What Does Father’s Day Mean To You?

I have to be honest I don’t have a close relationship with my father. My father has a much more closer relationship with my heterosexual older brother. My older brother is the “golden boy” in my father’s eyes he doesn’t have to say it but it is true.

For instance, my heterosexual older brother he got married three years ago, he has a lovely wife I got to know when I was in Jamaica earlier this year. In my father’s eyes my brother is living the “good life” he is following the path that society says everyone is supposed to live by. I am viewed as the dirty homosexual living the “bad life”.

However, I am gay so in my father’s eyes I am viewed as “different” when I speak to him sometimes the conversations are awkward, fractured, and indifferent. There is no resonance to the words my father says to me. I notice the interaction my father has with my older brother and I see the warmth and his personality shines and he is happy talking to my brother. I don’t care about boxing, or cricket, or other baseball. The only sport I am passionate about is tennis.

I notice I don’t really relate well to heterosexual men. Maybe it is because heterosexual men have negative perceptions about gay men? I don’t know? All I know is there is more to me then just my sexual orientation. I don’t think about being “gay” twenty four seven. I don’t know what to say to straight men sometimes there is this distance? Perhaps it is all perception but I sense if a straight man “knows” I am gay they act differently around me. I don’t mean being rude or anything but being distant emotionally and maybe reticent.

If you read my book “You Don’t Know Me” there is a poem called “The Good Son” in the poem I explore my feelings on this issue. I am not sure if it is because my father can’t “relate” to me or what but we definitely don’t have the stereotypical traditional “father and son” relationship. I guess that’s the reason Father’s Day never meant much to me.

Maybe it is an issue of masculinity? Regardless of sexual orientation I think it is harder for men to be open about our feelings. I have a much more closer relationship with my younger sister and my mother they actually “tell me” what they are “feeling”. I don’t have a clue about my father I feel like I don’t exist in his universe. Maybe that’s just the way things are supposed to be?