I was at a department store here in NYC with my dad, and was waiting for him at the furniture section while my dad went to the toilet when I looked up and saw two males that were furniture shopping together. My intuition told me that they are a gay couple, and, thinking nothing of it, I continued with my browsing.

Suddenly, from the other side of the section came a girl's loud whisper, "HE'S GAY!"

I frowned while I thought, "Huh?"

The loud whisper came again: "HE'S GAY!"

Slightly confused yet amused at the same time, I continued to listen (seriously, her voice carried all the way to the other side of the section really clearly).

"Oh ma gawd! He's gay! He tucks in his shirt all the time, and he is slightly chubby and he acts all girly and everything!"

Seriously, that was the worst case of stereotyping I've ever heard. After hearing that, I immediately felt slightly peeved. For one, I despise extreme cases of stereotyping, and secondly, I dislike people that are against homosexuality (even if the girl who was whispering oh-so-softly to her friends isn't an extreme anti-homo or whatnot, the feeling just came out of me, anyway).

But guess what?

One of the men in the couple started snickering in amusement. Surprised, I looked up to see one of them holding a hand to his mouth while the other one was feigning the act of busily stuffing his shirt into his pants, making the remark, "Apparently, I have to tuck in my shirt!"

Alright, I found that remark funny and nice--funny because of the acting, nice because they are able to take it all in in a light-hearted manner and find amusement in it. But, the situation still makes me feel frustrated. The girl left me thinking a lot about how some people in this world STILL cannot accept homosexuality, and about the horrible stereotypes about anything (not just about gay people) that are still going on (e.g. black = emo). It's not as if homosexuality is a fact in life that every desperately wants to hide away from the world... nearly everyone knows of it.

I argued a few times with my ex-boyfriend over this matter, him being the anti-homo while I tried to get him to see my point of view. "What if your best friend who you see as a brother turns out to be gay?", "What if someone who you wouldn't want to lose no matter what happens turns out to be gay?"... I asked him questions like these, and he would reply with: "I'll go make new friends" or "Heck care, I wouldn't want him near me" or "Nevermind I have a lot of friends who I can hang out with"... Whenever arguments (well, they didn't feel like arguments to me, but rather... debates) like this came up I couldn't help thinking that he is really immature and close minded. In the end, I broke up with him despite having been with him for nearly 2 years partly because of this matter (there are a lot of other factors). I didn't feel comfortable knowing that my then-partner harbors such a strong and irrational prejudice against people who I accept wholeheartedly. Does he even know that when I go to college, there will be many people 'like that'? What if my best friend in the future happens to be homosexual--will he treat him/her with a negative attitude, too? What if 'our child' turns out to be gay?

Why can't people be more accepting?

I have a friend who is bisexual. I was one of her 'listening-ears' when she had trouble with her then-girlfriend, and she told me that when she introduced her then-girlfriend to her family, they had accepted her. This made me curious, so I asked my mother one day, "Ma, what would happen if I turned out to be homosexual?" She had to think about it for a brief (still too long) period before she answered, "We'll still have to accept you." I asked why, and she answered, "'Cause we're your parents." Really, I'm glad that she was being all mature and logical about it, but I know for a fact that she still has a slight prejudice against homosexuals because she had called them 'weird', 'not normal', and even 'disgusting' when we were discussing something (I forgot what).

Okay, I can keep going on and on about incidents that I have seen and been in that can relate to this, but the point I want to make is: Why can't some people just accept other people who are basically people, too? Alright, I understand that it mainly has to do with religion and how the person is brought up (the family, the society, the environment, etc.), just like how some Thais I know are especially prejudiced to American people because their parents and the society had taught them to think that Americans are stuck-up and unfriendly, so I'll rephrase my question: What can I do (or any other person do) to coax others into understanding and accept 'other people'? 'Other people' does not apply to just homosexuals in general, but also people of different nationalities, victims (HIV-positve, cancer, mentally handicapped, raped, etc.), aged, lower ranking/less fortunate, and other types. My friends who had to go do community service work at an elderly home to complete an external course had invited me to go do the volunteer work with them, and after one session of it, I had grown to love the elderly so much that I told them to invite me the next and following times they go again.

Ah, I'm getting frustrated again. Okay, this is totally unrelated to what I've written out before this but... today, I was getting off the No.1 train while taking the subway to switch to the No.7 train when one guy who was sitting to the left across to me hissed loudly to my back, "SLUT." I whirled around with my stoic face to see him sneering and walking away from me, and was feeling slightly amused, inside. What a total bastard.

On the positive side, I'm loving it heaps here in NY. Everything is too expensive here, of course, but I still do not regret coming here for my summer.