LIVING GAY AND FABULOUS

There are two gifts that being a part of the community of Kito Diaries has given me when regarding my sexuality, and those are confidence and caution. Reading so many writeups and comments of fellow gay Nigerians surviving and living their lives in the face of the homophobia in this country, I can’t help the boldness it all inspires in me to be more fearless about who I am. But at the same time, the kito alerts and kito stories impresses in me the need to be careful about my associations, to suspect first and trust later.

Very recently, both these gifts served me well, I believe.

In keeping with my homosexual self-confidence, I have taken to coming out to select people around me. Pinky’s and IBK’s coming out stories inspired me so much that I came out to my family. Their acceptance is touch and go, but all in all, the reactions make me really happy I took that step. I have also been coming out to friends – except in their case, I don’t treat it like a big deal. There’s no ghen-ghen moment, no announcement, no “I have something to tell you” moment. I simply work my sexuality into a conversation where my response is supposed to affirm my “heterosexuality”. Like the time a friend was lamenting to me about his girlfriend’s excesses and then said something about how I am lucky I’m not dating any girl, that girls are wahala. And instead of agreeing with him, I responded that it’s lucky for me that I’d never know girls’ wahala, seeing as I am into boys. I’ll never forget the look on my friend’s face; he totally didn’t see that coming.

Most of the friends I come out to react in ways that range from acceptance – grudging and immediate – to incredulity and curiosity. And as with my family, it’s been all good.

Then there is the third demographic of people I’ve been coming out to. You know them. They are the social media thirst traps, the Facebook celebrities who seduce you with their wokeness and likes-packing pictures, the owners of DMs you want to slide into. Even when you don’t know if they’re gay or straight. However, the difference between me and the next gay guy is that I’m not in a place of fear and consternation when it comes to my closet. When I slide into a DM, I don’t hedge and dance around, calling him “dear” and hoping he’ll say something that will confirm to me that he’s gay. I come out to him straight away, demystify my presence in his inbox, and use his reaction to determine if I’m going to proceed with chyking him (this when he identifies as a guy who likes guys too); or put a pause on my romantic interests and turn them to more platonic, friendly thoughts (this when he says he’s straight but encourages us to stay friends); or step back out of his inbox (this when he turns out to be a homophobic ass).

The fact that I’m not fazed by the possibility of any of the homophobes possibly outing me on his timeline means I stay emboldened in my search for online loving.

There is this guy (let’s call him Kashmir), who I’d been very acquainted with on Facebook. We chatted a lot, were in each other’s comments, and seemed to agree on a lot of issues. He identified himself as a humanist on his profile and was very firm in his feminist advocacy – although he was remarkably quiet whenever LGBT issues came up online. I realized this but it didn’t set off any wariness in me; I was too busy being seduced by his good looks and trying to work up the nerve to slide into his DM for an entirely different purpose than usual.

Eventually, during one of our casual chats on Facebook Messenger, I texted him saying, “So hey, are you seeing anyone right now?”

“Mehn, I’m off girls. My last relationship was about 4 months ago,” he responded. “I’m just focusing on some stuff in my life right now. You know, adulting is not easy, bro.”

I winced at the use of the word “bro”. There is something very sterile about that word that irritates me.

In my response, I employed the oldest gaydar-testing technique in the world: the use of the word “dear”. LOL. This is incredibly silly, I know, but a friend of mine once told me that the way to know if a guy is gay or open to male sexual attention – or at least non-homophobic – is to “dear” him. The toxic male would always react to that endearment with hostility, he said.

So, I responded. “Oh, I know that all too well, dear. Whoever told us it gets easier as you grow up lied to us. Pele, dear.”

“Thanks,” he replied. “So, what are you up to?”

No hostile reaction to the “dear”? I see.

So, I forged ahead, feeling encouraged.

“Nothing much,” I texted. “Just going through Facebook. I just saw your Facebook story. That gyming picture is hot.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the Love reaction you used on the pic.”

Oh, you did, did you?

I could swear, a green light was starting to wink at me from his end. So, I texted: “Who wouldn’t love all that hotness you were sampling? You’re really very hot.”

“Thanks.”

“Like, it’s killing me sef.”

There was a pause, during which the indication that he was typing a reply kept coming up and going off. Clearly, he was a gay guy trying to understand if I’m a fellow gay guy flirting with him, right?

His response eventually chimed in: “I’m sorry, what are you trying to say to me?”

That was supposed to be the alarm signal, warning me to pull back. But I was already in chyke mode. In my mind, he was simply a gay guy trying to verify that me and him were operating on the same current before he would come clean.

So, I plunged in. “Well, I’m trying to let you know that I like you.”

