Is Your Humor Gay?
The wind had picked up in North Beach despite it having been an unusually hot day for San Francisco. My friends and I were gathered around a small wire table in the patio of an Indian restaurant/sports bar. Having worn out our previous conversations, we had fallen silent when these two Irish guys strolled up. The one who was packing a fresh pack of cigarettes said, "Can we join you gals, or would we be strifing you if we did?"
"I don't know if I'd call it strife," I-- commented.
My other friend and I remained silent. They stayed at our table offering us cigarettes then immediately launching into that most mundane of questions,
"What do you do with yourselves?"
None of us really wanted to answer the question. Our jobs do very little to explain the intricacies of our personalities or interestes. After I revealed something of my job to the guy who claimed he was an actor, he launched into some drunken rant about corporate media and advertising in which he said almost nothing at all.
He asked us where we all were from, then his friend belatedly introduced himself to me, turning a hand shake into a hand kiss, into the beginnings of a hand-bite.
"Nice to meet you, but just so you know, I am not a fan of licking and biting." We all just stared at the drunk Irishman who seemed to think that his bufoonery was hilarious.
The conversation quickly transitioned to the subject of humor."I wish I could make you laugh," he said, calling me by the name of a girl in x-men because of something to do with my hair. "I don't get American girls. You're so defensive."
"Well, I don't have typical American humor."
"What is typical American humor?" someone commented. It may have been a friend.
"I don't know."
"What is your humor, then?" the guy persisted. And after a brief moment's pause, he continued, "Is it gay?"
Everyone at the table was silently laughing. I gave him a sidelong glance, my face bearing some expression he would never read, and said something to the effect of "Maybe." What I really meant to say was "Yes." When he used the term, it did not quite mean 'bad' as it often is used to mean in American slang. He meant 'queer' in the old-fashioned sense of the term. But both queer and gay being synonymous, his question made sense on two levels. Only one was apparent to him.
When the mostly one-sided conversation dwindled, he turned to his friend and said, "Give me money." He needed to maintain his state of inebriation. His friend was reticent to provide the cash, so they began to wrestle, inches from us and our table. I made some half-hearted comment like, "If you are going to wrestle, can you go over there?" pointing to a more distant spot on the patio. Just then a third friend arrived with a bottle of wine and a slough of glasses.
"I have drinks."
The wrestling instantly stopped.
We left shortly afterwards.
"I don't know if I'd call it strife," I-- commented.
My other friend and I remained silent. They stayed at our table offering us cigarettes then immediately launching into that most mundane of questions,
"What do you do with yourselves?"
None of us really wanted to answer the question. Our jobs do very little to explain the intricacies of our personalities or interestes. After I revealed something of my job to the guy who claimed he was an actor, he launched into some drunken rant about corporate media and advertising in which he said almost nothing at all.
He asked us where we all were from, then his friend belatedly introduced himself to me, turning a hand shake into a hand kiss, into the beginnings of a hand-bite.
"Nice to meet you, but just so you know, I am not a fan of licking and biting." We all just stared at the drunk Irishman who seemed to think that his bufoonery was hilarious.
The conversation quickly transitioned to the subject of humor."I wish I could make you laugh," he said, calling me by the name of a girl in x-men because of something to do with my hair. "I don't get American girls. You're so defensive."
"Well, I don't have typical American humor."
"What is typical American humor?" someone commented. It may have been a friend.
"I don't know."
"What is your humor, then?" the guy persisted. And after a brief moment's pause, he continued, "Is it gay?"
Everyone at the table was silently laughing. I gave him a sidelong glance, my face bearing some expression he would never read, and said something to the effect of "Maybe." What I really meant to say was "Yes." When he used the term, it did not quite mean 'bad' as it often is used to mean in American slang. He meant 'queer' in the old-fashioned sense of the term. But both queer and gay being synonymous, his question made sense on two levels. Only one was apparent to him.
When the mostly one-sided conversation dwindled, he turned to his friend and said, "Give me money." He needed to maintain his state of inebriation. His friend was reticent to provide the cash, so they began to wrestle, inches from us and our table. I made some half-hearted comment like, "If you are going to wrestle, can you go over there?" pointing to a more distant spot on the patio. Just then a third friend arrived with a bottle of wine and a slough of glasses.
"I have drinks."
The wrestling instantly stopped.
We left shortly afterwards.
posted by sf blog at 11:40 AM
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