In my Head

I was working in a cafe in the Gay Village today - it has been a while since I've ventured into the Village.

This occasion was a steady reminder that when I'm not surrounded friends in the Village, I get very self-conscious and uncomfortable. I get the constant impression that people are checking me and each other out, creating some over-sexualized atmosphere. I become over worried about looking around and making eye contact with others, because it could be misinterpreted as me hitting on them or they would look at me with disgust.

Uh, it's annoying because I know this is all in my head. If I'm with friends, that entire paranoid feeling disappears completely. My friends become a figurative barrier against peoples' wandering eyes and judgement, or more like they stop my mind from creating these false impressions. In "straight" cafes, bars or any other public setting, I feel perfectly at ease. It's only when I'm in a "gay" identified environment.

I suppose my psyche does use my straight friends as a shield or reassurance to my self-esteem. They're familiar, there's nothing sexual between any of us, it's comfortable and it's a sure thing. But with gay people, there's potentially ways of socializing I'm not used to, mockery or rejection and just generally unfamiliar stuff.

An hour into my stay at the cafe, I got much more into the music I was blaring through my earphones and became relaxed.

Am I the only person who finds it so easy to be gay around straight people and finds it so hard to be gay around other gay people?