I'm as Straight as a Paperclip

Within 5 minutes of meeting me, most people develop this unshakeable belief, that I am, in fact, incredibly fucking gay. Here’s the proof. One time, I was taking a class with this girl and her girlfriends. I talked a total of 5 minutes to her friends, and never spoke to them again. A couple weeks later, they saw me pop up on their Hinge and said, “Oh, he’s bi?” It wasn’t even a question in their mind whether I was gay or not.

This other time, I took a trip to Thailand with a group of friends (not a metaphor, a real trip), and this girl somehow convinced herself that I was genderfluid just from taking a look at my face. I tried to tell her that just because I wanted to try being a girl for a day, or just because I thought I would pull harder as a girl than a guy, it didn’t mean that I was genderfluid, or confused, but she wouldn’t listen. Now she keeps asking me when I’m making my “big announcement.” No, I’m not making a “big announcement,” and I’m definitely not showing you the selfie I took with my boyfriend last weekend.

Even my mom doubted that I was straight in high school.

“Are you…”

“No mom, I’m not gay.”

“Okay…”

“...”

“It’s fine, you can tell me.”

“Tell you what? I’m not gay.”

Her doubts were only quelled when I showed her many years down the line that I had a real, live girlfriend. Another win for the rental girlfriend industry. I might’ve convinced her sooner if I played my dating simulators in the living room, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a private matter. I’m not disappointing the person who raised me by showing them I grew up to be the kind of human that would volunteer as a test subject for black market drugs by a goth back-alley doctor named Tae Takemi because I thought she was hot. The way she calls me “my little guinea pig” after making me drink some green goo? Hoo boy. That shit gets me feeling something.

I can’t take it anymore. The fact that I have a prepubescent, effeminate voice, am a 5 '6 manlet, and self-project on female protagonists when I watch rom-coms does NOT mean that I’m a power bottom, and I need everyone to know this. At this point, I’d do ANYTHING to get people to stop thinking I’m gay. I’d come out of the closet if I could make that happen. I’d even go to Thailand again, find a back-alley surgeon, hand him a fat stack of Benjamins, and tell him to “get creative.” Or a lightning rod. I’d stick a lightning rod up my ass, walk out into the middle of a thunderstorm and point my ass up at the angriest looking cloud I could find.

Something to note here. Nobody that’s actually gay has ever thought that I was gay. But the straights (my target audience when looking for a potential mate, sorry gays) do not know this. Especially the women. Usually men can smell the gay from a mile away. It smells like flowers, cooties, and a troubled relationship with your father. I, on the other hand, smell like tofu and cabbages because that’s 90% of my diet.

It’s really unfortunate that the women don’t get this. The worst part is that they don’t even believe me when I tell them I’m not gay. That’s why I’ve prepared an extensive resume for all the single ladies reading this to verifiably prove that I am not a BOYTOY TWINK or a FEMBOY. I am a MAN, and I do MAN SHIT. Brace your ovaries for a testosterone overload.

• I read shoujo (japanese manga written for teenage girls) and self-insert as the girl.

• In my college creative writing classes, I was the only XY chromosome present, and I mainly wrote female protagonists.

• My military buds licked their lips as they slapped my ass and told me that if I was a girl, they would have done unspeakable things to my body.

• I could sing higher than my ex; She fell over clutching her sides whenever I sang “Good Day” by IU.

• A friend once told me I looked like Astolfo, a notable femboy.

I don’t think any of this bodes well for my future. Some of my friends, the ones of the White Christian Midwest orientation, have been married already for 5+ years, and all the guys I know are already setting themselves up for that stage of life by getting a girlfriend or some gay shit like that. It’s possible I’ll eventually have to accept my lot in life, and join a WhatsApp group named “🫦💩🌈SRILANKA GAY BOYS 💋🫦”, and try to find someone there. But knowing my luck, I won’t be able to find a girlfriend there either. Once I hit 30, I’ll just give up, cosplay as Astolfo wherever I go with a vibrator visibly protruding from my back pocket. I can’t seem to shake these allegations anyways.

The worst part about all this is that despite the gayslighting I’m receiving on all sides, I’ve never even been hit on by a gay guy. I lived in a double with a gay friend in college, and stepped into his room after I’d just gotten out of the shower. So I could ask him how I’d do on Grindr. Not for anything else, I swear. After I asked him, he scanned my half-naked body, frowned, and said, “Uhmmmm… I think some people might like you?” Before I even had a chance to think “Damn, that’s fucked up,” he tried to show me a dick pic that “Justin Vargas” had just sent him. After that discussion, he kept trying to shove dick pics in my face whenever I was eating dinner. “Dude, do you want to see this guy’s dick?” In hindsight, given how often that happened, it’s possible that he was a Grindr ambassador, and was trying to get me to sign up with his promo code. A gay of the capitalist hustler orientation, straight from Tate University.

Look, all I’m saying is that evolution has very clearly abandoned my bloodline, because it doesn’t want me to reproduce. I was born with XY chromosomes, but also a massive testosterone deficiency and estrogen surplus. It’s just not fucking fair. My loser loser loser genes will never be able to compete with all the real men out there with real facial hair, and real testosterone pumping through their pulsating veins.

I’m done with my rant. I’m going to do the beta male thing, accept my lot in life, read more shoujo manga, and play a dating sim here and there to imagine what a loving relationship would look like. See ya nerds. Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me an Astolfo body pillow, please message me. I neeeeed that shit.

Q&A:

“Wow, so you must be able to empathize better with women with all that estrogen! Don’t women like you?”

Nope. Not at all buddy. They think I belong in a mental asylum and enjoy watching my life fall apart from a safe distance.

“Do men like you?”

Not really either.

“So, are you gay?”

Did you read any of what I wrote?