Lack of Empathy is Sad

I’m a straight cis-gneder male. Over fifty, I’ve never been sexually attracted to another male, so odds are I never will be. But I’ve classed myself as a Rainbow Warrior since the 1980s. Here’s why.

I knew zero out gay people in high school. Back then, they remained closeted. But on my dorm floor, there were two out gay dudes (not into each other, BTW). One, who I’ll call Plato, was skinny, shy and very smart. I’d often see him in our dorm-floor’s study lounge, nose buried in university physics and calculus homework. We weren’t friends, exactly, not even ‘study buddies’ at the time, though we became friends later. But we both studied in the lounge a lot and took the same hard classes, so we commiserated.

I’d been one of the “cool kids” in high school, and was still broad, athletic and popular... though I’d transformed from a jock into a post-punker with goth-leanings by then, all biker-black leather, ratty tees, and holey jeans.

One Friday, two friends and I rolled home early. We stopped. Several people (six, I think) ringed around Plato, taunting him with homophobic and AIDS-related slurs, pushing him from person to person. They were drunk, upper-middle-class kids, all of who would pledge a fraternity the next year. My buddies and I burst in, and they backed down. One called us “fag lovers” and Plato our “butt buddy.”

I remember shaking my head, saddened at the ignorance. And pissed by the lack of empathy.

I mean, how could they not see that this poor kid was an outsider who’d been bullied his whole life? And Plato was a quiet, studious, decent human being whom I’d seen help people with math homework, myself included. He was a good neighbor who HAPPENED to be sexually attracted to other men. Which, in the grand scheme of things seemed to mean very little.

Later, they tried to sue for peace... because, like I said, I was still cool and they knew. They said they were just joking. They said they didn’t care about Plato being gay, just that he was a dweeb. One knew I was a weekly church-goer, and tried the “Christian morality” argument on me, saying the homosexuality was a sin, to which I said, “let he among you who is without since cast the first stone.”

To them all, I said “fuck you,” and cut them out of my life. I deceided I’d rather live in a world surrounded by Platos than homophobic frat-boys EVEN THOUGH the frat-boys gained important connections that forwarded their careers and thus could help me advance.