Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Show and Tell Tuesday

Linking up with Andrea for Show and Tell Tuesday.


Today's topic is Embarrassing Moments. I wrote about this topic last year here.  After reading through everyone's posts last time, I remembered another embarrassing moment that I shared a few days later.  I'll copy it here:

One day in high school we had an assembly with a guest speaker.  The guest speaker was a gay student (I can't remember if he was in university or still in high school, but doesn't matter), and he spoke about coming out in high school and what that was like, how he was treated, etc.  One of the things he said was about how he was really bothered when people said something was "gay", meaning stupid or dumb or whatever.  I remember thinking that I should stop saying that, it was the least I could do.  So then a few months later, I think we were still in high school (I seem to recall being in our gym), I met this guy again.  I don't remember what he was doing back at our school, but I told him I recalled his speech and how great it was, etc, etc.  So we keep chatting, and there is a bunch of us there (and you can probably guess where this is going), in the midst of the conversation, I respond to a statement with "That is so gay!".  It just slipped out, and obviously an old habit that was hard to break, and I was so embarrassed!! I turned to him immediately and apologized and said how I remembered that he had mentioned specifically that that bothered him, and that I was making an effort not to say it anymore.  He was very gracious about it, but I can tell you that I've never said that something was "gay" again (or if I've said it, it has probably been less than 5 times since 1999). 

So not only did I want to share that embarrassing tale as a follow up to Tuesday's post, I also wanted to share the story because I still hear people saying something is "gay" all of the time, and these are grown adults, who are educated and mature, and have gay friends.  Maybe it doesn't bother all gay people, but it bothered this guy, and it is such an unnecessary word to say in that context.  Similarly "retarded" is another word that should be removed from people's vocabulary, even mine, as it does slip out occasionally. 

Thanks for stopping by!



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