Openly Straight

by Bill Konigsberg

I decided on a shower, since I smelled like my expiration date had come and gone weeks ago.

Big mood

Nothing could throw a wrench into this new plan, I thought, and then I cursed myself, because anyone who has ever watched a single Hollywood movie knows that thoughts like that lead to, well, big-ass wrenches.

“I gotta be honest. You might want to look into buying a blow-up girlfriend.”

When she saw me, she sat up, and the sheet dropped, and there were her tits, staring at me. So I screamed like a girl.

“It’s hard to be different,” Scarborough said. “And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.”

there were about a thousand things I liked better than this part, in which we talked about women like they were just things. I tried to imagine what it would be like if gay were normal and all of us were gay. Would we objectify men in the same way?

I curled my lower lip down to show her my feelings were hurt. Making the face was a joke between us; it was supposed to mean our feelings weren’t really hurt, but that they would be if we were more sensitive.

Straight people have it so much easier. They don’t understand. They can’t. There’s no such thing as openly straight.

“Guilt is about something you do. Shame is about who you are.” Guilt, she’d explained, was useful because a person could learn from it and do the right thing next time. Shame, on the other hand, was useless, she’d always said. What is to be gained from thinking you’re a bad person? I wasn’t bad.