Baby steps forward?

Maybe there are some improvements for how I’m feeling in the gay men’s chorus. 

Once again yesterday I was a nervous wreck before rehearsal and feeling anxious and isolated during rehearsal to the point where it was a huge effort to even sing and I escaped to hide in my car during the halfway-break. 

There were some external, maybe even objective, factors worsening my sense of alienation yesterday: the lack of appropriate communication around the dance audition results; and the fact that there are three guys in my own section who are not simply passively ignoring me (as many of them generally are, probably because I’m so skittish) but actively ignoring me, e.g. they say Hi or chat with someone who is right next to me and maybe even talking to me and actually, almost pointedly, ignore me (one of these guys is the one from whom I felt an openly hostile vibe at the first two rehearsals). These instances don’t help, they actually fuel the fire of my sense of not belonging there. 

So why am I still there? Why do I keep trying, why do I keep doing this — apart from my desire to sing, which is sometimes hindered anyway by my anxiety there? 

Part of it is mere curiosity: I want to get to know the world of gay men. Part of it is a desire, or wish, to get some of my needs met there.

And there seem to be some improvements, too…  

My Big Sibling is getting more affectionate and a little more proactive in his support towards me: once again yesterday he came to find me before rehearsal started, caught my attention by touching me on the shoulder, gave me a hug (without my needing to ask), and asked how I was doing; he came to look for me during the break (but I had escaped) and then again as soon as rehearsal was over; when I told him about my upset around the lack of communication for the dance audition results, he offered to bring it up with the board on my behalf; he offered to room with me on the retreat in three weeks; he apologized for not being more proactive about reaching out to me in the past weeks (although I hadn’t said anything to him about this) and said he’ll make a point of touching base with me every Wednesday (we’ll see if that really happens!); finally, he asked if I still felt like going to the place across the street for drinks/food with (most of) the rest of the chorus and helped by introducing me to some people there (even if then the conversations fizzled). 

I was still unable to talk to anyone even at the bar except a few brief, sporadic sentences mostly with members I had met at my singing audition in August. And I did notice that many of the other newbies, instead, were totally integrated in some of the groups, easily talking and eating and drinking with other chorus members — that comparison hurt. I still have none of that ease. But maybe I will eventually get there…? I still feel the difficulties, and the differences keenly and yet I’m still going, I’m still trying… the small improvements keep the allure alive — e.g. the more proactively supportive behavior from my Big Sibling and his continued, spontaneous touchy-feely-ness with me, which I really like; the spontaneous hug that one of the other guys who had been at the dance audition gave me when we saw each other briefly last night; the few conversations or exchanges that I was able to have; and the free drink that I got from the gay bartender! 

I find it interesting that it is the older cis gay men who are being generally more proactive in trying to help me feel welcome & comfortable as well as more vocal with the other established members saying out loud things like, “We need to help the new members feel welcome. If someone is silent or sits by themself, we should reach out to them, talk to them: they might want to be by themself, and then we should respect that, but they might also just be too shy and need the encouragement to feel welcome”. Yes, I am one of those silent guys who sits by himself only because he’s too shy: it’s not that I don’t want to interact, it’s just that I need the extra encouragement from the established members to come out of my shell… 

The person with whom I spent most of my time chatting at the bar last night was the artistic director — which feels a little weird, almost like when I was a kid and the person I would feel most comfortable talking to might be a teacher. In this case, the situation isn’t that unbalanced (he & I are actually the same age) but still it isn’t the same as socializing with the other singers: he & I can’t really become friends, we couldn’t become buddies even if we wanted to. But he is the person with whom I feel most comfortable speaking and opening up, and I think he also genuinely enjoys talking to me and feels comfortable sharing some of his own vulnerabilities with me (e.g., his internalized racism because of being black, one of the very few persons of color in the chorus and in Colorado in general). Probably it’s largely due to the fact that I was very honestly vulnerable, like an open book, from the onset with him, from our very first conversations this summer when I was considering auditioning for the chorus. As a cis (gay) man, he cannot understand my gender qualms but as a black (gay) man, he can understand and empathize with my “feeling different” and my additional phobias due to my gender identity (on top of the homophobia that we probably all deal with). And I just find myself talking with him like I do with some of my closest friends — e.g. I shared with him how I feel uncomfortable around cis gay men partly because I don’t really know how they function and he laughed and replied, “Neither do I and I’ve been around them for decades!”

This natural ease I feel with him feels a little weird and a little sad because we cannot really be buddies, but it did help me: even if for only half an hour last night at the bar, I was able to loosen up and actually have a conversation and enjoy myself… before retreating back into my shell, rushing off to the bathroom, and finally leaving unseen…