“Like me how?”

“You know, like you like you. I really, really like you.”

“Are you a homo?”

That word slapped the cold wave of reality into my face. Unless it’s a queer person who is saying the word, “homo” is almost always a hostile word. It is even angrier than “homosexual”. I suddenly realised that this may not be going the way I thought it was.

“Yes, I’m gay,” I replied.

“WTF!” he exploded in caps. “And you think I’m like you? Are you mad? Nigga, you must be sick! I’m into pussy! I don’t do guys! Where did you even get the idea in your sick head that I might be homo? Get the fuck out of here! If you try this nonsense with me again, I will shame you on Facebook!”

Of course, all that didn’t come in one message. They were tumbling into our chat, once sentence after another, each bearing with it poison intended to wound.

But I wasn’t wounded. Disappointed, sure. But I am long past getting hurt by the vituperations of homophobes. Even the threat of outing me on Facebook bounced off me.

I typed back: “I apologize for coming on to you. Considering that they don’t write ‘homo’ on the forehead, you can’t blame me. But now I know, you can be sure I won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“Good. I don’t want any faggots around me.”

At least, me and him agreed on one thing. I was already on my way to his profile to unfriend him, only to get there to see that he’d beaten me to it. He’d already unfriended me.

Damn!

Anyway, I shrugged off the episode and went back to living gay and fabulous. About two weeks later however, I got a notification from Facebook, you know, when you’re notified that someone who isn’t on your friend list has a pending message for you. I checked and it was Kashmir.

More out of curiosity than any real interest, I clicked over to the message to see what he’d sent me.

It read: Hey bro, how you doing?

Okay, what was this about? I wondered.

“I’m doing okay,” I typed back.

A few minutes later, he replied, “Oh cool. Thanks for getting back to me, dear.”

What! Had this guy just tried to “dear” me? I stared at my phone screen in shock, refusing to entertain any warm and fuzzy feeling from his use of the endearment on me.

“Sure, no problem,” I typed back, feeling caution edge its way into my heart. “Although I have to admit I’m surprised you buzzed me. I thought you said you didn’t want any faggots around you.”

He responded with three laugh-out-loud emojis. Before the words: “Don’t mind me. I was just acting up. I was surprised, that’s all.”

“Surprised? That’s the way you act when you are surprised?”

“No nau. It’s just – you know this homo thing is not normal.”

“But it is,” I typed back.

“What?”

“Normal. This homo thing is normal.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But you know what I mean, dear.”

There it was again. This time, the caution was blooming into suspicion. There was something off about this conversation, about this guy.

“OK,” I replied. “So…”

“Well, about what you said…”

“That I like you? Don’t worry, I don’t like you anymore.”

“No, no, no. Please. I like that you like me. In fact, I want us to meet and talk about it.”

“Why do we have to meet when we can talk about it here?”

“Because I want to say things to you that I’m not comfortable saying online.”

“Things like what?”

There was a small stretch of silence as that Messenger typing indication began bouncing up and down. And then the words: “Come on, baby boy, don’t you want us to meet? You said you like me. I like you too. Let’s just meet and see where this goes. Who knows, you might get lucky.” And then there was a wink emoji.

As a bolt of anger shot through me at this message, two interpretations of what was going on occurred to me. That this guy was either a conceited heterosexual who is suddenly bicurious and fancies himself God’s gift to gay men. God’s gift to me. Or he was a kito guy who had suddenly realised an opportunity to victimise me. Either way, I didn’t mince any words when I responded.

“Fuck off,” I typed.

“Excuse me?” he replied.

“Dude, you are not special,” I typed my retort. “I liked you when I thought you could be gay. That stopped being the case when you showed yourself to be a straight homophobe. And neither me no longer being into you nor you being an asshole has changed. I don’t know what you’re now playing at, but whatever it is, miss me with your bullshit.”

This time, I was not going to be beaten to the punch. I exited Messenger and clicked over to his profile on Facebook. I was about to hit the block button when his response pinged in. I clicked it open to see a long rant that started with: “You homo faggot [I mean, really. Homo faggot?] You are lucky you did not come to see me today, otherwise…”

I didn’t bother reading the rest of it. I simply typed back: “Like I said, fuck off.”

Then I hit the block button.

I chose to tell this story as a dedication to Kito Diaries, because I know I couldn’t possibly be this gay man that I am if it hadn’t existed.

And so, for the fearlessness and confidence it has inspired in me, for the caution and awareness it has instilled in me, I just want to say: Thank you, Kito Diaries.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to make this place the fountain of knowledge and guidance that it is.

Thank you to the KDian community.

Happy New Year, guys.

Written by Dubem