Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 18, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, January 4, 2002 Page: 4 of 64
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VIEWPOINTS
How about 'minimally conditional' love?
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The New Year is
Upon Us. The atmos-
'phere is awash with
excitement, laughter
and enough powerful-
ly conflicted emotion-
al energy to send even
the most accom-
plished Reike Master,
Holistic Healer or
Jungian Adept to bed
for a week with a
migraine. Just consider this agonizing piece of
fan mail:
Dear Janelle,
Help! Things used to be so fabulous
between me and my partner, Chris. But now
Chris drives me crazy! Even though I'm a life-
long Democrat, I used to think it was so cute
that Chris went to those Little House on the
Prairie Republican meetings, or whatever the
heck they're called. But now I find myself pick-
ing fights about the Office of Homeland
Security, slipping Molly Ivins columns into
Chris's lunch bag and withholding sex. How
can I stop? I want to get back to the way it used
to be, when Chris and I loved each other
unconditionally.
Yours in the Agony of True Love Gone
Wrong,
B.T.
P.S. We both love your column, though I'm
not sure if Chris really appreciates the aston-
ishing subtlety of your humor.
Dear B.T.,
As a fellow Democrat, let me say: 1 feel
your pain, and I never had sex with that
woman.
Now: what about your partner's com-
plaints about you? In your current mood, I
imagine you feel that anyone with Chris's
immense rap sheet of Crimes Against
Humanity has no right to complain. The fact is,
I guarantee you that your partner is really tired
of you yammering on about Fraud in Florida
and your seriously flawed belief that referring
to the President every few minutes as "Dubya"
is Really Witty. And especially of your with-
holding You-Know-What.
In my humble yet imperious view, it's clear
that you two are not experiencing the Agony of
True Love Gone Wrong, but simply the Ups
and Downs of True Love Gone On. The honey-
moon's over, and guess what: you never actu-
ally loved each other unconditionally in the
first place! And that's OK!
Wait, don't freak, it really is OK. True love
is always conditional. There are big, important,
specific things that draw you to Chris and
Chris to you. Maybe Chris loves your devotion
to suffering humanity and you love Chris's
happy-go-lucky independence. Whatever it is,
you and Chris want to be together because you
are B.T. and Chris, not simply because you're a
couple of random, lonely humans.
Look, if you really want a relationship
based on Unconditional Love open the phone
book, pick a name at ranuom and propose
Holy Unionization. Pretty unappealing, huh?
As the nearest available Alpha Female, I
hereby order (well, OK — strongly urge) you
and Chris to experiment with loving each
other — not Unconditionally, but just
Minimally Conditionally. It's a whole lot more
do-able. (You probably will be, too — and
what better New Year's gift can you give your
partner than that?)
Try the following, for starters: 1) don't talk
about politics for the next month, 2) do talk
about how you're really feeling about each
other and 3) do your very best to Treat Each
Other Decently Most of the Time Even Though
You Drive Each Other Crazy Sometimes. (Or,
in easy-to-remember acronym form: TEOD-
MOTTETYDEOCS.)
(NOTE: Please don't tell my editor I made
up yet another acronym — he hates acronyms,
and I try hard not to get on his nerves, because
he's basically a great guy!)
Good luck, and Happy New Year. I think
y'all will make it just fine!
Janelle
janelle DuBois (a.k.a. Tom Kinney) is a Dallas
drag performer, writer and transgender rights
activist. If you know what's good for you, you'll
visit her Web site at geocities.com/~janelled or e-
mail her at janelled.geo@yahoo.com!
Janelle DuBois
Loose in Dallas
New Year's note from Ground Zero
Press reports and opinion polls keep telling
us that, because of Sept. 11, as Americans, we
are doing more serious searching about the
value and meaning of our own lives as we look
into the New Year. I hope that's true for us as
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered peo-
ple, too.
This means first and foremost focusing on
our families and loved ones.
We can't really do that, of course, without
coming out. And I hoped that the horror of life
lost on Sept. 11 would make every gay and les-
bian and bisexual and transgendered person in
this country realize just how important our
families are — and thus how important stand-
ing up for them by being out is as well.
Sadly, two poignant tales remind me that
still isn't true, still isn't possible for all of us.
Ironically, both stories involve gay men
who were firefighters at Ground Zero.
I came across the first one just after the
attacks, and I have not been able to shake it
since. At the end of September I was frequent-
ing a New York City bar on Christopher Street,
a place popular with gay firemen and police-
men types and located not far from the site of
the World Trade Center itself. By chance I met
a gay fireman who had battled the flames and
flying debris that fateful day, and was telling
me about the harrowing clean-up effort he was
still helping with. He lamented the loss of sev-
eral of his fellow firemen. But when I asked if
he was out, he shook his head no. Even after
Sept. 11, he had said, coming out at the fire
department "was too great a risk." •
The second story may be even sadder.
It is of two men and their lost love. Both are
gay firefighters who were on the scene soon
after the attacks. One firefighter lives in the
city; the other is a married man from a north-
west suburb about half an hour from the city.
The two met literally while at Ground Zero
battling death, and they fell in love.
But just before Thanksgiving, the suburban
husband broke off the affair. He knows he's
gay and admits it readily, but he can't find the
strength to tell his wife or his family or his
friends. He cried as he told me how painful it
was to let go of the only person he says he ever
truly loved, especially after he lost so many fel-
low firefighter buddies — brothers, he calls
them — at the World Trade Center.
They found each other in the face of near
death. But they couldn't find a way to hold
onto each other in the face of everyday homo-
phobia.
That kind of loss is not likely to change in
the New Year.
— Mubarak Dahir
\
J
4
JANUARY 4, 2002
DALLAS VOICE
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 18, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, January 4, 2002, newspaper, January 4, 2002; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth616521/m1/4/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.