When good gaydar goes bad
Confessions of a student journalist part 7
“The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character.”
—Lyndon B. Johnson
Like most student newspapers, The Peak has always been a haven for people with glaring personality defects. Even I have a few, and I’m undoubtedly the greatest Peakie who ever lived.
Our office was stalked by every form of madness imaginable. We had clinical insanity, as exemplified by one editor who was strangely proud that she’d been diagnosed with a major personality disorder. Her life was dedicated to flamboyant attention-seeking and making my life hell—more than once she deliberately inserted grammatical errors into my articles, just to piss me off.
Then there was moral corruption, best personified by the news editor we fired for making up the news—he went to a news event and, having neglected to conduct proper interviews at the time, made up fictional quotes and attributed them to fictional people.
“I have been consumed by everything I despise in all authorities,” he wrote in his official apology. “I realize now that I do not report when I make up material. I lie.” A common-sense conclusion for most of us, but then again, The Peak was a common sense-free zone.
Then there was pathological extremism, which found an outlet in a 2001 editorial exhorting campus minorities to—and I quote—“Kill the white people.” Of course, it goes without saying that the editor who wrote the piece was white:
“Surely the rest of the world can’t do worse than us Europeans have. Indian (Sikhs and Hindus), Chinese, Korean, Aboriginal, Vietnamese, Japanese, black, brown, grey—whatever you are, as long as you’re not white—you should be in power.”
Not surprisingly, this dude went on to be re-elected as an editor. Twice.
[Note: Peak editors were democratically elected each semester by the Peak Collective—the body of students who regularly contributed to the paper. In keeping with the grand democratic tradition, idiots were frequently elected.]
Then there was chronic stubbornness, memorably manifested the day the Peak Collective couldn’t agree on when to schedule a consensus workshop. Everyone had a good laugh when I pointed out the irony of the situation, but when the merriment died down we went straight back to our impasse.
Then there was compulsive shit-disturbing, best typified by, well, me.
No turn-of-the-century Peakie will forget the time I put the words “Jesus fucking Christ!” in a front-page headline—which enraged some readers so quickly, they actually chased after us as we were still putting the issue on the stands, angrily waving the paper in our faces and denouncing The Peak’s very right to exist.
And then there were staffers so comprehensively deranged and incompetent that they defy easy categorization, such as the subject of the following tale.
It’s a sad and pathetic story that probably shouldn’t have been written down, but I wrote it anyway, for legitimate professional reasons that will become clear later. Read on, if you must.
* * *
10:30 p.m. EST, December 31 1998
“Happy New Year!” we shouted.
I was sitting with Mason and Bob, two of my Peak cohorts, in a beer-moistened hotel ballroom in Guelph, Ontario. We were delegates at the annual Canadian University Press national conference, and the New Year’s party had officially begun.
We raised our drinks, and returned to our speculations on which delegates might want to have sex with Bob.
Bob had his eye on Adam, a handsome young fellow from the East coast, whom he pointed out to us. “Is he queer?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think so,” Bob replied. “I think he’s really cute.”
“So ask him out,” Mason said.
“Yeah, go for it,” I seconded. “If he’s straight, you have nothing to lose. If he’s queer, maybe you’ll have a boy to kiss at midnight.”
“Maybe even a couple of midnights,” Mason added.
Since this was a national conference, our New Year’s party was conducted with an appropriately pan-Canadian atmosphere. We’d just celebrated midnight in Newfoundland, two time zones to the east. There were five more midnights to go—when the party wrapped up shortly after 3 a.m., we’d have rung in the New Year in all six Canadian time zones.
For those who hadn’t kissed at midnight number one, there was still plenty of time.
Bolstered by our encouragement, Bob went off to chat up his target. Little did Mason and I know that we had helped set in motion a gruesome and embarrassing chain of events that would soon engulf The Peak in a public relations catastrophe.
11:00 p.m. EST, December 31 1998
“Happy New Year!” we shouted.
