THE PROBLEM WITH SINGLE MOTHERS

It caught my eye on Facebook, that great sloppy soup of idle chitchat and self-absorption. It wasn't intended for my eyes, though it was written by someone I knew, and once knew intimately. I read it, scrolling down the corner of the screen. It stayed with me. And then the poison behind the words began to grow, ulcerous.
It was a comment about benefit cheats. This person was saying, single women were deliberately getting themselves pregnant so they could get free houses and other handouts. They were no better than leeches.

Like I say, I used to know this person. I guess if we are now Facebook friends, then we still do. We have both changed,  but I was always aware, behind the libertarian lurked a reactionary soul. It was a product of his upbringing, and a product of his innate sense of superiority. It was perhaps a class thing.

There are many that spend endless hours cultivating their hatred for others, be it immigrants, be it people of color, be it genders. Don't be surprised if a gay man is among them. I've known more than a few. I can only think, a part of them inside must be cancerous, or dead. These people aren't worthy of our attention, even if they crowd our airwaves and buzz in our brain louder than our friends do sometimes.

Still, it got under my skin like, admittedly, the things he does are wont to do. Firstly, I tried to imagine his conception of the female body. How he must hate it! - to imagine women farming themselves out, sluts spreading their legs with scant regard for their welfare and for that of their newborns. All, perhaps, because they were common. And poor. All for financial gain. Then I remembered, this person once persuaded a lawyer to sign over property deeds to him, for a little uninhabited pied-a-terre in a swanky end of town he had his eye on. He paid nothing for the pleasure, and the council spent tens of thousands of euros of taxpayers' money doing it up for him. It's his little getaway. He hops on a plane whenever he likes. He feels he's earned it. In fact, the eleven years we were intimate I don't remember him paying a single cent of tax on his earnings. He always loathed paperwork.

And then I remembered, this person was in denial, up to the day his immune system finally crashed and he had to be rushed to hospital. He suffered excruciating pain. It must have been awful. In fact, he is a virtual cocktail of costly meds to keep his viral count down. He is not living in the country where he was born - he couldn't wait to get rid of that undesirable passport - so I wonder which state health system is providing him with his drugs. Of course he should have them - no one should be left to fend for themselves, right? That's the purpose of our system, to help those with Aids and single mothers. He really should have tested sooner though, but he was afraid. Fear is a constant of our lives. But then, I imagine how many others also became infected, because of that denial. Only he will know, if he wants to think about it, but I doubt that he does.

It was a miracle, that somehow he didn't infect me too.

Gay men have their girl friends, their fag hags, call them what you will. But girls, perhaps you should be aware, as with a gleam in their eye they tell you about their latest exploits, that you are nothing but the perfect cypher for their narcissism. That as you laugh with them at their jokes, that really in their hearts your bodies may disgust them, and that when your backs are turned, they might call you whores on Facebook.