Butch Leiber's World

I guess I like to think I’m conventional but in 2009/2010 America, what is convention? Conventional: conforming with accepted standards.

Friday, I went and had coffee at Conspire, which was voted the best Neighborhood Coffee House in Phoenix by New Times Magazine. Conspire is in an old house in downtown Phoenix and is an arts cooperative selling crafts and clothes and books and awesome lattes. There I met Deborah, a waitress at a local sushi restaurant, Damien, a young (early twenties, maybe) hipster, and several sex workers hanging out and having their afternoon jolt of caffeine. Deborah was cute, urban, dressed in layers of tank tops and t-shirts and topped off with a knit Rasta cap in Jamaican colors, not neatly hiding her head of wild red hair. Damien, who was one of the friendliest, happiest guys I’ve ever met in a coffee shop, looked like he hadn’t washed his hair in weeks and smelled equally feral. In my head I needed to run and take a shower but started wondering who “those” people were. How do they exist in today’s society? Why don’t they just fit in like the rest of us?

“Those people.” In that I heard my grandmother, sitting at the dining room table judging and criticizing the people she dealt with on a daily basis. Now, her “those people” and my “those people” are different people. And I’m sure to some, I’m one of “those people.” I am gay, and I was raised Jewish and I shave my head and I have a tattoo and I’m one hundred pounds overweight and I’m single and I have sex with random strangers and, well, I can probably find more things that make me one of “those people” to someone else.

Why is it so easy to judge and assess people when they don’t fit our mold of how people should be? We have our own conventions in life and think everyone should fit in that mold. I’ve been looking, searching lately for Mr. Right and the few men I’ve met lately who I really like just don’t fit the mold of what I expect for my boyfriend, or better, what my friends or parents would expect me to bring home. So I dump them, or move on hoping the next one will fit better.

I’ve begun to notice lately the constraints I put on myself by my own conventions, how I should be, how my life should be. The more I judge and criticize myself the more I notice I’m critical and judgmental of others. I check out what they’re doing or not doing and vote on whether it’s good or bad or even worse, could I, should I try that on? I like to think I’m an independent thinker. I like to think I’m unique and my own creation. But ultimately, I’m one giant paradox of convention and non-convention; a bundle of look at me and what are you looking at. I want so badly to fit it – everywhere, and so badly to be unique, always looking for approval, acceptance, love.

For this final two weeks of the year, I’m taking on acceptance, love and approval of all, including myself. No one is perfect, and we all are. Happy holidays!

Peace.
Butch Leiber’s World Blog