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A Gay Homophobe

As I was about to board the bus that would take me to Tesco yesterday afternoon, I spotted a rather attractive guy, already on the bus seated in the first few seats at the front. I looked at him a couple of times and it seemed to me he was looking back.

I got on the bus and went to stand in the open space opposite the exit doors and waited for my stop. Before this one arrived however, the bus got the guy's stop. As he stood up we exchange another glance. It felt like a typical "cruising" situation. I had very little doubt that the guy was gay - I know that my gaydar is not great but it's not that bad.

The guy however started mumbling under his breath, looking at me square in the face and with a pained expression. He was speaking in West Indian patois and I didn't get what he meant other, perhaps, than the word "bumboy". Whatever his exact words, the purport of his speech was quite clear: he wasn't happy.

I just stared at him with on interrogative look on my face; the pithy repartees needed in such circumstances would (as usual) only come to me about 20 min later.

There is a widely spread theory that the most virulent homophobes are actually self-hating homosexuals and I have to say that this episode didn't do anything to change my mind on this.

For me and my gaydar, this guy was clearly gay, whether he is aware of this or not is another question, though I would tend to say that he is. Why else would he have noticed that I was looking at him? I look at guys a lot on the street and in public transport and in almost all cases they never notice me looking at them. And I wasn't even particularly insistent in this case.

His reaction was, of course, unexpected but it is also interesting that he didn't actually shout what he had to say or that he did it in a foreign language that most people on the bus would not understand. I think there may be hope for him. I hope there is.


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