Top Quotes: “Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever” — Joel Derfner

Background: Derfner essentially has written an autobiography focusing on his adult life as a gay man and his experiences in a variety of queer spaces. He’s tried a lot of things — ranging from joining a cheer squad to knitting to attending an ex-gay conference (!). It’s a fun, light read, but I didn’t feel like I really connected to it or learned very much and ultimately wondered what the purpose of the book was (?). Here’s a few random AF things I found enlightening.

“In many large metropolitan areas, church choirs tend to be made up not of parishioners but of professional singers, irregardless of faith, so as to ensure the high quality of the music.”

“What I longed for was not a boyfriend but a version of me without my defects — a man in whom I could see myself as flawless, a man whose jokes always caused riotous laughter instead of sometimes falling flat, who actually knew everything instead of pretending to and then Googling it when he got home. He would make no mistakes and he would not hate himself.”

“It was perfect. But I think of perfection in human terms.”

“Psychosis is a protective measure. If you believe you’re Ramses II then you don’t have to deal with the fact that you’re actually really sick and living on the streets and addicted to heroin.”

“In Jewish custom, after admitting we have sinned, we have to feel remorse and resolve to never commit the sin again. Then we have to undo the damage we have done. And only then do we have the right to ask for forgiveness. If the person we wronged refuses to forgive us, then we have to go through the whole process again. And if the person wronged refuses again, we have to do it all over again one more time. And if the answer is still no, then we’re forgiven anyway, because he’s being unreasonable. The only person who can forgive us is the person against whom we sinned; there can never be forgiveness from a third party.”

“A methodologically sound study suggested that about a third of gay couples choose to have open relationships, a third pledge monogamy but one partner or the other cheats, and a third pledge monogamy and stick to it. This means that, of gay couples claiming to be monogamous (2/3 of them), half of them actually are; surprise, surprise, the same figure suggested by studies of straight married couples.”