February 28, 2009

Separated at birth?

Philly’s legendary Wibbage “Good Guy” Hy Lit and a local “Bear looking for love.”

I first posted this five months ago, in the beginning of September. A friend had pointed out to me that this guy looks a lot like a young Hy Lit and I made graphic to empicturalize it. I didn’t mean to insult or offend him. In fact, it was a compliment. Hy Lit was a really handsome man in and for his time, and well-loved.

About a week later I got a nearly unintelligible email from an unidentified person asking me to remove his picture from the top of my web site. The message went on and on about gay.com’s Terms of Service. Since I didn’t get his picture from gay.com, the picture at the top of my web site is a picture of me, and the Hy posting had moved down a few places by then because that’s how blogs work, it took me some time to figure out that it was actually Hy Jr. who was pissed off. I responded via email that I wasn't criticizing him and that no offense was meant. He wasn’t really satisfied with that so I removed the posting entirely. It’s the only posting I’ve ever taken down from The High Strung Loner.

Four months later, on New Years Eve night at the Bike Stop, I happened to be occupying the urinal next to Hy II. He looked at me and said, “You are a small, ridiculous idiot” and with a dramatic flourish he left the bathroom. I laughed out loud and I have proudly been using that phrase as my bio-line on gay.com chat ever since.

Early this morning in chat, five months after I posted that picture, he started again. Three of us tried in vain to convince him of two things: 1. That the original posting, though ambiguous, was a compliment and 2. That once you post your picture publicly to the internet it’s pretty much fair game. We (well, the other two guys, at least) tried to keep it in good humor but it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t going to work.

Getting furious, I said he should be glad I don’t enumerate his repeated racist remarks in the chat room and really embarrassing displays of public drunkenness at the Bike Stop which I haven’t because, until this morning, unbelievably, I still liked him. Then it happened:

delcoguy_: hiv must be a sad lonely existance
Me: i knew that was coming. what a dick
Woof60: you can go there, but it will have no effect.
delcoguy_: and i understand it goes to the brain but really
Me: you think this is making you look better? it's amazing how low gay men will stoop to to be bitchy and that is the lowest. why don’t you go pick on people with cancer?
Woof60: or make fun of a maimed soldier

Anyway, now I don’t give a shit what he thinks and I’m sorry I removed it in the first place. Using HIV as an insult in an argument is nothing less than a sign of self-hatred and homophobia. Coming from a gay man it’s simply grotesque.

I’m listening to “Twist & Crawl” from What Is Beat? by The English Beat.

Posted by HighStrungLoner in Chat at 7:50 PM
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