BRAND NEW

I wore my PRIDE-emblazoned T-shirt out that day, and the conversation that ensued was simple.

We were standing in the elevator, me on one side, and the two of them, seemingly a couple, on the other side.

The elevator doors had barely shut, when the boyfriend glanced at my T-shirt and blurted out, while pointing, “That’s the colour for those LGBT people, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said, my expression genial.

“They are very rare, aren’t they?” he asked.

“Who?”

“LGBT people.”

I chuckled. His girlfriend’s sharp gaze was shooting from me to him, back to me, then to him, looking like she could not make sense of why a conversation is suddenly happening between her man and this stranger on this topic.

“They are everywhere,” I responded.

“You support them?” he asked, looking surprised.

I was amused by his surprise. “I am wearing their colour, am I not?”

A beat passed, and then he asked the next question I was waiting for him to ask.

“Are you one of them?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

His eyes widened with heightened surprise – whether at my admission or the fact that he was standing before a real, life alien–sorry, LGBT person, I don’t know.

“Which one are you?” he asked, looking very fascinated.

I nearly burst out into laughter. I was starting to feel like an object that a scientist is on the verge of discovering.

“The G,” I said. “I’m gay.”

“Wow,” he said. “Wow,” he said again. “That’s so cool.”

His girlfriend’s gaze was swiveling even faster now. She looked like she wanted to investigate why her man found this stranger being gay “so cool”. She inched close to him, snuggling into his side with an insistence that caused him to lift his hand and place it on her shoulder, drawing her closer.

The elevator pinged and the doors glided open onto their floor.

“Congratulations,” he said to me as they stepped out.

I chuckled again. Congratulations? That’s a new one.

“Thank you,” I called after him.

He turned his head to flash me a brief smile, just as the elevator doors slid shut.

Written by Pink Panther