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This book, "The Velvet Rage" as you know has changed my life and I recommend that every gay man read it (I wrote a review of it in this post). In the book, the author Dr. Alan Downs, Ph.D. gives "10 Lessons On Being An Authentic Gay Man" (authentic as in truthful and living a life of integrity). I am taking those 10 lessons, some of which hit me very hard and am illustrating how they apply to my life in this "The Velvet Rage" category of posts.
Wish me luck.
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Velvet Rage Lesson #3:
When You Have A Problem With Someone, Speak With Him/Her About It First (Instead Of Everyone Else)
(aka Interview With The Vampire)
"The more critical you are of others, the more difficult is is for you
to reveal your true self to the world around you. When you have not
allowed others to be less than perfect, does it not only follow that
you cannot be less than perfect? And since you know that you are not
perfect, how can you possibly reveal yourself? Creating an environment
for authenticity requires that we give other people the space to be
authentic as well."
-page 172-173
This is one of those blog posts that has been sitting around for a long time. I wrote it, and rewrote it, and rewrote it but it never quite came together the way I wanted to, that is until now.
Dr. Downs says that we as gays, a lot of the times, when we argue or have a disagreement with someone, especially in the context of a relationship, we tend not to go directly to that person with how we feel. Instead we fortify our defense by telling our friends and associates how bad that person is or how they did us wrong, usually in an effort to validate our own feelings. In doing so we not only express our individual distaste for that person or their actions but we also gather others against that person. Those people out of their love for us will create for themselves an enemy out of the person solely out of our dislike of the person in question without any direct cause and possibly not even out of fact. And if you and the person ever patch things up you will also have to perform the humiliating task of justifying your patching things up with that person to everyone you badmouthed them to.
In my quest to be a better person, an authentic gay man if you will, I'm trying to be less judgmental, especially with the character of others. If I take the drastic step of not liking somebody and deeming a person unsocializeable (you won't find that one in the dictionary, it's an Adam-ism lol) I definitely want that judgment to be based on solid fact and not in inferences and hearsay.
I had a meeting with someone recently, a pretty visible member of black gay and lesbian society here in New York, who I've characterized as "The Vampire" in the title of this post. To simply say that I'd never heard too many good things about him would be an understatement. The mere mention of her name is usually followed by the sucking of teeth, the rolling of eyes, the turning up of faces, the hard nasal exhale of distaste, and the rhetorical question of "Oh, that asshole?" Rumors swirl around him like the rings of Saturn, gossip like the moons of Jupiter.
I have to admit that because a lot of the things I've heard about her were from sources close to me that I took on my associates distaste for The Vampire without ever having had a formal conversation with him, not more than a "Hi" in passing. I reveled in the vilification of this person without any evidence. In the past few weeks circumstances have played out in such a way that The Vampire and I are directly working on a project together. I would have to be in direct communication with this person that I so disliked. Given this information I almost backed out of the project, one that could look very good on my resume and get some money in my pocket. Then I thought, why exactly do I dislike The Vampire, again? I really couldn't formulate a solid answer. This question is one we all need to ask ourselves regarding the people we say we don't like. If you don't know or can't remember it's probably time to let the grudge go.
With that I thought 'Fuck it. What have I got to lose? If The Vampire is as horrible as people say they are then I just won't do the project.' So at our first meeting I literally conducted an interview with The Vampire. If I was going to work successfully with The Vampire I needed the air to be clear. I needed to be able to work freely with no unanswered questions or unresolved issues looming above us, causing tension and drama.
I entered the meeting personable, professional, friendly, but guarded, my walls were definitely up. Due to The Vampire's reputation I had no idea what to expect. As things went on though, I was pleasantly surprised, not completely sold, but surprised buy The Vampires demeanor. The Vampire wasn't half the terrible person she was made out to be. After a while our rapport was so good that I had to put my machine gun and bullets down. It's like The Vampire became a real person and not just the product of everything I've ever been told. We had a few drinks, I was sipping on cranberry vodka (my new favorite drink for the once in a blue moon I ever drink) and The Vampire sipped on, you guessed it, red wine. After we got past the the core business part of our meeting I, partially fueled by the vodka, was ballsy enough to ask:
"Vampire, you seem like a decent person, at least from what I'm seeing today. Why do so many people not like you?"
The Vampire looked at me surprised and surprisingly slightly concerned. The asshole that people described The Vampire as would surely not be the least bit concerned with being disliked by others. "Who doesn't like me?" The Vampire asked, motioning to make sure the door was closed. Oh hell no, I was not getting rope-a-doped into that shit. I'm way too smart to mention names and situations. This research was for my purposes only. I didn't explain myself any further. I figured that as much as I've heard, that she must know what I'm talking about.
They described situations in which he figured could probably explain certain people's distaste for him. Some of them were familiar to me but I chose for the sake of peace not to confirm or deny any of them. Because at the end of the day this wasn't about them, it was about me and The Vampire. I needed to hear The Vampire's side of the story so I could make an informed judgment of character.
Surprisingly, I was satisfied with the answers and I got and was able to compare and see my associates' and The Vampire's point of view on the situations aforementioned, nobody's perfect. I actually felt bad having harbored the unwarranted feelings I felt toward The Vampire. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a new convert to the Church of The Vampire and I'm not gonna walk around wearing vampire t-shirts and baseball caps and shit. I'm nobody's fool, trust, I was sippin' on vodka, not Kool-Aid that night. While I'm not blindly gonna just up and wholeheartedly trust The Vampire, at least from this day forward whatever relationship I have with The Vampire will be based on my sole interaction with and sound judgment of her without the input of others.
Once the difficult part of the evening was over we continued having regular conversation over dinner and figured out that we actually have a lot in common, which in some ways is scary. Maybe someone who doesn't even know me is sitting at home feeling the same ways about me as I did toward The Vampire. I also found out that the Vampire is even a supporter of my work here on this blog. Upon even further conversation I have found that there's actually a few things that I can learn from The Vampire. But more than that this experience has taught me about myself.
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Playing In The Background...
"I See You In A Different Light" feat. JoJo Hailey
by Chante Moore
from the album "This Moment is Mine"
and
"Free Xone"
by Janet Jackson
from the album "The Velvet Rope"
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