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The Joys of an Earring 2

I wrote once before that having an earring leads to a surprising number of chuckles, and that fact hasn't changed. On some intellectual level, I get that it's an oddity for some people, and that leads to interesting exchanges. But on a more tactical level, the phenomenon of a guy wearing an earring is common enough that it's shown up in popular media across the globe. If nothing else, you figure that these people saw it on TV once or saw it in a movie or something. So you might assume that people would be more or less over it, right? You'd assume wrong.

I was sitting in a meeting with a couple of other people at work recently when I was suddenly reminded of this fact. Just to set the stage, these were people that I'm not super close with. I've worked with one for a while and I was just recently introduced to the other one, but it's not like we're going out for drinks after work. I'll happily chat with either of the two, but I wouldn't consider them close friends or anything.

Anyhow, we finished our meeting with a minute or two to spare, so things were looking pretty good at that point. However, one of the two others in that room suddenly perked up and threw out, "hey, so I have a question, but it's not work-related at all." Well, you know me. I'm no stranger to odd conversations, or even to an eyebrow-raising turn of phrase or exchange at work. So, I assented to her asking her question.

It was a doozy: "so, um, does wearing that earring mean anything?" She pointed vaguely in the direction of my ear to finish off the question. Now, for those of you who have never dealt with guys and their earrings, this might sound innocent, albeit a little weird. However, there used to be a time when a guy wearing a single earring on his right ear was indicative of him being gay. I don't really remember how or why it started, but it was a thing. In fact, if you fire up Google and query "guy earring left" or anything similar, you'll see enough hits to realize that this wasn't some random isolated quirk from my childhood or neighborhood.

So, this lady was asking me if I was gay, though not in so many words. I chuckled, and patiently replied that I wasn't gay. I did point out what I just finished explaining in the last paragraph, though. At some point, it used to mean something when guys wore it on their right ear. That seems to mostly have passed from what I can tell, and I also happen to wear my earring on the left side. Either way, I was making no claims about my sexuality with my wardrobe.

This, however, wasn't the end of it. After the mandatory laughter from the question and answer, the other guy in the room commented, "yeah, no way. Heck, I've known Sam for months. Could you imagine?" Now I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the basic gist of the statement. This was a particularly interesting answer for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm not really all that close with the guy, remember? Whatever I do with my free time outside of work, he's not privy to the details. That goes doubly for what I do behind closed doors, so it was an odd statement.

Secondly, that last part caught my attention. I can't exactly put words in anyone else's mouth, but doesn't that sound a little bit like he was worried that gay-Sam would've automatically tried to get with him? It's a very interesting thing to think; he doesn't assume that all the women around him are automatically attracted to him. Also, there was some little part of my brain that immediately reacted to this idea with something akin to, "what makes you think that even if I were gay, I'd be attracted to you?"

Given all of this going through my head, I laughed, good and hard. The funniest part is that I don't think either of the other two knew why I was laughing. They were just amused by the question. In fact, one of them followed up with something along the lines of, "haha, yeah, that'd be funny."

I chuckled once more, and shrugged my shoulders. I couldn't help but laugh to myself on my way back to my desk.
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