I find it very sad that in whatever walk of life, our peer groups so often reflect ourselves and that the whole world is absolutely obsessed with attaching labels to themselves and to each other.
For example. I'm a 51-year-old, straight, white, English male. This ordering comes from the English grammatical rule for the ordering of adjectives which generally puts adjectives into the following order :
Quantity or number, quality or opinion, size, age, shape, colour and then finally, purpose or qualifier.
Often, people might add muslim, or member of the LBGT community, or black or socialist or libertarian, or anarchist, or anarcho capitalist or feminist or polyamorous, rich, aristocratic, I could keep adding to this list for ever. People love to add these tags and labels proudly to their name. Seemingly, the more minority or obscure the subset that person belongs to, the more they love to use their label.
This is an observation, not a criticism in any way. This self-labelling system of human 'type' is a result of humans inability to assess a persons perceived worth based on their humanist qualities, instead ridiculously using values based around a persons geographical location, intelligence, skin colour, religion or the gender of who they're shagging.
Regardless of the rights or wrongs and the history, the problem with this type of grouping and labelling means that people often preclude people outside their group, only becoming friends with their own 'type' perhaps for comfort or mutual protection in numbers, whatever the reason, it's wrong and does nothing to encourage acceptance and understanding. Whatever the history, it's still just as wrong for a gay person to dismiss someone for being straight as it is for a straight person to dismiss someone who is gay...OH NO..see what happened there? I had to use labels to illustrate my point, thus introducing defined differences between people based on the labelling system I hate!!!
So the alternative is?
It's time the human race dropped titles and labelling of this type completely it's divisive and does nothing to promote harmony. Yes, I know in the past white people were wicked bastards and took people from Africa and used them as slaves for their own benefit. Yes, I know in the recent past you went to jail in England for having sexual preferences for your own gender. In some countries, you can still be put to death etc etc etc
But here's the thing. The buddhists tell me that you can't change the past. You can't ever know the future. That just leaves the now to live in so if everyone could rise above previous oppression, dump the tags and labels and see each other simply as other people then we could all get along much better and have the chance to learn about, and embrace each others differences without prejudice or judgement.
I can't quite decide whether humans are too far evolved for their own good, or haven't evolved far enough. My friend has two dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a pure white Samoyed, they get along just fine. Sniff each other's arses and play and run around and do all the doggy stuff together, they don't notice they have different colour fur.
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An orgy of multicoloured doggy botty sniffing courtesy of Timothy R Haslett
Perhaps another day I'd love to get into some of the issues that I've raised here more deeply, I say perhaps because I truly hate writing despite me having a lot I want to say! but I wrote this today because I was a little sad.
I'm not someone who has many friends, I'm a bit anti social and and find parties and socialising difficult and a bit boring as a I get older if I'm honest. There aren't many people in the world I like, people often bore me (sorry, it's a terrible thing to say but thats how I feel at this moment in my life), I much prefer animals as a rule, anyway. There was a guy I'd come into contact with a few times through some work I was doing, and I liked him. He's cool, fun to be around and interesting to chat. Good company. Remembering I don't make friends easily this is quite a thing for me to want to be friends with anyone, so after working one day I asked him if he fancied a beer and a game of pool after work to which he looked at me oddly and said, no.
Later that evening I got a message on facebook, he asked me if I knew he was gay and why did I think he would want to let me act out my gay fantasies with him as he knew I was married. Bizarre. I said, I didn't and had simply asked if he had fancied a chat and a beer and a few laughs as he had looked a bit fed up with himself at work.
"I don't want to fuck you, you're not that good looking", I joked as I tried to comprehend his reasoning.
He apologized profusely for his error, so I said it wasn't a problem, the offer still stood but he would be paying. Yet still he refused. This time telling me with total sincerity as that he was gay, all his friends were gay, he only liked gay bars and we had nothing in common.
I'm sad about that. Not because he's a nice guy and I could do with a few more friends, but because he used labelling and 'type' to judge. This has happened before on a few occasions, but always with people who have religion.
Hi, It's lovely to meet you, my friends call me Nathen, my real name is Martin, a name is the only 'label' I need. The rest, if you want to know more about my loves, passions, hopes or fears....just ask me.
Birds of a feather.......
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Hi Nathen, I'm sorry you had that experience, that's really dispiriting. But I am glad that the other person was able to be straightforward with you, otherwise you would have been wondering "what is it?" which can be a painful place to be.
I think your approach was great and a really good way to open a potential friendship. Some people are going to say yes, and some people are going to say no (and then there will sometimes be people who are too polite to say no, or don't want to hurt your feelings, that's a little more tricky to negotiate)!
I think have a nice afternoon with a film, or take your dogs for a lovely walk, give yourself a little time to recover and then, when you're feeling a little bit better, have a look round for other opportunities.
Thank you for sharing, I appreciate that.
the past is a history that we can not just forget about, there are lessons, experiences and stories. when we forget our past like we forget who we are. but that does not mean we have to grudge into the past. sometimes it's a bit strange with a label, when my childhood did not have a label but when adult some people call my first name. it feels weird and I ignore it. I feel I'm not on the call. my name is rachmat jeffry, call me jeffry. regards @nathen007
Cultural separation serves the purpose of safety.
You coworker has been hurt by insensitive and rude people in the past. limiting his social interactions helps protect him from that pain again. At a gay bar he knows the people will understand the mores and social customs of his group; including things like separation of casual acquaintance, lover and intimate relationship partner. Your overture was misinterpreted because of cultural "diversity" - and cultural diversity lead to unhappiness everywhere it is found.
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Heartfelt words here @nathen007 - thank you. We are all humans (except those who are not!). We are all part of the Human Family, so I agree, if we could drop the labels, profiling and see ourselves as One family, I am sure we would have more peace and harmony in our world. Beyond the labels, we are much more expanded and powerful than we can every imagine. All things are connected - spoke Chief Seattle
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