Mason and I raised our drinks, welcoming midnight’s arrival in the Atlantic time zone. Bob didn’t participate in the toast. A few minutes before, he had returned to our table disappointed. Sadly, Adam had politely told Bob that he was straight.
“Oh well, don’t sweat it,” I said. “At least you tried.”
“You know, I don’t believe him,” said Bob, sipping his beer. “I think he was lying. I think he’s gay.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“My gaydar,” he replied.
“Um, I’d be careful about trusting your gaydar too much if I were you,” said Mason. “You’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Yeah Bob,” I said, playfully. “Nothing interferes with gaydar like booze and wishful thinking.”
“Fuck you,” he snapped.
It should now be noted that Bob was a thoroughly nasty individual, and he hated my guts. And he hated Mason’s guts only slightly less.
Mason and I were in fact Bob’s most despised co-workers, mostly because Mason and I possessed something he didn’t: talent. We were the two people at The Peak Bob incessantly pestered and put down—he was only sitting with us then because he didn’t really know anyone else at the conference.
So we weren’t particularly upset when Bob finished his beer and stalked off to find Adam again.
12:00 a.m. EST, January 1 1999
“Happy New Year!” we shouted.
This was by far the biggest midnight of the night because it was the New Year in the local time zone. A huge crowd raised their glasses and cheered.
Bob was back again, and his mood hadn’t improved. He sat with a fresh glass of beer and glowered at us as if we were somehow responsible for his sexual solitude.
“Adam is gay,” Bob said. “I’m positive.”
“Did he say so?”
“No, he still says he’s straight. But I know. I know.”
Mason and I shared a meaningful glance. At this point, we perhaps had an inkling that we had helped set in motion a gruesome and embarrassing chain of events that would soon engulf The Peak in a public relations catastrophe.
However, this was not an issue I immediately had to face. I left Bob with Mason at the table, because I had a fuck-in-the-shower date scheduled for 12:15.
1:00 a.m. EST, January 1 1999
“Happy New Year!” The crowd raised their glasses to the health of the Central time zone.
I had returned to the table a few minutes before, damp-haired and refreshed. In my absence, Bob’s drinking had continued and his mood had further darkened.
“He’s gay. I know he’s gay,” Bob said. “He’s fucking gay.”
“Bob, it really doesn’t matter if he’s gay or not,” said Mason sharply. “It’s his business, not yours. If he tells you he’s straight, you have to respect that. Move on.”
But it was no use. The higher Bob’s blood alcohol got, the more certain he was that his beloved Adam was queer and denying it—and Bob was taking the rejection very personally. And it didn’t help that so many other delegates, of all orientations, were getting together right in front of him.
Underscoring this point, Mason discreetly stepped out for a few minutes with a spectacularly-bosomed prairie goddess he’d been getting increasingly friendly with, leaving Bob with me.
But Bob didn’t stay long. He finished his beer and staggered off to find Adam again. Bob was clearly not on a good trajectory.
At this point, I think I knew beyond a doubt that I had helped set in motion a gruesome and embarrassing chain of events that would imminently engulf The Peak in a public relations catastrophe.
2:00 a.m. EST, January 1 1999
“Happy New Year!” we shouted.
It was the Mountain time zone’s moment of glory, but most of us were distracted by an unnatural spectacle unfolding in the corner.
Fed up with Bob’s persistent and increasingly aggressive advances, Adam had called in the harassment and safety issues coordinator—one of the few delegates not under the influence of mind-altering substances—for assistance. The harassment dude had just brought Bob and Adam together for a facilitated face-to-face meeting, and was trying to convince Bob to respect Adam’s wishes and leave him alone.
But Bob wasn’t listening. Even as this discussion was taking place, Bob kept lunging at Adam and trying to embrace him.
“Oh come on, please give me a chance,” Bob whined, his inhibitions now so dissipated that he hardly knew what he was doing.
