I had graduated high school the previous spring and began attending
college courses at the neighboring community college after my morning shifts at
Sears. One of my first college courses
was in psychology (the field I planned to pursue) and I was vain with the
knowledge I received, and eager to repeat it at every opportunity. My freshman psychology professor claimed to
know a rational psychological explanation to homosexuality that I found
fascinating and was eager to share. I
don’t recall the details now (I switched to the mathematics field in my
sophomore year) but at the time I was able to repeat the theory verbatim to
several lucky listeners.
Working at Sears in the way early hours of the day provided a
lot of idle time away from management eyes and ears. My coworkers would spend time in between
tasks, sometimes for hours at a time, just standing around talking about
whatever was on their minds. Sometimes I would attempt to join in the
conversation to get out of working (especially when my boss could be roped into
an inane hour-long conversation about nothing that had to do with work at all). What I didn’t know is that when you’re 18,
the only way you’re going to learn about subjects you should and subjects you
should not talk about in the workplace is the wrong way.
Jennifer was good friends with Tonya, who was admittedly
gay. I happened upon a conversation
between her (Jennifer) and another employee which was of a religious
nature. Her expressed views on
homosexuality overtly conflicted with the friendship they appeared to have and I
blurted out, ‘but you’re friends with Tonya, how can you say that?!’. I should have walked away from that
conversation instead of thinking it was necessary to prove to her that she was
acting deceitful. Luckily my superior
intellect wouldn’t fail me as I would attempt to convince her she was wrong
using my professor’s vast knowledge on homosexuality.
Suffice to say I landed myself in the store manager’s
office. I don’t think I made eye contact
once with that man, or even spoke once without stuttering during that meeting, yet
I was somehow able to keep my job.
That was probably my worst social experience in my entire
life. I ended up losing two friendships
(Jennifer had told Tonya I thought she had a chemical imbalance which made her
gay but conveniently left out that she thought she was going to hell for the
same reason) and I felt utterly defeated.
It took me a long time and many, many communications courses to move on
from that failure. I was afraid to put
myself out there and try to talk to anyone for any reason work-related or not. Luckily I could absorb myself in my work (I
worked alone 90% of the time) and avoid my coworkers.
