How Do I Treat My Allies?

As I was pondering two nights ago about the blog I was to write yesterday, I kept thinking over and over “God, I want to prove myself right about this! I really, REALLY want to be right!” and I stopped myself for a moment and thought, “You know, I want to be right about this, but I don’t really want to make her wrong about it.” We both had very valid points for our own lives, and drew them off of very real experiences we had had, and no part of me wanted to invalidate what she had experienced. And in that moment, I learned that what I wanted was for her to accept me as my truth and my reality, and that in no way meant that I had to “win.” And I think that is where we get things so terribly twisted nowadays.

Think about it. You want to be accepted as you, right? You want people to love the little quirks that make you up. You want to be adored my those you care about, and you want to feel validated in the choices you make, yes? Well, I know I do. And that one thought has been so key for me over the last couple of days as I’ve ruminated on it. What I wanted was to feel like she didn’t disapprove of me as a human simply because I was gay. What I wanted was to be loved and cherished even for being gay. And I thought I had to point and counterpoint her until I felt like I was right and had won the debate and then she would see that because I won, I was okay and it would now follow for her to acquiesce to my desire to be accepted as the wonderful gay man that I am. And as twisted as that sounds…I think that is exactly how everyone else out there thinks, whether or not they are conscious of it – and I put my money on the wager that they are not.

Take for instance the “talking heads,” whether they be Bill O’Reilly or Bill Maher. They are on there, presenting and pressing their points, many times discrediting their guest’s points in favor of their own. I don’t think in the end, they really want to belittle anyone. (Okay, I’m not gonna lie, I think Bill O’Reilly enjoys belittling people…) But I think they’re grander goal is to get the other person to think about and accept what they are saying as valid and true, but they’re going about it the wrong way…most likely without even realizing they are. What does that create? I’ll tell you. Lol. It creates a stalemate where I believe what I want, you believe what you want, we butt heads and live in tension out of disrespect for the other person’s point of view and by over-respecting our own. What we need to progress is feedback. We must take the other person’s/people’s points of view and coalesce them such that we make something grander out of them. That’s what true leadership is about and that’s what inspires people.

What might happen if gay people were to look at ALL straight people as allies, instead of just the ones who vote for leaders who will give the gays the freedom for which we feel so desperate? It’s like Tai Chi. You take the energy you’re being given and you use it to your advantage…you take it with you to create something bolder and something bigger and that’s how you succeed. It’s not about winning. It’s about succeeding.