The Recoil Effect

There's something in this universe I refer to as "The Recoil Effect". Most of us have experienced it at one point or another, in one manner or another. Usually though, we aren't aware that The Recoil Effect has taken place until long after the effects have taken hold.
The best way I can explain The Recoil Effect is to imagine a gigantic metal spring... so go ahead, imagine the spring.
Are you imagining the spring? C'mon, I really need you to imagine it, otherwise the rest of this blog might be lost on you.
Oh, wait. Wait. Before you solidify the imagined spring in your head, make sure that you're thinking of a metal spring much larger than something you would find in a clock or a mattress.
We're talking an industrial metal spring used for large-type mechanics; something used in the space program, perhaps. What NASA would so with such springs is beyond me, but that's the point you're imagining it. You don't need to know.
Now take your titanic spring and press down on it. Press down on it as far as it will go. No, no, no. You're not pressing down on it hard enough; it's not completely taut yet. Press harder. Harder! You know what? Just sit on the damn thing. Sit on it. Put all your weight on it. Pretend your imaginary coiling metal spring is over packed luggage and you'll be damned if those zippers don't zip.
Go ahead sit atop your spring. Coil it up good.
So here we are sitting atop our imaginary coiled metal springs.
And now we need to remember how The Theory Of Relativity goes? I believe it's that, "every action has an inversely proportional reaction." * Which means that as hard as you coiled that spring, eventually that same spring will recoil just as hard...
And it's gonna happen in about three seconds with you sitting on top, launching you into the stratosphere. Who knows where you're going to land?

The landing is what this blog is about.

* * * * *

From the years 1994 through 1997 my mother thought I was a homosexual.

She decided to enlighten me with this information last Christmas. She just kinda dropped it into a conversation like it wasn't at all noteworthy. We were talking about falafels or something and she mentioned how throughout most of high school she assumed I was gay. Apparently my team sports and slovenly dress as an adolescent wasn't enough to dissuade my own mother of my heterosexuality.
They say "mothers always know." Well, know what exactly, because my mother got this one all wrong.
It gets worse though. Apparently, my mom discussed her feelings with my entire friggin' family. At some point between 1994 and 1997 she had little side discussions with grandmothers, aunts, uncles, my dad, and perhaps my sister, about how they might feel if one day I came out of the closet. Would they still love me? Would the family be in shambles?
Holy crap! My mind is blown.
Everywhere I went, my family kept wondering what gay thing I might bring up. Every time I was sad, they probably assumed the football jocks beat up their queer son at school. Ohmigod, all the dancing I engaged in probably seemed so much gayer than it should have.
But wait, it gets even worse. Back then, I mainly hung out with two people outside of school. I won't name them here for obvious reasons but let's call them "Jack" and "John". Jack and John were brothers and all the three of us ever did was hang out and go to movies. Which means that if my mom assumed me to be homosexual during this period, she must have also assumed that either Jack or John were my gay lover.
Ugh! I dont know how to articulate a scream in unadulterated horrific disgust on paper, but if I could, you should know that I would have inserted it here. Okay, humor me once more with you imagination and conjure up the most horrific banshee cry you can and pretend it is coming directly from my mouth. That's how horrified I am at the thought of being romantically linked to Jack or John.**
I guess I manned up a little by the time I became a senior, but I also did theater then too and almost everyone in the theater was gay. I was one of the few straight guys. And considering that I played sports throughout my first three years in high school, I'm wondering if maybe my mom doesn't actually know what gay is.
Like flammable and inflammable.
That can't be right though. That would mean gay and straight meant the same thing.

* * * * *

So where's the recoil effect, you ask?
I think it's happening now.

When someone steps out in traffic and a friend sees that they are about to be flattened to death by an oncoming bus, pulls them back and says, "Holy Hell! You almost got smashed by that oncoming bus!" nothing immediately comes about this. Usually the saved person kinda laughs or gives their pal a pat on the back. The event seems over as quickly as it started.
But then the person starts thinking about how close they were to death. They start imagining all that they would have left behind if that single instant had gone differently.
It fucks with you, to be sure. And for a little while at least, they go about doing things differently.
Every action's equal and opposite reaction.

In a way, I was gay to my family for three years. I wasn't, but to them, I might as well have been. We were living in two different realities. My mom laughs at it all now, but not me. That gay bus almost hit me and even though it's way on down the road, I too am going about things differently now.
I'm interested in every girl I come across now. Every girl is dateable. Potential is everywhere. Picky is for closeted homosexuals (apparently).
I'm recoiling.
Give me a kiss for no other reason than that I am free from the shackles of homosexuality. Love me for no other reason than because we are not of the same gender.
You have a boyfriend? No problem, don't tell him about it.
We've been friends for too long? Great! You can trust me to call you back.
You don't know me that well? Fine. Call this step one.
You're not that into me? Cool. Turn the lights out *poof* I'm Clark Gable.
We dated and you're over me? Not true. Because I was gay when you dated me and I'm straight now. It's different.
The recoil continued yesterday while I was looking for jobs on craigslist.com. Going into the film/ television/ radio section of the website, I found it to be cluttered with ads titled "Hot Models and Actresses Wanted", or "Gorgeous Female Bodies Needed For Two-Day Commercial Shoot". I didn't answer any of those ads because my female body isn't as gorgeous as it once was. But it did leave me to wonder who was answering these ads. Are beautiful people really slugging their butts around the city just to model for Cranky Jim's Used Car Emporium?
Then it hit me: the recoil. The thought crossed my mind to answer the ad, find out where all the hot models are convening and y'know... just kinda hang out. I'm a talkative type of cat. If given enough models I'm sure I can convince at least one of them that I'm not gay.
The recoil is ugly.
As bad as it would be to be a model trudging her way around the city to get to Cranky Jim's Used Car Emporium, it would be far worse to be me standing outside of Cranky Jim's waiting for pretty girls to walk by. Is this life? What am I trying to prove? And to whom am I trying to prove it?
And haven't we all seen that über-sexual guy at some party hitting on every girl that walks in front of him? We've all spied this guy and thought one of two things: either he's French or he's in denial about his obvious homosexuality. And seeing as how my French accent is almost completely gone, my recent mode of thinking is only going to land me right back into the place that sent me in this direction in the first place.
Eh crap.
I wonder what Jack and John are doing tonight.


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* Since the publishing of this blog, I have been made aware of an error. Newton's Third Law of Motion is what I am referring to, not Einstein's Theory of Relativity. This further illustrates why I so rarely discuss the sciences in an open forum... because I know very little about it.

** It should be mentioned here that I haven't any problems with homosexuals or the homosexual community. Please don't misread my disgust as some sort of judgment on your lifestyle. But to all you homosexuals out there, don't act like you wouldn't be equally horrified if all of a sudden people close to you assumed you had no fashion sense, hated techno music, and instead of noticing some woman's darling broach, she erroneously thought you were staring at her tits?
You'd be horrified too.