My Big Gay Post

Ever since middle school, when I fully began to grasp the concept of homosexuality, I have prided myself on my excellent gaydar. Not that I haven't ever been wrong, like the first night I met my friend Nature Boy, I totally thought he was gay, but in my defense he is very good looking, almost pretty you might say, into art and at the time had longish hair that was being held back away from his face by a headband. Oh, and I was drunk.

Over the years some of my good friends have been gay so I guess that this makes me feel entitled, however mistakenly, as if I have some kind of connection to gayness that has made it OK for me to immediately peg a man who works several cubes down from me as being gay. He's not overtly gay and no one that I work with in such a conservative workplace in such a conservative city is openly gay. This guy is very manly and if he were straight and I wasn't married I would be all over him.

Anyhoo... I was delighted to find this gay man at my place of work because I feel, even though I am not gay, that gay people are my people. I get it. I'm on their side. I feel their pain. I've danced in their bars. I've voted for their civil rights. I've seen Queer as Folk.

I'm sure that gay people have no idea that I feel this way about their gayness, but since we work together (and he is so cute) I want this gay man at work to know that I am totally gay friendly, so I began to send off little cute signals to this man so that he would know that I knew that he was gay and that it is totally OK with me.

I'm not sure why it is important for me to get this message across. Pehaps because I'm in the awkward position of being passionate about gay rights without actually being gay.

This man is not someone that I have a lot of interaction with, so the cute little signals I give off are limited to things like smiling really big whenever I see him in the hallway or lunchroom and giving him the occasional eyebrow raise or knowing wink whenever there is a cute guy around. As if to say, "Yeah, baby I'd totally tap that and I know you would too!" I also call him by his longer full name rather than the shorter more masculine name that everyone else at work calls him, like David instead of Dave. And when I see him and say his name I say it all high pitched, sing songy and girly - like "Hiii Day-Vid".

In short, I treat him just like one of my gay friends. He eats it up and gives it right back to me.

Well I'm a big giant idiot because I just found out this guy is into chicks and now he probably thinks I like him and am some kind of chubby cougar.

He's not gay and I'm an idiot.

I'm a big flirtatious, over the top, winking idiot. I found this out because he stopped by my cube yesterday to ask me how old one of my female co-workers is and whether or not she was attached because he thinks that she is really cute and might want to ask her out.

It took me a minute to get over my shock, but then my gaydar started to pulse even harder as he crossed his legs at the knee, leaned in closer to me and then proceeded to dish the juiciest workplace gossip I have ever heard, and let's face it the man has a certain je ne sais quoi and he smokes Newport Lights.

I'm so confused.