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Free Therapy + Bigots
Pretend you’re looking at me. Do I have a flashing neon sign on my forehead that says I’m a therapist? It’s true that I do care about people’s problems - especially people I care about - but when people I barely know have an hour+ session with me (something I pay greatly for), I feel like it’s unfair. When I try to relate, “oh, I know what you mean because…” I’m interrupted so they can continue their rant about whatever their problems are.
Maybe people are just unhappy. I don’t mind listening, and if I WERE a therapist, I would be more helpful. But I’m not. And I know them. When they go on and on as if they’re purging every thought they’ve held inside for 20 years, and then I see them do something completely opposite of what they said, I’m no longer their psuedo-therapist, I’m their acquaintance who lost some respect for them.
Perhaps it has something to do with the amount of tact I have. A simple elegance that offends no one. Clint, myself, and a friend were talking the other day. He was saying how unsafe he felt in apartments he lived in when he was in New Orleans because there was a GAY bar across the street. He emphasized gay. He’s lacks sophistication. Knowing that my friend has a gay son, and seeing the look on her face, I tried to even it out by saying, “so drunk people would try to get in your apartment?” Drunk PEOPLE, not drunk GAY people. He said yes. I said it’s like that downtown at an apartment complex that sits across from a bar.
I, of course, mentioned it to him later. He said he didn’t mean it like that. He used the old “I have a gay sister” rhetoric which is akin to “I’m not racist because I have black friends”, and I said it doesn’t matter. There was no reason to mention gay, and certainly no reason to emphasize it. It made him sound like a bigot. He didn’t get it. He saw nothing wrong with it. I did. I saw something wrong with it in her face when he said it.
I can’t stand to be around people who lack sophistication. Not people who reflect on my character as well as their own. He’s a blemish on my humanity.
