Look, I freely admit it; I am a snob, I am elitist. I am one of those people who due to my extensive qualifications arising from my various university degrees, feel like I am superior to people who lack that kind of credentials. I look down on people who are more traditionally blue collar regardless of the fact that these people form the new parvenu class, especially in Australia. Yes, only in Australia do we have a social strata colloquially called the ‘cashed up bogan’.
So it’s no big wonder that I judge my men by class… Today, it being a day unmarred and unclouded by that black dog of malice, I can honestly say that yes, I have been approached by blue collar men who have wanted the pleasure of my company with a view to marriage. How Austen does that sound? I have always said no to such proposals. Shot them down purely because I think these men beneath me socially. I think they will be intellectually inferior and let’s face it, since I am already being so self coruscating, I think they are rough, won’t understand me and ultimately won’t give me that high society lifestyle which I so hanker for.. So yes, not only am I a snob, I am a social climber too.
I know how a relationship with a man with blue collar roots will end up; I’ve been there, done that, bore the scars from the trauma. My ex boyfriend was, shall we say, a perfect example of the heaving masses of the worker class. Not that he was in trade, he didn’t work at all, but his family were from a long line of straight talking blue collar folks. Straight up, there were differences. My ex boyfriend’s intellectual curiosity did not extend past learning the lyrics to Cher songs. He had an extensive memory but only for Prisoner trivia. Prisoner, by the way, is an old series set in a women’s prison which among other things, explored the very themes which I am trying to espouse. The other things in the world, like politics and how things worked, he had no interest in.
My ex boyfriend thought me a snob. Which yes, I am, perhaps not as much in those days since I did slum it with him, but nevertheless I was still snooty. He made fun of me because I happened to know that a poussin was a little chicken and he claimed that I only liked foie gras because it was expensive. He made fun of my liking for Italian clothing, for my blazers and preppy collared t-shirts. And most of all, he ridiculed my class pretensions. I may have had a white collar upbringing and professional degrees but as long as any trace of my Asian heritage, my foreign upbringing remained, I would forever be barred from being a social elite. He knew that, I did not at the time. So perhaps he was wiser and more street wise than I give him credit for.
It has become very clear to me that the kind of lifestyle I aspire to, the type of man I want to attract is clearly out of reach. For you see, as long as I look the way I look, with my ‘inferior’ dusky yellow skin, black hair and dark eyes, I am doomed to forever be on the fringes of polite gay society. As long as traces of my foreign accent remain or any hint of my having been brought up in a country that is not Australia clings to me, I will never enter into that kind of noble social circle nor attract the kind of rich, white collar professional investment banker type gay man I so desire.
For you see, like attracts like, and as I am not like them, how the hell did I ever think I would attract them? Should I want to attract the attention of this kind of man, I would not only need to take out a million dollar loan to fund all the plastic surgery I would need to render myself as Caucasian as I possibly could, to remove all traces of any of my racial heritage; I would also need to, in random order, fix my teeth with invisible braces, bleach the shit out of them, go for hours of personal training to get that abtacular surfer body which all of those men want or failing that, invest in illegal steroids, get a dermatologist to not only fix my shit skin and bleach the Asian out of it, get clothes which flatter my physique, not show it of, but flatter and after all that, then maybe I’ll end up with a rich old bachelor man in his 70s because the young ones still wouldn’t give me the time of day.
Failing that, I could just… compromise.. Date someone who’s not white collar, not professional, not rich, not in a profession which guarantees a penthouse high flying life. My sister’s doing it, my cousin’s done it; they are both happy. Why should I be any different?
It’s just that I don’t want to compromise on my snobbery. I would rather remain single and sad rather than coupled but with someone I wasn’t satisfied with. And yes, that makes my being single completely my fault. It is not fate, not god’s fault that I am single; it’s completely my fault. I know this, and I own it.
I cannot blame my circumstances for my being single anymore because I know in my heart that if I so wanted to be in a relationship, I do have options. They are inferior options, but they represent something that is tangible, that is within my grasp. I was always taught to aim high, but here, I know that I am over reaching. Someone like me can never ever be with the kind of man I idealise in my mind. That kind of fairy tale just doesn’t happen.
The dilemma here and now is not whether or not I should cling on to my elitist ways and my ridiculous fantasies, but what I am going to do with my life to completely obliterate any inkling of longing for something that is not going to happen. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I presume that whatever it is, it’s going to involve social climbing. But instead of relying on a man to get there, I am going to claw my way through by my own steam..
The Gay Dilettante 