New York blogger Rafi D’Angelo recently overheard a conversation on the subway between two “construction- worker types” who discovered they had something in common.
“I’ve been doing this for about six months now, trying to catch interesting things on the subway,” posted D’Angelo. “But I haven’t had any luck so far because I ride boring trains. Today was good, though.”
Guy #1: “My wife wants me to get fixed like a dog but I don’t see why she can’t just keep taking the pill.”
Guy #2: No more kids for you two?
Guy #1: No, she figures we’re both getting too old for a baby.
Guy #2: How is your boy anyway? Haven’t seen him in awhile.
Guy #1: Oh John’s good, pitching this year varsity.
Guy #2: He’ll definitely have the girls hanging around him now.
Guy #1: Yeah if he had any time for them.
Guy #2: Focused on baseball?
Guy #1: Focused on boys.
Guy #2: You’re shittin’ me!
Guy #1: I kid you not. Came out to me and Mary Ann bold as daylight last year.
Guy #2: Well I’ll be damned! I’m not supposed to know it but I overheard Patrick Jr. tell his sister he might be gay not two months ago.
Guy #1: We all saw that coming though.
Guy #2: You’re the second person to say that. How’d everybody see it but me?
Guy #1: It was just a feeling, Pat. He was always a little soft, ya know?
Guy #2: I guess you’re right. But damn Charlie, we both have gay kids. What do we do now? Both our sons are gay.
Guy #1: We don’t do anything. We let em be gay and if some kid calls ’em a faggot we go to their house and raise hell with the parents like normal.
Guy #2: Well I guess John and Lucinda won’t be getting together like we thought awhile ago.
Guy #1: Guess not.
**long pause**
Guy #2: Hey Charlie, you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?
Guy #1: I was for about half-a-second then it got weird and I started thinkin’ about somethin’ else instead.
The future is here, folks.
yaoming
Hilarious. This is quality dialogue.
Shadeaux
LMAO! The ending is HILARIOUS!
Lefty
What’s even more fantastical than the fact they’re both so openly okay about having gay sons, is that they both have an alarming knack of talking in such a way as to sound like they’re both completely made up by a second-rate “writer”.
I’m sure that isn’t the case here, though.
“Gee, Chuck! Well I’ll be dog gone damned if I don’t have a gay in the family too! What are the chances, my completely real and in-no-way made-up train companion??? Nothing wrong with the gay though, Chuck! Nothing wrong with the gay…”
Adam
@Lefty: I was just going to say! The conversation is great, and I love the ending (for a weird moment it sounded like they were going to get together, just because it sounded so fictional)–I have known people who talk like that. You think, “Who talks like that?” and then you meet people who say things like “You can say that again!”
miagoodguy
Cool conversation and all but it sounds too fishy to be true.
ClinqFan
Yes, because in no way would there ever be two fathers of gay sons who are totally supportive.</sarcasm>
In my elementary son’s class there is one kid with two moms and another with two dads; no one makes fun of them.
If my son were to come out, I would not bat an eyelash because it would be who he is. If some kid called him a derogatory term—be it sexual, racial or other—then I WOULD have a word with his parents.
Cam
PLEASE let this be true, loved that.
I would much rather see two dads like that dealing with their kids on a TV show than another episode of Modern Family where sexless Cam has a hissy fit about some ridiculous issue or another.
Gigi Gee
Guy #1: It was just a feeling, Pat. He was always a little soft, ya know?
Other than that bit this made my heart soar!
Times are changing.My dad, who is 76 (and disowned me when I came out, cutting me off for more than 23 years) called me a couple of years ago and said, in reference to our pig of a mayor who refused to acknowledge Gay Pride, “I heard that Ford won’t be a the gay parade. What a JERK!” 🙂
NormdePlume
There is hope for society, however small
Lefty
@ClinqFan: “Yes, because in no way would there ever be two fathers of gay sons who are totally supportive.”
It’s not the scenario that’s unbelievable it’s the whole conversation.
If anyone here actually believes this conversation took place, might I suggest a wonderful reality TV series on NBC; it’s called Days of our Lives.
michael77092
I wish I weren’t so jaded, but it’s fiction. Cute, but fiction….
bhooks75
I’m surprised and unhappy that a bunch of equality-minded folks did not even seem to notice the blatant SEXISM in the first line of conversation, about how that damn selfish wife of his refused go on ingesting hormones so he doesn’t have to get “fixed like a dog” even though it wouldn’t hurt him one bit, he doesn’t want any more kids, and she already put her body through hell to pop two of his out!!
Lefty
@bhooks75: I think that’s the writer’s subtle cue that these are real men complete with old-fashioned attitudes towards the women-folk… but wait! Even these two quaint neanderthals turn out to love their gays!
