op-ed: ‘coming out’ (fuck it) essay by tito diran fagbenie

It’s a summer afternoon, and I’m listening to a soundtrack from a film I don’t want to mention in case this becomes famous enough for me to require some sort of fee for mentioning it.

If that didn’t make any sense to you, then you should probably stop reading…

…

now.

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:/

…

okay.
I havent masturbated for about 3/4 days… but it feels like it’s been 2 weeks.
I’ve been trying to do this thing where I DON’T masturbate…
mainly because I think that it’s further preventing me from depending on people.
I just don’t.
You wont find me borrowing money, or asking favours, or doing anything that puts anyone into that
tiniest state of stress, in case they then think that I owe them something.
I know…it’s not a healthy way to live, think, breathe, etc…
But I’m vulnerable and scared and need something to hide behind.
Independence is this ‘something’.
Does it make me happy?
Nope.
Not necessarily.
I’m…okay…
…kinda peaceful at times.
But often…I’m very ponderous…. pensive.
I spend a lot of my time noticing my ailments.
FOR EXAMPLE…My left ear is filled with a glob of hardened wax, which refuses to budge. It’s causing
me discomfort and preventing me from listening to music with full impact.
I’m bored, so I’ll move on.
Another soundtrack has just come on, to a film that’s probably a bit less popular than the first… ugh….
it’s Tarzan…the soundtrack that just came on is Mark Mancina’s for Disney’s ‘Tarzan’.
Beautiful piece of workk.
It doesn’t necessarily take me out of this space I’m in…but it puts me in a better mood. All of a sudden
this weathered, wooden table has a life, and the window to my front-left is glowing with sunlight, and
the entire room is breathing.
But it’s not always like this.
A lot of the time I find myself alone, and thoughtful and stuck between laziness and
pointlessness….and patience. I’d be very impressed if you’ve gotten this far.
You see, what I’m doing is…weeding out the bad ones.
Filtering them out with mindless chatter.
Once I’m comfortable, then I’ll begin.
Although, of course, I’ve already begun…I’m just saying… I’ll know when MY story starts when it
starts…and it hasn’t started yet.
….I began writing, I think, because I felt like I was somewhere else.
Somewhere a tad bit more inspiring than this house that I grew up in, filled with grey and fading
memories dulled deep within me.
I never liked this house.

At first it was because we’d moved from a house that I DID love.
Then…came the frustrations of adolescence….
I think someone needs to invent a cure for adolescence.
I don’t think teenagers are MEANT to be that angsty.
…perhaps it’s because of growing hormones and all that.
I supposed maybe that was why I was frustrated as a teen… I had all this sexual energy and din’t
know where to put it.
It seemed like everyone, at that time, was getting theirs. By ‘theirs’, I mean their
portion…and by ‘their portion’ I mean intimacy/sex/general sociality…
I, however, spent quite a bit of my time playing Neopets, Habbo Hotel, Runescape and World of
Warcraft from the ages of 12 to 23.
And I didn’t just play these games.
I lived in these games.
Although I wasn’t as crazy as those white, fat boys with curls you’d find on YouTube going absolutely
nuts because their computer was turned off…
I had/have a Nigerian mother. As a Nigerian mother, games are always a reason to pay attention
to what your child is NOT doing… i.e reading a book.
So, the second my mother saw me tapping away at the keys, eyes glaring with the screen… THEN
she’d ask me if I’d done my homework, or if I’d revised, or why the lounge wasn’t swept.
Of course she’d ask these things anyway… but games were just a good excuse to get me to stop
playing games.
…
no…I didn’t spend ALL my time in those worlds….
but when I did…I made sure I spent every bit of energy I felt I couldn’t spend in this world…
in that world…
The energy of creation, of madness, of lawlessness and of freedom.
All of a sudden, I could be whatever I wanted… to some degree.
A wand-wielding witch was usually my go-to. I always had a thing for choosing females in games. I
guess mainly because they seemed like underdogs. Because a lot guys wouldn’t expect a FEMALE to
kick their asses, and I enjoyed the surprise when she did.
In World of Warcraft I had two bosses… Orè-en-teh-hoth and Lunarïs – my female Tauren Druid and my
female Night-Elf Druid, respectively. One grew up in the dusty plains of Durotar while the other spent a
lot of her early days in the twinkling forests of Ashenvale.
By the way, a ‘tauren’ is basically like a minotaur…and a night-elf is pretty much a taller, better
looking, better built, longer eared, faster and stealthier version of us.
You can imagine why I wanted to stay in that world.
Not to go too far down the self-pity route..
but I was a lanky black boy with messy hair and dirty clothes who wet the bed until he was 18. I grew
up generally confused about my sexuality…because, all of a sudden, I was given all these things to
conform to…and I HAD to conform…there was no other choice.
I’m not making much sense…
okay.
…
to be honest….I’ve had enough thoughts about sexuality…I’ve spent much too much time thinking
about it…especially after I ‘came out’ four months ago.
‘Came out’ as what?
…
gay.
…
Did I KNOW I was ‘gay’, growing up?
No, of course not.
People often called me gay because I’d hang out with girls, or I had a light, fairyness about me…or because I didn’t act MANNISH. They had never seen me kiss a boy, because I had never kissed a boy (or a girl, for that matter)… they had never even heard me speak about a boy in a way that alluded to
attraction.
They had no proof, because I gave them none.
And I gave them none because, to me, even thinking about a boy in an intimate way was wrong. Just
wrong. So I didn’t let the thought float for too long.
…
It’s (not really) funny that I can’t actually remember being so completely attracted to any boy, growing
up. I remember seeing attractive-looking guys and wanting to be around them, or wanting to speak to
them… but it would never go any further than amicable.
‘Amicable’ .. ugh.
I wanted to use words that EVERYONE would understand… but I imagine some people wouldn’t
understand that word.
Meh.
………so I guess I was attracted to guys back then… but I didn’t show it.
Hell, I didn’t show ANYONE I was attracted to them.
Hell fucking no…and risk them thinking I owed them something? Or that I wanted something from
them?
Nah mate…after my first rejection in my first year of secondary school, where I asked a girl out, via
note, and had that note torn to pieces and sprinkled into my palm…I was done.
THAT’S probably where I lost the confidence to pursue anyone.
…
…
Then I heard the rumours circling around my family…that Tito is ‘probably gay’ … because he didn’t
adhere to the shit that the men in my family adhered to… such as… fucking girls and paying them little
mind until it was time to fuck them again.
That was a little aggressive…. and slightly untrue. Some of the men in my family actually like the girls
they fuck.
When I say ‘girl’…I mean ‘female’ … when I say ‘boy’ I usually mean young males…
….there’s probably something inherently sexist there.
anyway.
I was on a roll before I distracted myself…which is something I do often. People often get annoyed
with how I break from a story just as it’s getting to the juicy bit. I suddenly become overcome with a
fear that I’m not telling the story interestingly enough, and I find a way to distract from the
encroaching embarrassment. ‘Encroaching’ is a great word…because it has the word ‘roach’ in it…and
so makes it sound like a horde of cockroaches are approaching…giving ‘encroaching’ a jittery, cringe
feeling about it.

Am I gay?