There's no one to tell, no one who understands, who really can understand. I don't even understand it myself. Is it a need to please? I know I have that. That has been ingrained in me from childhood. That's why I make people laugh. I do find things funny. A friend who was pregnant told me she wanted to call me when she went into labor because I would make her laugh.I hardly ever disappoint. It's what is expected of me, I suppose. All it takes is a titter, sometimes even just a smile. I don't need to be the center of attention. I like being around people who make me laugh. That makes it all the more easy. In that way I guess I'm like most everybody else. I like people who make me laugh. Laughter feels good.
I tend to move away from getting laughs by being hateful. Not that I've never been "hateful" for a laugh, and not that I never am, but I prefer not to go there. That doesn't feel so good in the long run. Maybe that comes from the fact that people have been very hateful to me. Or maybe it's because I'm more evolved. That's a pretty funny thing to say! But it is true that people were hateful to me, particularly when I was younger, in public school, starting in the eighth grade. I was a class clown from an early age.
My grandmother told me I was funny. Most of the people in my family have a great sense of humor. And since I was given the name Jay Byrd from an early age, it seems pretty likely that I was expected to make people laugh from an early age. I don't know if these people are all so funny because of the pain we were all forced to endure, the strict religious upbringing. Perhaps it came as the other side of that coin. Most of the people I went to church with were very funny. That could be it.
But then it kind of backfired on me, that clever, funny name. Kids at school started calling me Gay Byrd. It's pretty clever, really. But it seems in my memory that most of the people that used that nickname on me were trying to knock me down. Popular kids, jocks, whatever. I don't know if the jocks came up with that nickname for me, but it was pretty clever. I know that now. But it didn't feel so much like a joke that I could laugh along with back then. It really felt like they were laughing at me. And so they were. I couldn't rise to the occasion. I think my reaction to them was part of the reason it became hateful.
Still I was funny. I don't remember close relationships, friendships in the eighth grade and onward, but I'm sure I had them. And I know I was funny for those people. I knew a few boys that I messed around with in the eighth grade and beyond, but they weren't really people that I was funny with to gain their friendship. Or maybe I was. It's a blur.
I had girlfriends. All throughout high school. And the fact that I didn't try too hard to get into their pants wasn't such a big worry since we were in high school (though I'm sure I did go a certain amount of the way through the bases).
But now I struggle with what I am, with the dilemma of being funny and being honest. People assume I'm straight. I mostly hang out with straight people. It's no fault of theirs that they assume this about me. I don't "correct" them. I don't really want to define myself. I don't want to be "the gay one." And yet I feel confused about my identity, about my love life, my crushes on people (men and women) that can really go only a very short distance without my saying something. Being honest. And then it changes---
