Living Out Loud with Darian

Recently I was shocked to learn that an old acquaintance is engaged to be married. Normally hearing news like this is exciting and sends me right into planning mode(yeah i've always wanted to get married, big white wedding...blah blah blah), but in this case I felt every emotion but joy. The groom to be happens to be gay and he is marrying a woman! Maybe you're asking yourself if he was possibly bisexual and just decided to settle down with a woman? Let me assure you that he has never been nor will he ever be bisexual or heterosexual for that matter, the man is as GAY as a hummingbird!

So why do many gay men feel the need to live out the heterosexual ideal and sacrifice living authentically? I've known plenty of Black men who were members of a previous church I attended that for whatever reason were unable to reconcile their sexuality with their faith and found themselves married to Susan when they longed to be married to Stan. Many times these relationships ended in divorce less than a year after they said their "I do's".

Is the pressure to conform to society's expectations of our lives that important that we would forsake our true feelings to please others? It's all too much for me to comprehend. Can someone please help me understand this nonsense?

We see it in the lives of celebrities as well. Two words, Star and Al. I've written about these two before. I'm aware that love can blind you, but somebody needs to pass Star a pair of glasses and some contacts! Who can forget the drama between Terry McMillan, aka Stella and her Jamaican trophy boy Jonathan Plummer, and that circus show that we were subjected to by Liza Minelli and David Gest.

I know living life as an out gay man in our culture bears it's burdens, but who has the time to put on a Oscar winning performance in their relationship everyday? Obviously some people are more willing to do it than others.

I was asked if I planned on attending the wedding. I think I'm going to take Brad and Angelina's position on marriage but take it a step further. I refuse to get married or attend another wedding until gay men stop marrying their girlfriends! And when I say "girlfriend" I mean in the "let's go shopping" and watch Sex and The City" reruns kind of way.