Lonely – separate from others like oneself, without anyone close
Ozhegov’s dictionary of the Russian language
The given research is not of a scientific nature and does not claim to be so. More of that, having a deeply subjective character and expressing not an objective and unbiased truth, but the author’s personal, deeply biased views, the study is rather to be regarded as a fiction work.
The author also asks the reader to keep in mind that – as it is practically impossible to experience every disease vividly described by the Big Medical Encyclopedia – some of you might not find all of the symptoms featured below in yourself, on which I heartily congratulate you.
What follows is the list of the basic aspects of gays’ loneliness, accompanied by the author’s brief comments.
Loneliness of a future gay originates in his childhood years. Leaving aside the theories dealing with finding the reasons of homosexuality in early psychological traumas (a dominating and suppressing mother, inadequate attention from a father’s side, etc) which also make a future gay feel quite lonely during his early childhood, we shall concentrate on the following aspects:
One of the most basic demands of a child (aged 4 to 6) is the demand for absolute love and absolute protection from parents’ side. In the first years a kid’s life completely depends on his parents. There is no happiness outside of parental love, but survival itself is quite problematic. And so a boy, who first lived up to his parents’ hopes in teeth growth and weight gaining, and who followed all their instructions, starts displaying his personal aspirations – namely, a desire to pursue such unmanly occupations as playing with dolls, etc., and as a whole starts to behave contrary to his parents’ ideas concerning the heir of a valiant family 800 years old. Mild attempts, usually from a mother’s side, to hand a sward to our 3 or 4-year-old knight of the rueful countenance or to train him to sleep in a saddle, lead him to sad conclusions that the world must be imperfect, since the parents, who had been all too willing to satisfy all his needs in the past, suddenly try to prevent him from behaving the way he views as natural for himself. This gives rise to a quite severe conflict in a boy’s soul: noncompliance with parents’ demands is fraught – in a child’s mind – with denying him love, while the direct pressure makes a child feel defenseless before their suppressing will. Ways of dealing with this conflict are either outer obedience to parents’ will – which makes their relations cold and based on mistrust and resent - or open resistance to them, which also leads to the feeling of non-acceptance, pain, fear, and as a result in both cases, loneliness from the very childhood.
At the age of 8-15 the «trench war» with parents for the right to be mild and to play with girls is topped with the need of finding one’s place in the society. Boys bunch into packs. In a pack it is important to be – in certain basic parameters – like the rest, which gives the feeling of being accepted by the pack and the wonderful feeling «we are together, I am not alone». Here the pains of a teenage gay are rooted. First, he has been harassed by his peers for his mildness and friendship with girls. Second, keenly keeping up the conversations of salivating pack-mates about women, pawing and sex as a whole, he is not sincere in the least, for at best he does not experience any attraction to the female gender, and at worst, he is secretly in love with one of his comrades. Third, bawdy jokes about fags, a fear to be reckoned among them and the understanding that – what a dread! – he may be this very fag, despised by all normal people. These problems and, as a consequence, the struggle with one’s deepest desires to be a gay, build on the foundation of loneliness, laid in the childhood by loving parents, a prison-like building, through the thick walls and bars of which he communicates with the world. This detached position of the strange and despised one has an effect on his further choices and deeds, relations with the society and beloved ones.
Let’s leave without comments a gay’s desire – implanted by social conditioning – to marry and to be like everybody else, which often appears and sometimes gets realized early in his life; a fear of inability to get a support from a wife and children in his old age; a fear that his friends, acquaintances and co-workers will find out the truth and turn away from him; a fear of getting into contact with other gays as a fear of blackmailers and thieves; lack of understanding from the side of parents and relatives, as well as their awkward attempts to render a gay «normal», that is to encourage him to marry and have children; impossibility to come out and be natural and at the same time to be accepted in a het company of friends, etc. These fears erect a decorative fortification wall 10 meters high around the edifice of loneliness, the wall bearing the signs like «I can do without anyone», «do not bug me with your love», «the best society for me is myself».
Gay families, that are created so rarely, as a rule do not last long either. Often gays are the people far from simple, with their own quirks, a lot of complexes and psychological traumas, brusque and touchy, which makes extended cohabitation problematic. State and society despises a gay family rather than are supportive of them. Any, even the least, disappointment can lead to the reflections like «this is not my fairy-tale prince, I should seek another one», «oh, youth! Moving a penis hither and thither…», and so on in an alphabetic order. And as a whole, the lack of official registration, of children and of a big amount of commonly acquired property - not separated by court during a divorce trial - allows to break up quite easily. A family in this case is rather a theoretically desired value than consciously realized in practice. Meanwhile man is an animal of pair rather than one meant to be single or live in a harem. He feels lonely without a family.
