? Bally’s Total Fitness membership
? Beginning 90 percent of your sentences with “Okay . . . ”
? Referring to jeans as “denim”
? Tricking straight people into supporting gay rights by declaring it Denim Day when everyone wears jeans every day anyway
? Love of sangria
? Affinity for placing your hands on your hips
? Well-groomed eyebrows
? Affinity for cock
Q: Should I come out to my teammates?
A: Good God, no. You need to repress that gayness far down into the depths of your psyche. In fact, you need to go in the opposite direction. Submerge your own identity and put up a false front of overly aggressive masculinity. Get drunk. A lot. Brag about all the hot chicks you banged. Do lots of grilling. And, at least once a month, order a male hooker to your apartment, pretend to like him (and, if you do like him, pretend that you are pretending to like him), kiss him once, and then beat the ever-loving shit out of him while crying your eyes out. Your teammates will adore you.
Or get married and have children. Nothing takes your mind off your true sexual orientation like marrying someone you don’t love and then producing offspring in order to lock yourself into a horrible, unhappy life forevermore. It keeps you super busy.
Q: But why can’t I come out?
A: Because your being gay serves as a distraction to the rest of the team. Your teammates need to remain focused. They can’t be sitting around thinking about the fact that you’re gay, and that you might like them, and that you might be staring at them in the shower, and that you might nail them to the bathroom floor when no one is looking. It’ll cause them to lose their concentration. All so that you can be yourself. Now, don’t you think that’s being a bit selfish? You should be ashamed of yourself, which shouldn’t be hard for you. Closeted gays are excellent at self-loathing.
Look, you won’t be playing ball forever. Once you retire, you’ll be able to go on an epic, yearlong man-binge that would make your average New Jersey governor cream his jeans. You’ll move to Chelsea, shack up with four crazy new friends, join a gym, get a new wardrobe, hit the clubs every night, and overcompensate for lost time by becoming almost cartoonishly gay. You’ll become so promiscuous, you won’t be able to tell when one hot, sweaty, gay sexual encounter ends and another begins. Then you’ll grow disillusioned with the superficiality of the whole gay scene, taking less and less joy from all the nonstop, anonymous fucking. Then you’ll get hooked on Zoloft and consider going back to women for a bit. Then you’ll move to Napa and become an olive farmer.
Sound fun? It is. Right now, you’re the only guy on your team with something to look forward to after his playing days are over. Why spoil yourself now with the occasional clandestine handicapped stall BJ? Save yourself.
Q: I have a boyfriend who is pressuring me to come out. What should I do?
A: Of course he wants you to come out. The media has been dying for a gay athlete to come out for ages. The New York Times already has a special sixty-page commemorative section ready for press. All they have to do is stick in your name. Vanity Fair will have Annie Leibovitz at your house within an hour. MTV will promise you a two-hour True Life special. Gay rights are one of the last causes left for the media to champion. Everyone else’s civil rights — blacks, immigrants, criminals, hunters, suspected terrorists, children, pornographers, Klan rally marchers, dolphins, the paparazzi, pederasts, online stalkers, gamblers, Linkin Park fans — have already been well established. You’re all that’s left, baby. They’ll turn you into an icon. Like Jackie Robinson, only fabulous. So of course your special friend would like to be a part of it all. He was disowned by his family back in Montana for coming out. You’re his karmic reward for decades of sullen family meals. He’s got ulterior motives. And he still wears Benetton. Dump him.
Q: What do I do if a teammate finds out I’m gay?
A: Keep cool. Many teammates will be surprisingly discreet about it so long as you aren’t “in their face” about being gay. In other words, don’t be gay around them. Never bring up your gayness to them. Don’t talk to them about some great date you had. That will cause them to envision you fucking another man, which will in turn trigger blind hatred. Don’t mention it. And do everything to keep a low profile. This will send them the message that “Hey, I’m gay, but I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that fact doesn’t ruin your day.” They’ll appreciate the gesture.
Unless the teammate who finds out is Evangelical. He’ll douse you in kerosene and light you aflame within an hour.