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.