where's ashton kutcher when you need him?

for the last two weeks, my comfortable work environment has been disrupted by an off-the-wall character frequenting the office space. i knew nothing about this guy who was a friend of my business partner mike's brother, but after a few interactions it was apparent that he was gay. that's not a problem in itself. i believe homosexuality is wrong, but i'm pretty non-judgemental. i'm not "homophobic" and gay people don't "scare" me. however, i was a little put-off that he seemed to be particularly attracted to me. you know... why me?

at the stage where he was just pleasant whenever i came in and making uncolored observations like "oh you look very nice today", i was ok. not the most favorable, but in small doses, the attention can be reframed as flattery and dismissed without incident. however, questions like "so do you have a girlfriend?" and "where do you live?" followed. about this time, i gave vague answers. i don't just tell any random stranger where i live, you know? suddenly, i'm getting regularly pelted with randomly interspersed, incendiary comments ranging from the overtly sexual "can i make love to you" to the disturbingly satanic "i am the devil", "i want to kill you", and my least favorite of all "can i have your soul?" at one point he sent me an instant message on my screen that just said "die." i was beyond incensed.

the guy's comments however offensive were always delivered in monotone timbre with a smirk like jack nicholson's in batman, and deadpan eyebrows. i couldn't tell whether he was joking or serious, and sometimes the guy did say stuff that was entertaining, but most of the things directed toward me were not funny. still, i never responded in any unkind manner, so one might have assumed i was ok with it. my business partner knows my values and he also knows that i don't normally tolerate such things, so i was a little miffed that he didn't set this guy straight about being as disrespectful as he was. yet, my humor is sarcastic and sometimes cynical, so he probably thought i was kidding when i forebode, "mike, you better come get your boy". i was completely serious. incidently it's probably because mike's asian that he didn't pick up on it. if i was around black folks they would have read the tone in my voice and properly interpreted "[i've just about had it with this mess, so] you better come get your boy [before i have to deal with him]." because cultural difference lead to legitimate ignorance, mike's not getting charged with any personal offenses in this case.

all came to a head when out of nowhere he quipped from behind me "mark, let's go make hot sweet love" while simultaneously touching my arm in an unsettlingly gentle manner. at this point i dropped my pleasant exterior and told him twice flatly "get your hands off of me now". the comments are one thing, but invading my personal space constitutes a physical threat and that's too far over the line. i wasn't sure if this guy was a stalker, serial killer, sexual derelict, satanist, or unholy combination of all of them, but i was done playing nice. if i allow myself to be pushed to a certain point, i will abandon all good-natured diplomacy and revert back to the primal problem-solving technique of whooping some ***. i could envision myself just turning around, grabbing him by the neck and jamming him up against a wall to drive home the point that it would be disadvantageous to harass or pursue me any further. when i started thinking like that, i knew it was time to go.

i've already blown up once at mike and made myself look like the quintessential hypocrite by cursing him out in front of people who only days previously saw me worshipping earnestly on stage before an audience of hundreds. i had no interest in dealing with backlash from starting a fight in a small room in someone's house with a lot of expensive and delicate equipment nearby. so i left and slipped over to a get-together with some friends from church that i had previously planned on missing. the two environments were like night and day. walking in and seeing their faces was like leaving a 70 degree swimming pool to slip into a warm steamy sauna. it felt really good not have to "watch my back" for a few hours.

"when anger really gets the best of us / we've really lost our heads / often say a lot of things, oh darlin' / wish we'd never said / ...i ain't gon' let you get the best of me, babe / i'm gon' go somewhere and cool / this is not the way my heads supposed to be, babe / got me feelin' like some silly fool / but i know a real nice place where i can go / and feel the way i'm supposed to feel." - marvin gaye, "anger"

removing myself from hostile stimuli was a good thing. came back later and was able to pull dude aside and calmly state what bothered me, what's not acceptable, and that i'm not mad, but lines need to be drawn and not crossed in order for me not to wild out on him. he was cooler about it than i'd expected. i thought reason would have been lost on him since he was one of those dolphin types who think everything in life is fun and games and don't take anything too seriously. i was quite relieved though to have confronted the issue and gotten an understanding without flipping my lid and having to make somebody hate me.

in a perfect world, i could have been able to end my blog here, but no. there's gotta be more. i was hanging out with hakim, mike, and his brother's friend. hakim was mentioning his work with children. to which the same guy who i was convinced was gay replies something to the effect of "when i have kids, i plan to..." » and i was like whoa.. "kids? but i thought you were gay!" » "dude, i was only kidding about that. i have a girlfriend! you thought i was serious?" » "mike, why didn't you tell me he wasn't gay?"

"the wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." - proverbs 28:1

somehow mike had remained cluelessly oblivious to the fact that i really believed he was gay and "after me lucky charms". so now i look like the reprehensible loon. i completely got played like a bad episode of punk'd. i tried to tell them it's no different than when i wigged out on the gaggle of underage, unattractive, portly girls from church who were more than mildly obsessed with me. that was met with raucous ridicule which found me once again in the old familiar position of being pointed and laughed at in public by my peers. i thought that once i graduated from high school this wouldn't have to happen again. so now mike has me labeled as a consumate homophobic and i just know i'll have to endure tauntings and rehashed reminders about this for a minimum of 3 weeks unless someone else does something dumb to take the attention away from me. i'll get over it though.