friends all the same. Possibly it was our mutual love of the guitar and writing music? Who knows. At any rate we were pretty good bros.

     We had a lot of good times as kids, like one time when we were coming back from a home-school field trip (yes home-schoolers have those) when our parents decided to stop for pizza. I was sitting across the booth from Landon and I decided I was going to pull a little practical joke. Every time he looked away, I scooted the table a little bit closer to his side of the booth. Luckily the waitress kept walking by, so he looked away from the table quite often. In the span of about five minutes the table was so close to him that I thought he had to notice, but he hadn't. I knew if I moved it again he'd notice because the table would touch him, so I decided to make the last push count. I grabbed the table with both hands and waited for him to look away. The first chance I got, I sent the table swiftly into his gut. As I heard the "Ooof!" from the other end of the table, I started laughing really hard. I began to stand up and that's when the really funny part of this story happens. What I didn't realize was that every time I scooted the table, I scooted too. I had moved forward just as much as the table had. Another thing I didn't realize was that I was now sitting directly under the low hanging light. As I stood up my head went crashing into the light. There was a loud shattering sound and soon the pizza place was filled with the smell of burned hair. Now it was his turn to laugh hysterically. Keep this story in the back of your mind, because I will reference it a few more times in the coming weeks.

     Fast forward to the year 2011. Landon and I are goofing off at the December home-school field trip. His mom walks up and says, "Hey, Landon. Don't forget to call your girlfriend when we get home."

     "Ooooooooo," I said, "You have a gurlfreend." I then punched him in the shoulder.

     "Oh, shut up." He said.

     "Seriously, what her name? More importantly, is she hot?"

     "You wouldn't know her." He said.

     "Okay, good. So you can tell me?"

     "No!" He said laughing.

     "Okay, okay." I surrendered, "But know this, I will find out who she is, and I will mock you for it."

     And find out who she was, I did. And the answer. . . the answer I didn't like.

Rashaell, Rashaell (The Living Seinfeld Reference)

If there is a TV comedy that I like more than How I Met Your Mother, it's got to be Seinfeld. I watched the 9 seasons so many times growing up that almost anything will remind me of a Seinfeld joke. I go to the dentist and all I can think about is Tim Whatly converting to Judaism simply for the jokes. Then I think to myself, "Man, I'm such an atidentite." I park in a parking garage and all I can think of is the time where Jerry, George, Elane, and Kramer get lost in a parking garage for a whole episode. I can't even look at a bowl of Cheerios without laughing. So you can imagine how hard I laughed when I met Rashaell.

     For those of you who live under a rock or just suck at living, I'll explain this to you. The name "Rashaell" is very similar and pronounced the same as "Rochelle" which reminds me of the fictional movie in Seinfeld called Rochelle, Rochelle - a young girl's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk. This isn't the only Seinfeld-like thing about her, nay she is living Seinfeld reference.

     Upon learning her name, I asked if her last name was Vandelay (this is in reference to George Costanza's alias, Art Vandelay.) She said it wasn't, but what she said a few minutes later almost made me pee my pants laughing. She said she wanted to be an architect. Because Seinfeld is now such an old show, I will continue to explain. The "architect" reference is yet another George Costanza thing. One of the on-running jokes on the show was that George always "wanted to pretend to be an architect." It is talked about on many occasions during the show going back as far as season 1.

     As if this wasn't enough, her dad looks like George Costanza. Now when I say he looks like him, I don't mean he could be Jason Alexander's twin, I mean that he fits the general description of George. He's short (at least compared to me,) he's stocky, he wears glasses, and he's bald.

     The best part of this is that Rashaell has no idea her life is a living Seinfeld reference. She's never even seen the show (which makes me very sad.) Secretly I hope she marries a guy who's last name is Vandelay to complete the joke. Hmmm, maybe I should change my last name to Vandelay. . .