Adam recoiled as the harassment dude pulled Bob off him. Mason and I cringed in disbelief. Bob was continuing to sexually harass Adam while in the presence of the harassment coordinator.
It was absolutely appalling. So much for The Peak’s national reputation.
Before long the harassment dude gave up on diplomacy and forcibly conveyed Bob to our table. He asked us to keep Bob under control, and made it clear that any further harassment would be considered an assault and responded to accordingly.
Then he wished us a happy New Year, and was gone.
3:00 a.m. EST, January 1 1999
“Happy New Year!”
This was the big one for us, because this was the New Year in our native Pacific time zone. The delegates from British Columbia grooved down as the few surviving revellers raised their drinks.
At this point, Bob had finally, thankfully, given up on Adam. He had progressed from angry-horny-drunk to sad-mopey-drunk, and we hoped it wouldn’t be long before he reached the final stage, unconscious-bathtub-drunk.
“Come on,” said Mason. “Forget about it. Let’s party and enjoy the New Year.”
“Another year where I’m alone,” he sobbed, his voice breaking.
And then he started to cry.
Oh, shit. Mason and I didn’t know what to do. After all, the guy hated us. At The Peak we were accustomed to Bob being constantly at our throats in an atmosphere of unrelenting acrimony. Now the poor, broken bastard was openly crying right in front of us, completely sincere and vulnerable.
His sneering, mean-spirited facade had melted away, and for the first time, we were meeting the real Bob, an insecure young man who desperately wanted people to like him, who desperately wanted someone to kiss at midnight.
Mason and I awkwardly comforted Bob until he finally tired out and went to bed. We hoped that our support and concern would be an olive branch that would usher in a new era of respect, and possibly even friendship, between us.
But our hopes weren’t high. For me, the most depressing part of it all was the knowledge that, were our positions reversed and it was Bob getting laid and me sobbing at that party, Bob would have sneered in my face.
* * *
Bob’s Peak career went into a death spiral within days of our return home. His behaviour at the conference had damaged his standing beyond repair—and his shenanigans hadn’t ended on New Year’s Eve.
In a stunning lapse of judgement, Bob had further embarrassed our paper by running for the position of national “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Otherwise Queer Issues Coordinator”, a bid he later dropped when he learned that Adam’s paper was planning to object to his nomination on the grounds that he was a known sexual harasser.
As the weeks passed Bob’s behaviour became more and more paranoid and unstable, and the quality of his work, which was pretty bad to begin with, plummeted. There was no way he’d be re-elected, and everybody knew it.
Of course, Bob ran for re-election anyway, and lost in a humiliating landslide defeat. He freaked out, accused the paper of homophobia (a claim the five other queer Peakies disputed) and predictably took out most of his anger on Mason and me.
Later that week, in his finest moment, Bob went so far as to vandalize my section before it was sent to the printers—I picked up the next issue to discover that Bob had scribbled on my byline with a felt pen.
Byline desecration. In the ego-driven world of journalism there is no more outrageous or perverted crime imaginable. It was a fittingly shameful end to one of the most disgraceful careers in the annals of Canadian student journalism.
In closing, I’d just like to say that the point of this piece isn’t to beat up on one of my petty little office enemies from years ago.
Okay, maybe it is, a little bit. (Like any self-respecting journalist, I have a strict policy regarding those who desecrate my byline: I write unflattering yet painfully accurate stories about them. You should have left my byline alone, Bob. You should have left it alone.)
But the real point is to illustrate the depths of moral and emotional turpitude that exist at your typical student newspaper. Dear reader, this is the sort of environment that aspiring young journalists must inhabit as they hone their craft.
Only a rarefied few are able to not only survive, but thrive under conditions of incessant childishness, egotism, and spite—these are the mad, malevolent minions who are destined to work in the professional news media, and thus join the ranks of the most vile and cannibalistic humans on the planet. •
Completed in 2004 for inclusion in the Wasting My Youth book.
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