I have a confession to make: I compare you to historical figures. Well, maybe not you specifically, I may not know you, but if I did, I would. The girl in class with the low cut shirt, who is desperately trying to get guys to pay attention to what she has to say? - Marie Antoinette. The boy outside who smokes like a chimney and is far too introspective for his own good? – Albert Camus. The teacher who insists on being called “Ms.” even though she has a wedding band and framed photograph of her husband and children on her desk? – Eleanor Roosevelt. I work in stereotypes just not the ones that you are thinking of.
It should be no surprise that I do the same to the guys I date. Now, I’d like to say that I am well versed in all historical understanding, but that’s not true, I’ve tuned out the 16th century and pretty much all of China. No, what I know best, who I know best are our great leaders of the free world – The Presidents of the United States. We think of the Presidents in terms of their achievements, the laws they passed, the wars they started, the economic recessions they fielded. We define them by the larger than life events they represented – but in reality, they were men just like any other, who were probably scared shitless. I read about the Louisiana Purchase and I don’t see Thomas Jefferson, a president who wanted to expand territory for the United States, I see a Francophile who was obsessed with French culture and would use any excuse to flex his French and dress up for a good party. And that’s what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to break them down – that’s what I do to the Presidents – that’s what I do to men – and they are all the same, really.
You may not think that President James Buchanan and your date to the junior prom have anything in common but they do – they were both closeted homosexuals.
