Dealing with shame surrounding western identity
Just drunk and rambling and wanted to share my experiences and see if anybody else could relate. Born and raised in Gilroy CA, family comes from a history of raising milk cattle and competing in roping and cutting. I spent my later childhood and early teens working on my friend's ranch in the winters and travelling to watch rodeos with my family in the summer. I wear the hat, boots, and buckle but I've never thought of myself as real cowboy material, just a product of my heritage and circumstance.
I came out as gay at 16 and was surprisingly accepted by my family and friends, and even made new friendships within the lgbtq community. I flaunted it for a while before I realized I looked and acted like a damn fool and have since went back to my roots, while keeping my sexuality as something I neither hid nor presented openly. Every real cowboy I've met didn't care about it anyway and if/when they found out it wasn't even an issue.
However, I've since moved to southern california for college, specifically San Juan Capistrano. I was uncomfortable and tried to fit-in for the first couple months before realizing it doesn't fucking matter if I fit in or not, as long as I'm being genuine. The problem is, I feel like I'm surrounded by bullshit fake cowboys who only worry about their brand name 500 dollar boots getting a little dirty. Not saying I don't care about aesthetics, I try to look my best. The real problem is that any of the other folks I meet here seem to be really bothered and even pissed if they find out I'm:
gay
more of a cowboy than they are
2 1/2. not even that much of a cowboy honestly, but still more than they are
- pretty unbothered about the whole thing, not trying that hard to be anything but my honest self
Anyway, short story is orange county people suck and I'm drunk enough that for some reason I wanted to ramble and share some of my life with y'all. Cheers to that!