This is unprecedented, I know, but I’m starting this one off on a solemn note.
I’d like to sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by the content of [my last column](http://move.themaneater.com/stories/2012/3/2/grindr-lovin-had-me-aghast/). I perpetuated gay stereotypes and made broad generalizations based off of my experiences interacting with a small portion of the gay community. My intention was not to insult but to poke fun at the influences some of my close friends have had on my life. These friends, as well as their actions and opinions, are in no way representative of the gay community as a whole.
I have friends who are gay who read the column and thought it was all in good humor, but I didn’t think about those who did not know my friends or me personally. In hindsight, it was tasteless and insensitive. I love my friends because they are wonderful, fantastic, amazing people, not because of their sexual orientation. I did an unsatisfactory job conveying that. I’ve made a lot of bad judgment calls in my lifetime, but this is one of the most embarrassing.
This is more than a formally mandated apology. I am truly, deeply sorry for the narrow-minded and offensive themes in my article last week.
On that note, I hope you, for some reason, still think I’m a decent human being. If so, I invite you to continue on this journey with me. I’m halfway through my adventure now, and I’ve gotten nothing but a few more strikes on my list of suitors. In defeat and discouragement, I turned to my one of my favorite authors, John Green, for a bit of advice.
In a YouTube video Green filmed for Seventeen Magazine, he said, “The better you do at imagining what it’s like to be other people, the happier you’ll be.”
Later in the same video, Green said, “In the end, that is my relationship advice. Muddle through, try to imagine other people, or else get with a vampire.” Since I’m not sure I can handle a guy who sparkles, I think I’ll try the first one.
I used to have this fear that the more I got to know someone, the more I’d see his faults. More and more things would start to annoy and distract me. What I didn’t consider was the possibility that getting to know someone can have the opposite effect. I have to quote Green again, just because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say it better. This one’s from his book, “Paper Towns.”
“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.”
I’m still caught in the glow of True/False Film Fest, and if the assortment of documentaries I saw over the weekend taught me anything, it is that there is a world of experiences behind every pair of eyes, every set of ears. There is more than I can, as one person with one perspective, even come close to understanding.
But the point is to try. I realize this sounds incredibly cliché and overdone, but it’s something that is continually relevant and incomprehensible. It gets me every time. I’ve seen the movies and I’ve read the books. I know people are complex and infinitely difficult to understand. I know the importance of imagining them that way. It’s just so hard for me to put it into practice.
This week dealt me an ego blow. But it was also my halfway point, and there is a new beginning around the corner. I ask that you try to imagine me as complex, as a person who makes frustrating mistakes but who also genuinely cares about learning, changing and evolving. I will do my best to imagine everyone I encounter the same way.