Homophobia

Now it's not something I've been affected by that much, before or after coming out. Neighbours have mostly been good - with some odd child exceptions around the last flat, which got strange - never a problem with a colleague or many people I've encountered in the street. Not that it's never happened - it has. There have been groups of people being abusive to a group of people I've been with, and other, isolated incidents which haven't really stuck in my mind. So last night was just strange.

My development is made up of flats which have mostly been sold by the unscrupulous developer for owners to rent. We're quite unusual here by being owner/occupiers. It leads to serious noise problems, regular anti-social behaviour, unbelievable selfishness. Even more of a shame that many, many gay people live here, drawn by the promise offered in the publicity literature of luxury living at affordable prices. We're wrong to have done this of course - the 'luxury living' is counter-balanced by so many negatives it's barely believable sometimes - and last night was no exception. Yet again someone was clearly letting off fireworks from their balcony in the middle of the night - a pretty anti-social act wherever you may be. So I opened the window for a look, and on a nearby building, on a balcony I'd never seen occupied, was a man who was directed towards me and clearly said 'hello' expecting a response. So I replied in kind - he seemed likely to have been drawn out by the noise himself and maybe we both thought the same thing about it. He immediately fake coughed and went "gay cunt" - for what immediate purpose I couldn't fathom. Was he drunk? Stoned? Unaware of the irony of being homophobic in a development replete with gays? I stared at him, trying to see some facial features but it was too dark and closed the window instead. He too went inside.

So I'm left with the pain of having been verbally abused whilst in my own home, by someone whose motives aren't clear, and by someone I'd be unlikely to recognise in the street. If that was a beginning rather than drunken Friday night antics then there's a problem brewing, a solution to which being potentially quite awkward. Part and parcel of living somewhere like London I guess, but I'm tired of living around quite so much trash. Good thing I started serious work on Canada references the same day then, but it's still a mental hit I could have done without.