General economic situation in the state rarely allows a gay, who has come of age, to make enough money to live separately from his parents until he is through with his studies and starts to earn decently. Those gays, who come to towns from countryside to attend colleges, often live in hostels, where they cannot bring a friend overnight, like to their parents’ home. This situation, which often lasts for years, forms a stable stereotype of relationships: the major thing that a gay having no dwelling of his own seeks, is the satisfaction of the hot sexual desire. To get laid as much and as quickly as possible – to get rid of the tension for a while. There is even no mentioning of spiritual closeness or a sense of family unity, as the first point on the list of priorities includes not the search of a spiritually close person (a wife in the case of heterosexuals), but of a sexual partner. Sex becomes the first and often the only purpose and result of an encounter. A gay man futilely - if actively and diligently - tries to use it as a substitute for a deep, spiritual contact with a partner. Often this contact may not arise at all, since a partner is either a result of a chance meeting or picked in line with the principle of sexual communion level (whether he turns on or does not). With such an approach - regardless of the desire - a very stable stereotype of partner seeking, behavior and communication etc. "for a night" gets formed. The inability to distinguish, to find and to live with a dear person - can anything else make one more lonely?
Misunderstanding or overt pressure from the side of the society and family make gays to bunch into communities created in accord with sexual orientation. Sex becomes the only shared interest in such a community. The essence of the situation is as follows: historically the overwhelming majority of communities - irrespective of whether they were accepted by the society or not - were created on the basis of common spiritual, ideological and financial interests. The major thing was that, having gathered together, members of these communities were discussing issues important and close to their souls, like God or Mammon, that is they were pursuing the aim of achieving spiritual intimacy. It was this sense of belonging to an organization that gave them a protection from loneliness which Ozhegov describes as "being separate from others like oneself". Can shared sexual interests alone be a sufficient condition for regarding gays as members of the assembly of people quite "close" to each other? To answer this question it is probably sufficient to analyze the structure of smaller groups into which gays get divided for communication purposes. These groups are not so often started with the aim of detailed discussion of forms and methods of appeasing sexual desires.
The tragic aspect of the situation is that for a gay, who is forced to constantly conceal his real nature, the ideal circle of socializing is that where there is no need to hide his inclinations - that is his communion is limited by gays alone. Het folks usually are not regarded as welcome guests. The result is evident. Suppose, the author has a thing for differential an integral calculus. Is there any chance that he will find enough gays among people who cannot live without derivatives - so that socializing with them gave the author a sense of full gratification of his interests? Theoretically, from the standpoint of the theory of integral calculus, if we take the integral from zero to infinity, the answer is yes. But practically, the author, having rejected the communication with professors X, Y and Z - on the ground of differing sexual orientation (X is a zoophile and Z is an eternal virgin), will be just entertaining the illusion of happiness. Of happiness which is rarely achieved if the one seeking it is lonely.
The moral of this story is that you cannot avoid profound loneliness if your circle of communion is limited by gays alone. Sure one can deceive oneself for a long time in this matter - as a Gypsy cheated his horse, whom he tried to train to do without meals: "three more days, and she would be schooled, but, unfortunately, she has died".
On the other hand, how can you blame gays for the desire to socialize in a safe environment? And the problem of how essentially rich is this socialization is to be solved by everyone in keeping with desires, beliefs and conditions of the medium. There is no and cannot be a definite answer. A gay couple, for instance, is forced to rub shoulders in the specific environment due also to the fact that often it is quite difficult to explain to non-gays around you why you walk around and live together. It is easier to visit and drink tea with those, who does not demand explanations.
It is hard to avoid feeling lonely if a gay man whom you want to get to know so much, thinks that an acquaintance without sex is bullshit, and that such a fat (variants: skinny, red-haired, old) friend will not suit him, ha-ha. Why does it feel lonely? Because the next time our fat hero will decide against reopening old sores and trying to get in contact with a man whom he fancies so much. Then he will cease being a gay man, he will get married and, having forgotten about loneliness, will be happy till the end of his life, won't he?
