Gay Year’s Resolutions

by adminwp in Ryan Shattuck | 0 comments

We generally have somewhere between 60 and 90 opportunities in life to create New Year’s resolutions. Now, I do realize that you are reading this column in February of 2010, which is rather late in the year to be writing about New Year’s resolutions. So I’ve obviously already broken my personal New Year’s resolution: “Turn my columns in on time.”

Regardless of the time of year, we in the gay community can always benefit by setting new goals and resolutions. This past decade saw both successes (gay marriage becoming legal in several states; the election of Barack Obama) and failures (the passage of Proposition 8; the presidency of Barack Obama). By setting new resolutions and creating new goals, we can help make this become our most successful decade yet.

What should the gay community set as its New Year’s resolutions for 2010?

Let’s Be Less Promiscuous and More Sexually Mature

If you’ve had more sexual partners in the past year than there are members of the U.S. Senate (100), then you probably need to be less promiscuous. And if you’ve had more sexual partners in the past year than the number of prostitutes serving members of the U.S. Senate (823), then you definitely need to be less promiscuous. The gay community is, by nature, more sexually liberal than our straight counterparts. That having been said, sticking ourselves into every throbbing hole in the tri-county area doesn’t look good on our permanent record. If we wish to convince America that gay men and women are to be taken seriously and are sexually mature enough to deserve marriage, then we should start acting accordingly. After all, who do we think we are — members of the U.S. Senate?

Let’s Be More Proactive and Better Organized

If we learned anything from Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 1 in Maine, it was that we could benefit from being more organized. Money can’t buy happiness anymore than it can buy success at the polls, and we should stop believing that throwing dollars at a problem will make it go away. Our religious opponents knock on doors and glad hand at church, whereas many of us prefer to use our hands for holding cocktails and getting off. We may believe that we are right and the right wing is wrong, but to quote our religious opponents, “Faith without works is dead.”

Let’s Be Less Cynical and More Optimistic

It’s easy to become cynical, discouraged, or pessimistic, which explains the success of anti-depressants, self-help books and Jersey Shore. We can’t find a job and if we do, we’re fired for being gay. We can’t get married in most states and if we do, odds are good that we’ll divorce. The weather is terrible, the milk has become spoiled, there isn’t anything good on TV, and Sarah Palin is still saying words at people. But we don’t have to let discouragement control our lives. After all, the collective attitude of the gay community is in the collective hands of the gay community. Will we choose to see the glass as half empty, or will we break the glass over the bar and threaten anyone who threatens our happiness?

Conan O’Brien, the former host of The Tonight Show, certainly has reasons for being cynical, discouraged and pessimistic. Nevertheless, he’s learned that such ugly qualities cannot control our lives, as was evident when he said the following: “Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Let’s Be Friendlier and Less Bitchy

No one’s ever said in a eulogy, “What I will miss the most about the dearly departed is how bitchy he was.” Being a bitch is not a redeeming quality, which is why I cannot be more emphatic when I say the following: 2010 IS THE YEAR THAT WE STOP BEING A BITCH. Being “a bitch” should have gone the way of Will & Grace and the faux-hawk, and yet, year after year, many gay men continue to delude themselves into believing that being a bitch is the equivalent of being powerful. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” is more than simply a sex position. It is a reminder that none of us are better than any of us. We’ve all been closeted, we’ve all been scared, we’ve all been alone, we’ve all felt depressed, and a hand up instead of a shove down will help us all in the end. Stop being a bitch and start being a friend.

Let’s Turn Our Columns In On Time and Drink Less Alcohol

Just kidding. That last one is just for me.

Ryan Shattuck is a columnist and freelance writer based in Salt Lake City. His first book, Revolutions for Fun and Profit!, is available at revolutionsforfunandprofit.com.