In 2007 I returned to the gay church The old guard of snooty church were still there and I could often feel them breathing down my neck. There would be no forgiveness and in most ways I don't think I could really think of these guys as Christian. The gay church was not a wise move either. More of the same, more stereotypes, more bitchy lascivious gay men and more angry lesbians.
I attended my first ever gay wedding. Two middle aged women were tying the knot in gay church. I was asked to provide security. Knowing the kind of ignorant and violent dumbasses there might be on the streets and sidewalks I was only glad to offer this support. I had made a complete transition towards accepting and supporting gay marriage.
Fundy church had its claws in my apartment building deeper than ever. I avoided those people. I was not so much a known homosexual as a person of interest, so to speak. The pastor's son had twice tried to force me to come out to him. I already knew I was asexual and felt that I didn't owe him an explanation so I simply told him that he should mind his own business. I was subjected to the same impertinence by an old lady there whom I was representing as an artist when we were showing some of her paintings at a café in my neighbourhood.
The owner of said café, just two and a half blocks from my building was a gay man approaching middle age (almost forty) who seemed to have quite a torch for me. Flattering, but distinctly uncomfortable for me. When the little old lady brought her paintings in and I helped her put them up she asked me about my own sexuality. I told her it was none of her business. She of course said she would assume that I was gay. I told her she could assume whatever the hell she wanted, it was still none of her business and after that I refused to talk to her again. I couldn't figure out how I could explain to such a narrow, truncated mind, what it is like to be asexual.
That was also the year I formally and eternally ended my friendship with Self-Proclaimed Apostle. He likewise could not accept the existence or reality of asexuality. Following this unfortunate visit he didn't return my emails when I asked about visiting again. In my final email I told him that I accepted his unspoken desire to end our friendship, that he was always welcome to contact me again, but in the meantime good bye.
This was a difficult transition year for me. My therapy had ended over a year ago, and despite some of the challenges I was stable and doing rather well. I was working fulltime and now had a comfortable bank balance. I now had enough money socked away to consider a trip somewhere, likely to Costa Rica again. SPA was the last of my old friends to abandon me. The difficult young man and Dopey also had ended friendship with me. They said I'd become snooty and arrogant. I think what they really meant was that they did not recognize the healed recovered person emerging in my therapy. Our friendships were toxic and damaged because we were toxic and damaged, and toxic damaged persons tend to attract one another. I was recovering, if not recovered, and they no longer wished to know me. Reluctantly, |I chose to accept their rejection as a compliment and moved on. I have since formed lasting friendships with very good, decent and stable individuals, people whom previously might never have considered me as a meaningful part of their lives.
In the fall I left gay church and began attending the local Anglican parish church, St. Happy-Happy. The pastor of gay church and I had a huge falling out. We were having dinner together and he was taking calls and talking on his phone, a discourtesy I am still slow to tolerate. When he finally got off the phone I told him I didn't like this. He responded by having his meal put in a take-out container and leaving the restaurant. Such Christian Love.
I was not exactly getting off to a great start at St. Happy-Happy. Their stewardship campaign was underway, meaning they were wanting money, and I was being nagged and hounded to give regular cash donations or better to pledge a certain amount every month that they could take from my bank account. I did mention that I had been there less than three months?
I was furious. Worse than furious. I was wroth. After swearing at the ex-treasurer when he wouldn't leave me alone about it, not even after telling him three times that I was low-income and unable to contributre so much as a wooden nickel, and then I announced to the rector that I was leaving his church. I returned to gay church. Just after Christmas the pastor and I had our falling out. Sheepishly I swallowed my pride and returned to the parish of St. Happy-Happy.
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