As our dear reader might remember, the young hero - before his sexual ripening was completed - built his own castle If for himself. And for the rest of his life our hero - advancing in years - tries to convince himself that he feels fine in this prison and that walks around the prison yard under searchlight substitute for the morning rambles about a forest, which he failed - maybe, fortunately - to visit. And he will also feel a huge desire to run away from this castle and to have a walk about this forest. The matter is that every one of us carries in himself a child, who is awfully fearful of being wounded, as he has had his full share of pain and misunderstanding in life. This castle, this prison is our safeguard protecting us from those around us who can (and are willing to) inflict pain on us at any moment. And we erect fortifications, putting on all kinds of masks: a mask of a very strong man, a mask of a sexual giant, a mask: "I am OK without you, I do not want you", etc. We alternate these masks, shuffle them and never allow anyone to see our real self, to understand that we are, say, in love.
It is easier for us to say "I want" than "I love", for this scum, having realized that he is loved, will start twist us round his little finger. And this scum is also aching to say "I love you", but etiquette and caution do not let him do that, and so the scum says in a low voice: "let's have a shag", though he dies for closeness, longs to snuggle up to you, probably, to weep a little.
Every closed door of the castle harbors loneliness, loneliness, loneliness. It is hard to live on, and it is hard to depart. Gays wear a mask all their life and wonder why their face does not get tanned. One cannot cease to be lonely without opening oneself up for the people around, if just for gays, what hell is the difference. Yes, this can result in hurt, in pain, but having reached genuine closeness, you'll experience an orgasm of such intensity that an atomic explosion will seem like a pin prick.
Lack of self-confidence makes you doubt that your partner - with whom you don't feel lonely - can be satisfied with you and your relationship. A fear of losing him arises, and it sublimates in the appearance of the feeling of jealousy. This issue is too big to be covered within the framework of this survey. It is just important to note that a person who is jealous, separates himself from the object of his jealousy and hence is always lonely.
This is also an interesting topic for a separate discussing. Now important for us is the aspect of the fear of closeness, based on the fear of getting infected with AIDS. Some people develop absurd phobias, practicing even oral sex in condom and kissing through a sterile gauze bandage.
However it should be noted that all the aspects listed above are true for everyone only in a relative sense. Gay community is mixed. It would be sufficient to single out just two levels (in a gross and primitive way to make the matter clear):
"An ordinary gay" (Gay Vulgaris). Socialization is on the level of discussing thrillers, glad rags and gossip. Outward closeness with the partner is quite easily achieved provided the couple's habits are the same (like where to put dirty socks, what TV programs to watch, to smoke in bed or not, etc). The problem of loneliness in its obvious from on the level of awareness is not present. One has a partner for sex, a circle of friends to hang out, watch video or prattle with. The sense of loneliness is very fleeting, it arises usually in absence of the possibility to engage the restless mind in something habitual - and smothered by reading the press or watching a thriller. This sense of loneliness is based most of all on the unharmonious relations with friends and, essentially, with a current partner. He always lacks something to feel completely happy. Hence the feeling of finiteness of these relations or just an obscure sensation that something is wrong. In any case a decision to lead a secluded life and keep alert is made. That is genuine closeness is not born, and a gay man always feels a touch lonely.
For this type the problem of loneliness rarely gets acute - of loneliness connected with the impossibility of adequate expression of oneself in the society (that is to declare oneself to the people around frankly and openly, and to discuss important and necessary things rather than the reasons why one has a desire to make love with men). One can pass it up, or resort to mimicry and put on a front of a hetero man, or shock others with lipstick, thus upping the sense of one's own significance.
"A gay with pretensions". A pretension concerns an attempt to uphold the right to be oneself - in the crowd, with the family and in solitude. Such a one is aware of being lonely.
Understandably, each of these types is subjected to a few of the listed aspects of loneliness.
The author is willing to make an assumption that a gay not just has loads of biographic, social, historic and psychological reasons for being lonely. A gay actively struggles for the right to howl at the moon - being in his right mind - and does not let anyone deprive him of this pleasure (which is possible only in an unconscious state, and for a short while).
