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It is indeed hard to break a prejudice of any kind, even if you really want to. Nobody’s born a discriminating person, but you can easily become one. When as a child, the society’s believes are imposed to us, since the moment we’re born until the moment we die.
Most of the times, these believes go on and on as universal truth, like if facts could really be divided between good and bad without even a mid-term.
Some people are capable of breaking this blindness somehow and start to look at the facts with their own eyes, so they see that some truth can become lies according to each one’s point of view and that breaking a prejudice isn’t something impossible to do. I am the proof of it.
Sometimes the facts are right in our faces, but still, they are so hard to look at. In my case, it took me a long time to see how much I was losing by being a discriminating person.
You truly don’t realise how many people and places you stop yourself from knowing because of something this foolish, and when we become aware of it, we feel like the dumbest person on Earth.
It is almost midnight and I’m still not even a bit sleepy. As you must’ve read the earlier posts, you know my insomnia’s motive.
Most people create a blog for several reasons. I won’t be here talking about a bunch of themes that have nothing to do with my life so I can help other people if I can’t even help myself. I simply want to vent without anyone to judge me or confuse me even more.
Well, my name’s Carlos, I completed 18 years last month, I’m white and I have short, curly and black hair. I’m medium high – I wish I was taller – and differently from most boys my age, I don’t have abs. I hate going to the gym, I think it is a loss of time to go to a place to lift weights just so I can show off later like an object in a showcase. I’ve got nothing against who does it, I’d just rather enjoy my time with other activities.
So, continuing, I’m a guy who likes to enjoy the good life, but always with a lot of responsability, which, sometimes, turns me into a boring person. Many of my friends say that I have an old man’s soul even though I’m so young. Still, I try to enjoy my life the best way I
want to.
Like most young people in the country, I’ve just finished High School, entered a college and still haven’t found a job. I always listen to that “we demand experience” talk, but how I am supposed to have experience if nobody gives me the opportunity to have it? Even though, everyday I look for a chance in the newspaper. I think I go to three interviews per week, but I only hear that they’ll be in touch in case I’m chosen. However, nobody has gotten in touch.
At the same moment I’m fighting for my first job, I’m anxious to see the college’s exams results because I’m convicted that I want to major in Social Sciences. My mom was completely against my choice, she says I’m a dreamer and that dreams don’t put food on the table. She’s simply convicted me that who majors in Social Sciences has no future.
— There are so many professions that can give you much money, why did you choose this one? Don’t make you mother’s mistake, whose chosen to be a nurse. — These are Dona Luíza’s words. I love my mom, and you must’ve realised she’s a tough person, but you’ll still get to know her better, don’t misjudge her.
Back to the Social Sciences subject, honestly, I’m still not sure if I’m gonna go this path — maybe because of my mother’s influence. It’s funny that, when we’re kids, it’s so easy to answer someone about what you want to be when you grow up, but, when you actually do and it’s the time to decide, this question’s very hard to answer and even harder to make your desire happen.
Choosing what you’re gonna be for the rest of your life, dear reader, can be a very hard task — when you have the right to choose, because, when you don’t, you can end up in the job you wanted the less, which is very common.
There’s not much more to say about me. This is me, nothing spectacular.
So you can understand what I’m feeling right now, I’ll have to resort to my past. So you can understand better what’s happening, I’ll have to to tell you my history with Márcio.
He’s the kind of guy that everybody likes, always ready to help other people, and many times he forgets about himself. He’s a good guy, you know? Brunet, messy short hair, taller than I am and likes to be in shape. Many girls crawl for him.
Recently, I found out he’s gay. Not just me, but everybody in the building – partly, thanks to me. That caught me completely off guard, finding out my best friend’s gay was not easy at all.
At the moment, it was hard to believe that my friend, who had talked with me about women so many times, actually, was never what I always believed he was. And I spent most of my time with him... When I found out, I understood that, even though I lived with him for years, I dind’t truly know him. expecially the one who knew me so well, who I trusted and to whom I trusted secrets only he knew.
Now, it was like if he was a total stranger. I asked myself many times who Márcio really was and how people were going to look at me or judge me for being his friend.
I still remember perfectly the day I found out. I was an idiot, I could’ve avoided many things, I could’ve talked properly with him, listened to him... but, on the contrary, I was stupid. And after I went through all of that yesterday, my vision changed. I understood a much more important detail about people: as much as they want to, they can’t be exactly like we want them to be, they are not capable of pleasing everyone, and yes, they end up letting us down, and that doesn’t make them monsters.
You may be asking yourself now if I didn’t even thought of him being gay. I tell you: no! Márcio has always been a discreet guy, he didn’t show any gay gesture. When I thought of gay, I remembered those TV and movies stereotypes. Even knowing he’s gay, I still can’t relate him to any of those common gestures, at least not right now.
One of the questions that I kept making myself was: how didn’t I notice it? Also, there were another thousand questions, but I can tell you that, up to now, I haven’t found the answer to many of them. Maybe I don’t understand the reason why he’s like that, but I can respect him, and that’s what I want to believe in now.
We know each other since we were kids, and since then, I’ve always counted on him for everything that I did. Come on, I’m an only child of a single mom and Márcio was like a mirror to me. Among the boys from our building, he was the first one who came and talked to me.
I remember that, when I got here, I used to stay on my bedroom’s window just looking at the boys playing football, and I din’t have the courage to ask to play or to talk to them.
— What’s up? Are you gonna keep watching us or do you want to play? — those were Márcio’s first words when I met him. He encouraged me to have atitude, so I asked to enter the team and play. That’s how I met the rest of the gang.
From then on, I realized that Márcio was the coolest guy ever and I wanted him to be my friend forever. Oh, I almost forgot, and maybe you can even be surprised, but Márcio was the best football player in the gang, and also the one who understood most about the subject.
He knew by heart all of his team’s prizes and he ended up fighting many times when the subject was football. He, for sure, is a better player than many of the straight or homophobic guys out there. Oh, and he dreams to be a professional player.
Back to my line of thought, we went to the same school, and he was the popular one there. Many girls were into him, but he only hooked up with two of them - I should've seen it!
In the classroom, we always sat together and we talked a lot to each other. The teachers always had to tell us to stop.
— Boys, you'll have the whole break to talk, it even seems like you've never seen each other. — Our teachers would always say that when our conversations interrupted the class. We have been grounded many times for playing up in school together.
Our affinity was, indeed, really strong. We really liked talking about all the possible themes — football, cartoons, and many others —, but what's funny is that we've never talked openly about homosexuality, and there were many opportunities.
In our class, there was a kid that everybody made fun of because he was ladylike, but Márcio always stood up for him, and he was the only one that talked to the boy. He complained a lot to me, saying I mistreated the boy only because of the other people.
— And if it was me, Carlos, wouldn't you be my friend? — he asked me one day on the way home.
— Look, Márcio, I just don't have affinity whith him — I answered. And it was true. I just didn't talk to the boy, and made fun of him sometimes, only because he was, probably, gay, and also because of the class' influence.
—If you don't want to accept him the way he is, it's okay, but you should, at least, respect him. He doesn't hurt anybody. — Márcio said, defending the "fun boy", to our classmate Guilherme. That's Márcio, and I really want to meet him again right now. I want to admit how big my mistake was and tell him that I'm very proud of our friendship. I hope I can tell him that, to me, it doesn't matter if he's straight or gay. The important detail is how he's such a good friend, and who knows I may be able to restore the damage that I caused to our friendship, apologizing for everything that was said that day when I found it all out.
Posted by Carlos at 11:40 pm.