So I finally got my water heater replaced after more than half a year of it leaking and nearly destroying my floor, but that's not the story. The story is of the handyman that installed it.
Dude's name is Chris, and he's your typically midwestern schlub - friendly, apologizes too much, really likes the Cardinals, maybe a little younger than my parents. Hella nice tho, gets the heater installed quickly, and even offers to fix the floorboards it warped (after nearly tripping over the hump it made in the floor twice). Overall, a stress-free experience.
Then, as he's gathering up his tools - "So, I noticed your, uh, banner. Over your bed."*
*(The closet where my water heater is is located in my bedroom because I live in a mobile home, dude wasn't just wandering creepily into my bedroom)
He's referring to a giant pride flag that's hanging over my bed, with the words "Sounds gay, I'm in"
My anxiety spikes instantaneously, thinking oh christ I'm about to get hatecrimed or at least microaggressioned.
But then he says "Yeah, my daughter is gay, and I was wondering, like...where do you guys, ya know, meet up?"
"Because she met her most recent girlfriend when she was in jail, and I keep asking why she doesn't just find a nice lesbian librarian or something and she said 'dad I know they're out there, I just don't know where'. So...like...where do you?"
So I ended up confessing to this nice man who installed my water heater that I don't know of any real gay culture in our mostly Baptist Missouri town of about 18,000 that routinely freaks out over pride displays in the library (I'm sure it exists but I'm lazy and haven't gone looking for it). My girlfriend lives in an area with a rather bustling gay community (we just did a face painting booth for their pride festival a few weeks ago), so maybe have her go out there with some friends, and also a lot of queers I know play dnd so maybe find a nice group of them and network. I then apologized that I wasn't more helpful in getting his daughter settled with a nice, wholesome dyke.
On the plus side, he was not deterred at all, and seemed to be very interested in the fact dnd was so popular amongst the el gee bee tees. I told him the names of some dms I know and told him to go to town. I do not know if the names will be given to his daughter or hoarded for himself so he can join a group and play like he did when he was a teenager and not be called satanic for it.
He's coming to fix my floor next week.