First off, to be alone is freedom. That freedom, for which our hero has fought till the age of 18-30 so fervently. Freedom to have sex with anyone, freedom to never submit to anyone, freedom to be as I am, not to change myself with the aim of gratifying an incomprehensible feeling, probably that of love: the feeling will wear off, and I will remain, like a fool with my neck washed, alone plus weird and changed…
Second, it is terrifying to let someone else into myself! Only under escort and only to make him, scumbag, know how cool I am and how endlessly lucky he is that I have stooped to him. It feels scary to let anyone into myself for fear of being misunderstood; for fear that he should ditch me, having seen all the heaps of pain, scare, dirt in me; for fear of becoming dependable on him when he comes to realize that I love him and cannot live without him…
Third, are there any other ways of pleasing the inferiority complex that has formed in my soul? For nature makes us, gays by the piece, while making heteros in bunches, like Taiwan watches.
In reality we, gays, since childhood years have been growing with a feeling that we are different, that we are shamefully worse than others. Society has been hammering into our brains the idea that we are freaks, perverts, that we are criminals, that God punishes us with AIDS. And now there is a desire to spit into their faces: I am not scared, I am gay, I am better than you - just look how nice I am in my wig and how indifferent I am to all of you, a gray insipid mass. Is it not this desire of revenge that determines scenic images of such singers as Moiseev, Penkin, Gnatenko? For it feels scary to appear among people without a shocking mask meant to demonstrate power and independence. It is just terrifying to exist without the inner mask of superiority.
That is why a gay man guards his solitude as a guarantee of being different from others: I am not like you; even putting on a mask making me similar to you, I am better than you, wearing laces and feathers. To become like you, to start communicating with you like with equals , sharing myself and accepting you - all this means to lose the halo of martyrdom and exclusiveness.
Fourth, an average gay will not exchange his current variant of loneliness (incognito) for the loneliness of an out and despised gay (challenge). The former is somehow more habitual and safer.
Another important aspect of the loneliness problem is that the state and feeling of loneliness is the only creative state and feeling of a person. Leaving out very specific aspects of creativity in the conventional sense of this word (creativity of a poet, an artist…) which calls for solitude, we shall just mention only the creativity of bringing into being certain relations: I am alone, I am pondering on why this feeling comes, I create new relations and change myself in such a way that I am not lonely in my new relationships.
That is the problem of loneliness, as of something that demands solution or correction, does not exist: loneliness is just one of the consequences of being in a constant inner conflict with the people around and oneself. Let me explain: from the early childhood a gay person find himself in a deep inner confrontation with social ideas, which first are expressed in parents' demands, then in views professed by a teen pack, later - in views of such elements of the society as a circle of hetero fellow students, co-workers and friends. Even relations within the gay community (from the circle of gay pals to the relationship with a partner) are far from ideal, as was shown above, and usually they do not give a gay the feeling of harmonious (that is free of conflicts) existence within it.
The problem of loneliness does not exist also due to the fact that solitude is a habitual environment for a gay. This is his protection from the hostile medium and his own fears.
On the basis of the above said one can conclude that gays will be able to get rid of purely gay aspects of loneliness and to remain lonely like all other (normal) people only when the society's attitude toward same-sex love becomes more tolerant.
A reader must be familiar with the three stages of coming-out:
And if a fairy big percentage of gays are currently on the second level (virtually no one is on the third), the gay community as a whole is on the first stage. We have grouped and, as a community, have recognized our own existence. Nothing more than that so far. Yet we only partially accept ourselves as one of the communities existing in the society. Because of this we hide and have just started to declare our existence aloud. The moment of the complete and final affirmation of ourselves as a group of equal members of the society will practically signify the end of the gay community.
As soon as the society as a whole does not care with whom its members make love - girls or boys - we will dissolve in it and will exist in its midst naturally and openly, and meetings of our groups of like-minded people will not be different from meetings of stamp collectors or dog lovers.
That is loneliness (let's call it the Great Loneliness of gays) is nothing more than a consequence of the children's disease of intolerance of the modern society toward those who are different. You may wait when the society will be successfully cured, or you may perform your personal coming-out - pass to the third level - and get rid of the Great Loneliness of gays on your own. You may wait for a bridge to be built, or you may swim across the river. It is dangerous, wet and cold. It is worth doing only when you can no longer stand living on your habitual bank. This is the third face of loneliness.
It is a gay's scourge, he suffers from it. It is a gay's shield, he finds his salvation behind it. And it is also the incentive to further growth, to becoming adult, to being oneself. You can wait for the bridge to be built, or each one can perform his personal growing-up and then the coming-out of the gay community will happen not as a result of the society's maturity, but because most gays will already be on the other bank. Does it sound tempting? To each his own.
And this is the end of the story.
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