D9W
If only every father could be this cool…
MuscleModelBlog.com
@Lefty:
I think you hit the nail on the head. The writer is juxtaposing their he-man, Neanderthal personalities (working construction, attitudes about women) with their surprising level of acceptance towards their gay sons. It was a great story!
yaoming
“Fixed like a dog”. Are dogs getting vasectomies now?
edwinb_dc
@Lefty:
Like the sands through the hourglass…
Laurence
I don’t know if any of you have ever tried to transcribe a conversation word-for-word, but it’s practically impossible even if you’re very quick with a pen. I doubt the author would back down from any claim that the dialogue is embellished slightly, but I’m sure the gist of it is accurate. Avert your cynical gaze for a moment and enjoy these two great dads (whose families may one day be joined by a gay marriage!).
Ann Mason
@miagoodguy: I thought the same thing. However, after hearing the audio recording of Michele Shocked rambling about what she thought was the real world, this article is uplifting.
Sometimes we need something which is just going to make us feel better for a while.
Tone
It must be true. My str8 dad is that cheesy too.
dizzle
This couldn’t be more fake, and poorly written to boot. What an awful website (see the “Underwear for every body type” article for more proof).
pamelasweet
Maybe he heard two men talking about having gay sons, but it probably wasn’t so scripted, it’s nice to think two blue collar men are ok and open about having gay sons, if only every parent was so understanding, especially when they are teenagers, the scum bag Fred phelps of the world need a huge stick shoved in their mouths, they are the cause of gay teen suicide.
Andre
aww this is so sweet if it is true and if it isn’t I think it would make a good sketch on snl or something.
Bean
@dizzle: Then go away.
Ferallove
lol the ending hahahaha time to play match makers lol
Awwwwwww great dads 🙂
hephaestion
The line “He was always a little soft, ya know?” ruined the whole story for me.
It’s supposed to be a GOOD thing when a numbscull breeder says “He was always a little soft”?? Wow.
Caliban
He claims to have the exchange on video but doesn’t know how to blur the faces throughout the whole thing.
Laurence
@Caliban: Oh, so he does. That’s concerning then – though phone video on a loud subway wouldn’t necessarily be high fidelity.
Lefty
@Caliban: The only explanation for this reading so fake is that it was written from memory and embellished by the author, but if this is supposedly taken from a recording then, I’m sorry, this just makes it seem all the more fake.
He could always post the audio, of course.
Why is it one refers to his spouse as “my wife” in the first sentence and then if you read the conversation they both seem to know each other extremely well – one referring to the other son’s “softness” suggests they’re very familiar with each other’s families – yet in the first bit he refers to his spouse as “my wife”. Surely he’d refer to her by name, considering how close these two seem to be?
vcu94
Real? Made-up? Who cares. I found it entertaining. It would be nice if a lot more people thought like this.
I watched a 20 youtube vid from a young US Navy man about his experience in coming out on Facebook, and the response he got. It was so uplifting and full of strength and hope.
Hopefully, these times they are a changing. Progress not perfection
Lefty
@vcu94: “Real? Made-up? Who cares.”
Well, there’s kind of a huge difference in being uplifted by something that actually happened and… well, what, exactly? If it’s made-up, how is that in any way uplifting?
I just don’t understand how this can be seen as the same whether it’s made-up or not.
I mean, maybe some people would prefer, instead of a gay news site reporting on reality, a made-up gay stories site where the world is wonderful and free of homophobia and fear and everything is just peachy keen, with endless not-quite-true stories about good things that never quite happened.
Sure, it would be nice to read but it isn’t reality is it? So I’m not sure, ultimately, what value that would have.
Bean
@Lefty: So you’ve never found a book or movie or play or TV show (or any other piece of fictional entertainment that I can’t think of) uplifting? Only true stories with absolutely no artistic license taken have value?
Lefty
@Bean: We find works of fiction uplifting only because we’re aware that they’re fiction in the first place and we understand what they represent in that context.
There’s a huge difference between a work of fiction presented as such and a lie masquerading as a truth.
If there is a value in this as fiction then why wasn’t it presented as fiction?
I can’t believe people are defending this. Are we all really so desperate for comfort that we eagerly accept pleasant falsehoods without ever questioning them or even seeing any need to?
mmahair57
I think this is one of the more beautiful things I have ever heard. I am a gay parent and grand parent. Two of my children are involved in Fundamentalist Christianity. While those two don’t understand how dad can be homosexual, they definitely understand that I am no threat to anyone and would defend me or any threat to me at any cost. They have more than once corrected a pastor when he spewed stereotyped hatred towards gays based on false claims. My third child, my daughter, is very open about who I am and even corrects me at times. I will say something like Aiden is going to break a lot of girls hearts and she will correct me by saying, we don’t know who’s hearts he will break, but with his looks he will break hearts. People are changing for the better in regard to glbt persons and I think it’s wonderful. And while we may expect the educated to be enlightened and expect blue collar workers to be more unaccepting, that too is a stereotype. How many educated ultra right wing people hate gays? Reality is love and hate cross all educational and income barriers.