Fuck Homosocial

On my third day in Port Elizabeth, a woman on our program told me she met a hot gay hairdresser at a hair salon called ‘Shocking Waves.’

“Oooh. But was he older?” I asked her.
“Not old. Just like late twenties,” she told me.
“I don’t like the older.” I said.
“Okay Steven, that’s okay. He wasn’t that old.”

I wanted to go to Shocking Waves, the center of the gay scene in Port Elizabeth. I wondered if my future husband might end up cutting my hair.

I went to the hair salon and talked to one of the guys there about gay culture in Port Elizabeth.

"Yeah, it's like totally dead here," he told me. "All we have is this one gay club called Aqua and it can be dodgy."

Dodgy. I liked the way he said that. Did you mean to say it can be "black"? Huh? Is that what you meant mister hairdresser, I wanted to ask. But I didn't..I just asked for number two on the sides and clipper on top and left it at that.

And for a while after that experience with the one gay hairdresser, I thought Aqua was it. That was all the gay Port Elizabeth had. A single solitary gay bar.

Then, stuff started happening to me.

Men started uhmmmmmmmm,....touching me.

Example: The art teacher at this one school.

"Steven, we're so glad you're here," he said to me outside the classroom on my first day at school. Then he reached in to shake my hand. I shook it, but instead of letting go he held on.

We held hands, and walked to the classroom together.

"Awww. Well I'm glad to be here, too," I responded like a giddy schoolgirl.

"I want to show you this picture in my classroom"

"Yeah, I bet you do"

I was so excited! An African man! Expressing interest in me!

Then...


....nothing.


He didn't ask me what I was doing later in the evening or invite me out for pesto pasta. He didn't ask me if I wanted to go watch Must Love Dogs on primetime or anything.

"What happened?" I asked my friend Maddie in the playing field of the school, surrounded by screaming children. "He seemed so interested in me....holding my hand and everything."
"Oh, Steven....that's just what the men do here. They hold eachother's hand....he wasn't interested in you. He was just being homosocial."

"Homosocial? What is that some sort of grand dinner party?" I asked

"No." she responded and then she explained homosociality to me.

I'm just going to skip over her explanation and give you my own interpretation:

Homosociality is the irritating but persistent straight-identified male-on-male social contact gays can't initiate in America lest it be seen as a "come-on."

I'm talking about straight men slapping eachother's asses, and twisting eachother's nipples...usually in the locker room (a place I've only read and dreamed about).

But here in Africa, homosocial behavior is not just confined to the locker room. It is everywhere. It is an epidemic.

"So he doesn't like me." I turned the thought over in my head, while dodging the basketballs.

"No," Maddie said firmly.

"Well then, he shouldn't hold my fucking hand! It's misleading!" I said.

"So tell him," Maddie said.

Of course I wasn't going to tell him. It was embaresssinggggg. I'd been confused.

"Nothankyou," I said.

Fuck Homosocial. It confuses me.